From the Director: Welcome to the 2018-19 School Year!

Greetings and welcome to the new year. I hope that you and your family enjoyed some memorable times together during our school holiday and are ready for another exciting year at AISL. Due to continuing improvements in our faculty, programs, and facilities, I am convinced that 2018-19 will be our best year ever. This year we welcome more than 100 new students and 15 new teachers to our AISL family. Please make it a point to join our various community events so you can reconnect with old friends and make new ones. I look forward to seeing you around campus.
 
Update on Building Projects
The gym renovation and Pavilion projects are both nearing completion. The main work that remains is the landscaping around those two spaces. The landscaping around the Pavilion is a particularly big job since it is quite a large space and much of it had to wait until the main construction work was done. As soon as the landscapers have finished their work, we will take down the temporary fence around the Pavilion site. We expect to do this within the next couple of weeks.
 
I think you will see that the new Pavilion will be a game-changing space for us. AISL has long lacked a large multipurpose space – but no longer! This space will be used for social events, exhibitions, workshops, parent information sessions, class meetings, exams, and much more. Next to it are four new exterior multi-sport courts that can be used for basketball, tennis, volleyball, netball or many other activities. The opening of this site will also add 5 acres (2 hectares) to our campus, much of which will be green space. 
 
The gym renovation is also spectacular. The most impressive feature is the installation of a sprung hardwood floor that will provide a world-class playing surface for our students. Furthermore, by moving the old internal storage spaces outside the gym and installing that flooring from wall to wall, we have increased our playing surface from about 450 square meters to more than 1100! In addition to the floor, we have increased ventilation throughout the gym, added four new entry points, and upgraded the fitness room, dance studio, office spaces, and bathrooms. The small parking lot that was next to the gym will now be a pedestrian-only social space. Finally, we will also have a couple of adult bathrooms/changing rooms, which are long overdue.
 
Although the gym renovation and the Pavilion have been the big projects over the last months, I am also pleased to announce two smaller projects that will also lead to significant improvements. First, we have built a new Secondary Office Hub in the place of what used to be classrooms L1 and L2. This hub pulls most of the Secondary School administration team into one place. This should foster improved communication and be much more convenient to parents. Second, our Primary School IT teacher, Frank Louw, built the Bush Café in the Library and Discovery Center. Come check it out and enjoy a good cup of coffee.
 
Parking Stickers
You may collect your parking stickers from Janke and Maché in the Primary and Secondary Offices, respectively. If you have children in both the Primary and Secondary Schools, your parking stickers will be in the Primary School office. We have moved to a new sticker system in order to better control access to campus. The new stickers will have your cars’ registration number on them so that we can match the sticker with both the car and its owner. If you have not already entered your car registration numbers on OpenApply as requested via email, you will be asked for your registration number and then will be issued a temporary sticker while we print a permanent one for you. As always, the safety and security of children on campus is our priority so we appreciate your cooperation as we work to ensure that only authorized people can access the campus.
 
Tuesday Information Sessions
AISL is a very large organization with a lot of moving parts. The scale of our programs can be confusing to new – and even returning – parents. To help everyone get a better understanding of what we do, we host a weekly information session on some aspect of our programs all throughout the year. These sessions take place every Tuesday morning at 07:30 in the Protea Tree Conference Room. Please get into the habit of coming by to have a coffee or tea and to learn something new about the school. We post the topics every week in the Leopard’s Tale. This time slot on the last Tuesday of each month is reserved for PTA meetings, which I also hope you will attend.
 
Here are the upcoming sessions – all parents are welcome and encouraged to attend:

• August 14 - Parent Welcome Back Coffee/Tea – Introduction to the PTA (on the library lawn)
• August 21 - Introduction to the IB Primary Years Program (PYP)
• August 28 – PTA Meeting
• September 4 – Introduction to the IB Middle Year’s Program (MYP)
• September 11 – Introduction to the IB Diploma Program (DP)
• September 18 – Introduction to Child Protection Policies at AISL