From the Head of Secondary 29.04.2023
This week has flown by as I suppose it was always going to, being just four days in school.
The IGCSE and A Level exams have started in earnest and are going well. Staff and students are very clear about their responsibilities and about the rules and regulations, which have to be abided by completely. We have also seen some Year 11 students coming into school to meet with their teachers for revision sessions. Next week, although it is a holiday week, we have exams every day apart from Monday, and although it will be much quieter in school, the system will be running in the same practised way.
On Thursday we held our Drop-Off and Drop-In Coffee Morning: Safeguarding and Child Protection. The event was very well attended and perhaps as an indication of how smoothly it went, we ran over time by 45 minutes, as we sat and talked from 8 to 9.45am. The format was very interactive. We went through some safeguarding scenarios and talked about how best we can support children who are going through a difficult time. One of the main messages of the event was that safeguarding involved all of us, the whole community, and we all have a responsibility. It was clear that the attendees are all highly committed to this idea. We will be offering more sessions in the future, and we will also work on some of the of the ideas which came out of the Thursday’s session in terms of what more can do to raise awareness. As I said on Thursday, being a parent is the most difficult job and the more we can help each other to navigate what can be, at times, a minefield, the better.
With what seems like a very short time to the end of the academic year (it is going to fly by) we turn our attentions to the next academic year, ensuring that we are ready for it. This means finalising timetables, allocating tutors and tutor rooms, looking at department budgets and ordering any necessary resources etc. Not all of this work can be done in short meetings and consultation is essential, so staff are planning to work within their teams for extended periods of time, sometimes whole days, as they review the curriculum and lesson plans in preparation for next year. The Secondary team will be reviewing a number of things, including the PSHE curriculum and the make-up of the tutor groups, to see if we need to move any students around.
Read on to find out about how successful Tiggi Mornington Sanford’s Eco Initiative has been. Well done Tiggi!
Have a wonderful holiday!
Mrs Margaret Renshaw
Deputy Principal / Head of Secondary
A Job Well Done
At the beginning of February I found out that Tanjung Aru Marine EcoSystems (TAME) were collecting empty and clean milk cartons which they were recycling and making into reusable bags to sell. This created an income for underprivileged mothers in KK.
I setup an Eco Warriors blue bin outside the main gates of the school and advertised in the KIS Newsletter and the PTASC WhatsApp Groups asking for all of your empty and clean milk and juice cartons. Each week I counted the number of cartons, bagged them up and then took them to TAME for them to recycle. Over the past 10 weeks we have collected nearly 1500 cartons which is an amazing accomplishment but also scary as these would normally go into landfill.
I have sold 15 of the bags at a stall that we setup near the guard house and another 4 were sold at the Eco Warriors Swap Shop last week. We will continue to sell the bags again in the next school year.
The ladies working on this project now have enough cartons to keep them going so we will stop collecting from Friday 28th April and remove the blue bin!
Thank you all for your cooperation in helping this initiative and a big thank you too from the ladies at TAME!
Tiggi Mornington Sanford Year 10
