From the Principal 17.04.2021
Saturday 17th April
Dear KIS Community,
I had hoped to welcome everyone back into school over this past week but as events unfolded, I prefer to wish you all well. Thank you for your support, patience and understanding. I know the current situation can be frustrating but please understand, the wellbeing of all our community members is a priority to us and will continue to be as we move forward. We cannot control people’s actions and lives outside of school and nor should we but we do remind everyone to take precautions and follow guidance and SOPs to help us keep our school a safe place.
During the Easter holiday, work began to upgrade the basketball court. For many years now there have been issues with the court and following much discussion and exploratory works, the Board members on the IDC (Infrastructure Development Committee) have started the process of repair. You may have seen the surface has been scraped for safety to remove loose paint, over the summer holiday, expansion strips will be added along with some drainage channels through the court to redirect underground water flow. As we head through the first term in the next academic year we will be able to gauge the success of these measures and then hope to re-surface the court during the Winter break. My thanks and gratitude to Elis Ho, Hans Dols, Matthew Loh and Nick Pilcher, from the IDC, for all their time, effort and expertise in supporting this work.
As we progress through this final term of the year, and look towards next year we will be introducing you to our new staff that will be joining us in the new academic year. This does mean of course we will be saying goodbye to some colleagues, friends and members of our community. Mrs Jo Smith will be leaving us at the end of this year as she moves to Spain to be closer to her family, we understand, but are sad to see her leave and appreciate very much the great work she has done across the Primary school. Ms Hitchen will be stepping us as the Acting Head of Primary next year and will continue the great work the Primary SLT have been doing. Mr Hallas will be returning to the UK with his family also at the end of this year for personal reasons, and again, we thank them for their wonderful contribution to KIS in the short time they have been with us.
The year is not over yet and we still have much to do in this final term. We have postponed the Wellness Week to a later date to be published and Book Week will also now start in May. The PTASC are working towards the annual staff appreciation day and details will be published in due course. We look forward to the CIS report of our visit last month and once available we will publish to our community. We can then start the process of further development and continue the great work that has already been put in place. I am also looking forward to the publication of the Yearbook this year which has adapted to the times and has a much stronger emphasis on our students’ experience of the past year. My thanks to all contributors and in particular Mr Fletcher, Ms McNutt and Mrs Ambrose for coordinating the collection of memories.
Wishing all of our Muslim community Ramadan Kareem.
Ian Gross
Principal
