Volume 5, Issue 7 Oct 18th 2012

The Academy promotes inquiring, knowledgeable, reflective, and caring learners who develop personal skills to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. Reflected in a variety of defined outcomes and assessments, our divisional I.B. programs support students to become compassionate, lifelong, and actively involved learners who recognize the differences among people and will contribute to a better future global society.

A Note from the Elementary Principal

Today wraps up a week of classroom visits, observations, meetings with teachers, students, parents and school leaders by our CIS Accreditation Team as they worked hard to verify what we said about ourselves in our Self Study documentation. The team were highly impressed with the friendliness and politeness of our students and teachers, and with how incredibly accommodating our entire school community was in welcoming the team and being happy to open their classrooms, and share their thoughts on our school. We expect to hear from the Council of International Schools in the next 6-8 weeks, the official results of our visit. We look forward to sharing their findings with you. In their exit meeting with staff today, Dr Patricia Mertin and Mr Iain Stirling expressly mentioned how respectful they found the all of students at GWA to be respectful to each other and to their teachers. Credit for this culture of kindness belongs to every member of the school community who reinforces this with students every day. A warm thanks must be extended to our parents, students and teachers for their support of the CIS Accreditation Visit this week. Grade 4BA wrapped up a wonderful week with an even more wonderful assembly, on.you guessed it..RESPECT! Through writing, stories, art work, poetry, technology and work with their KG2 buddies, Grade 4 shared with us their thoughts on self-esteem, the importance of working together in teams, and how respect is something you must give to others, in order to receive. Our Grade 4 Arabic students reinforced the concept of respect by sharing their thoughts and definitions of respect in Arabic. Now that our Elementary school has grown too big to host just one assembly, we are fortunate to have two opportunities each week to celebrate student learning across the school! At first we were sad to have to split assemblies into Pre-K Grade 1, and Grades 2-5, but the EC-Grade 1 team have collectively created something wonderful and developmentally appropriate for our youngest students. If you havent dropped into an EC-Grade 1 Assembly yet, please come! Yesterdays assembly was another excellent example - spirits were really high, singing was wonderful, stretching with Miss Anita is just so much fun for all (yes parents we know you enjoy doing the pasta twist!), and the sharing celebrations of student work are authentic, student driven and wonderful examples of learning in process. Have a wonderful weekend, Megan

A Quick Glimpse at the Week Ahead!

Sunday, Oct 21 Monday, Oct 22 Tuesday, Oct 23 Wednesday, Oct 24 Thursday, Oct 25

Day 6 Day 1 Arabic classes for parents Pink Day 8.45am10am Student Council Grade 4 Football team, Meeting 3.45 4.45 pm
home game against Greenfield Community School 4.00pm - training room

Day 2

Day 3 Pre-k to Grade 1 Assembly

8.45am

UN Day SEWA Day

Eid Break No School The first day back to school after the Eid break is November 5th. (Day 4)

- Karama Kanteen Collection Drive

Grade 5 Football team,

away game against Greenfield Community School 4.00pm

To view the GWA cafeteria menu, please visit the GWA website at www.gemsworldacademy-dubai.com

Grade 5 teach Grade 4

Grade 5 has been preparing to teach the Grade 4s a lesson about our unit of inquiry, leadership. The main idea is to let them know that they can be leaders too. Another important thing is for them to understand how leaders affect their society. Our society is GWA. It has been a lot of work for us Grade 5s. For the past week or so, we have been preparing for our presentation. Our teachers have given us the option to do a Prezi, drama, a short activity and a poster. But we could only choose two. All of us have taught the lesson to Grade 4 now. Earlier, we gave them an assessment to do on leadership. Based on their knowledge, we planned the lesson. I hope you all have a great day! -David Monehin. Grade 5GF

Leadership Summative Task In grade 5 our first unity of inquiry was leadership. Our central idea was Societies are affected by the people who lead them. We learned about different leadership styles, we also learned good and bad leadership personality traits. At the end we had to do a summative task. For our summative task, we had to teach a couple of grade 4 students about leadership. Our main idea was to show them that they can be leaders in a fun way! We had to go and interview the grade 4 students about what they know so we dont bore them. We were so surprised about how much they knew!! After we interviewed them we had to transfer their prior knowledge into a 10 minute lesson. We had two weeks to prepare we had a choice to do two things. On the day everyone would be prepared! So many people had butterflies! But it was a big success! At the end of the summative task, and the unit of inquiry was done everyone learned something at the end of the day. The grade 4s learned about leadership, and the grade 5s learned how to be teachers! By: Jasmine 5GF

In Grade 5 our first unit of inquiry was Leadership. We learned about what the different leadership styles are and how important they all are. We also learned about the good and bad characteristics of leaders and discussed different leaders that had those characteristics. At the end of the unit we had to do a Summative Task. For our Summative Task, we had to teach a pair of Grade 4s about Leadership. Our main goal was to get them to realize that Societies are affected by the people who lead them which was our central idea. We needed to get their attention by making our lesson fun and interesting so we could get them to listen. If our lesson wasnt fun or interesting, they would turn their attention to another group working near-by. It was a bit frustrating when they didnt listen! Every group needed to pick at least 2 ways to teach their pairs: Through Drama , Make a poster, Make a Prezi, Have them do activities, Using Spider Scribe . We needed to teach our group using these. The Leadership Summative Task was lots of fun but we had to put a lot of time and effort into our lesson, to tell them that they can be leaders too and make it the perfect 10-minute lesson possible. By: Zeena Abdelrazig 5GF

Football Teams
A great week for our football teams, with some really good hard fought results from both teams, really displaying the true Dragon spirit. Our elementary swimming team begins their first of three scheduled swimming competitions before the Christmas break results regarding the first gala will be in the next newsletter.

This weeks results:

Date
Sun 14th Oct Sun 14th Oct Wed 17th Oct Wed 17th Oct

Opposition
JESS Ranches JESS Ranches Rashid School Rashid School

Team
Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 4 Grade 5

Venue
JESS Ranches JESS Ranches Rashid School for Boys Rashid School for Boys

Result
0-0 2-2 2-1 Win 2-0 Win

Fixtures for next week:

Date
Sun 21st Oct Sun 21st Oct

Opposition
Greenfield Community School Greenfield Community School

Team
Grade 4 Grade 5

Venue
GWA GCS

Time
4:00pm 4:00pm

Swimming Squad
Once again the dates of all the upcoming swimming competitions are listed below. Good luck to all the swimmers, I look forward to reporting some of our successes in the gala next week. Upcoming swimming competitions: Thurs 18th Oct @ Raffles World Academy Thurs 22nd Nov @DIA Thurs 6th Dec @ Wellington International School As always if you have any questions regarding the sporting program then please dont hesitate to contact me. Yours in sport. Ken Barker Athletic Director k.barker_gwa@gemsedu.com Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal Ralph Vaull Starr

A Note from our Head of School

Re-Enrolment Fees for 2013-14 Dear GWA Parents, This is an advance notice about a change in the re-enrolment fee for this coming April, intent to return. The KHDA has issued new guidelines regarding the admissions and re-enrolment process for private schools in Dubai. In order to align this school with these new regulations, GWA will need a confirmation for your childs placement for the next academic year (2013-14) that will require an assurance deposit fee of AED 2500. (This is an increase from the past fee which was AED 2000). As before, the re-enrolment fee is non-refundable, but will be adjusted against your first term fee tuition payment. We will remind you again of this deadline for re-enrolment as the time draws nearer. Any questions regarding this fee change and/or the re-enrolment process? Please let us help with better understanding. Our Registration/Admissions Office has all the details. Educationally yours, Dan E. Young Head of School

Karama Kanteen Collection Drive SEWA Day, Oct 24

SEWA means selfless service and is commonly identified in Asian cultures as a time to help others. GWA recognizes SEWA DAY as a time to think of others and demonstrate a caring attitude towards those less fortunate than ourselves. The CAS students from secondary school are organizing a collection drive for Karama Kanteen, a worthy charitable organization in Dubai. Karama Kanteen supplies essential personal items to labour camps. All students from Kg-12 have been asked to bring one small item as a donation and the CAS students will deliver these items to the labour camps. Choose one of the following items to donate: Toothbrush Toothpaste Bar of soap Shampoo Laundry detergent Bring your one item to school on October 24. There will be bins designated for KARAMA KANTEEN around the school to collect these items Linda Bayes IBDP and MYP Curriculum Coordinator

Wear Pink to School on Monday and bring 5 AED donation to the local Charity Breast Friends.

Grade 4BA had their assembly on respect this morning. They have been working very hard at learning how Respect impacts human relationships and they showcased a great variety of learning experiences towards this understanding. They talked about books theyve read, research theyve done and interactions theyve had. They also shared a song and video that sums up the message of our Unit of Inquiry. For all these reasons (and many more) a sincere congratulations! goes out to all Grade 4BA children. I am very proud of you!

Are you looking for a tutor for your child?

We have academic tutors available to work with your children out of school hours. Contact Kevin Nelson, Elementary Counsellor for details. k.nelson_gwa@gemsedu.com

Arabic classes on Sunday

Mrs. Hind Al Janahi has kindly agreed to offer Arabic classes for parents. 8.45 10am in Conference Room 2

Important Upcoming Dates

October 22 October 24 October 25 1 November Sunday 4 November Monday 5 November Tuesday 13 November Wednesday 14 November Thursday 15 November Sunday 2 December December 20 December 23January 3 Pink Day SEWA Day School closed for Eid al Adha School closed for Staff Professional Development Back to school for studentsDay 4 Student / Parent / Teacher Conferences First quarter reports go home School closed for Islamic New Year School closed for UAE National Day Early dismissal 12pm Winter Break