News for 7th May 2015

Upcoming Events!

ROAR! Performance
11th & 12th May at 6:00pm
Book your tickets here.

Table Top Sale
22nd May at 9:00am
Book you table at Chatter Box Cafe.
All table proceeds will be donated to Little Flower China Charity

PA Gala Dinner
5th June at 7:45pm
Jumeirah Emirates Towers
Purchase your invites in the main atrium all this week.

MESSAGES FROM OUR HEADS OF SCHOOL

Our Principal
Cricket and Rounders this week. As ever our students have done us proud in both victory and in defeat. Though we have won a lot more than we have lost,that may not be the case next week. The key word here is “grit” of which they have shown plenty. Well done to them all.
ROAR! performances take place next week and I know that many of our students are working hard on polishing their acting and production skills ahead of the production. The first show will take place on Monday 11th May.
The PA Gala Dinner is up next and Mrs. Embley has put me on a diet and I have been practicing my dance moves too!. It promises to be a great night out and i have been asked to encourage grumpy husbands to not bemoan any costs incurred in the purchasing of gowns and gems. (That may have been a note from Mrs. Embley who is standing next to me!)
On a more serious note.
The actions of our whole school community in helping those in Nepal continue to be an expression of our schools spirit and ethos.
Over the last week I have had number of groups of students come to me with ideas on how they can help directly to raise funda and collect donations. Our prime responsibility is to provide a rigorous and challenging education to ensure each child can secure the best future they can and be inspired to learn.
We at NAS Dubai also value our social graces and community responsibility very highly.
In the best schools including ours there is a sense of shared humanity and common purpose that goes beyond the pragmatic approach we must take.
I have been delighted to see so much evidence of this from our students.
Best regards
Michael Embley

Head of Primary
Today Years 1 to 6 really enjoyed watching Miss Gutteridge’s class perform their assembly, which was all about African animals. It was great to see the children take to the stage with such confidence and enthusiasm. They spoke their lines clearly, singing and dancing like true professionals, yet those children are only 5 and 6 years old! All the parents in the audience were bursting with pride, as was I. Primary class assemblies have been happening here at NAS Dubai every week since the very first weeks of the school year. It seems a long, long time since 6A set the standard for all the classes to come. Each week the audience of children and parents have enjoyed the show and shown their appreciation with applause and laughter. Each class has eagerly anticipated their own class assembly and enjoyed their own chance to shine. As we look forward to the performances of Roar next week I am struck by the real value of performance arts in schools. NAS Dubai has always been about more than high academic standards and this week, I am grateful to all those teachers who bring enjoyment and confidence to our children through the rehearsal and performance of a shared production. I look forward to watching many more fabulous shows to come!

Elizabeth Lamb

Head of Secondary
This week in assembly Miss Burkinshaw spoke to our students about preparing for exams, this coincided with the start of our GCSE journey with students taking early entry French, Mandarin and Spanish. Our languages team are a real credit to us, it is a pleasure to walk into these lessons and see the engagement of our students who are clearly enjoying learning new languages. Learning a new language and understanding the culture of the country is one of the most important things we can facilitate to broaden a student’s cultural outlook and opportunities in life. To quote Nelson Mandela “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
Next week we have the eagerly awaited production of ROAR!, our staff, parents and students have been busy preparing the stage, costumes and performances in preparation for what promises to be an amazing experience. Don’t forget to reserve your tickets in advance.
Mr Cahalane is taking our F1 team to the first round of 'F1 in Schools challenge centre' in Abu Dhabi. The team have worked hard to develop the car, I am excited to see how it performs during the trials. Can I also say a big thank you to everyone who has supported the project.
Finally, to keep up to date with our new staff postings take a look at Facebook or the website. We have an amazing group of practitioners joining our team next year and we are excited to introduce you to them all.
The transition day for our new Year 7 students will take place on 7th June, this will be a great opportunity for our current Year 6 to meet the secondary team as well as introduce new students joining us in September. We will be emailing all our parents with more information regarding this event soon.
Liam Cullinan

Sports Report

U14 Rounders Vs Sharjah English School
On Monday 4^th May the NAS U14 Rounders team travelled to Sharjah English School for their second league match. NAS won the toss and chose to field first. SES had some strong batters in their team and struck the ball well. The NAS team focused on their communication and team work and improved their tactical play as the game progressed. Throughout the game some confident ball striking by NAS enabled them to score 6 rounders. However, the experienced and older SES team proved to be tough opponents. Although the NAS team did not win the players all agreed that the game had been a valuable learning experience. Jodie Chifunyise was voted player of the match for her excellent ball striking.
The next round of matches will shortly be announced at which time the date and location will be communicated with players and parents.
Miss Duffy

U11 Rounders vs JESS
On Wednesday 11^th May the U11 rounders team played their first league game against JESS Ranches at home. The NAS captain, Te’ata Robinson, won the toss and chose to field first. Due to ROAR rehearsals this was quite a different U11 team to the one that played in the Repton tournament last week and included two year 3 students. Throughout the first innings the girls improved their communication and team work skills. They really pulled together their fielding in the first innings and demonstrated a strong batting performance in the second. Unfortunately they narrowly lost 13 ½ to 14 ½ but this was a great team performance and has left the girls eager to play more games! The details of their next league game will be communicated with parents soon.
JESS also brought an U11 boys rounders team for a practice game against the boys who regularly attend our CCA. This gave our players an excellent opportunity to participate in a rounders game and improve their knowledge and understanding of the rules.

U9 Cricket vs Victory Heights
On Tuesday 5th May the U9 cricket team welcomed Victory Heights to play in the NAS sports hall for our first cricket match. After losing the toss, Victory Heights decided to field first. Our first two batsmen scored 15 runs for the first two overs, which followed with excellent batting from the rest of the side. NAS only lost two wickets in the whole innings, which was a great effort with the outstanding fielding from Victory Heights. At the end of our innings NAS had scored 250 runs. Victory Heights were strong batters however NAS students did exceptional at their fielding and limited their runs to 224. NAS won the match by 26 runs. Well played boys and thank you to coach Shane from Heartbeat Sports. We are looking forward to our next match against WEK on Monday 18^th May at NAS.
Mrs Thornton

U11 Cricket vs Victory Heights
NAS lost the toss and where put into bat. A solid start from Roberto and Oliver was followed by some free flowing run scoring for the middle order. NAS finished the innings scoring 231 for 6 wickets.
Victory Heights started well but super fielding and tight bowling restricted their run scoring. Ben took two wickets from two balls before Liam claimed victory in the final over by taking three wickets.
NAS 231 for 6
Victory Heights 224 for 8
Roberto Isern Yanguas

Pictures from the cricket match can be found here.

Artists of the Month

Three artists of the month this time…their painting skills are soon to be showcased during the school production of Roar as the backdrop for the stage.

Shianne Chetty Y7
Lily Ashby Y8
Charlie Robinson Y8
Tatyana Nyambane Y8

NAS Dubai Parent Survey

We are constantly looking for ways to improve our school and your feedback is vital to this process. Our annual parent satisfaction survey helps us better understand how we are performing in key areas - what we are doing well and the areas where we can improve, so that we can continue to provide the best possible educational experience for your child.

The survey is now open and we would greatly appreciate if you could take the time to complete the survey before the closing date of Thursday 21st May. You can access it here;
http://parentsurvey.nordanglia.com/survey/selfserve/5a0/150301

The survey should take you no longer than 10 minutes to complete and each family should respond once on behalf of all your children (if you wish to share specific feedback, we have provided additional comment boxes for each section). Your responses are anonymous and will be combined with those of other parents at our school to help guide and inform our strategy for continuous improvement.

Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey.

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