Dear Parents
Oryx International School has aspirations to become a 5-star school in all aspects of our provision. Having been operational on our new campus for less than 6 months I am delighted at the progress we are making in many aspects of our ambition and although ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, we are making faster than expected progress in many of our areas of development, which is extremely encouraging. The challenge we face is not to overload staff, students or indeed parents with excessive information and initiatives despite our willingness to implement as many positive ideas as possible. After the hectic start up last term, we are taking a measured approach to our development in order to allow students and staff to feel comfortable with and in control of our day-to-day schooling and to allow parents to become familiar with our procedures and expectations.
As part of our 5-star ambition we recently underwent the first stage of our application for Membership of the Council of International Schools (CIS). I am delighted to inform you that we have been successful and were awarded membership as of this month. CIS is a world renowned indicator of quality assurance for international schools and this is the first step on our way to further accreditation and quality assurance at the highest level. The global aspect of CIS accreditation is very much in line with Qatar Airways’ current tag line ‘make the world your story’. In the further stages of accreditation with CIS, we will be asking for parental involvement in our working groups. I will send more information on how this will operate in the coming weeks.
We will be presenting a range of Parent Information Workshops throughout this term and I would encourage you to sign up and attend whenever possible. This is the best opportunity for parents to keep abreast of our provision and to be able to speak directly to members of staff presenting the workshops.
As I intimated in my previous letter, we are in the process of interviewing prospective new teaching staff for September. As part of this process I will be joined in London over the next few days by Orbital Education Head Office staff to meet with candidates currently working in schools in the UK.
Our admission’s team are in full swing now with hundreds of visits from prospective parents for our September intake. This level of interest is extremely pleasing and although it adds a huge workload at this time (for example one of our tours for prospective families recently attracted more than 120 people) we are looking forward to welcoming very many new families to our school community in September.
Regards,
Derek Laidlaw
Executive Principal
