Letter from the Principal:
Start of Term 3
This busy term will include our 45 Year Anniversary, upcoming iGCSE
exams, a visit from Juilliard’s Kathryn Andersen and numerous Global
Campus trips, all happening this month
Dear DCIS Parents and Guardians,
It has been a busy holiday with building
work in the Year 1 corridor and the shading
of the Single Basketball court completed,
staff training day and an induction day
where we welcomed over 50 families into
the DCIS community. It was brilliant to have
children back on the campus this morning
as a school is really only a school when it has
the buzz and enthusiasm of young enquiring
minds on site.
Term 2 was an extremely eventful term and
Term 3 will continue this trend. Please make
sure you have the updated list of calendar
dates as there have been some changes
from the version printed in the Parent
Handbook – we do understand that parents
plan around the dates so we try to keep
changes to a minimum and give plenty of
notice when events do need to move. Please
note that we had to change the Swimming
Galas which are now towards the end of this
term. We look forward to welcoming you
to support your children in these fun and
competitive events.
Term 3 is an important term for our Year 11
and 12 students as they complete their iGCSE
examinations. This will be the culmination
of many years of hard work that will give
them the results to go onto the next stage of
their education; either the IB Diploma with
us or elsewhere. We wish all students sitting
their external examinations all the best at
this important time.
We are very pleased to celebrate our 45th
anniversary this term. We are proud to
have served the Singapore community for a
significant amount of time while remaining
a dynamic learning environment ensuring
that we prepare students for the rest of the
21st Century. We continue to invest in this
campus to ensure it supports our desire to
offer the very best inclusive education in
South East Asia. We welcome Jayne Bennion,
our Director of Quality for NAE and Jane
Egerton, a UK Special School Headteacher
who will visit us next week to support us
in the next stage of our development in
ESL, DSE and mainstream education. A
development away from the classroom is
our continuing security arrangements: we
will start the process to change the blue
temporary parent passes into IDs showing
the pare nt’s photos.
We are very pleased to once again welcome
Kathryn Anderson from Juilliard to the
school. Kathryn has been a frequent visitor
to the school and works closely with Mr.
Dwyer and the Music team on the best
implementation of the Juilliard programme
for all our students. We are awaiting final
confirmation but we plan to have another
Juilliard alumnus with us also this term –
please watch our communications for this.
The DCIS proms concert will take place in
June and is a fantastic opportunity to see a
wide range of musical talent perform across
the campus, further details will be available
nearer the time.
The DCA continue to do a brilliant job of
supporting the school community. Fresh
from the success of the Secondary School
disco last term, this term the DCA will
organise discos for children in Years 3-6. In
June we see the return of the the DCA Family
Sports weekend.
We have three big trips for students through
the Global Campus. Four students head off
to MIT in Boston next week to represent
DCIS at a STEAM (Science, technology,
Engineering, Arts and Maths) festival. Later
in the term a group of students head to Les
Martinets to explore the Swiss Alps. This is a
very challenging expedition and the group
have been getting in some serious training to
ensure they are ready for the mountains. In
the summer holiday two of our students are
joining a group from the NAE South East Asia
schools as UN Ambassadors to represent the
region at a High Level Government meeting
at the United Nations in New York.
All these events, as well as those of Term
1 and 2 will be captured in our Year Book.
These will be issued to families at the end of
term. We have removed the charge for this
as we feel it is important that every family
gets a memento of all the great activities
that have taken place in 2016-17.
Finally, if you are leaving Singapore or your
child needs to leave DCIS for any other
reason we do require you to fill in a formal
Withdrawal Form and submit it before the
deadline (Monday 1 May). This is to allow
us to plan for student recruitment (and
the required resources for this) for the
next academic year. To ensure we treat all
family the same we are very strict on this
deadline and we will be forced to apply the
Term 1 fees for next year for parents who
miss this deadline.
Best regards,
Christopher Short
Principal
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