Teach Middle East Magazine June 2014 Issue 2 Vol. 1 | Page 18

Featured School
Paris and Qatar where they took part
in debates and discussions, further
providing them with important life skills.

while encouraging active learning
include; debates, mentoring of younger
students by those in the upper grades,
an admirable and diverse range of
extracurricular activities, an open door
policy that allow students to interact
more closely with their teachers and
competitions that boost students’
confidence and abilities.
“We recently held our Elocution
Competition for our Key Stage 1
students. These are children who are
ages 5-7 from years 1, 2 and 3. This
competition included children from
different nationalities that we have within
the school. We have approximately
13% Emirati students enrolled and
some of them participated. They recited
English Poetry and verses from some
very famous authors,” said Mr King.
He added that as the students
progress to the higher grades they are
offered more complex opportunities
for academic and personal growth.
The school runs a successful Model
United Nations Conference. This
provides the fundamentals needed
for students to participate in different
seminars outside of the school. This
year selected students visited China,

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June 2014

Class Time

“Today, some of our students in year
10 who are doing work on travel and
tourism have gone on a field trip to
the St. Regis Hotel. There they will
meet with managers from the different
departments who will speak to them
about tourism and hospitality. Once
they get back here, they will then
use the newly acquired information
to guide their understanding of the
subject in the projects that they are
doing. Another example is of a field
trip by our year 5 and 6 students to
Ferrari World. Although it was fun and
the students enjoyed the experience,
once back, they had, to use the
information acquired on the trip in their
Mathematics lesson on measuring
angles and velocity. They are taking
real life examples and bringing them
back to the classroom to what they are
actually learning.”
Technology plays a key role in the
development of many programmes
that are implemented. Students at the
foundation stage are introduced to the
use of technology in the classroom.
This is done with technological devices
such as desktop computers, laptops
and Ipads. This has proven quite
effective as students of Grade 5 – 13
are fairly advanced in creating digital
educational games, coding, web
design and the use of Final Cut Pro, a
video editing software.
The Parent Home School Agreement
also utilises technology. This is an

agreement that resulted from meeting
with parents at the start of the school
year so as to share their expectations
with the school and vice versa.
This is facilitated through constant
communication with the parents via
SMS and the school’s portal that
parents are encouraged to access
to stay abreast of their children’s
progress.
TCHS has been commended for
its evaluation programme. This is
best described as a 360-degree
evaluation programme that involves
all the stakeholders (GEMS Education,
school leadership, middle leaders,
teachers, students and parents).
This is achieved by keeping in mind
the school development plan and
raising the standards. It is reviewed
and shared regularly. Its success is
reliant on an approach that reflects
transparency and consistency.
Last year one main observation from
the students’ evaluation was that
more technology was required in the
classroom. This led to teachers being
up skilled in the use of technology,
additional laptops (trolley-laptops)
being sent to classes and an upgrading
of the Wi-Fi system. There is now the
in frastructure for BYOD (bring your
own device) for the next school year.
The students also recommended that
they provide the teachers with lessons
on the use of technology with specific
focus on blogging and the most
effective ways to use the Promethean
boards. This boosted the student’s
confidence despite the initial ‘jitters’
and amazed the teachers who were
quite receptive.