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Friday, 2nd December 2016

Whole School Newsletter

Social Action Forum

It was good to have a group of parents, students and teachers from across the school meet together on Thursday evening to discuss social action and community engagement at Dwight.

 

The evening started with sharing our ideas on these questions:

 

  1. At our heart we are motivated by a mission to create a better world through education. (IBO.org) How could our world be better? What do we care about?
  2. We promote intercultural understanding and respect. (IBO.org) How can we promote intercultural understanding and respect at Dwight London?
  3. What are we already doing that we want to recognise and celebrate?
  4. What ideas do we have for new ways to promote action service at Dwight London?

We then viewed a short film of interviews with students and staff members expressing their thoughts on action, service and the issues that are important to them. We were also introduced to an exciting new project that Mrs. Sen is launching, linking Dwight London with schools in Nepal for cultural exchanges and to explore issues of sustainability in our two communities. Mrs. Sen is visiting Nepal in December to develop this project and we look forward to hearing more about how we can connect with students in Nepal in the new year.

 

The evening concluded with all those present voting on the ideas that they would like the school to take forward. Some of the most popular ideas were:

 

  • Doing more to help our neighbour, the North London Hospice, giving our time and talents as well as our treasure (the 3 T's)
  • Joining the Houses in the Lower and Upper Schools and each House choosing one charity to support for the year
  • Supporting a Mental Health charity and teaching our students how to stay mentally healthy
  • Promoting intercultural understanding and respect by having assemblies on the theme of different countries, the Learner Profile and social issues
  • Moving away from CAS being about clocking up hours to being more about making a difference.
  • The most popular idea was that we should be the change you want to see.

This was a small beginning but I am hopeful that this will be the start of Dwight London intentionally placing service at the heart of our community. If you have ideas or an activity you want to share with the Dwight community, please feel free to add your comments to our CAS blog.

 

I am very grateful to Jake and Rebecca in the Lower School, Gabriel, Jeanne and Malak in the Upper School, Mr. Wynter and Miss Larragy for helping to organise and run the event.

 

Staffing news

We are sad to be saying goodbye to Miss Gemma Fanning at the end of the term. Miss Fanning has been the EAL coordinator in the Upper School and has been instrumental in helping many of our students who are English learners settle in to the school. Miss Fanning has been at Dwight for more than six years and we have benefitted from her expertise in EAL and her commitment to the students in her care. We wish her all the best in her new role at St Anthony's school in Ware, where as well as joining the EAL department she will be running their English Language Summer School.

 

We will also be sad to say goodbye to Mr. John Hopkins who will be retiring and moving to Canada with his family in the summer. The Upper School has benefited from his calm, intelligent and thoughtful leadership for over seven years. We will miss his dry sense of humour and his expertise in the IB programmes.  Although John will be with us until July we have already begun the process of recruiting for this very important position and are pleased that the role has attracted many strong candidates with leadership experience in international schools from around the globe.


Best wishes

 

Alison Cobbin

Head of School

UPCOMING EVENTS

Monday - 5 December 2016
All day
 
Tuesday - 6 December 2016
All day
 
Wednesday - 7 December 2016
All day
 

Dwight School London

6, Friern Barnet Lane. N11 3LX

+44 208 8920 0600

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