Dear all,
On Wednesday this week the world celebrated the UNESCO International Day of Education. It’s actually a little tricky to mark an occasion of this nature in a school, as every day is a Day of Education! But it does serve as a reminder of the importance of what happens on our campus every day. As a community we work hard to instil among our young people a sense of the importance of learning for them, now and throughout their future lives, and we ask them to recognise the responsibility that receiving such an education generates for them – to use what they have learned to benefit their society. In our framework of 5 DC Outcomes, we refer to this responsibility through the outcome: “Take Principled Action”.
Our Year 6 students are playing a leading role in this at the moment. As they prepare for their PYP Exhibition, they will be working in groups to research a topic connected to a global context. Examples might include: Ocean Health, Deforestation, Equity in Sports, Artificial Intelligence, and Cybersecurity. Students will work to understand their topic, reflect their learning, and take action to address its implications. This culminates in a presentation of their learning in a few weeks’ time, and as they embark on this final stage of their journey as PYP students I want to wish them all the very best for the exciting few weeks ahead!
On a much more administrative note, something else that is happening at DC at the moment is that we are adapting our emergency evacuation procedures. As you may know, the seafront walkway by Siena Club is blocked off for renovation works at the moment and so where we would normally use our Foreshore as our emergency evacuation assembly point, for the rest of the academic year (until June) we will need to move this location to Siena Park. We will be doing a drill at 11.05am on Tuesday 30 January to practise this new procedure, and so if you live nearby and see large numbers of DC students in the Park at this time, this is why!
I hope everyone across our community is enjoying a great start to 2024, and looking forward to the start of the Year of the Dragon. I will be in touch again nearer to CNY as the College gears up to celebrate this important occasion in our calendar. In the meantime very best wishes from DC!
Kind regards,
James Smith
Principal