Welcome back to all our families, we hope you have had a wonderful winter break and have enjoyed spending quality time together.

The children are busy working hard as we get settled into Term 2. This term will see a focused scaffolding of learning taking place; building on the ground work that Term 1 provided.

An Important Key to Your Child's Success...

Research shows that children with consistent school attendance learn more.

If pupils are to benefit fully from the many opportunities school offers them, then regular school attendance is vital. A pupil who is 10 minutes late every day will miss up to 30 hours of instruction during the school year - a significant academic loss.

Children who are late can never recover what is most important: the discussion, the questions, the explanations by the teacher and the thinking that makes learning come alive. While punctuality will promote learning, arriving late to school can also be very disruptive for the child, the teacher, and the other pupils who are paying attention to the teacher.

Our continuing assessments of children's progress in FS & KS1, has shown that children who are poor readers are usually those who are repeatedly late for school. This is because they are missing the daily phonics activities that consistently build on and consolidate their learning of the English letter sounds. A much-needed tool for early reading and writing success.

These sessions take place first thing in the morning after registration, when children are at their optimum, receptive learning levels. They form part of their daily routine.

Regular attendance at school enables pupils to keep up to date with the learning that is taking place. Developing positive attendance and timekeeping habits at a young age will serve your child well throughout life.

How Parents Can Improve a Child's School Attendance and Punctuality...

Research shows that attendance is the single most important factor in school success.

Ultimately, our children will be best served when they . . .

It is important that children are attending daily and are on time for the morning line-up, as these next few months are crucial to their academic development and progression. So please, let's keep absence down to a minimum and support your child to be part of morning anthem every day.

Our Sporting Superstars...

This week we would like to celebrate two Sporting Superstars who are in Year One....

Hamza Yehia, Y1JR, for his amazing first place achievement from the Egyptian Tennis Association tournament for under 8's. Hamza is a superstar for not only his sporting ability but also for his constant positivity that he brings to CES every day. Well done Hamza!

Next we have Malak Ismail Farid, Y1IM, for achieving her second silver medal in Gymnastics. This time she achieved the silver medal in the Girls under 7, for the Second Round of the Women's Artistic Gymnastics, Egyptian Federation Championship

Such dedication!

Many thanks from the FS & KS1 team!

Dear Parents,

Term 2 is well under way and the students and teachers are working very hard.

Moana

The students in Year 5 performed their interpretation of Moana this week. The children have worked extremely hard outside of lessons at weekends and evenings to put on the show. The children were involved in all aspects of the show from singing, acting and dancing to creating props and scenery. They were assisted by Ms Holly, Ms Chow, Ms Elliott and Ms Heather and some Year 11 students.

A wonderful show that was enjoyed by all!

InCAS

Please note the InCAS tests will take place throughout February. There is no revision necessary; this is an annual online assessment that monitors your child's progress throughout their schooling. You will receive the assessment results along with the end of term 2 report.

Please ensure your child is in school for these assessments. They will need a small, inexpensive set of headphones (No Beats) such as those you get on an airplane or with a phone will be sufficient. They will be left in school and the teachers take no responsibility for expensive headphones being lost, misplaced or damaged.

Behaviour

At CES we do have very high expectations of behaviour and staff spend much time teaching the children about appropriate interactions. I am pleased to report that the playground behaviour of our students continues to improve.

There are still many children who are using inappropriate Arabic words to insult one another or their families, this is not acceptable. Please discuss this matter with your children as the majority of our staff do not speak Arabic and therefore don't understand the gravity of some of the statements that do not translate. Thank you for your support.

I would like to take a moment to remind you of our expectations.

Bus Behaviour: Expectations are that students remain seated with their seatbelt fastened at all times, they treat the driver and the bus nanny with respect as they would their own class teacher. The rules on the buses are there to ensure the safety of all of our students.

Punctuality: For Term 2 to be as productive as we hope, we need all students to be in school ready to learn by. The teachers take the register at 8am for the anthem; if your child is absent for the anthem, they are then considered late and will be marked as such in the register

We all run late sometimes. For your child, arriving late to school occasionally won't cause major disruption. Chronic lateness eventually takes its toll on a child's overall education.

The occasional late arrival is inevitable as things happen to all of us. If you are finding that your child is late one or more times per week, though, you may need to change your routine to ensure a successful start to your day.

School Uniform

School trousers or skirt

School jumper, jacket or gilet

Plain black shoes (no logos) shoe laces tied

Hair tied back (Shoulder length or longer)

Children who are wearing non-school jumpers or jackets will be asked to remove them. To avoid your child being cold, please ensure they are in the correct uniform.

The reason we expect all children with hair touching or longer than their shoulder is to try and stop the spread of head lice. Please help us to help you with this!!

Upcoming Dates

February InCAS

5th FebruaryYear 6 Sports day

13th February PTCs

17th February Year 3 & 4 Sports day

18th February Year 5 Sports day

19th February Half Term Break

24th February School begins

Upcoming Dates

12th February – IGCSE Options Evening 3:15-4:30pm Auditorium

13th February – Parent Teacher Conferences

Secondary School News

We have had a busy month in the Secondary school, mainly due to having Ministry Exams for all year groups, and Mock Exams for Year 10, AS, A2 and IB2 students for more than 10 days. As such, teachers were very busy organising, invigilating, and marking the exams – and now we are happy to get back to normal lessons! The students did very well and it was a good rehearsal for how things should be during the real thing.

January also saw the BSME Under 13 competition in Dubai, for which our students have been training very hard. They did their best and came out with some excellent successes. Some of our students were interviewed by Gulf Youth Sport, and these can be seen on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gulfyouthsport2/

The MUN students began their training with the Cairo International MUN students from AUC. See below for an account of the first training session.

We had an Interhouse Competition on 20th January where students in Year 7 and 8 competed for House Points in games such as Relay, Tug-of-War, Limball, and Capture the Flag. Pictures below!

Students in IB1 supported 80+ children from orphanages to watch a play put on by the SITARA group. They did so well in serving their community and making the day extra special for the children.

As usual, Ms March in the library is busy arranging fantastic events, and January was no different. It was Graphic Novel month and students were able to appreciate this form of literature. Next month, comes a favourite – Minute to Win It!

We also have three new members of staff to welcome – Mr Valentine (Humanities), Ms Horsell (English), and Mr Lennie (Deputy Head of Secondary) – we are glad they are here and wish them all the best.

Ms Pratt

BSME Under 13

Interhouse Competition

CIMUN

MUN training got off to a good start with 23 attendees. Students were introduced to the CIMUN (Cairo International Model United Nations) a student-led organisation along with an outline of the syllabus of the next 8-9 weeks of training. It is CIMUN's mandate to educate youth and help them benefit from the fruitful experience of MUN and formally aid in the development process of high school models. The objective is to lead students through to host their own MUN. Student feedback was positive as they are excited at the prospect of having their own MUN at the school. The presenters were equally impressed by the knowledge of the students and the behaviour of the students as well. A good first week of training!

SITARA Visit – IB1

Upper Library Events – from Ms March, Secondary Library

This month, the library has been focusing on Graphic Novels as the theme.

Many confuse graphic novels as a genre and not a format. These novels are merely a narrative in the form of a comic. Manga is the Japanese form for graphic novels. "They lure teen boys, while retaining the qualities beloved by teen girls. They work for ESL students, teach visual literacy and sequencing, and, above all else, they are wildly popular with an adolescent audience." (Fletcher-Spear, Jenson-Benjamin, & Copeland 2005)

While graphic novels are books, they are read a little differently. The reader must focus on the text as well as the illustrations, the layout, detail about the character and how dialogue and narration work on the page. If you are looking for a good graphic novel try Neil Gaiman or Anthony Horowitz for boys and Rania Tegemeir for girls.

Our library has a number of graphic novels in both fiction and non-fiction and to help the students learn more we have designed a game for students to play called Graphic WHO based on the game GUESS WHO to learn more about our graphic novels.