Dear Parents and/or Guardians,
I hope that all of you and your family are well and that you have had a lovely summer enjoying time with friends and family. The new academic year is fast approaching and I would like to take this opportunity to share some important information regarding the start of the year. As I am sure that many of you know there are several changes taking place for the start of this academic year.
I will start by focusing on the one that directly involves myself, which is my appointment as the new Head of Secondary School. My name is Simon Oakley, and I am joining after seven years of teaching and senior leadership in mainland China. I am very excited about the opportunity to work with so many dedicated and talented colleagues within the Secondary School, as well as across the whole of DBIS. However, my main motivation for joining this school was to further enable the holistic development of the children and young adults within the school. I come from a background of working in high performing schools, which have also focused on supporting their students to grow as individuals. Coming to a school which is embedded into the community and is genuinely inclusive provides me with a fantastic opportunity to build upon the Secondary School’s many successes and support the next steps in its evolution.
New staff members
I would like to use this communication as an opportunity to very warmly introduce you to the talented new members of teaching staff who will also be joining our Secondary School at the start of the new academic year. The staff names and their subject specialisms are as follows:
- Amy Mackay – Secondary Drama
- Sarah Phoenix – Secondary teacher of English
- Samantha Hine – Secondary teacher of English
- Eugene Carver – Secondary teacher of Humanities
- David Johnstone – Secondary teacher of Mathematics
- David Spencer – Secondary teacher of Music and Head of Creative Arts
- Wendy Thomson – Secondary teacher of Science and PE
- Richard Koenig – Secondary teacher of Spanish
- Monica Zapater – Secondary teacher of Spanish
All of the new members of staff will be contacting the DBIS Community to introduce themselves over the next couple of weeks. New and current staff members who are also Form Tutors, will be contacting the parents of the students in their Tutor groups as well in the same time period.
Arrangements for the first day back at school
I would like to confirm that we officially start the academic year on Thursday the 15th of August. We would like all students onsite by 8:15 am on Thursday. All students should then be in their Form Tutor Classroom for 8:25 am to start the day. The exception to this is for the Year 7 students who will meet on the pitch and line up with their form tutors. Parents are welcome to be there for this stage. Their tutors will escort them to their form rooms at 8:25 am, without their parents.
The details for the Form Tutors and Classrooms can be found by clicking on the following link:
Link to details for Secondary Form Tutors and Form Classrooms
Please note: Even though Senior School students have their tutor registration groups on the North Plaza campus, they will be based on the main DBIS campus for this morning   Â
Information regarding name lists, locations and maps will be available and around the Main Campus on Thursday morning. In addition, Year Group Leaders will be around to meet and greet students to make sure that students all know where to go that morning. The first day will begin with an ‘Extended Tutor Time’ session. This will enable students to meet and get to know their new tutors, as well as receive their student planners; timetables and get prepared for the year ahead. All students will then have an assembly with Mr Oakley that morning from 9:30 am in the Globe theatre. They will begin their timetabled classes from the start from Lesson 3 that morning.
Senior School Students
Students in Year 12 will follow an induction programme on Thursday and Friday. This means that they will not have regularly scheduled lessons on those days. The focus on Thursday will be around the academic side of the school, whilst Friday will be centered around wellbeing (students will need to bring sportswear and a change of clothes for that day).
Timings of the day
I believe that the majority have also been made aware that the school day has changed slightly for the new academic year. We will be running tutor time during the midpoint of the day after morning break between 10:55 am and 11:15 am. This will take place every day to help keep students aware of school developments, deliver elements of Learning for Life programme and allow for the growth of Form, House and whole school community spirit. Your son/daughter will be given a new timetable with these details on it on the first day back at school.
Building on this provision, we will continue to run our ‘One to One’ Tutoring programme throughout the course of the academic year ahead. Students will continue to receive a ‘One to One’ tutoring session with their Form Tutor every 2 – 3 weeks in Years 7 – 9 and every 2 weeks in Years 10 – 13. This programme forms an essential part of our pastoral provision. ‘One to One’ Tutoring takes place 8:00 am and 8:20 am every day of the week, students will be given a designated slot and attendance is mandatory. The sessions run on a cyclical basis with one session per student per cycle. The ‘One to One’ Tutoring system has proven over the last few years to be a valuable addition to our pastoral support system and we hope that you can support us by making sure that your child(ren) attend the designated sessions consistently and punctually.
New Secondary Parent Morning
I would like to take the opportunity with this message to also warmly invite parents of new secondary students to a meeting with me on Monday the 26th of August between 10-11 am.
I aim to actively engage with our strong parental community and will write with more information about opportunities for me to hopefully meet with many of you over the coming weeks.
Everyone here looks forwards to welcoming back all of our returning students and those new students joining DBIS.
Kind regards,
Mr. Simon Oakley
Head of Secondary School