Principal’s Message

Dear Parents, Staff, Students and Friends of WIS,

This week, we had a number of exciting celebrations to enjoy as the term begins to come to an end.

The school suggested students tweet me questions on Tuesday and took selfies with me on Wednesday which proved great fun. On Friday, as I write, we ready ourselves for the staff leavers speeches after school, always a great event as we celebrate our colleagues contributions and also wish them well in their futures.

We also celebrated the year through the launch of our yearbook – WISDOM 2016 celebrating a full 25 years of excellence at WIS. The student yearbook team headed by Roshni Mulchandani (Communications Officer) and Roger Stanley (Head of Art) are to be congratulated on one of our best ever editions showcasing this extraordinary school in its colourful pages and vibrant pieces of writing, art and photographs. Truly a great reflection of the year. I hope you have ordered your copy!

Thanks to Ms Wright and the Year 13 graduates of the Learning Centre for a wonderful evening of speeches, performances and dances on Monday. The students are the first graduating class of the LC and they also welcomed the incoming Year 7 into the LC in a party atmosphere.

We are also pleased to announce that WIS had a number of successes at the ESF Biathlon. In the team competitions, the Year 8 boys and Year 8 girls were runners up and the Year 7 teams were both first making WIS the overall champions. Congratulations to all the athletes and to the PE Faculty on yet another remarkable achievement!

In terms of the school building there were a number of important moments:

We unveiled another new mural for the school. The PTA have given us funds from the School Fair and we have a new banner outside with our 5 values proudly imprinted across students involved in activities and learning and another newly installed banner in the waterfall area with the six Dynasties and their colours presented as pillars. It feels good to spruce up the building before the end of term.

We began also the building works for the summer at the weekend. This summer we are completely gutting and refurbishing the Design and Technology rooms to a new more modern and bespoke specification for future learning needs. We continue our upgrade of Science Laboratories. Alongside this, the Music Rooms are also having a complete overhaul and upgrade over the summer; so all exciting work for August.

On Tuesday, we practiced a whole school evacuation with students behaving impeccably leaving the building in five minutes and heading to Kennedy as a muster point. It is important we have these contingencies and I am pleased to be leaving two important safety policies updated – this and the lock down procedure.

As we head to our last weekend of term, can I ask that parents do keep their child in school until the end of Friday at midday as we have a celebration assembly on that day. All lessons are important and taking students out early does sometimes give them the impression that learning is not vital, as well as proving awkward for teachers in providing meaningful learning if the class is depleted.

Yours,
Jane