Dear Family,
Welcome to the 7th edition of our newsletter. There are only 86 days left until our school opens to children for the very first time and we are very busy meeting families and getting everything ready so the Aquila children can experience amazing learning.
This week we have been thinking hard about how to make our reception and corridor areas vibrant and stimulating. As well as having plenty of areas to celebrate amazing learning we want these places to stimulate the imaginations of the children. As we want our children to be “design thinkers”, able to be creative and solve problems we have chosen key words that showcase the different disciplines that use these skills, such as illustrators, inventors, and innovators.
To set the scene we are setting our readers this challenge. Re-arrange these letters – what “design thinker” word does it create? Can you find it in the school when you start in September?
SENENEIGR
We also want our sports facilities to showcase an active lifestyle so we have designed silhouettes like the one below to decorate the walls.
At The Aquila School we are delighted that we will have two swimming pools, a shallow one for our younger swimmers and a full sized pool. This week we went to visit the area and were excited to see that the pools are in place and the tiling is in progress!
Follow us on Facebook @aquiladubai and Instagram @theaquilaschool to see more of how our school is coming to life and ready for September!
School News
Uniform Offer
Our Ramadan free uniform offer is ending soon. In celebration of the Holy Month, we are pleased to contribute to the act of giving but offering all families who enrol during the Holy Month a free uniform set. To avail the offer enquire here or call +971 50 788 7207.
Iftar Event
We welcomed parents and friends to our first Iftar at the school this week. It was a lovely opportunity for the community to get together and for some of our first pupils to start forming firm friendships.
Staff Update
Julie Churm – Class Teacher
Principal Wayne Howsen says – “I am delighted that Julie Churm will be one of the Founding Teachers in The Aquila School. Although Julie is experienced in teaching across the primary range, her expertise is in Early Years Education. Julie has worked with us for a number of years in our outstanding school and is an expert at helping children to settle into school, develop a love of learning and to become independent, creative, resilient and thoughtful members of the school community. In fact community is a significant
word here as The Aquila will be a family affair for Julie. Not only is her husband Andy joining the team – their children Jack and Izzy will be some of our very first pupils.”
Further Updates
This week we received confirmation from KHDA, the local regulatory body that we may proceed with registering children on their online portal. For families already enrolled our registrar Aliaa will be in contact next week to arrange for families to bring their Emirates ID cards into school to complete the registration process. As we want our children to love coming to school and as well as learning in class, we are organising many events linking to learning that will bring our whole school community together. Some of the events we have planned include; bring a man to school day, drama workshop week, global day, nanny and driver day, world food day and many more.
We have also planned lots of themed weeks where children across the school will be studying the same topic relevant to their age and development for example; sustainability week, Dubai week, living by numbers week to name but a few.
This week we have also been finalising who will be providing lunches for our children and running our community cafeteria – The Aquila Noshery. We are also finalising which additional after school activities will be provided by an external company. Full details of both of these will be announced soon.
Upcoming Events
Stay and Play Sessions
Now that summer has arrived take advantage of our indoor ‘Stay and Play’ sessions here at the school. Our Head of Primary will lead activities designed to keep toddlers and children busy, active and stimulated by offering them a magical, multiadventure experience in our brand new early years section at our school. All sessions are aimed at children aged 2- 4 years and parents are encouraged to join in or simply relax. Each session will have a maximum of 10 children and parents can reserve a place by contacting headofprimary@theaquilaschool.com.
Sessions held every Wednesday 2 – 3 pm until the 20th of June.
Meet the Principal
Saturday 9th and 23rd of June
Part of our school is now open for all families to meet our leaders and see our classrooms for the very first time. Children (and ambitious parents!) can test their creative skills by entering our UAE Design Challenge for a chance to win a helicopter flight over Dubai.
Where: The Aquila School, Dubailand. Opposite Sky Court Towers. Enter at the white flags.
Time: 10am – 2pm
Please register here
Feature
How to keep your child entertained over the summer months
Depending on your viewpoint the fact that we have such long summer holidays here in the UAE can be a blessing or a curse. Some families and children relish the opportunity to spend endless days together, travelling the world, visiting relatives overseas and having new and exciting experiences. For the majority of families however the reality is very different with work commitments, limited resources, demanding children and the Dubai heat restricting what can be done in the eight weeks that schools are closed. Here at The Aquila School, we understand and are therefore pleased to offer our top ten tips to keep children
engaged, happy and learning during the long weeks of summer.
1. Relax. Children will have had a long busy year learning at school so they need time to relax.
2. Spend time pursuing an interest. This could be something the child already loves or something new such as drawing, painting, poetry writing, cooking, songwriting, making a board game, the possibilities are endless.
3. Limit screen time. Children have plenty opportunities to look at screens but it is wise and healthy to limit this so they can pursue other activities and interact with other children and adults.
4. Create a journal of the exciting activities they have been doing and the places they have visited. For children staying in Dubai, this could be a fantasy journal or an opportunity for them to write their own stories.
5. Re-discover or discover for the first time a love of reading. There are so many wonderful books available for both fiction and non-fiction.
6. Spend time with family and create a family tree.
7. Decorate a part of the house or their bedroom. Children are very creative and love having a say in creating the environment they spend much of their time in.
8. Learn a new playground game that they can teach their friend’s next term. Who knows, this could even become a craze of the future!
9. Keep active. It is so easy to become sedentary during the hot months of summer here in the UAE so encourage children to have their own daily workout routine to keep their mind and body fit and active.
10.Stay up late you can’t so it during term time. So enjoy it during the holidays when you don’t need to get up early in the morning!
As with all things a balance is needed. Children spend many weeks working very hard in school as so just like adults they need a break from routine. At the same time young minds are ripe for learning and we know that very often children start the school year in September appearing to know less and remember less than they did when they left at the end of the summer term, this is sometimes referred to as a summer dip. Taking part in some of the activities we suggest can help children to carry on learning at home over the summer in a fun, relaxed atmosphere.