Welcome to a new school year at Island School. I extend a particular welcome to all those families who are joining the Island School Community for the first time. I hope that the settling-in process for you and your children goes as smoothly as possible. Please make sure you contact us quickly if there are any problems.
In this newsletter I will be looking back on the events that have happened during the summer. This will include the exam results and University destinations of our graduates as well as the renovations.
IB Results and HE destinations
I sent out a summary of our IB results as soon as they came out in the summer, which is also included as an attachment to this newsletter. As you can see, we are very pleased with these results as they are significantly better than the world averages and also a measurable improvement on last year.
The following summary of the data shows that the United Kingdom and the United States are the most popular destinations this year. Our most popular three colleges are spread between US, UK and Canada.
There are still one or two students for whom we do not have data, but this is certainly more accurate feedback from the students than we have had in the past. I am very grateful to Simone Salier, Roger Wilkinson and the HE team for gathering and putting together this data.
GCSE Results
As I write this the GCSE results are coming in. We use different examining boards for different subjects and these boards report their results at different times, and there is still one subject to come in. While we have not had time to analyse the results fully the first glance indicates that the results are at least as good as last year, when we had an outstanding set. About 60% of all the grades achieved by Island School students are either A or A*, and 93% at are grade C or above. We have three students who have achieved A* grades in all their subjects and a further 25 who have achieved A or A* in all subjects.
Summer Renovations
As soon as the students left school on the final day of term in June, the team of workmen came into the school to start the renovation of the main group of general classrooms. As you will know the Science labs have been renovated over recent years and other specialist rooms like the Music rooms, and the TV studio were done last year. This year it has been the turn of the general classrooms where the work was certainly necessary. I am pleased to say that 33 classrooms and 6 house offices, as well as the staffroom were completed on time for the start of the new term.
The work in the classrooms has included repainting the walls, re-carpeting the floors and completely refitting the furniture, storage and whiteboards. We are particularly pleased with the innovative storage solution behind the whiteboards that gives us much more teaching and learning space in the rooms. There are now plug sockets all round the rooms to enable laptops to be charged. The rather ragged looking curtains have been replaced by easy to use blinds to keep the bright sunlight out when showing video or using the interactive whiteboards. All in all the rooms are many times better than they were and are an attractive learning space that we must all maintain in their present state.
If you have visited the school you will have noticed that we now have a large banner and a series of large scale displays with the Island School Values on view to all. There is also a large metal plaque in the entrance with the values on. You may remember that last year we worked with a group of students, parents, staff and friends of the school to come up with value statements that could express what we are about and that we could use for framing future policy. These are now loudly proclaimed on the campus. In the first assembly of term the four senior prefects presented what each of the statements meant to them to the whole school. They did an excellent job in using their own experience to exemplify the values, which I hope will help to provide inspiration to the younger students.
The whole feel of the school has created a very positive atmosphere at the start of the new year and one which bodes well for a successful term for all our community. I wish you all a happy and exciting school year when we can all Pursue Excellence, Embrace Responsibility and Celebrate Individuality.
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