Happy Friday parents and friends of Clarion School!

A few important notes for the next few weeks are in this newsletter- we are winding down a very special school year, so please read below!

Two end of June events- "Grade 5 Moving Up!” and the Faculty Celebration Luncheon will mean having early dismissal at noon (12:00 pm) on the 29th and 30th of June:

Moving UP! ceremony:

Our second Grade 5 at Clarion will have their “moving up” ceremony on the 30th of June! Included in the event will be Grades 4 and 6, and many teachers, as well as the siblings of the Grade 5 students, their parents and families. More information will go out specifically to Grade 5 families from the SLT and Ms. Joy on Monday.

and…

The Faculty End of Year Lunch:

We will once again celebrate the year with a faculty lunch for the entire Clarion staff- teachers, assistants, bus drivers, cleaners, back office staff, and SIG upper management. This will be on Wednesday the 29th of June.

So….

We will be ending school at noon on both the 29th and 30th. This enables us to have our celebrations of Grade 5 students, and of our faculty. We appreciate your understanding and support for these two important events. When the calendar was pushed to a Monday-Friday week back in January, it had a knock on effect for the two events above. We appreciate your understanding.

If you have any questions please contact us through the school email admin@clarionschool.com

Summer Camps at Clarion School:

In the newsletter below, are 2 flyers regarding summer camp offerings at Clarion. For additional questions and to register your child for the preferred camp, please contact the vendors directly.

After School CCI’s finish up on Monday the 13th and Wednesday the 15th. They will resume in the new academic year 2022-2023.

COVID notices:

According to the DHA/KHDA protocols in effect since March, students and staff who are COVID+ are to stay home from school for the quarantine period. However, since March DHA and KHDA ask that only those who test positive be home. This is why we have not been sending ‘bubbles’ home the last several weeks as a few cases of COVID have been detected in our community.

Nurse Kristine would like to remind us all that any flu-like symptoms should be treated as potential COVID cases, and you should check with your family doctor.

Of course if your child has a fever they are to remain at home.

End of year dates for the Shows, Art exhibitions and the Individual class “culmination projects”:

Please don’t miss out- your children have their end of year performance, Art exhibition and 3rd and final “culmination” sharing experience, the week of June 20-24th.

The chart below is for you to check your calendar. PLEASE NOTE that this calendar below supersedes and replaces the published school calendar. We did this to put 3 things on one day for each class so that you are not having to book 3 days to come to school the week of June 20-23:

Pre K - Monday, June 20 at 8:30am

K2 - Monday, June 20 at 9:30am

K1 - Tuesday, June 21at 8:30am

G4,5,6 - Tuesday, June 21 at 9:30am

G1 - Wednesday, June 22 at 8:30am

G2 - Thursday, June 23 at 8:30am

G3 - Thursday, June 23 at 9:30am

Reminder on the Meet and Greet on Thursday, June 16th at 8:15 am.

It is our pleasure to invite you to a “Meet and Greet” with the new Principal for 2022-2023, Mr. Larry Thaxter.

Larry will join us at 8:15 AM on Thursday the 16th, in the Clarion School atrium and introduce himself and have a chance to answer a few of your questions. After he does an introduction, the SLT will also join Larry and circle the room while we all have coffee, tea, cake and cookies – yes you can order a nice coffee at the bar!

This will give Clarion a chance to show itself off to Larry, and Larry a chance to meet everyone and have you all put a name with a face, voice, and person.

Suzanne, Nada and I look forward to welcoming you all that morning, and the RSVP link is https://sugeni.us/d6xE

Recycling and EEG and Clarion:

Clarion has registered with the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG) for Project “Recycle. Reforest. Repeat” 2022. In order to successfully complete the project, collectively as a school community, our aim is deposit a minimum of 500 kg of paper, between the 17th of June 2022 and the 22nd of July 2022 by our Clarion students at the EEG office. Bins for the collection are being provided at key areas around our school- like the parent café and near the gates for during drop off. Classroom collection will also happen through the coming week so there are multiple ways for you to send in old newspapers and other recyclables.

Details regarding the EEG and the some of their fantastic initiatives can be found on https:// www.eeg-uae.org/

Final word(s)- Professionalism and Recycling:

Part of being educators is connecting with other educators outside of our own ‘4 walls’.

Over the last several weeks, two Clarion staff have had the opportunity to connect with the outside world, travelling to Egypt and Turkey.

Mr. Mahmoud, the Islamic/Arabic teacher at Clarion, was honored to once again be a part of the “Arab Reading Challenge”, a world-wide reading contest for Arabic students that began in the 2015-2016 school year. It is the largest-ever Arab literacy initiative, and is an International competition in Arab countries and Arab communities in foreign countries.

Mr. Mahmoud has been an judge for this initiative since 2016, online for Finland, Greece, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden, Turkey and in person for Egypt and UAE. We were so pleased to have Mr. Mahmoud once again represent the UAE and Clarion School by being a judge for this challenge in Egypt.

Thank you Mr. Mahmoud for giving your time over the years to such a wonderful event!

Ms. Suzanne our VP also had the opportunity to travel to Turkey to present at the 'GESS Turkey Education Event' the last weekend in May. Suzanne's presentation was titled “Raising Progress Through Reflective Learning Practices”.

I had the opportunity to see her two slideshows, and the work Suzanne does with our Clarion staff and students SHINES through! I have encouraged Suzanne to spread the Clarion word even more, and hopefully as reopening continues in Dubai, she will be able to do the same presentation here in the UAE next year at several large educational forums in town.

It is gratifying to be able to showcase these two fine example of Clarion professional practice. They put in many many extra hours outside of work for these events.

As Principal, I had the opportunity to go to the 2021 EEG awards recognition earlier this week. I took 4 members of our STUCO (Student Council) in Grades 3 and 4 (Grades 5 and 6 were at the Sharjah Planetarium on a field trip!). Mr. Ashik, our Facilities Manager at Clarion, also came along. I took Ashik as he is the driving force being the team here on campus in our recycling movement; Ashik is also the Clarion connection with EEG.

No- we didn’t get called up on stage, but it was a worthwhile experience because our STUCO officers had the chance to see how much recyclable material each of the top 3 winners in every category attained. And I am confident that the STUCO and Ashik, and the staff, students and parents of Clarion will rev up and ramp up the recycling program next year!

Professionalism and care for the environment- two ways Clarion impresses me every day!

Have a great weekend everyone and read some books!

Sincerely,

Jim #HappyFriday40+degrees! Pastore