Dear Parent,
Welcome to the 2023-2024 academic year at XLIS! To all our returning families, we are so happy to have you back! And to all of our new community members, thank you for choosing XLIS for your child and your family. We are all very excited for what lies ahead this year.
First, let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Marly Song and I am from Victoria, BC, Canada. This is my 19th year as an educator in China and my 5th year here at XLIS. I have taken on many roles throughout my career – as a classroom teacher for each grade from P1 to P6, a literacy coach, a vice-principal, a team leader for teachers, and now as the principal of the primary school at XLIS. I am passionate about early literacy and language learning in children and am committed to creating an inclusive culture at school where all children feel they belong. One thing to know about me is that I love feedback and communication, so I encourage you to reach out to me any time with both the positive things you are experiencing at our school and the questions you may have as we go along on this journey together for your children.
Each week you will receive an email from a member of our Senior Leadership Team. This team is made up of Dr. Lily Liu (Head of School), Mr. Brian Lalor (Deputy Head of School), Ms. Jaimala Quinlan (Secondary Principal) and myself. In this way, we ensure that our parent community remains connected and informed of what is happening at our school.
Today I would like to share 3 items with you – our Primary School Calendar, our Parent Handbook, and the consensus statements for the Learner Profile Attributes.
Primary School Calendar
If you made it to our orientation day on Friday, you would have received the Primary School Calendar in your child’s envelope. This calendar will guide you on the important dates of our school, events, and holidays. Please be sure to book any vacations throughout the year during our school vacation periods to ensure your child(ren) get the most out of their school year. We have noticed, when children miss many days of school, their academic performance is also impacted.
Primary School Calendar_2023-2024.xlsx
Primary Handbook
Our school handbooks contain our very important policies that ensure the safety of your children, the quality of their education and build the culture of our school. I am attaching the Primary Handbook to this email so you can read through it. Please pay close attention to our restorative practices policy, communication policy and our new dress code policy. In addition, at the back of the Primary Handbook is the contact list for all staff members of the primary division. This will be very helpful should you wish to contact any of your children’s teachers. All of our teachers are always available for an appointment should you wish to discuss the academic or social-emotional well-being of your child.
4. 2023-2024 XLIS Primary Handbook (2).pdf
Consensus Statements for the Learner Profile Attributes
We were so happy to see so many of you at the orientation on Friday afternoon. I hope that you found the information in the envelope a helpful introduction to this school year. As an IB World School, the IB Learner Profile Attributes are a core component of how we help your children develop into internationally-minded global citizens. We have also adopted these attributes to be our Schoolwide Learner Outcomes (SLO’s) which means we teach, monitor and assess the development of these attributes in our students. However, we believe that these attributes are not only important for our student’s development, but also for our staff and parent community. At the orientation, we asked two questions:
1) Is the Learner Profile just the goal of our children?
2) What does the Learner Profile mean to parents?
Our leadership team at school developed consensus statements for each Learner Profile Attribute to describe what this attribute would look like from a parent’s perspective. We encourage you to take time to read these statements at home and to have conversations about what they might look like in practice. In this way, we are all committed to helping our students become confident, open-minded global citizens through lifelong learning and a sense of community.
Thank you for trusting us with your children, those you hold nearest and dearest to your hearts.
Please contact me at any time with your thoughts or questions.
Email: marly.song@xalis.com
WeChat: principal_marly
Sincerely,
Marly Song
Primary Principal
