Greetings!
Before I share the weekly message with you, I would like to clarify the incident of a staff member’s family member who tested positive for nucleic acid on Saturday. The staff member’s family returned to the dormitory room on the first floor at 00:00 am on Saturday and was transferred to the centralized quarantine site after the testing result returned positive the next day. The staff family member had not gone outside of the dormitory and had no contact with anyone except for her family members, who are currently in quarantine. On Sunday, the school campus was fully disinfected. I am sorry for the challenging situation this teacher’s family faces, and so far, the regular school day is not affected. However, I want to remind every faculty member, staff member, and student to wear masks in public venues for personal protection during the week. Many thanks to all!
As caregivers and educators in the XLIS community, we have the tremendous responsibility and unique opportunity to reach, teach, and prepare our students for tomorrow. Engaging our youngsters in open and courageous conversations at school not only benefits our educational leadership and operation stewardship, but also leads us to achieve our mission & vision. We are constantly working on fostering this positive culture in XLIS by listening to students’ voices.
To better achieve our student-centered and community-driven approaches and get more students’ voices heard in the future, we’ve initiated several new actions below:
Suggestion Box
Last week, a suggestion box was set up in front of my office and Mr. Brian Lalor’s, the Deputy Head of School. All students can leave their suggestions, advice, or feedback anonymously in this box, which will be checked daily by Mr. Brian and myself, listening to students’ voices and taking corresponding actions if needed.
Class observation & Different Grade Students’ Group Meeting
Ms. Marly Song, the Primary Principal, and Ms. Jaimala Quinlan, the Secondary Principal, have done many group meetings during class observations. Principals listen to the students after each class observation and communicate with each group and individual.
Different grade level students will be organized to have monthly circle meetings with the two principals to share their school lives and put up any suggestions freely.
Positive Teacher-Students Relationship
According to Brain’s Scientific Research, positive relationships build students’ motivation, create safe spaces, build new pathways for learning, and improve student behavior. XLIS has and will continue to support faculty in enhancing their teacher-student relationship strategies through group or individual training.
As caregivers and parents’, patience and listening to children are also crucial for their healthy growth. What’s more, parents’ voices are just as equally important as students’. Therefore, to better support our parents in connecting with the school, I would like to share the contact guidance below:
· Routine assistance, such as the uniforms, Lost & Found, events notices, lunch card top-up, school bus, parent events, etc. Please directly contact the Head of PR, Ms. Sarah, by emailing pr@xalis.com.
· As for academic learning and daily life at school, please contact your child’s Homeroom Teacher or Primary/ Secondary Principal for a timely, accurate response.
· The Parent Open Day by grade level has been successfully conducted. Next, grade-level Parent Workshops and Parent Talks will be conducted. Of course, there are also monthly PTA meetings, which are an excellent opportunity to gather parent voices and suggestions. I encourage you to kindly communicate with the PTA Core Members for your suggestions, advice, or feedback, who can bring them to the monthly PTA meetings to discuss.
On the whole, effective communication brings the whole community closer and tighter together, which enables all members to listen and embrace different points of view and get messages delivered efficiently. I highly appreciate the XLIS community’s joint contributions and efforts to build a more diversified and inclusive campus, and I will continue to work towards empowering students’ and parents’ voices!
Next, I would like to highlight the XLIS December Upcoming Events as follows:
DP Course Selection Night
Ms. Jaimala Quinlan, the Secondary Principal, Mr. Shameek Ghosh, the DP Coordinator, and the DP teachers will host the course selection evening from 4:00 to 5:30 on December 9th, this Friday. All MYP5 students and parents are strongly encouraged to attend. Please be aware of follow-up notices from the Secondary School.
Christmas Concert
You are cordially invited to the XLIS 2022 Christmas Wonderland Concert on campus at 8:30 am on Saturday, December 17th. Christmas Wonderland is where Christmas dreams become a reality. I hope you will enjoy seeing our dreams grow as a community at XLIS through the students’ performances. If you are unable to join us in person, please join us online through our live streaming channel!
All performance-related questions: Mr. Pyoung Gang Kim (pg.kim@xalis.com)
Christmas Event-related questions: Mr. Alex Rambaud (alex.rambaud@xalis.com)
Student Social Enterprise
The social enterprise is part of CAS and Business Management, a service learning opportunity for our DP students. They will each be responsible for a secondary school homeroom class. To raise money, student-made, hand-crafted items will be sold during the Christmas Concert. All funds raised will be donated to support the Shaanxi Aiding Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents, part of the Beijing Sun Village Organization. I strongly encourage every parent to kindly note and actively support the activities initiated by the Student Council.
Student Council’s Fundraiser: Mr. Kevin McGarry (kevin.mcgarry@xalis.com)
Christmas & New year’s Holiday
The two-week Christmas holiday and the 2023 new year are approaching. I hope you can see the wonder of the festive season through the eyes of our young children and not be weighed down by worries. Warmest thoughts and best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and the coming new year. May peace, love, and prosperity follow your family always.
Best regards,
Lily Liu
Head of XLIS
Email: lily.liu@xalis.com
