Welcome back to all our existing students and parents and a warm welcome to our new students. Happy New Year.
It has been a very busy start to the new school year, but I am pleased that when I move around the school, that lessons and activities have started and the school is looking very purposeful.
The biggest change that everyone has noticed coming back to school are the renovations. The buildings have been filled with contractors during the holidays as we have had nearly 50 classrooms renovated together with the corridors and stairs - this includes all the science labs and ICT rooms. As the weeks progress, these rooms will start to look more 'lived in' as posters and student work is put on the walls.
The Foyer has also seen a facelift with a new glass frontage, together with the bookshop moving from the back of the school into that area. We will be adding new furniture.
The final renovation from 2011, which unfortunately has not been finished yet, is the seating area for the cafeteria. The contractors have been busy knocking down walls to make the area larger, raising and changing the roof, laying new floors and changing the walls. Perhaps the biggest change in this area is the replacement of the rear wall to the badminton hall with a glass wall. This should be ready after CNY, so until then students are eating in the main school hall.
Sri Garden has been steadily expanding over the last year. In January 2011, we had about 1400 students, now in January 2012, we open with 1550 students. Some year groups are full with others being very close to full. This does mean that we are now using all the classrooms and consequently we have some new teachers starting. Below I have given a brief overview of them for you, please welcome them to Sri Garden (and in some cases Malaysia)
· Lynne Cadenhead - Primary Year leader - Lynne comes from Scotland but has been teaching in Egypt for the last few years
· Victor Ferreira - Primary Year leader - Victor is British, and has experience of teaching in Brazil and China
· Yvonne Bolton - Primary Year leader - Yvonne joins us from the UK
· Simon Lowcock, originally from England, joins secondary as a Geography and economics teacher. Simon has experience of teaching in the Middle East, Thailand and Sri Lanka
· Shiamala Rasalingam - Deputy Head (Pastoral) in Secondary. Many will remember Shiamala, as she is returning to Sri Garden after a short time away from us at Taylor's Lakeside campus
· Muhammad Sayyid bin Shafiee - Secondary Music teacher
· Koo Li San - Secondary Mandarin
· Esther Siam Ern Hong - Secondary Maths and Physics
· Mohd Adika Zainal - Secondary Drama
· Ten Wei Peng - Secondary Maths and Science
Helping those in need
Respect and Care as most people know is one of the core character values that we emphasize with the students.
We have made links with a refugee support centre for Afghan children, in Ampang. At this centre, children of all ages come together for schooling and play.
They would be very grateful for old school books, children's reading books in English, and toys that could be useful to them. They would be very interested in school text books from last year that are no longer needed. If you have old children's books from your house that are still useable by others please bring them into school, and they will be put to good use by the refugee centre. I will arrange for boxes to be put into admissions so that we can collect together any donations that parents and students would like to make. Donations like this can make a big difference to these children.
Gong Xi Fa Cai to all our Chinese parents, wishing you a healthy and prosperous new year.
The school will be closed for students all week, coming back to school on the 30th January.
Cars and the car park
We now have even more cars coming through the car park everyday and I urge everyone to be patient and to be tolerant of others in the car park. If you have a driver that brings children to school, or if you drive, please:
· Follow the instructions from the guards
· Do not park indiscriminately, only use the designated parking spaces.
· Drop you children off by the main student entrance under the green shade.
· Do not drop them off in dangerous areas where there are other cars
· Think of others around you; they are only in school to do the same thing - drop their children off at school
I hope that 2012 is another very successful year in the life of Sri Garden.