Syntactical Spells

For a school to obtain the level of ‘outstanding,’ each of the six performance indicators must be ranked very highly. And during my brief visit to Royal Dubai School, I clearly saw this level of excellence.

Aside from these engaging, informal teaching and learning environments, the students at RDS follow an enriched version of the (new) National Curriculum for England. This includes the usual core subjects (Numeracy, Art, Science, Literacy etc) along with the subjects of ‘Computing’ and ‘Digital Learning.’

I was also completely delighted to see that next to one table, was a trail of silver glitter – left behind from the previous lesson! (Did they know I was coming?!) See – proof that learning another language IS magic! Haha! But the thing that really made my eyes widen and my heart spill-over with joy was what I saw when I wandered into the generalist classrooms. Displayed prominently around the rooms were various Arabic posters of numbers, days of the week, colours etc. The basics, but so brilliantly easy! “And this,” as I excitedly declared to my tour-guide and new teaching friend, “is exactly what I’m trying to encourage other teachers to do!!! This is fantastic!!” She smiled politely but I think my enthusiasm was a bit much…

I guess she didn’t really understand my excitement for languages!

We continued on the tour of this beautiful school and it became rather apparent to me that yes, RDS students have access to many marvellous resources.

This school is indeed a ‘stimulating environment in which they (the students) flourish.’ But the real riches here cannot ever be bought, not for any price – and this is well understood by the leaders of the great powerhouse that is GEMS.

Potential new teaching staff undertake a rigorous interview process to not only prove their high levels of qualifications, but to also demonstrate the most important aspect of the teaching role – passion and love for the teaching and learning process. Which brings me back to the dedicated teachers who reside within The Achievement Centre.

But this is just one example of the true MAGIC that occurs here in the Achievement Centre! One day is never the same as the next and change is flexibly constant – as it should be in language classrooms.

Students are continually and supportably challenged with their learning and as such, they are continually moving forward to reach and achieve all targets set for them. At the moment, there is a focus on changing the ELL assessments to establish a clearer indication of each child’s linguistic needs.

Having this clearer understanding will allow the teachers here to implement more effective in-class differentiation strategies.

Impressive.

But new assessment packages and magical resources aside, the language-learning experienced here in ACe can only occur because the ‘Chief Spell-Givers’ work tirelessly to make their lessons unique and engaging for their students.

In ACe, it’s ALL about the students! A colleague described the RDS teachers as; “outstanding and caring professionals who work incredibly hard to engage the children and ensure that they receive top quality education.”