Dear High School Community,

We heard the news this morning that we are able to reopen this coming Sunday! This is momentous news and we are relieved and thankful to have all our students back together again as a community and a family. Hello to our students, farewell to Zoom!

Service and PTA

We know High School has thriving academic programs but what makes our school so special is the extensive opportunities offered beyond the classroom. This week we held a service symposium where over 50 of our clubs congregated together to work with Evan Wesley, Vice President of the Thirst Project service group. It was inspiring to see so many students giving their time and energy to learn how they can further their efforts to help others. In addition to great teachers and students, the very best schools have active and supportive parents groups: our school is second to none for our parent support. This week saw over 50 parents attend our whole school PTA meeting: what an incredible reflection of how active and supportive our parents are. Thank you for all you do to help shape our community.

COVID-19 Updates

Thankfully we report that there were no cases in the High School this week. However, we remind parents to keep your child at home if they are sick. We have a high vaccination rate in our division but we remain vigilant and determined to sustain a safe learning environment for all our students and staff. Thank you.

We reiterate our plea to parents not to send their children to school if they exhibit symptoms related to COVID-19. Please err on the side of caution and take them to be tested.

Parent Advisory Forum (PAF)

On Thursday, October 7, we will host our first PAF of the year. The event will be a Zoom meeting that covers the following topics:

• Celebrations

• Service and EDIJ Updates

• Assessment Practices

• Recruitment Updates

We look forward to seeing you there.

AP Updates

AP students are reminded that there are excellent online resources to provide opportunities to study and practice as they proceed through their courses. The AP Classroom provides students with the opportunity to complete formative quizzes and review content, and AP teachers use this to assign homework and can track student frequency of use and completion of tasks. Another resource that ASD provides free subscriptions to is Albert.io, which provides further content support and practice opportunities. Students are encouraged to log into this resource if they have not, and to speak to their teachers if they have any challenges in doing so. If you have any questions about our AP Courses or the AP Capstone Diploma program, please contact our AP Coordinator at: joshua.giddens@asd.edu.qa

IBDP Diploma Updates

IBDP students have begun to receive feedback on formative assessments that will inform their ability to be successful in their sumatives. It is important to note that IB students are assessed using our IB Grade descriptors, especially when making a determination of their predicted grades. Each subject has its own specific grade descriptors. As such feedback to students will refer to these descriptors. Students will be supported if they are underperforming to ensure we offer early intervention in semester 1. If you have any questions or you would like additional information please do not hesitate to contact the IBDP Coordinator, Ms. Katrina Charles at katrina.charles@asd.edu.qa

Teaching and Learning Moment

This year we introduced a new, exciting elective in High School, called Impact. This course is designed to help students discover their creative confidence, personal interests, voice, grit and a passion for learning, and their ability to impact the world around them. Through a framework of systems thinking, and learning design modeled after ‘Stanford’s d school’, students engage in a series of hands-on problem solving design challenges that fall under two categories: engineering design and designing for social systems. Ewan McIntosh, an education consultant and leader in creativity and innovation, stated in his TED talk at TEDx London that we need young people who can go out into the world and find problems that really need solving and have the capacity to start solving them. The focus of this course is on developing those divergent thinking skills that don’t often get enough time in courses bound by a packed curriculum.

Currently, the students are working on developing empathy for their users to better understand problems. Today students will be interviewing Eshaan Patheria, a Ph.D. student at Caltech and recipient of the 2021 Switzer Environmental Fellowship for his work in developing batteries that are cheaper and able to store more energy than current battery technology. Eshaan came to ASD as part of the speaker series in 2019 to share his experiences of leading the rebuild of a solar microgrid in a remote village in India. Today his focus will be on the importance of empathy in solving problems. If you have any experiences with projects involving the design thinking process that would model real world applications, please get in touch. We would love to have you come and talk to our students.

Service Updates

In our desire to ensure our parent community has more access to Learning Service information, we have provided access for parents on the “Learning Service” tab on the HS Office Teneen page. The same information is available on the HS Student Teneen Page for students. Supplementary information can also be accessed on our Learning Service Libguide. This page is now updated and live.

This week marks a huge milestone for CAS and Service in the High School. On Tuesday, Mr. Shang accompanied our first group of IB Diploma Students working on an externship at the Equine Veterinary Medical Centre at Al Shaqab for their orientation visit! This is the first, hands-on, off campus CAS/Service Activity in almost two years. The externship runs for one semester so we are privileged enough to have an opportunity for a different group of students to work and learn at the EVMC in the second semester. A very special thanks to Dr. Tatiana Vinardell, head of Education and Research at EVMC for facilitating this yet again. Students will have the opportunity to shadow surgeons, pharmacists, radiologists and other veterinary health science professionals over the course of their externship.

Last week, we told you about our annual Service Symposium and we can report that nearly 50 of ASD’s Service Clubs were represented and all were taken through a strategic planning protocol by our outside consultant, Evan Wesley from the Thirst Project. Student leaders are currently planning the spacing and collaboration of events throughout the year. Evan’s focus this year was on goal setting and the need to couple awareness campaigns with fundraising. We thank Evan Wesley and Thirst Project for continuing to support ASD Learning Service efforts and in continuing to train our service leaders.

Lastly, if you are the parent of a Grade 9 or 10 student, please be advised that by the end of next week, all clubs should have called their first informational meetings allowing students to get underway with their service commitments. If your child has not heard back from a club they have signed up for, please encourage them to reach out to the club through email. Hundreds of signups are being organized so it is crucial that students are proactive about communicating.

For questions about service or IB CAS at ASD, please contact Mr. Shang at cshang@asd.edu.qa.

Counseling

Safeguarding Assembly

This week and next week we are having a safeguarding assembly during advisory. This is to inform students about what safeguarding is as well as the safeguarding policy at ASD. You can watch a recording of the assembly here.

Senior Counselor Course

We had week two of our senior counselor course. It was great seeing the Day B students in person while the Day A students were on zoom!

The Senior Counselor Course will consist of the following:

Week 1: Housekeeping - Transcript Review, Application Platform creation, Maia Learning Uses & Common App sync, Letter of Recommendation Requests

Week 2: Crystallization - Finalizing university choices, Adding them to Maia, Requesting Documents for submission, a reminder to schedule a meeting with Counselor

Week 3: Essay Writing Workshop (Essay, Personal Statement, Motivational Letter)

Week 4: What to expect after you've applied

Week 5: Misc - Interviews, Scholarships, Etc.

Week 6: Working Time

MaiaLearning

MaiaLearning is a program we use in the counseling department. We use it extensively in Grade 11 and Grade 12 through the university process, but it is also used in our Grade 9 and Grade 10 during counselor courses for different personality and career inventories as well as the creation of students' 4 year plans! Please check this video on how to access your account and come to the Q&A session from 10:00 to 10:30 am on Sunday, October 3 by clicking this link if you have any questions.

Resources

We encourage students and parents to check out the HS Counseling Teneen page within the Main HS Office as it has lots of resources available for students and parents.

Have a great weekend.

Michael Roberts,

High School Principal

American School of Doha