Week at a Glance - See our Head of School’s weekly reflection
2025-12-12 09:45
‘To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity’
Nelson Mandela
Dear Colleagues
This week we have been reflecting on human rights as the UN Human Right’s day 2025 was on December 10th. This year, Human Rights Day is being celebrated under the theme “Our Everyday Essentials”, showcasing how rights to safety, food, a roof over one's head, a voice, and dignity are everyday concerns and not abstract principles. This remains a key challenge for many people around the world who do not have many of their basic human rights met. Conflicts and wars, natural disasters such as drought and floods, economic challenges such as poverty and hunger all strip people of these rights. Students in our school have the opportunity to understand these challenges in IB DP and MYP subject areas such as business studies, geography, history and economics, but also in PYP Units of Inquiry.
In CP Reflective Project, students have been exploring human rights issues through the lens of business decision making; In particular, the decision to outsource production to less economically developed countries, where workers rights are not as stringent as they are in more developed economies, in order to maximise profits.
The Grade 10 Global Politics elective students stepped in the role of a global thinker by selecting a focused global challenge involving climate change, migration, conflict, poverty, inequality, technology, and human rights. Students presented their issues and engaged in a collective discussion. The topics ranged from abortion rights to corruption in Brazil. They used human rights as a jumping off point to use their creativity and critical analysis skills.
It was also Buddha day on Monday this week. This is also known as Bodhi day commemorating Siddhartha Gautama's enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. In secondary the assembly and wellbeing time encouraged students to focus on the links between compassion, human rights and Buddhism. They also reflected on the concept of non-violence and interdependence. The upholding of human rights relies on people collaborating and being interdependent. Thank you to Jenny and Sharmistha for preparing some amazing materials on these topics.
This week Waldorf students have been exploring Cyprus. Waldorf class 3 visited the chocolate factory and Waldorf class 6 went to the Troodos Geopark. Our TLF students have also been attending olympiads with a visit to Paphos last weekend to the Computer Science olympiad and this weekend to a Maths Olympiad in Limassol. Thank you to Alex, Matthew, Sergey, Alexey and Nikos for organising and accompanying these amazing opportunities for our students.
We also held our practice TEDx Youth Talks this week and students were able to practise their talk as we build towards a larger formal TEDx Youth event in the early part of 2026. It was great to see our students discussion topics about which they are passionate with confidence and eloquence. Thank you so much to all the colleagues who attended - it was greatly appreciated.
Finally students have been enjoying additional sports activities this week. In secondary we had a house table tennis competition and in primary it was basketball. MMany thanks to Nicholas and team for organising these fun events.
As we move into the final week of term I wish everyone a relaxing and enjoyable weekend and strength for the final week to come. We also look forward to seeing as many of you as possible this evening at the end of term celebration event at Ajax Hotel where we will eat, drink and be merry and also celebrate colleagues demonstrating our school values!