Week at a Glance - Week at a glance - See our Head of School’s weekly reflection
2026-01-23 16:05
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible"
(Dalai Lama)
Dear Colleagues
Random Acts of Kindness are spontaneous, selfless gestures to help others, ranging from small, free actions like holding doors or giving compliments to larger deeds like volunteering or running errands for someone in need, aiming to spread positivity, combat loneliness, and build community, with proven benefits for both the giver and receiver. These acts don't need to cost money and can include simple things like smiling at strangers, leaving encouraging notes, helping with groceries, making someone a cup of tea, or offering your time to listen.
This week we decided to celebrate kindness and friendship in our school with the theme of Random Acts of Kindness. One of our 8 key values is ‘love’ and we strive to cultivate positive relationships in our school through our constant reinforcement of our values of both love and respect in lessons and during play and recreation. Studies in positive psychology have proved that building positive relationships with others is one of the key elements of having good wellbeing and being happy and balanced. We have encouraged students to carry out random acts of kindness throughout the week.
In Primary classes explored kindness themes during assembly time, looking at acts of kindness we can undertake in our school. Students focussed on looking after our playground and using kind words. Daniel from Montessori found a lovely book in the library called Have You Filled A Bucket Today? - showing kindness and appreciation of others goes a long way to making this world a happier place. In Secondary, students used assembly time to explore the concept of kindness with some materials prepared by our school psychologist. In Secondary our Principal Miss Grajina challenged the students with the 3 Zone Challenge - Classroom, Lunch and Rubbish. As part of Kindness week she asked them to consider that they spend between 7,000 and 8,000 hours every year at school and so we should consider our space and keep it tidy.
Our Pre-Primary 1 children this week enjoyed their first excursion of the year when they visited The Polymedia national park. It was a great way to explore the natural environment and incite children’s curiosity. Many thanks to Polina, Christina, Stefanie and Millie for their organisation of this event.
Our Tech Leaders of the Future students have had two days of examinations this week. They have been working very hard to prepare for these examinations and we wish them well for their results. Thanks to Sonja, Ivan, Sergey and Tania for coordinating these and to Armine and Alex for supporting them back in boarding.
Finally I want to clarify the situation with Attendance. The Attendance Policy is included in this bulletin so you can read the details. I sent some letters last week to remind all parents and students that good attendance is very important in order to achieve good academic grades. It is difficult to learn if children are not in school and we are very clearly focussed on raising academic attainment this year. The law does not differentiate between excluded or authorised absences and unauthorised absences in terms of a child graduating to the next year. The Cyprus law states that a child should attend at least 90% of the year. In state schools this is counted by period but in The Island School we count whole days. So the limit is 17 days per year as we are in school approximately 173 days. Our Attendance Policy has also been approved by the Ministry of Education.
If a child had 6 days or more absence in term 1 we sent a letter requesting to improve their attendance. The reason is we have three terms and if the pattern continues your child would exceed the limit by summer. Any child who already exceeds 17, we will be calling parents to discuss how we can mitigate this absence and ensure their child is making the necessary academic and social progress. This is why it is vital that you take the register on time and every day if you are a homeroom teacher or wellbeing mentor. This is a legal requirement and very important for our records.
If you are coming to Open day tomorrow, I think you and look forward to a positive event.
I wish you all a peaceful weekend and encourage you all to carry out random acts of kindness.