Well-being is the final of our three education goals.
The feedback we received from our community has helped inspire a series of objectives to ensure a commitment to well-being.
To help unlock and realize this potential, we’ve identified key objectives against which we’re measuring our progress.
Hold the highest standards for international schools around child protection.
Use consistent approach and a common vocabulary around social-emotional learning for students and teachers.
Improve support during the unique developmental stage that students experience between the ages of 10-13.
We’re committed to the safety of all students and have implemented training for everyone working with students. Our three new software systems support our need to track data related to child safety.
We’re establishing a curriculum for the wellbeing and social development for students based on international standards.
This brings a consistent approach and a common vocabulary around social emotional learning for students and teachers.
A strong program that addresses our students’ social emotional learning leads to a strong academic program. Students learn best when they are in a psychologically-safe environment and feel supported. This helps to build confidence in our students and supports a positive school culture.
An emphasis on child safeguarding measures and training are a fixture at the start of each school year, for new and returning staff.
Every year, each new and returning staff member must complete training in the basics of first aid, and TKS’s child protection and safeguarding handbook, culminating in an online assessment.
Additionally, each year all staff sign-off on the TKS Code of Conduct. We provide appropriate specific training for those in specialized roles such as PHE, staff who work in labs, and staff who take students on adventurous activities or out of Kingdom.
Child safeguarding is rightly a high profile expectation of professional practice in the school. We have put rigorous training and supporting systems around safeguarding in place every year for anyone involved in working with students. Re-focusing all staff at the start of each school year helps ensure that our faculty are always alert to risks.
Developmental needs, academic proficiency, and age guide us to determine instructional groupings at TKS. This has allowed us to:
Creating a Middle School (Grades 6-8) and High School (Grades 9-12):
From the 2023-24 school year, the divisions will officially become separate divisions.
As TKS has grown and curriculum approaches have shifted, there have been opportunities to create more mixed-age groupings. We’ve done this to address instructional levels in elementary and secondary. This growth has also allowed the Secondary School to separate into two distinct divisions of Middle School and High School.
This shift addresses the wellbeing and academics for students. It allows for TKS to better support the unique developmental stage that students experience between the ages of 10-13. It allows us to better support the transition from Elementary School, where students are with one teacher most of the day, to High School where students have eight different teachers over two days.
In Middle School students will have two core teachers versus the one they had in elementary. This prepares them for the changes to come in Grade 9. This shift also supports our focus on child protection to ensure that students are educated and socializing with students within their appropriate age group.
In addition to the Middle School and High School separation, we can address different concerns created by mixing age groups in certain classes.
For world languages in Secondary School, we are able to create classes based on the level of language proficiency rather than simply age and this has allowed us to focus instruction better.
Mixing age levels in elective classes has also allowed us to greatly increase the number of electives we can offer. We only mix classes within the Middle School (Grades 6-8) and within the High School (Grades 9-12) to keep developmental levels together.
This goal is closely tied to the goal of expanding learning opportunities for students. This also has addressed the need to support students with learning needs as well as students who need additional challenge.
We’re developing transition programs for both students and teachers, and have created opportunities for:
When students move from one division to another, we want to make the transition as positive as possible, academically, socially, and emotionally. We have looked at the curriculum to improve the flow and remove gaps. We have looked at our wellbeing program and aligned it across divisions, and we provide students with the opportunity to experience the physical space in the new division before the first day of school through the “Moving Up” day program.
I was impressed by how TKS managed the transition for my son, Safeer Ahmad ,starting Grade 9, transitioning from Middle School to High School. My twin girls, Aroosa and Fareeha, also transition together this year to Grade 4. "At what could be a stressful time for children and their families, the process was smooth, considered and reassuring. Safeer is thriving and happy in Grade 9, and my two girls are very excited to start Grade 4.