LEARNING WELL, ENJOYING LIFE, EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

Al Rayyan Record

Dear parents,

What a week we have had!

It started on Sunday with the heavy rain and floods. The children were so excited to see rain, then even

more rain then the gigantic puddles. Who would have thought so much rain could fall in one day in

Qatar? Special thanks to the maintenance team and Security Guards for helping us to negotiate the

streams of water running in front of the school. Most of us kept fairly dry and there was not too much

disruption!

This was followed by Parent Teacher consultations. It was lovely to hear so much positivity from parents

and children and the teachers were delighted to share your child’s progress with you and hear your

feedback. Both staff and children have worked very hard this term so we can definitely say they deserve

a holiday!

The Rayyan Production, Blast Off, has not been far from anyone’s thoughts in the last few weeks. The

children have rehearsed their lines, songs and acting skills and really pulled together, to produce a

fantastic show. This was quite an achievement for our music teacher, Ann Lerche and our budding

drama teachers, Miss Leahy and Mrs Ryan. They worked tirelessly on the script and music, not to

mention the logistics of getting everyone in the right place at the right time with the right costume!

They managed to involve the whole school-over 300 children- in the show, each with their own part to

play. From Early Years to Year 6, the children performed amazingly well and gained speaking skills and

Dates for the diary:

Sunday 12th April- school resumes

Thursday 16th April – Parents Coffee Morning 7.30 am

Sunday 19th April – ECAs begin

Tuesday 21st April- Assembly EY1a

Thursday 23rd April International Day

The White Holes

LEARNING WELL, ENJOYING LIFE, EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

Al Rayyan Record

confidence in the process. I would like to thank the teachers, staff and children for the enormous

amount of work and effort that went into producing the show and props.

Next term we will hold a whole school event for International Day on the 23rd April. We are looking

forward to hearing your ideas and seeing some of you represent your countries and share your culture

and traditions with us. Please see the notice board in the Reception area for more details or contact

your class teacher if you want to participate. If you are travelling during the holidays, it might be a good

time to find a typical costume or item to bring to school.

School will close today, 26th March for the holiday and reopen on Sunday 12th April at 6.45am.

Have a lovely holiday and enjoy spending time with the family in the pleasant spring weather.

Please do not hesitate to contact the School Secretary, Mrs Sally Horton rayyan@wclschools.org for

any administrative matters or myself if you have any concerns or issues.

Kind regards

Ann Djedid

Head of Campus

Compass Al Rayyan

rayyanprincipal@wclschools.org

Year 3 reporters Mr and Mrs Horton!

LEARNING WELL, ENJOYING LIFE, EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

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The idea for ‘Blast Off’ took seed last November, the original play was

written over 28 years ago for the Chichester Music Festival and it has

always been a great favourite of mine. In its original format the play

was not suitable for Rayyan so one Friday morning in early December I

parked myself at Miss Gilberts and that day we wrote a new script for

Rayyan. We presented this to Staff and children and before the end of

term auditions had been held and parts given.

In many ways, that was the easy part! January proved to be the month

where momentum, enthusiasm had to be reignited, often difficult on a

Thursday ECA. We all know that end of the week feeling of wanting to

get away.

There were 4 of us in this production, myself teaching the

music/actions/dance, Mrs Sarah Ryan and Miss Fiona Leahy

directing the drama, and Miss O’Toole in charge of props. If there

are words to describe ‘my team’ it would be – supportive,

encouraging and positive.

‘Blast Off’ is ambitious – it is an opportunity for all children to

act, sing, move and dance…..to perform as an individual and part

of an ensemble. To have an opportunity of performing in a real

show about themselves ……….to be a ‘Glee’

performer if you have ever watched the show.

Performing is not simply about learning songs and lines, to perform also requires

personal confidence, poise and presence in the moment. Children learn a lot about

themselves through performance experience. That is why it is so

important to offer the experience of ‘Blast Off’.’

Blast off!

Mr Horton and the children

Prop Making Club

Year 1 during Dress Rehearsal

Aliens handing out programmes!

LEARNING WELL, ENJOYING LIFE, EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

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The ECA production troop met on Thursdays in the Music

Room with Mrs Sara Ryan and Miss Fiona Leahy, early on a

timetable was put together as to who was needed each

week, the remainder were taken by Mrs Lerche to go over

their lines/songs. A whole run through came about just 2

weeks ago, staging a week after and finally the full stage

and props this week.

The play has 31 speaking parts, so a lot of concentration is

needed to know lines, cues and who they are following.

The cast have been super, we have seen their confidence

growing day by day, and they are now keen for

performance day.

Each child has brought their own talent to the production, we

have many talented actors which you will see by their character

performance on stage. It would be unfair of me to name

individuals without mentioning them all, but I will mention the

keenness of some who learned their lines in a week, those who

overcame stage fright to act, and others who persevered in

learning their lines.

For myself, the reward is seeing children growing into their roles, the enthusiasm mounting, children

appearing at your classroom door wanting to go over their parts, the wide smile of a child when they

know their 5 lines, hearing over-enthusiastic singing, ………..whatever the result, these experiences will

remain with your children and me forever. Never underestimate the power of music and drama.

Enjoy Rayyan ‘s performance of Blast Off!

Ann Lerche

Building the space ship

The Black Holes

The White Holes

LEARNING WELL, ENJOYING LIFE, EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

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In mathematics, we have been very busy

estimating, measuring and comparing the length,

volume and weight of objects using non-

standard units. We used our hand-spans to

measure the length of various areas in the

classroom. We measured the volume and

capacity of objects by checking how many

cupful’s/cubes a container holds and compared

them. We also used scales and cubes to measure

different objects and test how many cubes made the scales balance. We had lots of fun and were very

active in our learning!

In English we have been very noisy through learning onomatopoeia words! BANG!

ZAP! BOOM! We worked in our co-operative learning groups to brainstorm words

and then used these words to create a group poem. We are super writers!

Last Wednesday, Year 1C attended Sheikh

Faisal’s Transport Museum as part of our IPC topic ‘From A to B’. We

had great fun looking at various collections within the Museum,

especially the aeroplanes, boats and old cars!

Also as part of this topic we have been learning about push and pull

forces. So far, we have tested these forces by pushing and pulling our

friends on the bikes outside and by making paper aeroplanes. We

tested our aeroplanes, in groups, to see which model was best for

flying. It was great fun!

Learning in Y1c

LEARNING WELL, ENJOYING LIFE, EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

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Year 6 IPC Unit: Fairgrounds- Energy, force light and sound.

What better way to begin such an exciting unit than with a visit to Gondolania - a real fairground.

Experiencing first-hand the effect of lights, sounds and how things work, challenged our senses and

stimulated our thinking. This, followed by a good few weeks of experiments and hands on learning… and

the result is…. A science fair!

The planning was thorough. Each student chose an electrical item to make and began to think it out.

How many wires are needed? Where does the switch go? Where does the energy come from? How does

the electricity pass through my circuit? How will I present my project? So many questions! The day

arrived and eager parents gathered outside our classroom door… the big day had arrived! From that

moment on each student shone! They demonstrated their knowledge admirably in the explanation

given. They all spoke clearly and confidently and never tired in telling all who came to visit about their

project! The variety of projects showed the diverse thinking of the class and the courage they have to

explore many different ideas. Each project showcased an aspect of the learning that had taken place in

class.

Y6 Science Fair

Aboud, Micah and Luke Are you ready?

Marco Airlines It was a busy morning

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As a teacher, I could not have asked for more from my class. I watched with a happy heart as they all

shared, supported and communicated. This is learning in action. I would like to thank all the students in

my class for the hard work they put into each and every project. For the marvelous way they handled a

whole morning of telling a very large crowd of fellow students hoe their project worked. Thank you Year

6 for your willingness to go the extra mile! You are great scientists in the making!

To all the classes who came through our door… thank you as well for your interest!

A science fair would never be the success it is without the continued support from home, and I would

like to thank all the parents for the patience, generosity and support they offered in the making of all

the children’s projects. Thank you for making our day the success it was.

Pat Burchell

Year 6 class teacher.

Luke’s amazing helicopter Nasser’s steady hand game

Khalid testing the crowd It’s done! We are so happy and excited.

Sofia doing us proud! Yejin