In many ways 2020 will be a year we’d all rather forget but we are reminded that ‘Events are neither good or bad - it’s our evaluations that make them so’ (Ellen Langer, Professor Of Psychology at Harvard University) and at Alice Smith we have had a lot to celebrate this year! Here are some of our highlights.
January
We began the year with a shortlisted entry in the International School Awards ‘Digital Technology in Learning Initiative’ category. Embedding digital tools in the way we teach MFL at Secondary School was giving fantastic results. We couldn’t have known how important our digital expertise would become later in the year!
January also saw our students achieving great results in their EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) with an amazing 10 students awarded an A* and overall 82% of students achieved A*-B.
February
Our Year 13’s began receiving their university offers and we celebrated Max receiving a Music scholarship to study at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and four of our students receiving offers to study at Cambridge.
In our Primary School the Year 2’s were enjoying finding out about how to become astronauts and composing letters to persuade NASA to make them the first school children to go into space!
March
April
The MCO continued, preventing us from going out and about in the Easter break, but undeterred the #KLASSCommunity pulled together with a range of activities to keep us busy indoors. From PE Challenges to Easter Baking and from Extreme Reading to Kitchen Science - there was something for everyone!
May
In May we asked ‘So what is life like for our students right now? The project offered our Secondary Students the chance to document how the world looked to them, one day at a time and the results are fascinating.
The MCO continued but we still found ways to celebrate one of the biggest festivals of the year, Hari Raya, and our Primary Students got all dressed up for it!
June
June saw our first ever virtual graduation as we wished farewell and good luck to our #KLASSof2020. Our staff ventured onto TikTok to record them messages and don’t be fooled by the graduation photo it’s made up of all the individual ones #PhysicalDistancing!
We congratulated Lauren who signed for Aston Villa Football Academy and celebrated with Adam whose passion for jersey design on Animal Crossing ended up with him collaborating with @WorldRugby!
We also received the fabulous news that Alice Smith had been shortlisted for the International Independent School of the Year. While we didn’t win overall, being placed in the Top Four International Schools Globally is a wonderful achievement of which we are exceptionally proud.
July
The academic year ended with our students and teachers working virtually and although our campuses had been closed since mid March our learning had never stopped. We awarded all our primary students lockdown medals to celebrate their resilience and achievements.
There was more student success with the news that Rebecca (Year 10) had been awarded 2nd place in the Humanities category of the Academic Exploration Competition held by the Oxbridge Society of Malaysia and KLASS alumna Jun Li wrote to share her recent success in the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) Student Assessment scheme and how she attributed part of success to her study of A Level Literature.
August
It may have been the school holidays but things are never quiet at Alice Smith! August saw us welcome our new teachers to the school, once they had successfully quarantined, along with new Principals at both campuses, Mr. Alan McCarthy, our new Primary Principal, and Dr Maria Osowiecki, our new Secondary Principal.
At the Primary School 23 Teaching Assistants successfully completed the COBIS Diploma for International Teaching Assistants (DITA) and our Lead Teaching Assistant, Jennifer, successfully completed the COBIS Diploma for International Lead Teaching Assistants (DILTA).
Our A Level students received their results and well over 90% of them confirmed offers from their first choice universities.
September
With SOPS in place we finally headed back to campus! It was good to be back in school to start the new academic year. We hoped online learning was behind us.
October
It wasn’t to be though and just before the half term break Kuala Lumpur was placed back under the CMCO and we all headed home again. Virtual learning - Take 2!
November
We headed towards the end of the year as we started it - shortlisted in the International School Awards. We’ve two entries this year in the Wellbeing and Inclusion categories and are immensely proud of the work our teams have been doing in these two incredibly important areas.
November also saw our HE Counselling team launch their new lecture series collaborating with Universities from across the UK, Malaysia and Australia and two of our Secondary Students, Anandita and Aaliya, saw success in the Sunway National Poetry Slam taking first place in the Senior and second place in the Junior categories respectively.
December
With no Christmas Concert this year our KLASS Musicians have provided us with a wonderful Advent Calendar of Carols and our virtual enrichment activities are in full swing again as house teams ‘Race across Malaysia’ and bake their Gingerbread Houses! You can follow all our Christmas postings on the hashtag #KLASSyChristmas.
2021 is our 75th Anniversary!
In 1946, Alice Fairfield-Smith, our Founder, had not planned to set up a British International School but unable to find a suitable school for her daughter she took up the challenge and innovated, with the first classes taught in her own home. In 2020 our students have again been learning in their homes but a school is not it’s buildings, it’s the community that it represents and an event is what we make of it! #KLASSCommunity
Happy New Year! Here's to 2021!