Community Celebrations

Community Celebrations

Dear members of the Pan-American School Community,

I hope that this message finds you and your family safe and well as we come to the October break. 

Sports Events at PAS

It has been wonderful to see our basketball, volleyball, and soccer teams playing games once again, and our basketball teams preparing for the AASCA tournament in late October.  Thanks to our Coordinator, Jessica, and our coaches Andres, Alberto, Farid, Gabriela, Marcelo, Oscar, Valeria, and Yuliana for all their efforts in preparing our students - and to the participation and support of parents as they help make the events off campus, or out of regular school hours a success.

If you have any comments or suggestions about our ECE, Primary or Secondary Sports programs, please feel free to let us know via this survey.

Community Celebrations and Events

As part of our commitment to creating a welcoming, engaged, and connected community for all, we have been running events over recent weeks to recognize and celebrate all aspects of our shared community. Building on initiatives that we started in recent years, we have been able to celebrate important moments such as: 

And so much more in and out of the classroom.

This week, our students have been engaging in Cultural Celebrations Week, and we look forward to them learning more about the cultures that are represented at Pan-American School via the Cultural Exchange which will take place tomorrow, Friday, 7 October.  Thanks to those parents and members of the community who have agreed to support this event.

We have also been making a conscious effort to recognize the different cultural celebrations of the members of our community; whether they be ceremonies and celebrations such as Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, Christmas, Chinese Lunar New Year, and more. 

Student Safeguarding Initiatives at PAS

As part of our commitment to Child Safeguarding, and creating a “welcoming, engaged, and connected community for all”, we regularly engage in awareness-raising activities related to issues that affect our students.  This semester we will recognize and make visible international events aimed at reducing stigma and discrimination, such as:

As an example of how we will host these events, for Spirit Day on Thursday 27 we will: offer students the option to dress in purple for a casual day if they wish to; student volunteers will host a bake sale to raise funds for a charity that day; students will be welcome to sign an “inclusiveness pledge” if they wish; and teachers will share short, age-appropriate messages around the theme of inclusiveness and being an ally. For International Stuttering Awareness Day, which is not on a school day, our teachers will share information and insights to help represent and normalize stuttering in our community, as they have done in recent years.

As a community, we want to help all students understand that Pan-American School is a safe and welcoming community in which we are all welcome, irrespective of our differences. If you have any feedback about these issues related to child safeguarding, please feel free to share it here.

Definition of High-Quality Learning

Since January 2022, our education team has been working hard to create a definition of High-Quality Learning which will help inform all initiatives at Pan-American School over the years to come. This is the result of the efforts of all members of our community and is based on extensive research into learning.  

The PAS Definition of High-Quality Learning is based on learning that is: 

  • Social
  • Complex,  Challenging and Continual
  • Belonging
  • Empowering 
  • Connected, Conceptual, and Contextual 
  • Inspiring

We will share additional information over the coming months to show how we are making this a reality for all learners from Play Kids to Grade 12.

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We hope that all our students have a restful break next week. Please be aware that teachers will be on break, and most educational administrators will also be on leave next week- but we look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday, 17 October.

Proud to be PAS,

 

Alan Wrafter

General Director

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