12 April 2022

Assalaam ‘Alaikum Dear Parents and Ramadan Mubarak!

Working through the Pandemic

This has been a very challenging term for everyone and we appreciate most sincerely your patience with ongoing notifications, having your children PCR tested and having your children at home. InshaAllah the worst of the Pandemic is now behind us. Alhamdulillah, despite having so many of our staff and students who had to isolate or who came down with COVID, the school kept running and students kept learning. Unfortunately the pandemic and the stress on students and staff has also meant that we have had to cancel our Grand Iftar, our Ali Baba Book Fair and our Eid Festival. Raising money for charity is an important part of what we do at AIC, so we will hope to complete some fundraising activities this term.

 

The pandemic has caused considerable difficulty for all students and teachers in schools across the country in maintaining their normal curriculum expectations. At AICA we will be addressing this by spending the first part of Term 2 revising and reviewing Term 1, improving our online preparation for classes and bringing in more support through SSO’s. Parent Teacher Night has now been delayed until Term 2.

New Head of Curriculum

This term we are pleased to welcome Br. Zamri as Head of Curriculum. Having taught in Singapore, Br. Zamri has most recently taught in a number of our local schools in Adelaide, and is also lecturing in the Education department of the University of South Australia. He has spent Term 1 in assessing our curriculum planning and teaching in the Maths area, and will be working with our teachers to ensure that we have the best teaching and most thorough planning to cover all of the required teaching in all subjects across the school.

School Improvements

Around the school you may have seen lots of improvements, and these improvements are continuing. New photocopiers will be installed across the school, and a Primary Staff room with a collegial environment is underway to ensure that teachers in primary are able to meet and discuss in order to improve teaching.

Our new communication system which plays duas and encouraging nasheed has replaced the single blast of sound, and helps primary staff, secondary staff and students recognize what the bell is for. This system also help us send messages to students and teachers in the class. We now also have a system for making announcements across the school.

You may also have noticed that we are gradually greening the school – with plants around the school, more trees and bushes being planted and more on the way.

Events in Term 1

Although we have had few events during this time Harmony Day was wonderful for the students and we have had some wonderful visitors, including the famous footballer Bashar Houli (expected Week 11), and an internationally renowned professor of Astronomy Prof Mohammad Ilyas who discussed with the Senior students setting up an Astronomy Club.

We are currently running a Cultural Ancestry Competition which came out of a concern during Harmony Day that many students did not know much at all about their cultural background, history or even stories of their parents or grandparents. We have now extended this competition till Term 2 to give plenty of time for students to make wonderful posters.

Student Leadership

For our Student leadership team which includes School Captain (Kamal Shahabudin), Vice Captain (Rida Baig), Prefect of Religion (Ameer Kadeh) and the SRC (17 this year), we are planning some more explicit leadership training in order to assist these capable young men and women into leadership throughout the community.

Parent Committee

Although we have not been able to meet throughout the term due to COVID, we would welcome new faces on our Parent Committee and the opportunity to hear from our parents on how to improve our school and its services. Please do email [email protected] if you would like to nominate yourself to our Parent Committee for 2022.

Welcome to new Teachers

This term we have welcomed into the school a number of new teachers including:

  • Ms. Agnieszka Becek – teaching English, HASS, Health, Art while also supervising Pastoral Care and VET
  • Ms. Ayah Merhi – a former student, who is teaching in the Junior Primary
  • Mr. Ali Cheema – currently working part-time as he is also a University lecturer, teaching Accounting and Business Innovation
  • Ms. Dosina Hasin – teaching Science

Although we know that the pandemic will continue to be something that we need to live with, InshaAllah in Term 2 we will be able to focus again on our studies, on exciting excursions and events, straight after a wonderful Eid together.

Ramadan Mubarak,

Wassalaam ‘alaikum

Mrs Silma Ihram

Principal