Welcome to Renaissance International School of Egypt, (RISE family), as the new Principal of RISE, I am delighted that the school’s values align with my own personal values, including the importance of trust, respect, innovation, team work and a deep sense of community service.
We offer our learners a comprehensive education from Pre-k up to Year 12 (British Approach, American Core & IB Way).
We are a blended caring community where students’ well-being is a priority and where both, traditional and modern, educational values are respected and encouraged to coexist.
RISE offers an extensive enrichment programme, aimed at providing a
challenging academic, sports and co-curricular environment emphasizing
learning, as well as social and personal growth.
At RISE, we are progressing forward following
our strategic development plan to make RISE one of the top schools in El Sherouk
City.
Teaching and learning is at the core of RISE. We
create opportunities for our teachers to work collaboratively and share
evidence-informed practice, as existing beliefs are challenged and extended.
We focus on and develop the greatest source of variance that can make the difference, our ‘teachers’.
We ensure that this greatest influence on student achievement and well-being is optimized to having not only positive effects on the learners, but exceptional ones.
Active, engaging, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, experiential and
reflective learning opportunities where colleagues see themselves as life-long
learners, linking new knowledge and skills to their existing set, builds our
teachers’ capacities.
Effective teaching and learning at RISE is
accompanied by robust ‘assessment for learning’ and ‘assessment of learning’
strategies.
Optimal classroom climates for learning exist, where error is welcomed, where student questioning is high, where engagement is the norm, and where students are active and effective learners.
We focus on student-teacher relationships where teachers respect students as learners and demonstrate care and commitment for them.
We focus on building teachers’ capacity to engage students in learning and developing in their students’ self-regulation, involvement in mastery learning, enhanced self-efficacy, and self-esteem as learners.
Digital learning is imperative for us (we are IPAD School), as we believe that technology empowers students to have an element of control over the pace, time, place and path of learning.
Our focus is on providing our students with an enriched digital literacy experience. Developing a vision for what a digitally literate school looks like underpins our developmental strategies and processes. Our digital goals are led by questions about how our learners will thrive in a networked social context, how we address our learners’ expectations about the digital environment and forms of digital learning in which they will be engaged.
Our focus is also on digital citizenship that enables our students to
abide by the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to
technology use.
Enrichment clubs and societies have an important
role to play in enriching the curriculum at RISE.
For us, being at school is not just about what students do within classrooms, it is about acquiring the skills to go into society, it is about widening horizons, it is about building their self-esteem and self-confidence and showing students they can be a pianist or a scientist.
Extensive sports and
co-curricular activities at RISE ensure our students get the chance to succeed
in different areas, and they then take this success and use it to overcome
barriers in the subjects they find difficult. It enables them to see the
viability and importance of having a growth mind-set in life.
I strongly believe in the importance of
teachers, parents, and administrators collaborating and communicating openly
and frequently.
For me, RISE must stand in the ranks of world class schools where
students are equipped with knowledge, skills and confidence to thrive in a
challenging international environment where those who succeed take risks and
continually pursue improvement.
I hold my social responsibility very dear to my
heart. I believe in behaving ethically and with sensitivity toward social,
cultural, economic and environmental issues.
With this position of responsibility and influence, I am carrying forward the momentum with which I have always taken a pro-active role in life by walking my talk and role modeling, where I have persuaded colleagues to reflect on and modify their teaching and professional practices.
This, for me, lies at the heart of transformative and instructional leadership, leading to sustainable and deep change. I will continue to work for the larger benefit of the students.
For me personally, we are at a crucial time where we need to ride the wave of change, build momentum, spring board on our past success and embrace new ambitions for the future we want. At the core of all of this is real and sustainable development, which must become a living reality for every person, be it our students, our teachers, our parent body, the community, associated with RISE and beyond.
I assure my students and parents that I will continue to ‘be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand and then to be understood.
Sincerely,
Doudou Elguindy
RISE School Principal
