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Hear from the Principal 14.12.20

International Schools Award

We’re excited to announce that IVC has been awarded Foundation level of the British Council’s prestigious International School Award in recognition of our work to bring the world into the classroom. The International School Award celebrates the achievements of schools that do exceptional work in international education. Fostering an international dimension in the curriculum is at the heart of the British Council’s work with schools, so that young people gain the cultural understanding and skills they need for life and work in today’s world.

At IVC, we always seek to nurture and expand our students’ knowledge and understanding of the world and their place within it. I am incredibly thankful to everyone who has helped make this happen.


IB student features at IB Global Conference

On Tuesday 8 December, one of our Year 13 students, Emma D. featured in a global virtual choir that included students and teachers from 80 different countries to kick off the International Baccalaureate (IB) Virtual Conference 2020. Performing to the lyrics and music of Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World”, the choir sang messages of hope to the IB community attending the conference, which was conducted by Mr Harold Molina, IBDP Coordinator of the Yorkín School in Costa Rica.

Emma D. was chosen to do the sign language in the video as part of a global DP community, activity and service project. Emma learnt sign language as part of iCAS and has also supported our SENCO with teaching it over the past few months.

Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLmK0u1Dy3U&feature=youtu.be


Student achieves top results in Maths Challenge

Year 10 student Peter B. competed in the UK Maths Challenge last year and did well enough to be included in the follow-up round for the top 1,500 in the country. This puts him in the top 2% or so amongst students who are deemed to be the best at maths in their schools, which in itself is a fantastic achievement! He then performed extremely well in that round, gaining a distinction, which puts him in the top quarter of the very best mathematicians in the entire country. It would be fair to say we are extremely proud of Peter, who has achieved one of the best outcomes in the Maths Challenge in a very long time.


COVID-19 Update

We are pleased to be trialling a new approach to remote learning for our Year 10 students, as over half of the cohort are currently isolating. These students are trialling ‘dialling in’ to live lessons via Microsoft Teams, so they can join their teacher and classmates and not miss out on any lessons during their period of self-isolation. This is working well so far, and we will be taking feedback from teachers, students and their parents before we work on rolling this out across the rest of the College for January, as and when we need to. Years 11-13 have now returned to College full time, with Year 11 and 13 successfully completing their mock examinations.


SchoolCloud: Virtual Parents’ Evening and Academic Tutorials

This week in College we have also had our first Virtual Parents’ Evening for the sixth form, and also held our Academic Tutorial day for Years 7-10. Both were highly successful, with the highest attendance we have had at either event. At the Sixth Form Parents’ Evening, we had over 600 appointments! We are looking forward to getting more use out of the new software after Christmas as we have a busy Spring Term of Parents’ Evenings.


2020 Highlights

Although 2020 has been challenging in many ways, we have had some fantastic highlights that we wanted to share:

  • Kicking off 2020, our students had the exciting opportunity to visit Adea Model Secondary School in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, as part of our college exchange programme
  • In the summer, IVC was once again recognised by the Schools, Students and Teachers network (SSAT) for another year of exceptional Key Stage 4 and 5 exam results
  • In addition to this, our amazing IB students achieved a 100% pass rate; demonstrating their hard work, resilience and dedication when faced with adversity
  • Although we couldn’t meet in person, staff and students still celebrated the Year 13 leavers ball and everyone joined together, from across the world, for a Virtual May Ball – truly something we’ll never forget!
  • Earlier in December, IVC was announced as the top non-selective secondary school in East Anglia, the highest ranked state school outside of Essex in the region and the third non-selective school in the UK by the Sunday Times Parent Power 2021


December 14, 2020