HELLO DAA COMMUNITY

Welcome. We hope you have had an enjoyable summer; we are so pleased to have you back at school. As with every year the traffic in the opening weeks of school is particularly hectic. The school is welcoming hundreds of new families to our community that will be assessing their routes and timings to get to school. The school gates open from 7am providing a 40 minute drop off period. We have worked closely with our neighbors ASD and the gap between our start times is now at 40 minutes. 

We know in the opening weeks many parents want to personally drop their child to school but in the coming days and weeks many gravitate toward using our schools’ buses. Our buses are an excellent way in reducing the congestion in Barsha 1 and our buses are also fuel with biofuel. We have always been strongly committed towards being environmentally conscious in order to reduce carbon emissions and contribute to mitigating climate change. The biofuel is a type of renewable energy source derived from plant and waste materials. It burns cleanly and improves the quality of tailpipe emissions, thereby improving the overall air quality for everyone which we know is of particular importance to the children here at DAA.  

Soon our after-school activities programs will start, and this too will reduce the number of parents trying to arrive at school at dismissal time and this makes a notable difference.

We would also encourage families and drivers to take a moment to review google maps. Again, in collaboration with our neighboring school ASD we will continue to use the alternative exit route heading on to Sheikh Zayed Road. This route allows traffic to quickly leave Barsha 1, avoiding the traffic on Al Na’ayat Street and the ASD/Saudi German Traffic lights. 

We continue to work with both the RTA and Dubai Police on measures that may help improve traffic flow. The roads to the front of the school are RTA owned and a collective voice will undoubtedly help support our requests for a traffic flow review. The school’s support staff, and security team are all deployed to the RTA roads and have participated in a traffic safety courses – organized by the General Directorate of Traffic. 

Whilst the presences of a police car certainly helps to improve the situation, the police car may not be available every day. We are encouraged by the Dubai Police to support the school and members of our community to be upstanding and where dangerous or irresponsible driving happens, we should look to the use the Dubai Police App. The app or non-emergency hotline 901 can be used to take photos and video to report traffic offences. Owners of these vehicles will be contacted by the authorities where the appropriate action can be taken against those that choose to drive dangerous outside of our school. Overall whilst no one enjoys Dubai traffic our community has been incredible understanding and supportive of endeavors to ensure student safety. Only if we all work together can we ensure that this endures and that outside of the boundary walls our culture of kindness continues to shine. 

Have a safe and wonderful weekend with those you love and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Jemma Lewis 

Manager, School Operations

The 2022/2023 academic year brings new collaborative and creative opportunities for the amazing Emirati members of our DAA family to enrich our appreciation of the Emirati culture, and to bring our wider community closer through new initiatives and cultural events. 

Our Emirati parents are invited to join us for a Virtual Emirati Parent Coffee Morning on Tuesday, Sept. 13th at 11:30 am. Please use the following Zoom link to access the meeting. 

https://us05web.zoom.us/j/2165869454?pwd=QXZSYTJLWHlGQnpjN0dITE1mS0lVZz09

Meeting ID: 216 586 9454

Passcode: 897tGJ

We also look forward to kicking off our new season of Zayed Crew, by meeting with our Emirati students this upcoming Wednesday, Sept. 14th, 2022 at 3:00 pm in the ground floor conference room at DAA. 

For any questions about the meetings or the initiatives, feel free to contact Mrs. Noha Bishara via email at n.bishara_daa@gemsedu.com

Looking forward to seeing you all at the meetings! 

Thanks, 

Noha Bishara 

Assistant Principal – Elementary School