HIGH SCHOOL

January 7, 2021

Dear DAA HS Parents,

We sincerely hope that you had a well deserved break and spent time with your family and friends over the holidays. It has been lovely to see your children's well rested faces both in the halls and in zoom, invigorated from the time off.

Our team is ecstatic to share the following news with you. Two of our students sat the November IB exams and passed! We can now proudly say that we have a 99.4% pass rate with a fully inclusive cohort of 158 students, the biggest cohort in the UAE. Our overall average is a 35, well above the world average. We are proud of all of our Leopards for pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone and achieving such fantastic results and are now thriving in universities around the world.

As we prepare for the second semester, we will be sharing a series of parent information nights providing information on our academic programs such as AP, IB and subject selection for next academic year. We are already preparing a more robust academic program for next year and will also be surveying students and yourselves for additional course offerings your family is interested in.

Thank you for your support as always.

With thanks,

Tammy Jochinke

High School Principal

Student Spotlight

Calling all high school female students to take notice of the upcoming competition “GIRLS’ SYMPOSIUM”. This is a student-led competition, the purpose of which is to spur creativity and nurture ideas by female students. It was initiated by Vedha Sitlani, a DAA 11th grade student who aspired to provide a platform for girls to bring forward ideas and receive feedback from some of the most influential women spearheading innovation in the UAE. Vedha has reached out to some amazing leaders who have graciously volunteered to judge the competition. They include:

Joy Ajlouny, founder of Fetchr (dubbed the number one start-up in the Middle East by Forbes)
Mona Ataya, founder of Mumzworld
Donna Benton, founder of The Entertainer
Dana Baki, co-founder of MUNCH:ON

For more information, please visit https://www.thegirlssymposium.com/ or register via THIS LINK.

We look forward to seeing the creativity and talent of our students shine through!

We are extremely proud to honor Rita Dahi who is DAA's winner of the coveted Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Award for Excellence.

The Sheikha Fatima Award is a prestigious distinction awarded to one female student in each GEMS school who displays outstanding academic success, commitment to social responsibility and global citizenship.

Rita has been a stellar example of these attributes and DAA is extremely proud of her accomplishments.

The award ceremony will take place in the spring, but Rita along with her parents were presented with the official letter by Mrs. Murphy and Jochinke this week.

Congratulations Rita!

Gowns for Graduation

We have started planning for Graduation, our most awaited event of the year. In the next few days we will roll out the Graduation Ensemble Portal where our seniors can buy and personalize their gowns and caps. Please look out for an email with instructions that will be sent through by next week.

Exam Schedule

We have just a couple short weeks before the end of the semester, exam schedule with information is found below. You will notice several changes, we scaled back the number of ‘in person’ traditional exams.

Exam letter with additional important information

Exam Studying Advice

As exams are approaching, we realize that this can also result in an increase in anxiety or nervousness surrounding these larger assessments. Our best advice is preparation. The more preparation one can do leading up to the exams, the more confident and relaxed one will feel heading into the exam. Below is a link to the HS Hub with some further advice about study techniques that are found to be effective.

HS Hub Exam Advice

Yearbook Ordering Information:

Our 2019-2020 High School Yearbooks are in and they look amazing!

To get your copy, please pay 100aed through the Parent Portal and have your high schooler pick up the copy from Ms. Roma. Alternatively, you may pay 100aed in our ground floor Accounts office. Once you get your receipt, proceed directly to Ms. Roma where she will be able to assist you.

While this past year has been challenging to say the least, our Yearbook and the students and staff who created it, did a wonderful job highlighting the special memories from last academic year.

Josh Doubleday

Assistant Principal High School

High School Counseling Corner

1.5.21 SPOTS HS Counseling .pdf

Did you know how many clubs are up and running at DAA? Click HERE for more!

MS/HS Musical is Coming Soon!

The HIGH SCHOOL HUB hopes to provide students and their parents/guardians with an important resource in various areas of the high school including but not limited to areas such as: the IB, AP, Counseling department, Student Council, CAS, HS Program of Studies to name a few.

We hope you find this new resource helpful.