MIDDLE SCHOOL

Dear DAA Middle School Families, 

This weekend will be the Prophet’s birthday (PBUH).  On this past Tuesday morning, Islamic students from elementary, middle, and high school paid homage by reciting the Quran and singing songs about the Prophet’s teachings (PBUH).  It was a wonderful reminder of how kindness and compassion can positively impact the lives of others, and is universal to all people. A huge “thank you” to the Islamic students and staff members who made this possible!

We are at the end of our Fall MAP testing and could not be more proud of our students’ effort.  Overall, the preliminary data are very strong for subjects across all grade levels!  Individual reports will be sent to families after the testing season (end of October or beginning of November).

We are happy to report that, with the easing of restrictions, we are getting students out of classrooms more frequently during lunch times!  Over 2 weeks in the middle school, there are 8 lunch shifts.  Students will be able to get outside on 5 of those days.  On days where they are not able to be outdoors, we will have the commons areas available.  For those students who prefer to be in a classroom, we will still have allocated grade level classroom in which to spend lunch time.  

Our staff and students showed their solidarity with DAAPA for PINK DAY this past Tuesday.  It was wonderful to see so many members of the school community support this wonderful cause!

Slices

In an effort to make our lunch lines efficient, we are asking students to come to school with their School ID.  If students are new, or lost their card, please have them pass by the office to get a temporary card before buying lunch.  This allows Slices staff to quickly serve each of our students.  Parents can easily create their Slices account in order to monitor and top up their student’s account.  

• Login at: https://oasis.gemseducation.com/

• Navigate to: Requests > Catering > Top Up along the left side of the screen.

DAAPA & MS Coffee Morning

We had about 40 parents able to come and hear about some of the great things happening at DAA, and learn about some events happening in the near future.  We had some special guests who came and shared their highlights of the beginning of the school year.  Kudos to our amazing students! 

Lighthouse & DAA Present: Secrets of Parenting an Adolescent

We are pleased to once again partner with the Lighthouse Arabia to provide sessions for our parents on important topics our families face.  All DAA Parents are invited to join us in the auditorium on November 2 at 8am!  See the flyer below for more information. 

Week Without Walls!

Students have now been allocated their trips, the information is located on their student bulletin. The next step is to get the deposit in via GEMS Net or the Gems Connect App to secure their spot! You should have received a unique payment link to pay for your child’s trip yesterday (Oct. 6).  Please see the timeline below, or the Week Without Walls website for more information.  We are all very excited about the opportunities that lay at our student’s feet and can’t wait for February 27 to come! 

If you have any questions we can help you with in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out!  You can contact us by email at  Middleschool_daa@gemsedu.com or by phone at 04 704 9722.  Our staff directory can also be found here and in every edition of SPOTS.

Upcoming Dates!

October 8 - The Prophet’s Birthday (PBUH)

October 10-14 - MAPS Makeups (no retests in the fall)

October 17-18 - Professional Learning Days - No school

October 24 - Diwali - Noon Dismissal 

See the full DAA Events calendar here and information regarding athletics here.

PowerSchool

As a first step, Please create an account as a first step to be able to proceed further. Please use a laptop / desktop browser while registering on PowerSchool Parent portal.

Our IT team have created a help video for this purpose. Kindly follow this short video to create the account https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVWT-l73tj8

Name of the student -  ( please check the email that you received with the confidential information )

Access ID :-  ( please check the email that you have received with the confidential information )

Access Password :- ( please check the email that you have received with the confidential information )

URL To register - https://daa.powerschool.com/public/home.html

Please note that the access ID and password are for you to register your child with powerschool and this is not your powerschool username and password.

If you prefer to follow a guide, please follow this link - 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YtVb24f__8yhw7IFkbTbRi-L1tx2sOuPf4pVJMJ5N1A/view

If you want to install PowerSchool Parent on your mobile device, please use the district code to connect DAA :- QNNZ

To understand features of PowerSchool parent portal , please watch this video  https://youtu.be/9Qc7fC3dCZg

If you have more than one child at DAA ( excluding Elementary School), please follow below instructions to add siblings to your Parent portal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC9j8G3yci4

Google Classroom

If you would like to have access to your child’s Google Classroom, please reach out to your child’s CREW teacher.  They will ensure that your name and email are tethered to your child and you will be able to update your preferences in Google to receive updates daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you are having technical troubles, please make sure to raise a ticket if the teacher is unable to help your child with a fix.  Send an email to helpdesk@gemsdaa.net and they will help you to resolve the issue.