Dear parents,

As I write this on Friday morning, I am very much looking forward to today. Today has been set aside as Diverse Planet Day. Throughout the week as I have walked around school, I have seen the students busy preparing and heeding the call for participation in readiness for the exhibitions, the various projects and works they have been involved in on Friday. In Secondary, the presentation will take the form of countries in classrooms. Students will dress up and prepare food and have been active in decorating their classrooms on country themes. I believe there are over 30 countries represented. By accident I visited 'Australia' earlier in the week only to find that the classroom was full of leaves and branches as students were trying to make it into the 'Australian bush'. I just hope that some of the more famous Australian fauna do not make an appearance.

Today is also the culmination of Ecological Week, and again much has happened. I saw the Year 8s making solar ovens on Tuesday, and on Monday the Year 9s were making wind powered vehicles, all putting into practice - the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I thank the parents who were there at this event and when talking to them they were thrilled about the engagement level of all our students.

In Primary as well, there has been a flurry of activity and on Thursday morning we had Earth Hour when appliances and electricity were turned off, and as much as possible the school was cast into shade. The opportunity was made for students to save and reduce energy. As I have stated in previous newsletters, I want to extend this philosophy and make the school greener, not just for one week.

Today the cafeteria is not using any plastic utensils or containers and students have been asked to bring their own containers and their own metal utensils, and we are looking at ways for this to become more permanent. Also, today we end the Eco Week celebrating Diversity, celebrating our planet and by attempting to have a zero-waste picnic in the whole school.

However, I do have to make an apology and a promise to all my Muslim students, parents and staff – next year I will make sure that the picnic does not fall during Ramadan. This has been an oversight on my part and I humbly apologize. I have already given the instruction that this should not occur next year.

Yesterday, on Thursday, we had the Duke of Edinburgh (DoE) award visitors to our school, with 19 of our students who are involved in this being prepared by our visitors on how to live in the jungle for the first stage of the DoE, which is a bronze award. It was a humorous sight as students had to pitch tents on the field, had to make their lunch from scratch (rice and cabbage I am told), and to watch them making the slow realisation that they would have to live like this for two days, and would have to carry all their own provisions and learn to live in the wild without showers or running water and learn to exist in basic conditions. This is just one example of the many opportunities that the school is presenting to students so that they can widen and deepen their education.

We enter a brief but I am sure much needed holiday period. Please have a safe week and look forward to seeing you all after Raya. Thank you for your continuing support.

Kind regards
Stefano Piumatti
Principal of Taylor's International School Puchong