A Message from the Director of Curriculum and Professional Learning

Welcome to the 2011/2012 school year. We are very excited about what lies ahead of us this year as we refresh our strategic plan and continue our focus of ASD as a “learning community”. In saying that I would like to bring attention to several key points that we feel make the American School of Doha stand out as a committed learning focused community.

At first glance we hope that visitors to ASD notice that there is evidence of student learning everywhere throughout the school, from the bulletin boards in the hallways, to displays of student work, to performances in the Fine Arts facility and to the “values learning” you hear being talked about as you visit the dinning hall, the gym or the ball fields.

We believe that learning needs to be recognizable and talked about. If a student can talk about their learning and what they need to do to improve that learning, then we have given them a life-skill that will carry them forward into the world beyond our school. We strive to enable our students to transfer their “school learning” into their lives beyond school, ensuring that they become successful and engaged life-long learners.

We believe that it is crucial that our faculty and leadership team also see themselves as constant learners. To model learning behavior to our students sets an ethos throughout the school. Learning has become a part of the culture of our school.

We also invite parents to join us on our learning journey. We believe that parents need to be active participants in our endeavor to support each student as they deepen understandings, both academically and personally. That means that we, as a “learning-focused” school, need to provide parents with information about our learning initiatives that enables them to join us as active partners on our learning journey.

Our ultimate charge as stated in our newly refreshed mission statement is to guide students to be positive and active global citizens (ASD’s mission statement). We hope that this simple but complex statement will extend into our whole community. Please join us in our quest. We hope you find the evidence of our commitment to learning everywhere you look and in every conversation you have at the American School of Doha.