Dear Parents,

AISPP takes pride in the fact that our teachers are great – in fact, they are some of the best qualified and most experienced teachers in the world! They have been hired through a rigorous screening process, which includes checking their teaching credentials, their teaching experience, and the references that their prior employers say about them. Once they all arrived at AISPP, we continued to give Professional Development on a weekly basis to be sure that our team is working up to international (Council of International Schools standards framework) and the International Baccalaureate IB programmes. We are delighted to say that we recently received our authorisation for the Diploma Programme (DP) which strengthens our ability to guide our students all the way through to their university applications.

We started to plan for on-line learning already in January, when we first heard about the coronavirus and how it was affecting China and the schools there. Once the government of Cambodia announced that all schools need to be closed, we were ready to go immediately with our on-line programme. Having kept a very close eye on developments in other schools in Cambodia and around the world, we can say with confidence that we were well ahead of most in this.

Google classrooms had already been set up for the year 6 – 10 students with all of their teachers: English, Math, Science, Design, PHE, I & S, etc etc. Google classroom was also a part of the Year 5 class, as they were all well versed in using it for their Exhibition. We added in Years 3 & 4 once we knew we had to start teaching on-line. For the younger years, SeeSaw was already an established platform. All of the teachers connect with the students following a special on-line schedule. We have learned from our colleagues in other schools around the world that a shortened day, 09:00 – 12:30, is the better way to keep the learning moving forward.

Attendance, participation and submission of work are all carefully monitored and a team of people is in place to contact students and parents to check if we see any problems arising, just as if the school campus was open.

It is quite challenging for the students to be home and learning alone too. So, we also have set up a “check-in” classroom to see that everyone is fine. Emotional stress of not being able to come to school, not being able to talk freely with friends and teachers has had an impact on our children. We connect with them as frequently as we can, and are available every afternoon until 16:00 for personal questions and one-on-one teaching, should the student wish.

We also are aware that some of our students have connectivity issues, so they have missed some of their classes or report that they cannot get their homework completed. This is out of our control as a school, but certainly this is a stressor for some of our students who want to be engaged fully in their learning all the time with their class. We continue to support these students every way we can – even sending bandwidth tests to them to see if improvements can be made. Our IT staff make frequent calls to students that have problems with technology.

As we progress into this territory of online learning, we are constantly reviewing and updating our practices and approaches to ensure that we continue to deliver internationally established standards of education. Your role as parents is crucial, as it always has been, in encouraging and supporting your children. We thank you for your ongoing effort.
The coronavirus is an unprecedented challenge to the whole world right now. The unknown of the future (when can we go back to school, when can we travel to see our family, when can we hear other news from the world) is not easy for people of all ages to deal with. We encourage you to continue to speak with your children daily, with patience and support, as they are more anxious about all of this than we adults are.

Please do not hesitate to contact our reception with any questions you have.

Sincerely yours,

Betsy Hanselmann
Head of School