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Wednesday, August 9, 2013 Dear Parents, Welcome! My name is Ms Jessica Kirkby and I will be your childs homeroom teacher in Year 6. I am from Adelaide in South Australia, have lived in Bangkok for the past two years and I love teaching at NIST and being a part of this fantastic school community. This is my 4th school and my 3rd international position, and I have taught upper elementary students in rural South Australia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan, before coming here to Thailand. I am married to Mr Adrian Kirkby who is teaching in the Year 3 team at NIST. We are both keen travellers and love learning about new countries and cultures, and especially meeting people from all over the world. We have already enjoyed many fantastic experiences during our time in Thailand. We also enjoy playing sport and like to spend time exploring the fascinating city in which we live. Adrian and I have another exciting event to look forward to in our family this year, as I am expecting our first child at the end of October. Yes, we are both very excited and just a little nervous! Obviously this will have a major impact on my class as I will be going on maternity leave, however I want to assure you that there has already been a lot of thinking and planning happen about how to support the class during this. The emphasis will be firmly on maintaining stability for all my students with regards to their learning and personal needs. I will let you know as soon as I can about any developments in this area. Please speak with Mr Brett if you have further questions regarding this. My biggest goal as your childs teacher this year is to help him/her develop the skills and attitudes that will help them become an independent learner, and a caring and confident individual. I feel it is very important that children have myriad

chances to practise and increase their communication, organisation and interpersonal skills in a safe and supportive environment. Our learning activities will be challenging and stimulating and aim to develop your child as an enthusiastic, lifelong learner. I will also be expecting the students to meet high standards in regards to attitude, behaviour and effort. I use our class blog as the one of the main forms of communication between myself, the students and you as parents. Information about our class, events and a proportion of our home learning will be located on the class blog, and I encourage the students to be very active users of the blog as well. I also send important information home to you all via email, and will be contacting you later this week with a few beginningof-year considerations and questions. This year our Academic Assistants in Year 6 will be Ms Siew, Ms Jean and Mr Joe. They will assist all students and teachers throughout the year level. I look forward to meeting you all in the coming weeks and greatly appreciate your support in assisting with your childs learning. Should you need to contact me, please use the email address below or send a note along with your child so that an appropriate time for an appointment can be made. Yours sincerely,

Jessica Kirkby Class Teacher 6JK jkirkby@nist.ac.th