Beaconhouse Garden Town, Lahore was honoured by the British Council with the International School Award (ISA) in November 2009.

The ISA is an accreditation scheme for curriculum-based international work in schools. It provides recognition for teachers and their schools who have partnered with international schools to develop and incorporate curriculum-based projects.

This not only helps to expand the knowledge pool but the exposure also encourages different schools to learn from and about each other.

Senior Mistress Junior School Timna Kenneth, Headmaster Middle School Mudassar Mehdi, International Coordinator ISA Lubna Bashir, students Hamiz Azam and Ali Shahbaz received the award from CE British Council Martin Davidson.

Beaconhouse Garden Town is now linked with schools across the globe in the USA, UK, Canada, Mexico, Ghana, Japan, Sri Lanka and India forming an effective partnership for joint curriculum-based projects for subjects such as science, social studies, English, art, drama and music.

Winning the ISA was no easy feat and was only made possible through hard work, team effort and the desire to make it happen by all involved.

Beaconhouse students in Malaysia participated in the world’s largest sport stacking event in a bid to create a new Guinness World Record in November 2009. The World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA) gets hundreds of stacking enthusiasts to participate in its annual event held across the globe at multiple locations and they attempt to beat previous records.

This was the 4th annual World Sport Stacking Association’s (WSSA) event, the Malaysian chapter hosted by the Beaconhouse Sri Inai campus in Petaling Jaya. Each Stacker had to Speed Stack 12 special plastic cups for 30 minutes, which meant continuous up-stacking and down-stacking of cups at rapid speed.

About 800 students from various schools in Malaysia and Singapore took part in the exciting event which encourages hand-eye coordination, improves motor-skills, concentration, speed, focus and creative thinking.The event has gained much popularity and this year approximately 250,000 stackers from the United States of America, Germany, Canada, Japan, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and other countries are expected to compete as compared with 222,560 stackers last year.

In the event that a record is broken, the contestants get a certificate of participation by WSSA and Guinness World Records.

What is Sport Stacking?

Sport Stacking (also known as cup stacking or speed stacking) is an individual and team sport that involves stacking specialized plastic cups in specific sequences in as little time as possible. Participants of sport stacking stack cups in pre-determined sequences, competing against the clock or another player. Sequences are usually pyramids of three, six, or ten cups.

Courtesy Wikipedia

Beaconhouse has been awarded four public schools in Abu Dhabi to manage and operate under an improvement programme initiated by the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC).

The remit is to increase general school performance, with special emphasis on significant improvement of academic results in English, Maths and problem-solving skills for Grade 10-12 students.

An international team of specialists headed by a Project Director has been assembled, and includes School Improvement Coordinators, Native English Speaking teachers, Bilingual Maths teachers, Teaching and Learning Advisors, ICT Coordinators and Special Education Needs Coordinators.  The five key objectives that Beaconhouse will be focusing on are:

• Improved Quality of Learning and Student Outcomes
• Improved Quality of Leadership
• Improved Quality of Teaching
• Promotion of UAE Heritage & Culture
• Improved Environment and Community Links

The project is in its early stages but Beaconhouse expects it to lead to further involvement in other improvement programmes.

The Beaconhouse Group has announced the acquisition of Newlands School in Seaford, in the south eastern county of Sussex.

Newlands, a Prep to Sixth Form School with a nursery attached, is located near the new national park of the South Downs and lies on the coast between the dynamic city of Brighton and the popular resort of Eastbourne.

The school sits in 21 acres of grounds and some second storey classrooms overlook the sea. Facilities include a Sports Centre, swimming pool and excellent student social rooms that cover a wide range of activities.

The school has boarding facilities and there are plans to develop both the International Studies Centre and an Adventure Centre. Future details will be published later in the year.

Link to the school website is: www.newlands-school.com

Beaconhouse Gulf has acquired a new office in Knowledge Village Dubai – DKV - the leading regional destination for human resource management providers. This move makes Beaconhouse Group a stakeholder in Dubai’s knowledge pool, moving it further into the knowledge-based economy.

DKV enjoys the distinction of being the world’s only Free Zone cluster totally dedicated to human resources management professionals. The 738 sq ft Beaconhouse office is currently undergoing renovation work and will be functional soon.

This year, an impressive 40% of the total 2,377 students who appeared in the GCE O Level Examinations gained 5 or more As, with a significant number securing 8 As. Similar results were achieved in the A Level examinations with 31% of the 1,372 students scoring 2 As and above.  BSS Pakistan currently runs 30 O level programmes across the country and 18 A Level programmes in 10 major cities in its three geographical regions, North, South and Centre.