End of a difficult week...

It has been a difficult past couple of weeks for the school and community. We have experienced the loss of great friends of the school and Jaffa community.

Firstly, we heard about the sad passing away of Mr. George Baird in Scotland. Mr. Baird was a great friend and supporter of Tabeetha School. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this time.

Also, the entire Jaffa community was shocked to the core by the news of the sudden passing away of Mr. Joseph Deek, a great friend and family member of many people in Jaffa. His funeral witnessed literally thousands of attendees in procession along Yeffet street in Jaffa, on the way to the Greek Orthodox Church, where the ceremony took place. The procession was led by the scouts of Jaffa, Muslims and Christians, many of whom attend the school. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends.

The general school family is beginning to feel the bite of the winter cold and flu bug, with many teachers away from school.

The Muslim community is celebrating "eid al adha" this weekend. We wish them eid mubarak.
Of course, the rest of the school is continuing on as usual with teaching and learning, preparing for exams in January and planning for Christmas celebrations happening at the end of the school term.

We have a representative from the Israel Cricket Association coming into the school next week Wednesday to introduce the game of cricket to our pupils during PE lessons. Hopefully this will lead to some after school cricket activity.

To end with some good news...One of our grade 4 pupils, Jessica Bekkerman, has been selected to move to the next round of a dance competition towards appearing on the Israeli version of "Dancing with the Stars". We are all very proud of you, Jessica! Well done!

Cruising on autopilot...

Day to day matters arise and are dealt with...staff meetings, parent-teacher meetings, Senior Management Team meetings, we even had to deal with RAIN!! Of course, much needed in our part of the world.

Pupils are preparing for the "Tabeetha's Got Talent" Talent Show next Tuesday, 24 November.

Preparations are nearing an end for the trip to Poland for the Model International Criminal Court session from 11 to 16 December. Preparations for exams have begun, as all pupils will be writing exams in the first week back at school, after the Christmas holidays. Grade 10, 11 and 12 pupils will continue with their Trial Exams through to the end of January.

Today the grade 10 class visited an archaeological dig close to the school. We were treated to a part of Jaffa history dating back to the late 1800s. Special thanks to the members of the Israel Antiquities Authority for taking time out to show us around the site and enrich our historical knowledge.

Back to school...

We have been back to school for a week and a half since our half term break. The principal of the school and his family had a very successful and rewarding time in Scotland. New friendships have been established which will hopefully last a long time.

Since being back this past week, we have been making preparations for winter exams and Christmas activities. We have also been planning for the visit of 12 of our pupils to the Model International Criminal Court in Poland. We are really excited about this adventure! More information can be found at http://www.model-icc.org/.

The Student Council is planning a Talent Show for grade 4 to 12, which will also be used as a fund raising event. This is scheduled for Tuesday 24th November at 6pm. We are expecting to have a lot of fun and see lots of our pupils displaying their many talents (we may even have some teachers strutting their stuff!) Watch this space for details...