One family

One family , One dream to be the best.

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Welcome to Arabic@GAA

       Welcome to you in the Arabic and Islamic blog for English Native Speakers. Actually, our aim from this blog is to make one family consists of teachers and parents. This means that we are going to make a connection between the Arabic staff and the parents in a way to make everything easier and to let your kids take more benefits in Arabic and Islamic. In this blog you will find many things like videos, images, links, which help your kids a lot in learning. We will update you with the weekly plan, Homework and everything we are going to manage.

       Please, if you have any question and if you want  to ask about anything don’t hesitate , we are ready to help you and your kids to reach the best together

Arabic @GAA

Arabic Language, Islamic Education and UAE Social Studies @ GAA:

Scheduling of the local syllabus is a little complex and in some cases fails to satisfy all individual and family preferences.   We know and appreciate the difficulties created when some of our students are provided with daily schedules that differ from others.  We are doing everything we can to satisfy as many students and families as we can while fulfilling our legal obligation to provide instruction in these subjects.  In fact we are engaging in some action research this year in UAE Social Studies and look forward to your feedback on toward the end of Q2

What follows is a brief explanation of our approach to delivery of the local syllabus in 2010—2011

·         We are fully compliant with the law of Abu Dhabi regarding instruction in these three core subjects.

·         All classes must be conducted within the regular school day (7:45 am  - 2:45 pm)  to qualify  with the Ministry of Education. 

·         Individual student assignments to these three classes is based on information provided to the school during time of admission.  Generally, country of origin (Arab, Non-Arab) and religion (Muslim, Non-Muslim) as stated in official documents like passports and birth certificates inform these class placements.

Arabic Language:

The Ministry of Education requires us to provide the following level of instruction:

Non-Arab Passport	All Grades	4 lessons per cycle
Arab Passport	Gr. 1-Gr. 3	6 lessons per cycle
Arab Passport	Gr. 4-Gr. 6	5 lessons per cycle
Arab Passport	Gr. 7-Gr. 12	4 lessons per cycle

·         For the teaching and learning of the Arabic Language we have expanded the Arabic Team this year to provide at least two adults in each class – to allow for ability groupings within both the Native and non-Native streams. 

·         Non - Arab students attend Physical Education classes while Arabic students receive additional Arabic Language tuition.

·         A third period of PE has been added to the schedule this year to ensure that every student in our school has the opportunity to enjoy PE (and start to develop healthy lifestyle habits) at least once per week.

Islamic Education:

·         All students of the Muslim faith (as defined by the formal documents presented during admissions process) attend Islamic Education classes twice per cycle. 

·         Arab and Muslim students receive Islamic Education in the Arabic Language; Non-Arab students receive Islamic Education in English.

·         Other students attend different Specialist classes (most often Music or Art) while their Muslim classmates receive Islamic Education instruction.

UAE Social Studies:

·         The Ministry of Education requires that all Arab students (Gr.1- Gr.9) and some non-Arab students (Gr. 4-Gr.9) receive 1600 minutes of instruction per year of UAE Social Studies.  The MOE  suggests  students attend one 40 minute class per week for the entire academic year. 

·         Based on our observations last year, we believe that the prescribed program of one class per week for the entire year yields sub-optimal results.  Most students simply don’t remember from one week to the next what is being learned.  Instead, this year we will deliver UAE Social Studies classes every day during the months of October and November (40 days) and combine the culminating activity for this unit of study with our wonderful celebration of UAE National Day (Wednesday December 1).  We expect this approach will result in deeper learning and vivid memories that might last a lifetime.  We will ask for your feedback on this initiative in January.).

·         There is no legal requirement for UAE Social Studies instruction for Non-Arab children in grades 1- 3, but we believe that every student should learn something of our host country and people(to make the UAE National Day celebration meaningful) -  so they too will study some aspects of our host country but only during the month of November. 

·         While Arab students in grades 1-3 attend UAE Social Studies classes in October, their classmates will study other topics in Social Studies or Science.    

·         All students, across the entire school, will be together again for Social Studies and Science beginning December 5^th.  We believe this is a much superior arrangement than having our students body divided according to country of origin for the entire school year.