Dear member of our Colegio de Inglaterra – The English School community, dear visitor to our website.

We hope you are all safe and healthy. Our school campus is looking good, we have excellent health provision with our medical team and our advanced biosecurity infrastructure gives confidence and protects us all. But there’s something missing, and it’s the daily sound of young people learning and quite simply enjoying themselves, The English Way.

These are, indeed, difficult times for us all. We have confronted peaks in our COVID-19 suffering, once, twice and now a third time. We have suffered and we have borne witness to something that we did not want and we did not expect. It’s now been too long. We have cared for each other, we are looking ahead and there is light at the end of the tunnel, especially, if we stay strong together. The medical profession continues to do a wonderful job and right now, on Wednesday of this week, another age group (50-59) plus the teaching profession can take part in Stage 3 of our country’s vaccination programme.

Right now, at The English School, we are completely focused on implementing our ‘Plan de Reapertura Gradual, Progresiva y Segura (R-GPS)’. We are on track and we are readying ourselves for August.

Of course, that all sounds simple and we all know that we face other challenges and difficulties at the same time. Once again, in recent weeks we sadly encounter disagreement and disorder around us. But we know what to do about it because we are a strong learning community.

Our school has long traditions – we celebrate our 60^th birthday in September – we welcome diversity and we are indeed an inclusive and lively community.

We are forward-looking, we are capable of critical and constructive analysis, but we are also capable of discussing delicate subjects and then coming together with a smile and agreeing to disagree. We do this in the classrooms and the laboratories, we do it on the playing fields and we do it in the cafeteria. We send encouraging messages to each other as we have today to schools in Cali. We practise debate virtually and presentially, on campus, across Colombia and on the world stage in New York and The Hague as with our renowned TESMUN.     

Together we have a common vision ‘To be an agent of change for Colombia and the world, by educating global citizens that are inspired and guided by the core values of integrity, excellence, and social and environmental responsibility and awareness’.

Furthermore, as an IB World School (PYP, MYP and DP) we intend to ‘build a better world through intercultural understanding and respect’.

Students at Colegio de Inglaterra – The English School learn how to share their beliefs, their perspectives and their experiences. In difficult times like this, we listen and we respect each other. This is The English Way so let’s share our vision with confidence and work to build that better world together!

Take care and stay safe and healthy everyone.

Jeff Shaw
Head of School and Rector

Dear members of our English School community,

Greetings to you all at this challenging time. 

Obviously, we are all optimistic at the moment especially as in Bogotá we are witnessing a rapid decline in the incidence of COVID-19 after a second peak.

Right now, as a result, we are setting our hearts and minds on getting our wonderful TES students and employees back on campus in a safe and secure educational environment in which they can express themselves and engage with each other in our traditional manner, “The English Way”.

We have, of course, waited patiently for almost a full calendar year and with immense self-discipline and support for each other. As we start to come back together on campus, everyone deserves to receive a warm smile and kind, encouraging words, especially those of us who have suffered family bereavement and loss in an existential, personal, spiritual, social or economic sense. We especially thank the carers and medical workers in our TES community and beyond who work so hard to keep us healthy.

As we are all watching the news avidly, we all look ahead and hope that we can now settle in to life in its fullest sense. 

In educational communities across the country, including here in Bogotá, we are readying ourselves and implementing our delayed Return Plan. Our English School campus has been upgraded during the COVID-19 crisis and it is an absolute delight just waiting for our students and employees to arrive and enjoy. A sparkling new set of STEAM and English Nursery buildings are ready for occupation, an impressive 21st century health and well-being approach at our main entrance has been installed, the student bathrooms in our Coliseo have been modernised, there are new park facilities for our younger students and we haven’t forgotten to refurbish facilities in our administration block. 

We are mindful of the economic situation and we have done all of this because we recognise and respect the desire and the decisions taken by our families and employees to live The English School dream and provide first-class facilities for everyone. These plans have been long agreed and I thank everyone involved for their vision and sheer hard work resulting in these fantastic achievements!

But the real priority for us all is that we are all asking about our grand return to a new normality. What exactly is The English School doing?

Well, we have had our Return Plan in place for a long time now after a great deal of thought and planning, and we have always cast a watchful eye on national and local government announcements and decrees.

We have also shared proposals and ideas with our friends and colleagues in the Bogotá private school and corporate sectors whilst researching the good examples set by similar leading international schools across the world. 

We thank each and every member of the TES community hugely for your ongoing feedback, support and understanding during this difficult period and we re-commit to our Guiding Statement, “The English Way”, actively upholding our core values of respect, trust, integrity and the principles of the IB Learner Profile. 

Our current and developing decisions for the return to school plan, therefore, continue to be based on recognising the following factors:

• That COVID-19 is not yet fully controlled in Bogotá and there continues to be a health and safety risk for students and employees. 
• Key information and steps required for private schools to reopen have been issued by the health and educational authorities for Calendar B private schools. 
• Deliverable health and safety protocols and social distancing expectations are being clarified for schools with The English School operating a higher level of safety and security than the norm in Bogotá. This will, of course, continue for the foreseeable future. 
• We consider the need for safe transport to and from the home to our campus to be fundamental, especially for students and staff. 
• In the first phases of reopening, our school will change dramatically affecting all learning and teaching engagement and on-site movement in the positive manner that you would expect.
• We will be evaluating once again the success and the lessons of our TES Distance Learning Plan, and how the reopening of our campus will affect life for everyone in the community. 
• We will also be analysing how we can continue our lives together as a unified TES community, The English Way, especially for Generations 2020 and 2021.

As always, please do feel encouraged to continue to engage with our school leadership and representative groups through official channels and meetings with any feedback or questions that you may have.

Keep positive and engaged. We live and work together caring for all of our students, The English Way!

With kind regards, 

Jeff Shaw
Head of School y Rector

Dear Member of the TES community,

Greetings to you all!

As you will be fully aware, this week, we initiated our long-planned and thoroughly professional mixed Return Plan.

While many of our families correctly exercise their right to continue educating their children through our successful TES Distance Learning Plan, a large number of our families have chosen to re-engage with their children’s on-site learning.

Alongside our academic and administrative teams, I have witnessed a fantastic week of education with our teachers, in particular, excelling in their demonstrated ability to teach young people online and on-site. Our teachers deserve immense praise from us all as they go the extra mile in planning exciting and stimulating learning activities, attending to individual needs, and evaluating successes and challenges. Well done TES teachers – all of you!

Our students, from Pre-School to our ‘veterans’ in Grade 11 who at long last were able to file into school in celebratory mode, were able to show their enthusiasm and commitment to learning… and, of course, to renew their relationships with teachers and friends. It really has been a joy for us all to see their smiles and, in fact, how tired they were at the end of exhausting days packed with learning and fun.

And, of course, I must recognise the immense commitment of what I sometimes call our ‘Support’ employees. Our teachers are very capable but we all know that without the support of our administrative staff, our campus would not be functioning at such a high level. Thank you to you all, and, especially so, for your commitment to quality in a Comprehensive Culture of Excellence. Our delightful campus, with so many new attractions, is a credit to you all.

So, dear families, whichever choice you have made, distance or on-site, The English School community is committed to providing an appropriate and first-class education for each and every young person, The English Way!

Best regards,

Jeff Shaw
Head of School and Rector