As we were making the final preparations for publishing our last newsletter of the year, Gonu hit us, our school was closed abruptly and power and electricity were lost for several days. Fortunately the school suffered only minor damage whereas surrounding areas were devastated. It was a traumatic end to our academic year and caused havoc to our normal end of year procedures. The below pictures will give those that did not experience this tropical storm an impression of damage caused.
Fortunately our preparations for our Entrepreneurship Experience to Japan were not severly hampered and the trip was a great success. So on June 15 2007, a party of 24 grade 10 and 11 students travelled to Japan for a 10 day cultural and educational visit sponsored by the JCCME (Japan Cooperation Centre for The Middle East).
The JCCME had identified The Sultan's School as possibly providing future leaders of government and industry in Oman and set out to win their “Hearts and Minds” early in their careers, with the ulimate aim of forging strong and lasting links with Japan and its people. They had previously only made this offer to one other school in The Middle East, a leading school from Saudi Arabia who went on a similar programme last year. The students were selected from the International Baccalaureate Diploma and IGCSE streams of the school. In their applications to join the trip many of them spoke of their strong desire to visit Japan and to experience an entirely different culture.
The Japanese Ambassador, Keiji Omori and his wife Shigeko were very proactive partners and prime facilitators in making this visit happen. They both met with the students prior to them travelling to Japan and took a keen interest in their preparation. It is His Excellency’s and the School’s shared vision that a permanent link be forged by way of initiatives such as annual exchanges and joint study programmes.
On Tuesday 11 September 2007, The Ambassador invited the students to a special “Welcome Back” reception at his Residence where he listened to their experiences first hand and was presented with a memento of their trip. In his presentation speech, in Japanese, to The Ambassador, Yousef Al-Busaidi an IBD student, vowed to hone his Japanese Language skills and return to Japan to study at post degree level.
During their visit the students were based in Tokyo. The main part of the visit was an intense “Entrepreneurship Course” where companies were formed, products manufactured and sold all under the supervision of a “Board of Directors”. Each student had a specific role in their company whose aim was to design, produce and market a range of clocks for the Japanese market. Their allotted roles were to do with
- The Company start-up
- Market research
- Producing a business plan and getting it approved by the bank
- Planning their product
- Production
- Quality Control
- Price-fixing
- Preparing advertisements
- Selling their product
- Revisiting their business plan in light of their marketing, sales campaign and accounts
After their hectic advertising and marketing campaign at Tachebana High School there was a presentation of accounts and an analysis of each company’s market performance. After careful examination of each company’s accounts there was a presentation of awards to the most successful companies.
After this intense experience the students relaxed and visited the Imperial Palace, Marunouchi, Ginza, Panasonic Centre and Toyota MEGAWEB and then departed Yokohama for Kyoto by bullet train.
Many of the students described their trip as “an opportunity of a lifetime” and an “unforgettable experience”.
As a footnote could I appeal to people who are thinking of applying for places in the school for next year and even years hence to get their applications in as early as possible as places at the school are likely to be extremely limited. I am happy to arrange tours of the school for interested parents who are not familiar with us and answer any questions about school life in general. Our online admissions form can be found at http://www.sultansschool.org/onlinereg.htm
Finally can I remind all of our Alumni that there will be “A Reunion Dinner” on Sunday 6th January 2008 at the school. Please follow this link to register for the evening!
Clive G. Pierrepont
Director of Development and Admissions