PLEASE NOTE:

Information on this website is currently being migrated to a new url. Watch this space, or contact the PSO team for any questions.

Current ACS Families and New families expected to start at ACS Cobham in Aug 2022, kindly contact the PSO IT administrator to join the new PSO Community app and stay in the loop with current updates: IT@psocobham.org

Best Wishes for a fantastic summer break, PSO Cobham Team 23/June/2022

Welcome to ACS Cobham

Welcome to our PSO (Parent School Organisation) home page for Cobham ACS.   We are delighted that you are part of the ACS Parent Community.  For any questions about the PSO, what we do, etc, please go into any of the tabs at the top of this web page and do reach out to any of the PSO Team (click on “PSO TEAM” tab) and someone will help you.

Due to Covid and the school’s IT problems (parent email contact list was not available from the school but now is), we had to change the way the PSO communicates with parents.  As a result, we had to switch to WhatsApp as the main way to communicate.  Now that the school’s IT systems are working, we will be maintaining the current WhatsApp groups, as well as email communications from the PSO.

There are two different types of WhatsApp groups:

– Official PSO WhatsApp group – set up by the PSO, by school division (LS, MS, HS) and managed by the PSO.  Here communications about the school are pushed out to you but you cannot respond;

– Informal WhatsApp group – set up by grade but NOT managed by the PSO.  Here communications are informal between parents and you can respond but please be respectful of other parents’ views.

Please ensure you are added to both WhatsApp groups.  To get added, please make contact with either the PSO Welcome Team or your PSO grade liaison.  You can find your grade liaison by going into the “PSO TEAM” tab and clicking on the school division and then finding your grade liaison.  Please email your grade liaison and she/he will then add you and ensure you are also added to the official PSO WhatsApp groups.  To find your PSO Welcome Team, please click on the “FAMILIES” tab and scroll down to “WELCOME GROUP”.

Next PSO events:

The PSO organises 4 major events per year for the community.  All parents and children are invited including staff.  These are:

• Spirit Day (Welcome Day) usually held on one of the Sundays in September;
• Trunk or Treat (Halloween) held on a Friday end of October or beginning of Nov;
• Staff Appreciation (volunteer parents prepare food and bring this to school for all staff), held in March;
• Party of the Planet is the biggest event in the year, held in May, and is a celebration of our international community where parents volunteer and have stalls where they cook and serve food.

All information for these events can be found on the “Events” tab at the top of this web page.

• Party of the Planet – 15th May, 12pm to 4.30pm – http://psocobham.org.uk/party-for-the-planet/

In addition, there are grade level coffee mornings, playground meets, and Country Representative Group events such as pub nights, etc.   Please make sure you also reach out to your Country Representative Group (CRG) liaison who can be found on the “PSO TEAM” tab under the sub tab “COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVE GROUPS”  then click on the flag/geography picture.

Access to the school’s education platform, called PowerSchool Learning is through the following link:

https://acscobham.learning.powerschool.com/do/account/login

You should have received your login details from the school.  If you have not received any login details, please contact ACS Cobham IT by sending an email to:  pslhelp@acs-schools.com.

August 2021

Welcome to the 2021-22 school year!  Indicators show we are coming out of the COVID Pandemic and that allows the Parent-School Organization (PSO) to kick into full gear with a strong focus on welcoming, communicating, celebrating, and recognizing successes of all shapes and size.  In short, building community.

PSO Cobham organizes a number of parent and student events from Welcome Back evening near the start of the school year to our annual Party for the Planet in late May.  We also work to provide a link of communication between parents and the school from the divisional and departmental level to the top level of ACS leadership.

Since the sudden closing of the school in mid-March and rapid move to online distance learning, PSO Cobham’s series of family events were unfortunately cancelled.  We are optimistic these in-person events will be able to go ahead in the 2021-22 school year.  Please do make every effort to join us for these events. Have a look at our Events tab to pencil them into your diary.

From a communication point of view, the lockdown provided PSO Cobham with a sudden introduction to video conferencing – it was everything we thought it wasn’t – cheap and easy!  We aim to get back to in-person meetings with the option to join via Zoom.  One of the greatest things for the PSO was COVID bringing a global community of parents into our meetings – we are an international school and even in regular times have parents who live all over the world.

I encourage all parents to do 3 things at the start of school:

1. Know how to log into PS Learning and read the weekly newsletters from head of school, your divisional principal(s) and the PSO which come out each Friday.
2. If you are on FB, join both the “ACS Cobham PSO” and “ACS Cobham current parents” FB groups.  ACS Cobham PSO group mostly pushes information out to parents about PSO events and other important school news.  ACS Cobham current parents group is more informal with parents posting questions and other information about the school.
3. Ask your Grade Liaison to add you to the relevant ACS Cobham Divisional PSO WhatsApp groups.  This is another communication channel used by the PSO to push information out.

I look forward to meeting many of you this year!

Sincerely,

Jeff Alioto, PSO President

president@psocobham.org

Join the PSO closed Facebook group and have information about PSO Events and PSO Reminders delivered to your Facebook feed!!   Open to all parents, staff and students – ACS Cobham PSO.

Want to receive emails from the PSO?  You must approve this when you register your students in Forms Online…..if you said no you can always change this!  Our Grade Liaisons like to keep in touch with the families in their grade and our CRG Liaisons like to keep in touch with Country families.