Welcome to the sixth edition of the Wolf Pack, our New Year issue. We have started 2023 with a warm goodbye to the Year of the Tiger and hopped into the Year of the Rabbit.
We heard from our Year 11s, Arief and Haruna, and the Year 4 and 5 Mandarin students singing in Assembly. Xin Nian Kuai Le.
And it is great when we can have hands on elarning not just in Primary but in Secondary. Have a look at the experiments in Science, but don’t get too grossed out by Year 13. It is an amazing learning experience.
Our students are also showing their prowess in integrating technology and their English Learning. Some insightful ELS podcast are available for your enjoyment.
We launched straight into sports games on our return to from the Winter break as Season 2 was still underway.
In addition, ACG School Jakarta launched Semester 2 After School Activities (ASA). Look out for the February events.
Warm regards
Myles D’Airelle PrincipalThe first day of Semester 2 was a Professional Development Day for us ACG School Jakarta staff. We reflected on Semester 1 and set goals for ourselves for the second half of the school year.
Our teaching team, joined by several administrative staff members, have been working in groups to lead our school’s preparations for the 2024 IB PYP and DP Evaluation. A team of IB educators will be visiting our school next year, to evaluate, and in doing so, support our school’s efforts to sustain and improve the culture, environment, teaching and learning, in alignment with our school’s purpose.
As part of that preparation, we reviewed our language teaching and learning as well as inclusion policies and practices on our PD Day. We inquired into how teachers can remove barriers to learning to enable every student to develop, pursue and achieve challenging personal learning goals, and thought about how we can improve our differentiated instruction practice.
The next day, the two parents who participated in our monthly PYP Parents Programme were joined by our Primary Teachers and considered “Collaborative learning: Learning with and from each other, living peacefully together” in the context of our school and within the framework of the PYP.
Throughout January, our teaching team met several times to continue working on improving our differentiation and inclusion practices and creating a positive learning environment.
May the new year and the new semester be filled with joy and happiness for our school community and all humanity!
Selda Mansur Vice principal and PYP coordinator
Dear Parents, Caregivers and Students,
The busy time has officially started for our DP students! Both Year 12 and 13 had a big week sitting their Mid-Year Examinations. Although it’s a stressful time for them, this will be a valuable learning experience in preparation for their final IB examinations. We hope to see some positive results when the marks are tabulated. The Group 4 Science Project is also coming up at the end of the term, and we’re all excited to see the upcoming science experiments.
The Year 12 DP students have started their Extended Essay planning, which is an important part of the Diploma Program. Students choose a topic of interest, formulate a research question, research then write a 4,000-word essay. They are currently choosing a teacher supervisor who will guide and support them in this task. I wish the students the best of luck with their preparations.
The Year 13 students are entering the most challenging period of their 2-year program. They have to juggle their various Internal Assessments for each subject, writing their Extended Essays, classwork, as well as preparing for next year’s examinations. The students will have to put in a great deal of time and effort, and our teachers and staff will do our best to support them. There is a Calendar of Deadlines that students are following, which is designed to stagger their Internal Assessment due dates, in order to spread out their workload. It is important that they adhere to the due dates in order to give them the best chance of success and also to reduce stress. The DP teachers or I will contact parents if any student does not meet a deadline or if we have any concerns about their progress.
Please contact me or your child’s teachers if you have any issues or questions about their program.
Kieran Pascoe IBDP Coordinator
As an IB PYP (International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme) World School, we view “partnerships with parents and legal guardians as benefitting the students and value the perspectives they bring to the learning community. The partnerships between home and school provide the foundation to support students’ learning, growth, health and well-being and agency”.
To that end, we are organizing monthly meetings to further involve you in your child’s education. Each month, we focus on one aspect of the PYP.
On 9 January Tuesday, our focus was ’Collaborative learning: Learning with and from each other, living peacefully together’.
From a PYP perspective, ‘Education is a social or collective endeavour and a benefit to the community as a whole, as well as to the individuals within it. Everyone in the learning community has agency; they see themselves as contributors to its ongoing strength and success, and take action to bring about change.’
During the workshop, we discussed an ideal: ‘Together the learning community:
• lives peacefully together
• prioritizes people and their relationships
• assumes shared responsibility for learning, health and well-being.’
We reflected on our roles in making that happen, as well as the current situation in our school. Please see the photos for some reflection notes.
We thank our parents and staff for assuming shared responsibility for learning, health and well-being in our school community.
Our next meeting will take place on 7th February 2023, Tuesday, between 15.00-16.00. This time we will be inquiring into ‘Inquiry based learning: being actively involved in and taking responsibility for own learning’. You can write to Selda.Mansur@acgedu.com if you would like to learn more about PYP implementation and please contact Mia.Sari@acgedu.com , if you plan to join our February workshop.
As we continue with our preparations for the upcoming IB Evaluation, we reflect on the successes and the challenges we face as a school community, and continually seek better ways of identifying and working towards our goals.
In January, we focused on our inclusion and differentiated instruction practices, and would like to share some insight into those concepts with you.
At ACG School Jakarta, we embrace and celebrate diversity. Our staff and student body comprises 33 different nationalities and our community members speak a variety of languages. It is not only in nationalities and languages that our community is diverse. We recognize and strive to serve learners with different learning styles and perspectives. As our language of instruction is English, we have an English Language Support program for students who need it.
We seek to ‘provide meaningful ways to develop friendships and make connections between students:
• from different cultures, nationalities and social backgrounds
• with different learning styles and perspectives.’ through the many sports and other activities our students participate in (“International Mindedness”, PYP: From Principles into Practice, 2018)
In all IB programmes, teaching is … designed to remove barriers to learning. Teaching is inclusive and values diversity. It affirms students’ identities, and aims to create learning opportunities that enable every student to develop and pursue appropriate personal goals. What is inclusion?
Inclusion is an ongoing process that aims to increase access and engagement in learning for all students by identifying and removing barriers.
Inclusion is an organizational paradigm that involves change. It is a continual process of increasing learning and participation for all students. It addresses learning support requirements and questions the broader objectives of education, the nature of pedagogy, curriculum and assessment. It is an educational approach to which all schools should aspire.
Inclusion is facilitated in a culture of collaboration, mutual respect, support and problemsolving involving the whole school community.
(Learning diversity and inclusion in IB programmes, 2020)
Science in Year 7 is learning how to neutralize the acid and base with titration. While in Year 8, investigate the average sound speed and test the presence of starch in mystery cookies.
Science in Year 10 Investigates the enzyme function in digestion. While in Year 11,present their research about greenhouse gases. Year 12 investigates the refraction and reflection of light rays. Year 13 identifies the structure and function of the heart by dissecting the lamb’s heart.
The Year 12 Mathematics AA students are currently in their Functions unit, and a key element of this unit is for the students to know and understand all key features of the parent functions in mathematics. In groups, the students had to match each parent function to its graph, equation, domain and range. Now they will have to continue to study parent functions at home. Maybe fun for parents to join in as well? We can call it: ‘Revising parent functions with my parents”
Scan the QR code to listen to their podcast or click the link below.
The Secondary ELS Students (Year 9, Year 10 and Year 11) had an opportunity to apply their language skills in a real-world context by creating a news report on the topic of helping others. Working in small groups or pairs, students began by brainstorming ideas using a provided mind map. Then they then wrote an interview script and recorded the final product, either in the form of a video or radio interview. The project focused on the use of past tense, quantifiers, and adjectives, providing students with a real-life task to improve their language skills, while learning about the importance of helping others.
Scan the QR code to listen to their podcast or click the link below.
Listen to their podcast here
Many new and exciting developments took place for sports at ACG in January 2023. First, the U10 Football Team started their season in the Jakarta Schools Football League (JSFL). They are in the “B” division, the second strongest division for their age group. In their first season matches, they had challenging but fun games, going 0-4 and 0-5, respectively. The Senior Basketball Teams are continuing their season with upcoming matches on February 4 at SPH KV. Good luck to both the boys and girls in those games. The Orcas Swim Team’s next meet is the JAAC Championships at the British School Jakarta (BSJ) on February 11. This is always a well-attended and competitive event. With several powerful swimmers, the Orcas are primed to have some excellent results and are medal hopefuls in several possibilities. The Junior Volleyball teams travelled to the Jakarta Intercultural School on Friday, January 27, and played, most likely, their best games of the season. The boys’ team played the JIS A team (their best team) and came up just short in a close 2-1 match. The Girls played terrific and beat the JIS A team (their best team) 2-0. It was a fantastic result and an enjoyable evening for all involved. Last up is the Junior Boys Soccer Team, which is gearing up for their international trip to the ASAC Junior Football Tournament in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, March 2-5. The tournament is hosted by the International School Ho Chi Minh City and is sure to be a fantastic experience. To get ready, several matches are upcoming, with the first being a home game versus SPH KV on February 24. Come out and support our Wolves if you can!
We are happy to share that our After School Activities Semester Two are officially running this week. Please find here the activities schedule:
Monday Wednesday
Robotics
ACG Dance Club
Fashion Design
Kindy Football Club
Gymnastics
Pencak Silat
Taekwondo
ACG Lego Robotics
Friday
ACG Dance Club
ACG Music Choir
Roblox Game Development
Games & Apps Maker
ACG French Club
The Student Council notices the importance of mental health and will be increasing awareness on mental health through several events throughout Mental Health Week, for both primary and secondary students.
Primary Events:
• Mindfulness after lunch (Monday - Friday): At lunch time, Primary StuCo will be conducting mindfulness after lunch in which means maintaining our thoughts, feelings, and awareness of our mental health after lunch.
• Mindfulness after assembly (Monday): Primary StuCo will be presenting a video the last 2-3 minutes of assembly, the video is for everyone to follow led by Year 5 or Year 6.
• Allocate time to destress in class (Monday - Friday): Primary StuCo is planning on doing de-stress activities in class such as talking about their mental health and the importance of being aware of mental health with their peers.
• Kindness box (Monday - Friday): During the week students will be provided with a box in which other students will be allowed to write positive and sweet messages to each other. Additionally, we will hold a raffle box where it consists of positive messages that will be written by the students. These messages can be pulled anytime when a student is having a bad day. We aim to have all the students receive a message that can help brighten up their day.
• Whole school yoga (Tuesday): Primary Student Council will be having yoga session on Tuesday afternoon led by Ms. Sarah and Mr. David. This yoga session will last approximately for 30 minutes
Secondary Events:
• Anonymous Rant Space (Monday - Friday): The Anonymous Rant Space will be a space where students can relieve their anger and frustrations upon school, personal or social life during the week in an anonymous environment. This activity will be conducted during the advisory time where students will be writing on a paper provided by the school. Students will then be able to write and express their feelings, e.g “I feel stressed because…”. Additionally, advisors from each class will be collecting the messages, by doing so, all of the messages will be anonymous.
• Kindness Box (Monday - Friday): During the week students will be provided with a box in which other students will be allowed to write positive and sweet messages to each other. Additionally, we will hold a raffle box where it consists of positive messages that will be written by the students. These messages can be pulled anytime when a student is having a bad day. We aim to have all the students receive a message that can help brighten up their day.
• Tea Party (Friday): Students will bring their own tea to school and be allowed to drink it during advisory time. During this session, we encourage students to partake in a group discussion in which they will talk about their mental health and how they are doing. It is imperative that students need to bring their own tea, as school does not need to provide tea for this event.
• Mental Disorder Awareness Poster: On Mental Health Awareness Week, we’re going to be sending posters on Student Council’s instagram page and also printing them as a hard copy and displaying them at school. The purpose of creating posters about “Mental Health Awareness Week” is to encourage students to be aware of their mental health, and also spread information about mental health.
Theme:
a poster
(movie, advertising, informative, motivational, research, etc.)
