IGB International School’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue 126. Week 4. September 2017.
Happening. ++ Mon, Sep 25 ~ Grade 1 Field Trip: Valencia 8:00 am – 10:15 am ++ Tue, Sep 26 ~ Secondary camps | All day ~ MYP Parent Workshop: Assessment in the MYP @ PVO Room | 8:00 am – 9:30 am Achiever’s Academy ~ Pg. 6
Message from Head of School Mrs. Anne Fowles Head of School 2 .................................................... News from Elementary School Mr. Simon Millward Elementary School Principal 2 .................................................... News from Secondary School Mr. Michael Arcidiacono Secondary School Principal 4 ....................................................
Grade 2 Field Trip to KL Bird Park
~ Pg. 3
Wake Up Shake Up gets a wake up
~ Pg. 3
MYP Parent Workshops
~ Pg. 4
Grade 6-8 House Football Event
~ Pg. 5
Achiever’s Academy ~ Pg. 6 College Counselling News
~ Pg. 7
Seesaw - It’s All About the Now
~ Pg. 8
Japanese Coffee Morning
~ Pg. 9
Korean Parent Workshop
~ Pg. 9
++ Wed, Sep 27 ~ Japanese Coffee Morning and Korean Parents Workshop @ Classrooms 6-21 and 6-23 8:30 am – 11:30 am ++ Thu, Sep 28 ~ PYP Maths Workshop: How to use different strategies to solve number questions @ PVO Room 8:00 am – 9:15 am ++ Fri, Sep 29 ~ ES Assembly: Grade 4 @ L3 Drama Room | 8:00 am – 8:40 am ~ MYP Parent Workshop: MYP Maths & Sciences @ Secondary Library | 8:00 am – 12:00 pm ++ Sat, Sep 30 ~ U18 Boys & Girls Football Invitational @ Epsom College All day ~ PYP Parent University: Inspiring curiosity and creativity in all learners @ PVO Room 8:30 am – 11:30 am
Message from Head of School Dear IGBIS Parents and Community Members, An evacuation drill was successfully conducted on Tuesday this week. IGBIS believes it is important to regularly conduct drills such as this to ensure the safety of all personnel in the school, to ensure that everyone knows what to do in the event of an emergency in the school and to regularly review the effectiveness of our procedures. Each time a drill is conducted we will advise the school community of the outcome, hence an SMS was sent to all parents later the same day. If you didn’t
News From the Elementary Principal Over the course of any week I meet or guide a variety of people around school. This week was no different: I met two educators who were interested in finding out more about IGBIS. Both teachers were in awe of our facilities and in particular they commented on the flexible, open plan layout of our classrooms. They were fascinated to hear about the collaboration that takes place between teachers and students. The opportunities for the mixing of classes, with the use of the learning lounges or the concertina doors between classes. More than anything, they were excited about the possibilities, the constant quest to be better. Not willing to be complacent and to continue to be lifelong learners, over the last two weeks I have been meeting with the Elementary teaching staff as they have been sharing their goals for the year. It is wonderful to work with a group of highly motivated professionals who have reflected on the start to the year and have identified challenges and devised plans to address those challenges. Many are engaged in independent research with the view to explore possibilities to implement changes to their teaching and learning practices for the betterment of the students. As I walk around school I see positive changes everywhere. The variety of learning engagements are something to behold. These are exciting times at IGBIS and I hope that your children are communicating with you what they are learning. Dates for your diaries: • Thursday 28th September 8.10am: PYP Maths Workshop: Led by Shireen Blakeway. • Saturday 30th September 8.30am - 11.30am: PYP Parent University #2: Inspiring curiosity and creativity in all learners. Led by Aga Chojnacka.
Simon Millward
Elementary School Principal
receive the SMS please check that your family information is recorded correctly on Open Apply and if need be, advise Admissions so that we can ensure it is correct. It is important that we have the mobile phone number of all parents in our system as if there is any significant message to share with parents it will be sent out via SMS, as well as by email.
Anne Fowles Head of School
Grade 2 Field Trip to KL Bird Park Clare Demnar and Leanne Harvey Grade 2 Teachers ............................................................................................... The Grade Two students are learning all about plants and how other organisms depend on them. On Monday 18th September they took their learning to the KL Bird Park. The students discovered many organisms that need plants to survive, including deer, fish and, of course, birds. Here are a few recounts of the day from the students themselves. ““ Yesterday G2 went to the field trip. I liked watching the little chicks. And I also liked looking inside the peacock shop. But I really liked watching orchids most. The field trip was fun. ~ Yune ““ I went to the bird park yesterday. I learned what do birds eat. It was great in the bird park. We saw birds and ate snack and also lunch there. I liked the peafowl because it was beautiful. ~ Minkyu ““ I saw many things at the bird park. One of the most interesting things I saw was the peafowl, it had many beautiful feathers. I learned that birds can eat meat and fruit. ~ Sierra ““ When we went to the bird park, I saw a very interesting bird, it was a peafowl, it showed its feathers. I saw a cockatoo too! I even saw a chicken cross the road! It was ticklish when the great hornbill took the papaya from my hand. ~ Seika ““ On Monday we went on a Field Trip. We went to the Bird Park and Gardens. We went to the Bird Park to see how birds are living in their habitat. ~ Landen ““ We went on a Field Trip. We left on Monday. We went with 2H and 2D. We went on the bus. We went to the Bird Park and the Gardens. We fed the hornbill papaya. I fed him but he was full. ~ MingYu ““ On Monday we went to the Bird Park and the Gardens. We went by bus. I fed the hornbill. One of the peacocks chased me and when I told the peacock to stop it actually stopped and then another bird chased me again. ~ Kiera
Wake Up Shake Up gets a wake up Aga Chojnacka Primary Years Programme Coordinator ............................................................................................... We have recently changed the format of the elementary students’ morning Wake Up - Shake Up, using a programme called Smiling Mind. This programme helps our children form mindfulness and meditation routines.
Igniting Minds
We have asked children to encourage parents to join them in their mindful meditation at home and help set up a culture of mindfulness and wellbeing by independently using the Smiling Mind programme through the Smiling Mind App (for Apple and Google devices). Please do discuss this with your children and take a look at the website and app. *Link in red colour.
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News from Secondary School Next week will be an exciting one as we send off grades 6-11 on our school camps, while Grade 12 will be busy working on their Extended Essay and Group 4 Project, amongst other items on their to-do list.
In case of emergency, parents can phone the school at 61454670 (during school hours) and 014-234-1445 outside of school hours. All other camp details can be found through the secondary camps website on the Splash page.
I encourage parents to join the photo feeds through the secondary camps website, so they can “accompany” the trip, albeit in a virtual manner!
Secondary activities will not be running next week (from Tuesday to Friday). Mr Bartle will update any changes to activities through Managebac messages.
Departure times for the Grade 6/7 trip to Broga Hill and the Grade 10/11 trip to Penang are at 8am on Tuesday. Students should therefore aim to arrive between 7:30am and 7:45am.
Enjoy a restful holiday weekend!
Students on the Grade 8/9 Camp should aim to arrive by 6:15am on Tuesday, for their departure to Taman Negara.
Secondary School Principal
Michael Arcidiacono
Middle Years Programme (MYP) Parent Workshops Phil Clark Middle Years Programme Coordinator ............................................................................................... Next week we are pleased to offer two MYP parent workshops while our students are off campus attending Secondary School camps. If you are available and would like to attend, please mark the dates in your calendar and register using one of the links below.
Introduction to Assessment in the MYP Tuesday 26 September 8:00-9:30am PVO Room, Level 2 This is an introductory workshop and is targeted to parents who are new to the Middle Years Programme at IGBIS (ie. Grade 6 parents and other new grades 7-10 parents) - it is a repeat of the assessment workshop that was offered last year. Register for this workshop here.
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MYP Concepts and Contexts (Mathematics & Sciences) Friday 29 September from 8:00am-12:30pm Secondary School Library, Level 6 Parents will have the opportunity to participate in a hands-on mini unit of inquiry that will simulate how their children learn and are assessed in the MYP. This workshop will be similar in format to the workshop we organised during camp week last year, but with a focus on mathematics and sciences. Register for this workshop here. In the afternoon parents are invited to join our Grade 12 IB Diploma Programme students who will be presenting the collaborative, interdisciplinary science projects that they have been conducting throughout the week. • • • • •
08:00-10:00am - Introduction & Inquiry 10:00-10:30am - Break & Refreshments 10:30-12:30pm - Action, Reflection & Conclusion 12:30-1:30pm - Lunch provided from school cafeteria 1:30-3:00pm - DP Group 4 Science Project Presentations
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
Grade 6-8 House Football Event Ray Salam and Alicia Fournier Grade 6 ............................................................................................... On Wednesday 20th of September, during AMP periods, the PE Department hosted a Grade 6-8 House Football Event. We all had a lot of fun working together with different grade levels to try and earn team points. All of the House teams were trying to create a cheer or a chant, and the house that was the most supportive throughout the whole entire event earned bonus points that added to the final scores. Our favourite event was when we had to kick the ball through a goal with a yellow mat in front of it that was acting as a goalkeeper. We also liked how we had to scream our chant; that was really fun too. At the end of AMP, the scores were announced. Below are the final scores. Well done to Terra!
TERRA AQUA IGNIS AER
398 94 378 374
Igniting Minds
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Achiever’s Academy Ee-Li Sik Grade 10 ............................................................................................... On September 8th, the Grade 10 students went to Top Achiever’s Academy (TAA) in Ampang to help out by providing service. The students at TAA are all refugees that fled from the Middle East. There are a total of about 35 students in the entire school.
TAA’s library. The third was sweeping the corridor where the bathrooms were. There were quite a few board games available for the students to play, such as Monopoly, Connect 4, and Chess. Despite being such a small school, TAA had a basketball court and a football field. Playing basketball with the TAA students was probably the highlight of the day for most of us. It was plenty of fun to have spent time with the students at TAA -they were all lovely kids.
We arrived at TAA at about 9:00 a.m. where we were greeted by the rambunctious TAA students. We started the day by playing group building activities to build rapport with them. We quickly moved onto the main service activities. We were separated into round-robin groups so that everyone had the opportunity to participate in different activities. This involved tutoring, chores, and playing games. Several of the younger TAA students needed help with developing their English as many of them are still learning. Some books were lent by IGBIS staff and some were borrowed from TAA’s library. The TAA students read the books aloud with the IGBIS students to help them with pronunciation, words that they don’t understand, etc. There were three main chores for the day. The first was folding and organising clothes to put into large bags for distribution. The second was organising and arranging the books at
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Igniting Minds
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College Counselling News Bill Mitchell Grades 9-12 School Counsellor ............................................................................................... IGBIS Events
IGBIS recommends that in the latter part of Grade 11 students write the SAT, to be potentially followed by SAT Subject Tests or a re-write of the SAT in October onwards of Grade 12. If you have questions regarding the SAT, please don’t hesitate to ask me. bill.mitchell@igbis.edu.my
Grade 12 Parent University Meeting - Homework Reminder Don’t forget your homework that I assigned, it will give me great detail to assist in the Letters of Reference. Thanks to the five parents who have submitted their input thus far. For those that have not, please check your IGBIS parent email for the link to the Parent Brag Sheet. I look forward to your insights. Transcript/Name Accuracy Confirmation The transcript packets have been sent home with students during the latter part of last week. Can you please confirm the appropriate legal name and ensure we have available to us an accurate and full academic record.
If interested in a course on test-preparation and strategy, contact info@testtakers-sg.com. Please do not contact Garden International School with questions. Test Takers, Singapore is the service provider and can answer in detail.
For the academic records, I will need (not as important or necessary for the UK) to have Grade 9 to present available. Most schools want a view of the past four years of High School. The best case is if a previous school issues a transcript that lists grades only. If not, then I will collate from reports, with all semesters from other schools necessary. If you wrote external examinations such as IGCSE, please include the final grades from those. Please return as soon as possible. If you have any questions in this regard, please don’t hesitate to email or call me at school. • September 26 Linden Fair: Linden Education Services provides a unique opportunity for students to meet U.S. university representatives in one convenient location. Register Here • September 29 KIC Tour: KIC UnivAssist will bring U.S. university representatives to the MACEE office to meet with students and their families. This event will teach students more about studying in the U.S. and finding the university that best fits them. • EVERY TUESDAY AND THURSDAY U.S. University Advising: EducationUSA Advisers provide comprehensive U.S. university advising. Register Here
Upcoming University Visits • University Winchester - United Kingdom - Oct 2
• University - Royal College of Surgeons - Ireland
Follow the Secondary Calendar or see the College Counselling Events calendar for future visits and events. College Counselling Events
Kuala Lumpur Events SAT Prep Course For those families/students considering applications to the United States, some Liberal Arts schools worldwide, and in some instances Singapore, the SAT Test is a requirement. This is a test that schools use as a baseline figure to understand the students at the admission level. A level of understanding of the test format and test-taking strategy is always beneficial.
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Seesaw - It’s All About the Now Geoff Derry Technology Integration Specialist and Google Innovator ............................................................................................... One of the IGBIS innovations that I am most excited about this year is the changes to our Elementary Portfolios. For the past three years we have used Google slides for our Portfolios and, while these portfolios served a purpose, they did have a few issues. Parents couldn’t see the portfolios until they were shared by the teachers which was usually five to six months into the school year, this meant that parents got a lot of content all in one go, which took a long time to wade through, and students would often have forgotten what the videos, work samples or photos were about. Copying and downloading the portfolios had its own set of problems. From the students and teachers point of view videos took a long time to upload to YouTube and it did not matter how much you did each week, it always seemed to be a big rush to get the portfolios ready in time. There was also a general consensus that the portfolios were more teacher-driven than student-driven. This year, we are using SeeSaw — a learning journal — for our Elementary Portfolios. SeeSaw allows students and teachers to quickly upload videos, photos, narrated drawings, links, documents and notes to their portfolio using either an iPad or a computer. This allows the technology to get out of the way and the teaching and learning to be the focus.The whole process of students and teachers adding content is guided by the classroom learning experiences rather than what can be easily added to a portfolio. It is also super easy for all students to use. Teachers can also approve, edit and comment on student posts, so not everything a student uploads or creates goes to their portfolio. This has completely changed how students and teachers think about Portfolios.
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From a parent’s point of view (yes I am also a parent) once I have downloaded the app on my IOS (iPhone) or Android device and signed up for a free account (I used the instructions sent home by both my daughter’s and son’s homeroom teachers), I get instant updates once anything has been added to their portfolios. Both my children’s portfolios are accessible from the one app. I can look at the content, leave comments (even voice comments) and even share it with relatives who live overseas. Often driving home in the afternoon, I will let the kids know that I have seen a video or some work from something they did at school. The kids then love telling me about it in more detail and can’t wait to get home and watch the video themselves. I now know much more about how they are doing at school and I love how they are as enthusiastic about their learning as I am. I really enjoy getting snippets of their learning from lots of different subjects in small bites rather than having to wade through 40 videos on an end of year portfolio that my kids don’t have any connection to. All of the content will be available all year for parents and students to go back over and see student growth. It is also great when Grandma comes to visit, the kids can sit down and share their portfolio from the entire year. The best thing is that we have only just scratched the surface of what is possible with these Portfolios and SeeSaw. It is empowering for all of us at IGBIS to be learning together and we are excited to be learning alongside our students. Keep an eye out for SeeSaw in your child’s class soon!
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
Japanese Coffee Morning Morning by Gustav by Gustav Helman Helman
Korean Parent Workshop by Yuri Kim
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