IGB International School’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue 142. Week 2. February 2018.
KLISS Elementary Swimming Competition ~ Page 9
Message from Head of School Mrs. Anne Fowles Head of School News from Secondary School Dr. Michael Arcidiacono Secondary School Principal News from Elementary School Mr. Simon Millward Elementary School Principal
Follow us on
2
Inventor's Challenge 2018
~ Pg. 4
Congratulations to Grade 8 Students
~ Pg. 5
IGBIS MUN Club Experiences Success at the Recent
2
3
NEXUS MUN Conference
~ Pg. 6
Volunteer Abroad Opportunity
~ Pg. 7
Grade 6-7 House Sports
~ Pg. 8
Elementary Track and Field Sports Day
~ Pg. 9
KLISS Elementary Swimming Competition (Photos)
~ Pg. 9
Follow us on
ISA Testing • Feb 12 – Feb 13 | All Day Feb 12, Mon • Rehearsal: CNY Assembly @ Theatre 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm • O15 Girls Basketball @ Help | 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Feb 13, Tue • Chinese New Year Assembly @ Theatre • University Visit: Queen’s University, Belfast @ SS Library 10:00 am – 11:15 • University Visit: KE Summer School @ SS Library 12:50 pm – 1:30 pm • U15 Girls Basketball @ Tenby 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Follow us on
Message from Head of School Dear IGBIS Parents and Community Members, I write this week’s newsletter in New York where I have been representing our region as a member of the Council of International Schools Board of Trustees at the CIS Annual General Meeting and CIS Board meeting held at the United Nations International School. I was also very privileged to be a special guest at a meeting of the Association for the Advancement of International Education (AAIE) which held its opening address in the General Assembly of the United Nations headquarters. Discussions centred on how schools, individually and collectively, can dynamically meet the needs of students and communities today and in the future; by considering the purpose of education in today’s world, the shifting needs of cultures and communities, the importance of undertaking service and making a positive impact, the advantages and pressures of a digital age and the continuous need for innovative approaches to child centred learning.
Above: Anne Fowles (IGB International School, Malaysia) , Vladamir Kuskovski (International School Basel, Switzerland, CIS Treasurer) Jane Larsson (CIS Executive Director), Lorna Prado Scott (Santiago College, Chile, CIS Board Chair)
We are looking forward to the Chinese New Year celebrations next week. Please do join us for the assembly on Tuesday, February 13th. Have a wonderful weekend ahead.
Anne Fowles Head of School
Left: Mrs Fowles at the United Nations International School (UNIS), New York
News from Secondary School It was an extremely busy week in the Secondary School - students participated in the online trial for the ISA testing next week, we had our homeroom and individual photos for the yearbook, the Grade 8 students put on their Community Project Exhibition while the Grade 10 students took part in the Grade 11 Options Fair. There were also several sporting fixtures with some victories to celebrate. All of this and I haven’t even mentioned the ParentStudent-Teacher Conferences that happened this week too! It was a pleasure to see so many parents at school this week, I hope your conferences with the teachers of your children were productive and informative. Please continue to monitor Managebac carefully and read the feedback provided on assessments.
2
Next week will continue to be busy as we will have our ISA testing for Grades 6-9 on February 12th and 13th, and our Chinese New Year Assembly on February 13th at 2pm. Students are encouraged to dress in appropriate attire for our CNY assembly. Finally, we have a Spirit Day on February 14th, where students can wear white, pink or red instead of their normal uniform. Best regards,
Michael Arcidiacono Secondary School Principal
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
News from Elementary School There has been a lot going on this week and it is great to see the variety of activities being engaged in by our students and families. Last weekend while some people were at the Open Day we had a core group of painters who spray painted over 100 car tyres. The families involved ranged from Early Years students all the way up to a Grade 12 student. A huge thank you has to go to Chrissy Steinhardt who worked tirelessly to make sure we had enough tyres, we had paint, the area was safe for our families to work in, the tyres were organised and we had people to give their time to fulfill this first phase of the community playground build. As you can see from the pictures a lot of fun was to be had too.
On a more serious note it was great to see so many parents at the Parent Teacher Conferences conversing with teachers to assist their children to continue to progress - academically, socially, emotionally, creatively and physically. These days are very important so that the communication and actions can be consistent at home and school. In this way we can work together to help all the children experience success. This week we saw a group of Grade 4 students travel to Uplands School Penang for the AIMS Grade 4 Maths Competition. The students were accompanied by Ms. Stephanie and they represented the school admirably. They were challenged mathematically, but had an enjoyable time in the process.
Continue next page Âť
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
3
On Friday we hosted the Elementary KLISS swimming competition. International Schools from all over Kuala Lumpur descended on IGBIS for a morning of healthy swimming competition. Our swimmers sought to improve their own personal best times and attempted to win their races. Once again it was pleasing to see our students represent the school with pride. What is more the students managed to finish in 3rd place, winning a trophy. This is a fantastic achievement and shows that all of the hard work swimming throughout the year is starting to make a difference. A big thank you also goes to Mr. Bartle and his team (PE and facilities) for supporting the Tenby team who organised the event. I hope to see all of you at our Chinese New Year Assembly on Tuesday 13th February, it would be wonderful to see all of the children and adults dressed in Chinese clothes on this day. If your child has PE on this day don’t forget to send them to school in their PE kit and they can change into their Chinese clothes before the assembly.
Dates for your diaries: • • • • •
Monday 12th (Day 5) & Tuesday 13th (Day 1) February: ISA Tests: Gr 3 - Gr 5 students. Tuesday 13th February: Chinese New Year Assembly: 2pm in the Theatre. Wednesday 14th February: 8.15am - 12.45pm: Gr 2- Gr 5 Track and Field Sports Day Thursday 15th - Tuesday 20th: Chinese New Year Holiday Wednesday 21st - Friday 23rd February: Grade 4 & 5 Camp
Simon Millward
Elementary School Principal
Inventor's Challenge 2018 Aga Chojnacka Primary Years Programme Coordinator
•
.................................................................................................................... The Elementary School MakerSpace has recently been turned into an Inventor's Incubator for the month of February, and we hope to see this continue and turned into a year-long initiative. Students aged 5-19, can use it Tuesday to Friday during lunch breaks to work on their ideation and designs. The MakerSpace supports their timeline to make sure the projects get to be prototyped, tested and video documented. We currently have 20 invention ideas submitted varying from community sustainability to relationships support. The young inventors were asked to link their invention to the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development. In the week of 26-28 February we will hold a 5-minute documentary festival sharing the Invention Videos of our teams and individual inventors. All our students' inventions will be submitted to the U.S. headquarters of the Imagination Foundation and AT&T to take part in the international inventor's challenge. The results will be announced in May.
•
the final model. 20-25 February - Video documentation Documenting the process in a video that will be submitted for the judges panel at Imagination Foundation in the US. Precise instructions for the video are on page 20 of the Inventor's Challenge Playbook. 26-27-28 February - 5-Minute Movie Festival Sharing inventions and inventor videos (to be presented in the MakerSpace or the Theatre).
The timeline for the inventions development is as follows: • 1-7 February - Ideation Coming up with a problem at home, school or a community they want to find a solution to. • 7-13 February - Design stage Sketching, resource collection, prototyping. • 14-20 February - Creation Refining the prototype and building
4
Igniting Minds
Continue next page »
Impacting Lives
Congratulations to Grade 8 Students Phil Clark Middle Years Programme Coordinator
.................................................................................................................... The past couple of weeks have been particularly busy for our Grade 8 students as they came to the end of their six-month long MYP Community Projects. Each student group gave a formal presentation that demonstrated all four stages of their Community Projects - Investigating, Planning, Taking Action and Reflecting. The presentations were videoed for assessment purposes. The students also spent time and effort planning and preparing for the culminating event, the Community Project Exhibition that was held on Tuesday morning in our Secondary School library. They created display boards, posters and video presentations and rehearsed how to introduce their projects to an audience of students, parents and teachers.
Through these projects they have learned so much about the wider community, about service and responsibility, and about themselves. The Community Project also serves as excellent preparation for the MYP Personal Project that they will complete in Grade 10. Thank you to everyone in our community who has helped and supported the Grade 8 students throughout their Community Projects - to homeroom teachers, grade-level coordinator and teacher supervisors; to parents who chaperoned their children on their service projects; to our library, admin and catering teams; and to everyone else who helped ensure student success. Over the next few weeks, Grade 10 students complete their Personal Projects and we look forward to showcasing their learning at their Personal Project Exhibition.
It was wonderful to observe how well our students interacted with their respective audiences, presenting their projects and answering questions knowledgeably and with confidence.
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
5
IGBIS MUN Club Experiences Success at the Recent NEXUS MUN Conference
Esha Mardikar and Alex Vivarelli Grade 11 .................................................................................................................... Sweat running down our temples, clammy hands and heartbeats that could rival that of a jackhammer. That’s how we felt, it was on the 27th of January that we got off the bus for Nexus International School Model United Nations Conference (NISMUNC) 2018. For many, it was their first conference. For others, it was a chance to show off the skills that they have spent years refining and
improving. But it was not that time yet, the day started off with a workshop given by the Secretary General of NISMUNC. Eventually after the opening ceremony we moved on into our councils to start with the first thing on our agenda: opening speeches. This was the first time any delegate would have to speak publicly in front of everybody, some might call it a defining moment in the next couple of days to come. Delegate after delegate spoke of their nation’s stance on the topics, they spoke of solutions and hopes for fruitful debates. The only way to end the day was with an hour long lobbying session in which we designed our resolutions to be debated on the next day. All in hopes of a brighter future. The next day, we returned to our councils, having spent the previous night doing further research as well as working on resolutions and speeches to use during debate. For most of us, this was the day that our actual debates would begin, as we launched into discussion about our respective topics. Throughout the day, we worked away at resolving issues like global epidemics, euthanasia and human trafficking in Southeast Asia, putting the speaking and diplomacy skills we had been working on to use.
6
We listened to resolution after resolution, amendment after amendment, speech after speech over the course of the day, which would have been tiring had it not been for our drive to try our hardest and excel as IGBIS delegates. By the end of the day, it’s safe to say that we were all knackered from a hard day of being diplomats and working to resolve extremely heavy topics. However, some of us still had enough energy to participate in the social that evening, which was an exciting, fun-filled, Holi powder festival!
Then, all too soon, the final day of the conference had come. We made our way to our councils for the last time, resigning ourselves to a few final hours of debate. The minutes seemed to slip by, as we got caught up in discussion and reached the conclusions of our sessions, breaking out in hearty applause upon learning that our resolutions had passed and would help resolve the issues. Being a delegate in Model United Nations is not only about debating and roasting people, it’s also about learning of the hardships and struggles that people go through. Be it equal rights around the globe or accessible healthcare. With these thoughts in our minds, we took our seats for the closing ceremony, where it was time for the presentation of the highly anticipated awards. Our IGBIS delegation was well represented here, walking away with quite a few awards and honourable mentions! As we left the conference, our hearts ached at the thought of school tomorrow, we thought of all the friendships we had developed, skills we had learned, memories we had made, and most importantly, how we couldn’t wait to take part in our next MUN conference. Luckily, EosMUN in our own school is coming up this weekend from the 9th of February.
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
Volunteer Abroad Opportunity Nathalie Chotard IGBIS Service and CAS Coordinator
....................................................................................................................
If your child is keen to participate, please send an email to nathalie.chotard@igbis.edu.my by Monday, February 12th, 8:00am. This will enable us to liaise with you for further information about this trip.
“To provide an innovative international education that inspires learners to make a positive impact on the world.” ~ IGBIS Vision If your child is in grades 9, 10, 11 or 12, s/he has been offered the opportunity to volunteer abroad in order to: • collaborate with an experienced volunteer teacher, Ms Lina. • teach English to Early Years students through storytelling. • help students (various ages) with their English and encourage all students to use English in a creative way (and perform at a talent show). Here are the trip details: Date: June 17th-22nd 2018 Location: Kathmandu, Nepal Estimated Costs: Around MYR 3000 (includes airfare) Supervision: • Indra Lina, IGBIS firefly teacher and experienced volunteer teacher. During her summer holidays, Ms Lina has worked with several local organisations in Nepal and India. • Nathalie Chotard, IGBIS Service and CAS coordinator.
Grade 6-7 House Sports Emily Heys Grade 7 & 8 Coordinator
.................................................................................................................... AMP time on Thursday 8th February saw our Grade 6 and 7 students learning some new skills leading up to volleyball season. The keen athletes practised their digging and setting skills before competing in a modified volleyball game called Newcombe Ball. Some spectacular serves, sets and saves were witnessed on the court during the round robin tournament. It was wonderful to see all Grade 6 and 7 students having a go and we hope to see lots of them join the IGBIS volleyball team in Season 3!. 1st - Aer 2nd - Terra
3rd - Aqua 4th - Ignis
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
7
Elementary Track and Field Sports Day Sean Lovesey PE Department
................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ I am excited to announce that next week, Wednesday 14th February, we will hold our Elementary Track and Field Sports Day involving students from Grade 2 to Grade 5. Students will compete in their Houses.
KLISS Elementary Swimming Competition
8
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
9
Follow us on
10
Follow us on
Igniting Minds
Follow us on
Impacting Lives
Igniting Minds
Impacting Lives
11