IGBIS Weekly Newsletter. Issue 146, Week 2, March, 2018.

IGB International School’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue 146. Week 2. March 2018.

EVENTS

Message from Head of School Mrs. Anne Fowles Head of School

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News from Secondary School Dr. Michael Arcidiacono Secondary School Principal

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News from Elementary School Mr. Simon Millward Elementary School Principal

INSIDE ISTA Festival Ready To Go | Pg. 3 Host Nation News

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Day 3. Wed, Mar 14

INTERNATIONAL DAY ~ branching out~ 10 March 2018

12:30 pm – 2:00 pm Grade 2 Field Trip: Little Gym

Day 4. Thu, Mar 15

Mar 15 - 17 (All-Day) ISTA Conference @ IGBIS 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm U15 Boys Basketball Finals @ IGBIS 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm U15 Girls Basketball Finals @ BSKL

Day 5. Fri, Mar 16

8:00 am – 1:00 pm Elementary Athletics @ L6 Field, L7 Sports Hall 11:20 am – 12:45 pm Welcoming Zo Learning Center @ IGBIS 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm University Fair: ISN – International Student Network @ L6 Multi-purpose room

Message from Head of School Dear IGBIS Parents and Community Members, It’s International Day tomorrow – Saturday, 10 March. We are looking forward to seeing you all there!

Try to arrive before 9.00 am so that you are in time to see the Parade of Nations in the Sports Hall and then enjoy the performances, activities and food to follow.

Have a wonderful weekend ahead.

This is the day in the year when we have a chance to celebrate and share our culture as well as finding out more about others in our school. Lots of our parents, students and teachers have been preparing wonderful things to share.

Anne Fowles Head of School

News from Secondary School It has been a busy week in Secondary with a variety of sporting fixtures, which included the KLISS Athletics competition on Friday.

Our athletes are showing pleasing progress and the participation of our students has been great - almost 50 took part in the KLISS competition alone. That is amazing!

It has now been one month since our Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences, so it is a great time for students and parents to sit down and look through Managebac to see the results of recent assessment, plan for upcoming due dates, and have a good discussion about the progress that has been made.

Next week will continue to be busy with ISTA occurring on Thursday and Friday. Please see the note from Mr Suffolk in this week’s newsletter. We are very pleased to be hosting international festivals such as these - they are a great opportunity for our students to develop their skills in the performing arts, while making some new friends. With Sport and the Arts well represented, our students can truly exhibit their risk-taking and sense of balance as IB learners.

I am looking forward to a great International Day tomorrow - the food, drink, activities and performances are sure to be fantastic!

See you there!

Michael Arcidiacono Secondary School Principal

News from Elementary School This week has seen a flurry of activity with preparation for International Day, the Grade 5 students continuing to prepare for their PYP Exhibition, the Grade 3 students working on their structures summative assessment and Kindergarten students preparing for their assembly.

The performing arts department have been working extremely hard to practice for the Elementary School production ‘Phoenix: A Musical Story’. The performance of this is on Thursday 29th March at 1.45pm - 2.45pm. We would love to see you all there supporting your children.

It is wonderful to see and hear the buzz around school and see examples of students making good choices. For example, there was an Early Years student who wanted to use some equipment that one of her classmates was using. She asked very politely whether she could have a turn and she followed that up with, I will tell you when I have finished. She had her turn and true to her word she returned the equipment to the student. On the same day the Early Years students were washing their hands after PE, two students sat and waited patiently to wash their hands, as in their opinion too many students were in that area. When they thought it had become less busy they took their turn and washed their hands. These students, STOPPED, THOUGHT about what to do, and then made a good CHOICE.

Finally I would like to say congratulations to all of our student athletes who have been playing in their end of season tournaments. They represented the school admirably winning games, playing as a team and scoring goals. The improvements we are seeing bodes well for the future.

On Sunday 25th March we have the playground community build.

We need as many hands as we can as we attempt to build our car tyre playground. It would be fantastic to see children, parents and teachers all working together for the betterment of the school facility for our students.

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Dates for your diaries: • • • •

16th March: KLISS Elementary School Track and Field @ IGBIS 25th March: Community Playground build, 8am start 29th March: Phoenix a musical story: 1.45pm in the theatre 30th March: 8th April: IGBIS school holiday for students

Simon Millward

Elementary School Principal

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

ISTA Festival Ready To Go Jon Suffolk Performing Arts Teacher

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The Performing Arts area of the school is almost ready for the ISTA Festival that will take place next Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 75 middle school students, 10 staff, three visiting international artists, and two local artists will converge on the school for three days of theatre inquiry, exploration and making.

The festival theme, ‘Something in the Air’, will be the starting point for the inquiry and exploration as the students, under the leadership of the visiting artists, explore what the theme can mean and how they can respond to it creatively.

Visiting schools from Hong Kong will arrive on Wednesday evening and the festival will commence at 8.00am on Thursday, continuing until 4.30pm on Saturday. Students from IGBIS, ISKL, the French School of Hong Kong and the Canadian School of Hong Kong will converge on our campus for this amazing opportunity.​​ The performance and sharing session will take place at 4.00pm on Saturday afternoon and members of the IGBIS community are welcome to come along and see the results of the intense three days.

There are many people to thank for their contributions to the festival and today I would like to highlight the work of Mr Adi in marketing, who designed the images for all the publicity and promotion materials including the pull-up banner that I am standing next to in this image.

Igniting Minds

I​​ would also like to highlight the contribution of our parents who will be hosting the visiting students over the nights of the festival who, under the leadership of Ms Sujatha, have coordinated a fun, safe and welcoming experience for the visitors.

Impacting Lives

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Host Nation News Ms Sue, Ms Meena, Ms Ada, Ms Jas, Mr Rashid Elementary Host Nation Teachers

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Elementary students have been busy in Host Nations lately. In Early Years we are exploring popular songs from Malaysia. Songs are a wonderful way to help children experience other languages and cultures easily, as the tunes and rhythms are usually catchy.

Songs that we have sung in class are: ‘Bangun Pagi’, ‘Chan Mali Chan’, and ‘Kalau Rasa Gembira’.

Kindergarten students have been learning about traditional houses in Malaysia. During this unit we looked at different types of houses in Malaysia and we discussed the similarities and differences between townhouses and village houses. The children created their own house environment using Lego and wooden blocks to build their houses and used their Bahasa vocabulary to describe the different rooms in the houses and what they do in these rooms. They enjoyed building their own houses.

In a group, pairs or individually, Grade 1 students presented a game they created which was inspired by Malaysian traditional games that they have been learning. Using materials they found around the classroom such as Congkak beads, rubber skipping ropes, takraw balls and Nipah hand fans, they brainstormed ideas, designed the game, wrote down the instructions and presented the game to their peers. Afterwards, they each took turns playing each other’s game. The Grade 1 students also showed how they could count from 1 to 20 as they needed to count in order to play most games.

Grade 2 students have also been exploring traditional Malaysian games. They started learning how to play Congkak. They have also been making picture cards of the story ‘Rubah Dengan Kera’ and understanding the value within the story.

Grade 3 students learnt to talk about the common features of houses and apartments and also examined what makes each home unique. They began by learning the names of rooms and parts of a house/apartment and practiced describing their own and other houses.

Just like Grade 1 and Grade 3 students, Grade 4 students have been learning about traditional houses in Malaysia and how apartments we live in are an expression of our culture and our identity. But they also show many similarities with homes from other parts of the world because of the shared human experience around the world. In this unit, students have learnt to talk about the common features of houses and apartments and also examine what makes each home unique.

Grade 5 students have researched and learnt about different type of foods and spices in Malaysia. Over the last few weeks all students have inquired into a variety of foods and spices eaten by different ethnic groups of Malaysia. Students successfully completed a poster and presentation project.

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Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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IGBIS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives