IGB International School Newsletter, Issue 20, Week 1, December 2014

IGB International School’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue 20, Week 1, December 2014

The Weekly Newsletter is our online school-wide form of communication to the Parent and Student community. It is sent electronically every week to the e-mail contact you have provided to Admissions. You can either access it through the link sent to your e-mail or through the website at www.igbis.edu.my. Please the newsletter every week!

News, events, school developments and highlights are shared and parents and students should make sure they read this every week.

Fantastic performances by students at the first IGBIS Idol talent show.

Inside this week’s Newsletter Message from Head of School Mrs. Anne Fowles, Head of School

News from Elementary School Mrs. Claire McLeod, Elementary School Principal

Upcoming Events December Wednesday, 10th December 2014

Whole School Christmas Assembly, 2.00pm (Red and Green Day, school uniform is not required.)

Last day of School

Thursday, 11th December 2014

News from Secondary School Mr. Lennox Meldrum, Secondary School Principal

Public Holiday - Sultan Selangor’s Birthday

11th December - 2nd January 2015 December School Holidays

Updates from Student Services Mr. Peter Fowles, Head of Student Services

January 5th January 2015 School Resumes

Updates from Admissions Mrs. Bronwyn Thorburn, Admissions Director

Office Closing Days 24th - 26th December 2014 1st January 2015

Igniting Minds

Office Hours during School Holidays 8.30am - 4.30pm

Impacting Lives

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Message from Head of School Mrs. Anne Fowles Head of School Dear IGBIS Parents and Community Members, Although we are only four months into the school year, the senior management team and the Board of Directors have been in discussion regarding planning for next school year. With on-going interest in the school from new families, we are anticipating that by this time next year our student numbers will have doubled. We therefore are looking at expanding the number of classrooms available and hiring more teachers to commence in August 2015.

A school’s most important resource is its teaching staff. This is certainly the case at IGBIS despite our outstanding facilities. During these last couple of weeks the management team and I have been conducting professional growth and development evaluations of all of the staff in IGBIS. We continue to be impressed by the high quality of our staff at all levels of the school. The teaching and learning going on in the classrooms is certainly at a higher level than I have seen before in the many schools I have visited for IB evaluation or Council of International Schools accreditation. Our students tell us that they are challenged more in their classes here, but they also find school to be more meaningful, more interesting and with a closer connection to real world concepts and contexts.

Likewise parents are giving very positive feedback about their impressions of our fantastic teachers and the learning environment that they provide.

It is now less than a week until the holidays. A reminder to our parent community that there will be a Christmas Assembly on Wednesday, 10th December. We look forward to seeing you there.

Have a good weekend.

News from Elementary School Mrs. Claire McLeod Elementary School Principal Dear Parents, How fast time seems to fly when every day is new, different and exciting. For teachers here at IGBIS it seems such a long time ago when we welcomed our first group of students on the 18th August. Since then we have all watched as they have grown not just in height but also more importantly in confidence and individual abilities. For many students the natural way to document their learning had been in formal bookwork, textbooks and worksheets. Today as you walk through the Elementary School you regularly see students working together to collaborate on a set task, taking photos, making videos and recording their thoughts and understandings which they share with the class and eventually with their parents. We have also noticed the increased evidence of students understanding the IB Learner Profile and displaying their understanding in the words they choose and their everyday actions. Our students have come a long way since August and our teachers are incredibly proud of their student’s achievements.

The weekly class newsletter and blogs provide information about what has been learnt and what will be the next focus; it also includes photos and sometimes links to short movies to highlight the learning that is taking place. These newsletters are not just for parents, we ask that you discuss them with your child and use these discussions to help your child explain what they have

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learnt, how they feel about their learning and for you to consider how you may be able to help. Your feedback is very important to your child and they will value your positive comments about their effort, commitment, perseverance and process.

I would like to thank the Secondary School Student Council for organising the movie afternoon last Friday. It was well attended and our students enjoy dressing up as a movie character and settling down to watch the movie after school.

Next Wednesday is our last school day for 2014 and school will finish at the normal time. The last day is Red and Green Day, so students are not required to wear their school uniform. We would really like all our students to wear something red and green so please help them look in their wardrobe for something that is red and green and reminds us of Christmas. It will definitely add to the spirit of the last day and help us all get in the mood for our lovely three week holiday break.

Until next week.

Impacting Lives

Brave Warriors and Beautiful Cats!

Grade 4 have been very busy adding their learnt shading skills to their Terracotta Warriors in their sketch books. By using an extra large warrior head image, it gave them more space for the flow of proportional outlining and 3D inner drawing effects.

Next came the hard work of incising their polystyrene Terracotta Warrior printing blocks with mark-making tools, ready for

Now for the fun part! Printing the warriors! Results from the printing process will be included next time.

Grade 2 have completed their ‘drawing and collage’ cats.

Throughout the journey the students thought about what they were learning to do and what they would look for in another student’s work. As a summative assessment, they reflected on their own work, writing down what was hard, what was easy to do and what they would do differently next time. They also included what 2 learner profiles they used while working and justified their decisions with reasons.

printing. They had fun executing patterns on the warriors clothing and in the background of their blocks. This work has demanded close observation of detail and rendering that detail successfully without poking holes right through the block.

A test run with a smaller polystyrene piece enabled the students to see what it looked like when a mark-making tool was used too heavily. From this experience they were able to gauge the right amount of pressure needed for a successful outcome.

Way to go Grade 2. They look amazing!!

Ms. Nan Parker, Elementary Art Teacher

Elementary School Music I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of our first semester, with our December break ahead of us. All Elementary grades have been practicing songs we will perform at our Christmas assembly next week. We will perform two partner songs and some Christmas songs. Students have learned to follow a conductor.

We’ve worked hard on using different dynamics such as Piano (singing softly) or crescendo (going from soft to loud gradually).

We’ve also worked on pronunciation and when to sing the last vowels of words.

Grade Four are discovering that media influences how we think and the choices we make. Music is making a connection to this classroom unit by looking at the different aspects of jingles. Grade Four explored Garageband and used the program to make a one and a half minute music piece using existing free Apple loops.

Their next step is creating their own jingle that will fit their slogan.

Our lower elementary grades have continued to explore different music instruments through musical stories. Check out the photos!

Mrs. Hadewych Dujardin, Elementary School Music Teacher

Grade Five got very excited when they heard several versions of the song ‘ I like to move it move it’, from the movie Madagascar.

We saw the original song, marching band and classroom band versions. We analysed the song and discovered 3 main musical patterns that we tried immediately on the xylophones. As we dig deeper into our central idea ‘Patterns that repeat can provide structure to communicate a musical idea’ students will create their own classroom version of the song.

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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News from Secondary School Mr. Lennox Meldrum Secondary School Principal What an amazing few months it has been, and it really seems like just yesterday when we were welcoming our first families at our student orientation in August. There is a lot to celebrate in the Secondary School and the upcoming break is a good time to spend time as a family to reflect on the progress that each of us has made and contributed to.

The IB Learner Profile is such a central part to all we do at IGBIS. While I could write endlessly about the fantastic examples of our students and teachers demonstrating each of the attributes across the past few months, one that really sticks out is risk-taker. Our first families visiting us in the office above Jaya Grocer were risk-takers when they agreed to join a new and untested school with a set of programmes not widely known in Malaysia. In our classrooms I see students who have never before had to stand in front of their peers being risk-takers by not only delivering presentations but also their personal views and opinions. Our school camps were full of opportunities to be risk-takers in which our students enjoyed challenging themselves. Even our parent company, IGB, were risk-takers by moving away from their core business to become an active part of the international school community in Malaysia.

IGBIS Idol This week saw another wonderful series of risk-taking moments as our students took part in our first IGBIS Idol talent-show event. If performing in front of all of Secondary School in our expansive theatre wasn’t challenging enough, technical issues disrupted our sound and added a new layer of nerves for the performers. It was uplifting to see our first performers, Phebi Lee and Jesse Murison from Grade 6, bravely fight through these issues and present a great version of the Leonard Cohen classic, “Hallelujah”. It was a great event to wrap up our first few months of school and a huge congratulations goes out to all of the performers: Jesse, Phebi, Ryan, Rachel, Sumire, Daniella, Nicole, Alex, Pietro, Grace, Seong Jin, Cindy, and Mrs Kim, as well as Mr Cameron as MC and Mr Morris and Ms Seehaus for being our judges. I look forward to even more talents on display at the next IGBIS Idol.

Have a safe and enjoyable holiday and I look forward to seeing you all back again in 2015. Don’t forget we are closing 2014 with a Christmas Assembly at 2.00pm on December 10 and it is going to be another great event.

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Impacting Lives

Updates from Student Services Mr. Peter Fowles Head of Student Services Dear Parents and Students, Welcome to the Student Services page, the activities session 1 has ended and there will be no after school activities next week, my congratulations and thanks to staff without whom the programme would not have been a success.

Over 40 activities have been offered for session 2. This will commence on 12th January 2015 and end on 20th March 2015.

Registration closes today Friday the 5th December. Please note that the minimum number of 5 participants for staff led activities must be reached for an activity to run. Secondary students and Elementary parents will be informed of the confirmed choices by Wednesday the 10th December. Payment at the school finance office is between 7.50am untill 9.00am and from 2.50pm to 4.00pm Monday to Friday, families have from the 5th January untill 16th January to pay fees.

Students have been encouraged to have a balance of cultural, service, skills and sports activities. We will be firm with students in regard to their commitment both to an activity and their academic studies, we ask for parents support in this regard. Please discuss choices with your children.

Students will use this opportunity to widen their experiences and extend their learning and most importnatly of all to have FUN! The link below is our Activities page please check in to see messages and information in regard to all activities at IGBIS http://bit.ly/igbis-activities We welcome your queries, please contact Mr. Fowles for any further information.

Updates from Admissions Mrs. Bronwyn Thorburn Admissions Director It has been a wonderfully busy few weeks in Admissions and Marketing. The PISF and Open Day have resulted in a number of new student applications. The school has now enrolled over 175 students, and we have 34 nationalities represented in the community. We expect to be over 185 once the second semester is underway in February. There will be more than 25 new students joining the school over January and February, and we are looking forward welcoming them on their arrival. Considering we opened with 144 students in August, this will mean that almost a quarter of our student community will have started school during the academic year.

Events from Admissions/Marketing: •

IGBIS Parent Volunteer Organisation - on Monday, 8th December at 2.00pm we will have a smaller meeting to discuss class representatives and a new family/student event in the new year.

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On 15th January, we will be hosting a Corporate Open Afternoon for individuals and companies involved in relocating families to Kuala Lumpur. If you know of someone who would like to visit the school, or can suggest a corporate contact such as an International Assignment Human Resources contact or relocation company, please do come and see us in the Admissions Office or contact us on enquiries@igbis.edu.my.

Notice from Finance Department: •

Invoices for the Second Semester have been e-mailed to families. Please contact Ms Clarissa Jaya in the Finance Department if you have not received a copy.

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We are pleased to announce that a credit card payment terminal has been installed at the Finance Department, so credit card payments can now be made for school fees and uniforms at the Finance Department Counter.

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives