IGB International School Newsletter, Issue 35, Week 4, April 2015

IGB International School’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue 35, Week 4, April 2015

Enrolment Fee discounts available until 30th April 2015 for new students applying for 2015-2016 Academic Year.

Elementary students from IGBIS and HELP International School competed in a friendly Dualthlon.

Inside this week’s Newsletter

Upcoming Events 1st May 2015 Public Holiday - Labour Day

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

4th May 2015 Replacement Public Holiday - Wesak Day

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

8th May 2015 PYP Grade 5 Exhibition

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

9th May 2015 Student Led Conferences, 8.30am - 12.45pm

Updates from Student Services Mr. Peter Fowles, Head of Student Services Updates from Academic and Support Services Mr. Peter Syme, Director of Academic and Support Services

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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Message from Head of School Mrs. Anne Fowles Head of School We have applied for membership of both CIS and NEASC and we are fortunate that the Associate Director of NEASC, Mr Michael Popinchalk, has been able to rearrange his schedule and come to IGBIS to conduct a site visit this Friday.

Dear IGBIS Parents and Community Members, It might have been school holidays last week, but it was still a busy time for me as I was in South Korea, chairing a joint accreditation team visit for the Council of International Schools (CIS) and New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) at the Dwight School Seoul. Apart from the privilege of being invited to chair the visit, it is an excellent professional development opportunity to see in detail how another international school is organised and run.

Our Board Executive Committee met on Thursday this week.

One of the topics under discussion was the school fees for the 2015-16 school year. We are expecting that these increases will be similar to those of other international schools but with a discount for our IGBIS returning students. Details of the 2015-16 school fees will be sent out to parents next week.

News from Elementary School Mrs. Claire McLeod Elementary School Principal Earth Day Our whole school Earth Day assembly on Wednesday was a highly enjoyable event, with Elementary students opening the assembly with two beautiful songs. The Elementary Student Council shared a video they made highlighting what students from Early Years 1 to Gr 5 think about conservation of our Earth’s resources and what they can do to make a positive impact. Yong You in Grade 11 delivered a powerful performance of Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” supported by a Secondary School choir.

Parenting Classes The second parenting class led by Jennifer LaMontana was held on Tuesday and positive responses were again received by those parents who attended. Jennifer herself was delighted with the contributions of the group and felt that the parents now have a better understanding of effective strategies to support their children.

Duathlon On Friday students from HELP International school competed with Elementary Students in a friendly Dualthlon at IGBIS. •

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10/11 year olds swam 50m and completed a 1000m run around the track.

Students from across the school cheered the competitors on and were amazed at some of their stamina.

Congratulations to all those who competed and thank you to Ms Jasmine Brawn our PE and Activities Coordinator who organised this event and to Ms Ostiguy, Ms Johanson and Mr Harvey who helped train our students.

Student Led Conferences By now parents will have received information on how to sign up for their child’s Student Led Conference that is scheduled for Saturday, 9th May. Please note that three families can sign up at one time and if the time slot is already fully booked a message explaining this should appear. This is an exciting and valuable experience for students and their parents and we look forward to seeing you on the 9th May. Until next time.

9 year olds and under swam 25m and completed a 500m run on the track.

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Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

Water Confidence: Balancing Play and Stroke Development A significant aspect of the IGBIS Physical Education programme is swimming. This is taught from EY – Gr10. Elementary classes have one swimming lesson each week all year round, whilst the secondary school have 6 week block swimming units.

So why all of this swimming?

As a PE department we recognise that a student can for example get away with not being a football player with all the skills that the game entails, but to leave IGBIS (or any school for that matter) and not be able to swim is serious. With many apartments, houses, house complexes and hotels having a swimming pool, being able to swim, reach the side or stay afloat can save your life.

Being comfortable and confident in the water is a goal we want to achieve. Last week we saw a turning point where many of our students showed greater confidence in the water. Our Early Years 1 students typified this where all of the students were laughing at some point during their lesson. It may have been the boat sinking challenge, the pirate treasure retrieval or even ‘motoring’ around on the mats.

Whatever it was, swimming has started to capture their imagination.

In Kindergarten and Grade 1 there has been a combination of ‘fun’ learning engagements and stroke development. Students have been ‘super spies’ navigating underwater, retrieving objects without making any splash entering, swimming and exiting the pool. Their stroke development has centred around freestyle and backstroke. Depending on what each student can already do will depend on the complexity of their tasks. Some students freestyle focus will be the arm action or leg kick others combining breathing with arms and leg actions. Those students whose focus has been backstroke have been videoed using an underwater camera to analyse how they currently swim. The students were excited to see themselves swimming and highlighted where they may be finding difficulty, for example their streamlining/body position in the water may have started flat and straight, then their legs sank. Discussions then ensued as to why this might be the case. They then tried to solve this problem.

In Grade 2 they have continued to work on forces and how their knowledge can help them swim more efficiently. They have been considering water resistance and their hands. Some students pointed out that if they close their fingers together there is greater resistance against the water and they can swim faster as opposed to having open fingers. Others investigated the distance they need to pull to have a strong arm action.

Whatever the challenge students are having fun, exploring and improving their swimming all the time!

Mr. Simon Millward, Primary Years Curriculum Coordinator

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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News from Secondary School Mr. Lennox Meldrum Secondary School Principal We celebrated Earth Day this week with another great Whole School assembly. While it is easy to be bombarded with information about how climate change may affect the future for our students and the negative effects of what is happening around the globe, it is also a time to celebrate the successes that are also being achieved globally.

Closest to home is the push by the Malaysian government to reduce the country’s emissions of carbon dioxide by 40% by 2020. Part of this is the now monthly car-free mornings in Kuala Lumpur that happen for three hours on the first Sunday of each month. You can join a bike ride on these days that leave from various locations around the city, including KLCC and the KL City Hall.

The global Earth Day action this year was to try to encourage people to pledge “a billion acts of green”. These pledges included eating less meat, setting up a composting station, recycling e-waste, and reducing “vampire” energy waste (see more pledge ideas at http://www.earthday.org/takeaction/campaigns. html). The great news is that the goal of over a billion pledges

was reached well before Earth day. It is never too late to try some of these ideas out and I encourage you to look through the list of actions you could take.

A lot of the research released about the state of our planet comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a initiative of the United Nations that has the support of nearly 200 countries across the globe. While it may seem daunting how we as individuals can help make progress on keeping our globe healthy, it is through a combination of individual actions (such as the Earth Day pledges or supporting car-free days) and government actions (locally and globally) that will help us look after our planet for future generations of IGBIS students.

Continue to support those who are willing to take action and we will help ensure the next generation of leaders that come from our school are prepared to make informed and positive decisions.

Have a great weekend.

Learning How To Learn Is Pluto a planet or not?

When I went to school Pluto was a planet, then in 2006 there was controversy as it was declared that Pluto was no longer a planet. Now there is a movement pushing for Pluto to once again be declared a planet. http://bit.ly/pluto-planet What do we teach our students? This is just one example of how fast information or knowledge changes. In these Internet enabled times with google and wikipedia we no longer need to know as much, it is more important that our students (and ourselves) know how to find information, how to sort out the good from the bad and how to use and process the information.

Some of the ways we do this at IGBIS include: • modeling how to find the answers to questions we have or the students have • explicitly teaching students how to search on the Internet • teaching student how to evaluate websites and cross check information • giving students opportunities to use the information they find in real life situations • giving students time to explore and play (both on devices and in the real world) • using class procedure like ‘Ask 3 before me’ where students have to show they have either searched for an answer online, found a youtube clip on the subject or asked a friend before they ask a teacher for help.

• encouraging a culture where it is OK to say I don’t know and asking for help

Learning how to Learn I think the whole purpose of school should be teaching students how to learn independently. Rather than teaching students facts or information we should be teaching students how to find information, how to evaluate and cross check the information they find and how to use the information. This is much more useful than teaching facts that most likely will change or teaching knowledge that can easily be found elsewhere.

On a regular day I search the Internet 5 - 10 times finding answers to questions from teachers and students that I don’t know. The more I search, the more I learn and the better I get at searching and quickly finding the information that I need to know.

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Impacting Lives

Igniting Minds

Teaching students how to learn is a much more sustainable and a skill that will benefit them their entire lives.

Geoff Derry, Technology Integration Specialist

Updates from Student Services Mr. Peter Fowles Head of Student Services Health and Safety Backpacks in schools are not new, they can be a fashion statement and exude a students individuality.

An excellent means by which to transport an array of items to school they can also be an item of concern.

Students can overload their back packs, causing physical harm to themselves and those around them. The school requirement in Secondary is that backpacks be kept in lockers during school hours. Students only need to carry a small number of items and have the form-fitting case for laptops or tablets. For larger items such as musical instruments or sports equipment they are welcome to use my office or they could make arrangements with the relevant subject teacher.

Bulky backpacks being carried in the hallways are a safety hazard. It is a day-to-day issue to avoid clutter and obstacles in working school spaces especially if there is a fire drill and a need to evacuate the building. It is important to maintain mobility in the hallways and classrooms, students always have the option to go back to their locker between classes.

When using their lockers students need to keep them locked, very often they are visibly open and items can go missing. Lockers are the alternative for keeping items safe and not backpacks, which are to accessible and can easily be tampered with.

The school asks for the support and understanding of parents as we direct students to use their back packs and lockers in an acceptable manner. As with all items in the newsletter, please make contact to discuss issues further, parent and community responses to these articles are always welcome.

Updates from Academic and Support Services Mr. Peter Syme Director of Academic and Support Services Sungai Buloh International Football Club This Sunday, 26 April 2015, the Sungai Buloh International Football Club (SBIFC) commences their coaching clinics at IGBIS. Every Sunday morning from 9am-10am and every Thursday afternoon from 5pm-6pm, clinics will be catering for students and also open to community members aged from 5 years to 20 years old. The clinics will be organised into skill development appropriate for the age and stage of the students.

For further details and registration, contact Coach Will Kucia on 016 264 5551, or visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SungaiBulohInternationalFootballClub

International Day International Day is rapidly approaching, and will be taking place on Saturday, 23 May 2015. The teachers and parents have already had several meetings and by now, you will have heard from your parent reps about possible food contributions and suggestions for activities. They will keep you informed and more detailed information will be coming home to you all soon.

Mr. Peter Syme, Director of Academic and Support Services

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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