SFS Today Fall 2013

Issue: Fall 2013

Inspiring Excellence, Building Character - Since 1912

TODAY

Genius Hour - Inspired Learning

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Students from BS-Year 5C, ES-Grade 5J and MS-Grade 6T.

Students have the desire to learn for themselves, both in and out of school; they develop as self-directed problem solvers.

Nick Corben, Yr. 5 Teacher

You can trace Genius Hour’s beginnings back to the 1950s when 3M introduced something similar and the result were innovations like postits and masking tape. Today, Google employs a variation of it, and schools around the world are empowering

their students with Genius Hour: one hour a week to inspire, create, research and form their own conclusions with their learning.

this fun and interactive format. Using research skills and their media literacy, students study diverse topics, driven by their own passion and interests.

Genius Hour, is dedicated classroom time, when students are challenged, engaged, and developing the necessary skills to be self directed learners.

Our kids are growing up in a world that is far different from the world we grew up in. It is becoming increasingly important for them to be able to synthesize large amounts of information quickly and apply this to constantly changing problems.

Working in collaboration with others or independently, students are provided with the scope needed to demonstrate their creativity and communication skills as they take responsibility for their learning in

Mike Jackson, Gr. 5 Teacher

A FOCUS ON EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE

Essential Early Childhood

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Excellence in our IB

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1st in Korea SFS GAFE

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TODAY IN THE SPOTLIGHT - SFS Opinion Column

What is Educational Excellence?

REGULAR FEATURES

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT What is Educational Excellence? An exploration of opinions on the topic that unpack some of the complexities.

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SNAP SHOT BOX Health Office offers CPR/AED Training, IB HL Science Labs, British School Science Awards.

IN FOCUS Genius Hour Cover Story A balance of inspiration, creativitiy and self direction.

Educational excellence from my vantage point is an ongoing process that flows naturally from an open, supportive, and challenging community where relationships are as valued as learning.

In an environment that values learning over achievement, educational excellence comes through self-empowerment and discovery. Students learn how to go about investigating, creating, testing, and refining ideas and skills.

Tim Relyea, MS Humanities Teacher

The primary focus of education is to provide students with the opportunity to undertake a “learning journey”. With this in mind, I believe educational excellence is how well we: Prepare students for the journey Inspire student to go on the journey Equip students to handle all that the journey entails Encourage students to challenge themselves and to push on when the journey gets tough Care for students as they undertake the journey Accompany the students on their journey by travelling with them Stuart Kent, AP 11-12 & IB Coordinator

Educational excellence is not specific to academic excellence. It should also be equally about the formation of the character, spirit, physical, creative and emotional aspects of our beings.

Educational excellence should also allow for failure as a process through which rich learning can occur. And sometimes, that is the most difficult and challenging, place to be. The learning that follows from this can prove to be the most important.

Frances Snowden, BS KS3 Geography & Religious Education

In order to create ‘excellent’ art, students must learn to embrace failure as their most valuable teacher, for the only way to improve in Art is to constantly challenge oneself, for one soon learns that the easy option is always less satisfying.

Excellence in Art for me is when students emerge more confident, creative, and ambitious individuals, and one would struggle to find a job advert lacking those adjectives.

Bert Young,

HS Art Teacher

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Excellence within IB A mature program at SFS, built on solid foundations.

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Building Blocks of Learning

Critical thinking & communication begin in the Early Years.

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SFS GAFE Summit The 1st South Korea Google Apps For Education Summit.

CONTACT US Seoul Foreign School 39 Yeonhui-ro 22-gil, Seodaemun-gu Seoul, Korea 120-823 Tel: 82-2-330-3100 Fax: 82-2-335-1857 yjum@seoulforeign.org

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Inspiring Excellence, Building Character - Since 1912

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GROWING STRONG PROGRAMS

The Growth of Robotics

Lego Robotics is creative, hands on, critical thinking, and self assessed. It’s very easy for the students to gain instant feedback on their work. It develops independent learning, with the right structure in place.

Ryan Kuhl

MS Math/Science Teacher

Lego Robotics continues to grow and thrive as a popular elective in the Middle School and a growing educational tool in the upper Elementary School.

Many schools use the Lego Mindstorm series of kits. Students are highly interested and engaged while being given opportunities to learn Essential Competencies such as problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and of course, creativity.

As many of our Grade 6 students have already been exposed to Lego Robotics in Grade 5, we see the benefits of students coming into the Middle School having already established a basic level of skill in robotics.

Excellence within IB

There is a lot we can be proud of when it comes to the level of excellence that we offer. Excellence manifests itself in a variety of ways, and this can be witnessed everyday at SFS. Our IB teaching faculty are some of the most experienced in the region, with many having taught IB for a number of years both at SFS and at other schools.

Having offered the IB DP programme since 1980, SFS offers a mature program that has been built on a solid foundation, and has produced outstanding graduates who have gone on to college level success.

SFS has shown a deep commitment to inquiry-based learning, employing a well-trained faculty and exhibiting a deep understanding of what is involved in offering the DP program.

We have a number of staff that are IB examiners and one staff member is the only teacher world wide to sit on the IBO International Extended Essay review committee. This level of involvement with the IBO has a significant trickle-down effect on the excellence that is offered to our students in their IB classes.

Stuart Kent

AP 11-12 & IB Coordinator

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TODAY THE SNAP SHOT BOX

SFS Health Office offers CPR/AED Training 43 bus drivers and supervisors in Transportation received CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation)/ AED (Automated External Defibrillator).

Experiential Learning

Last year we reported on ‘The Underwood Memorial Hall Blog’ - a compilation of short essays written by our Grade 4.

As part of her CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) activity, Jenny Choi is translating the blog into Korean. For those less familiar with CAS, it’s a programme of-

fered in the HS, involving students in experiential learning.

In the process of translating, it was interesting to see how greatly rooted the Underwood family was in Korea’s history.

Jenny Choi, Gr. 11

Essential Competencies IB HL Biology Heart Dissections

At the height of their learning, our year 2 IB HL Biology Students get an up-close learning experience.

Access to a vast array of information is so easy with computer technology and the internet.

Technology improvements have made our world smaller by being more accessible. But along with these innovations come new challenges.

The biggest challenge is how to access credible information easily and use it responsibly to communicate effectively.

BS Science Students of the Month (October)

From left to right: Alyssa Choi (Y9), Ewa Marczuk (Y7), Graca Kiboi (Y8), Hyong Kim (Y9), Henk-Jan De Boer (Y8), Jun Seob Shim (Y7).

How can we fit this in our Seoul Foreign School perspective? We are a school of educational excellence promoting responsible global citizenship in a Christian context. We value knowledge but realize there is so much more involved in preparing students for their future.

As such we have recently undertaken a process over many months to ensure we are preparing our students well. A variety of groups revised our Expected Student Learning Results (ESLRs), extended their scope and renamed them as Essential Competencies / skills.

These Essential Competencies identify what we as a school see as important in developing responsible global citizens who possess not only the knowledge and skills of the content areas but also the skills, confidence and passion to make a positive difference in their communities.

Please see the academic section of our school’s website for more.

Inspiring Excellence, Building Character - Since 1912

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ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING

Author Julia Golding Inspires Writers The way she interacted with us made me want to read her books and write something myself!

Krish Rapaka,

Have you ever wondered what kind of creative imagination it takes to come up with characters for an award winning fantasy novel for teens?

On 1st October, Grade 7 students from the Middle School had the opportunity to work with British Award Winning Author Julia Golding as part of their Writer’s Workshop week.

Gr. 7B

Julia shared some of her strategies as an author for how she creates characters, including her own version of a round table for her new series Young Knights. Planning a story can be a difficult task to start, so our students were excited to see how a tablecloth could be used to create the lead character of a story.

Students were given the chance to work with Julia to create several characters that would fit into her new series. She also shared some wonderful tips about creating characters for her new book to be released in February 2015.

After meeting with Julia the students wrote letters back to her sharing some of their reflections on their own learning about the writing process, and how it will help them continue to grow as writers.

I will definitely use some of these methods for the next story I write!

Max Kral, Gr. 7J

Building Blocks of Learning You might be surprised to know that the teaching of Essential Competencies happens everyday in Junior Kindergarten in fun and dynamic ways.

One such activity that involved parents and students over a four day period was “The Construction Zone”. It involved loads of hands on action and building materials, as our 4-5 year olds demonstrated their creativity, initiative and collaboration skills, and problem solving their way through a series of challenging activities.

You could see that the children gained confidence in planning their outcome: benchmarking from watching their peers, accepting their failures with improvement, and presenting their creativity in front of all their peers, parents, and teachers!

Anonymous Parent

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TODAY A LEGACY OF SUCCESS FROM PRE K - 12

Top Colleges Visit SFS

At the end of the Asian tour each year, we do an evaluation of all of the fairs we did, and hands down Seoul Foreign School always comes out on top as being the BEST program!

University Admissions Representative With over 100 years of history, it is no surprise that Seoul Foreign School is THE place the most prestigious colleges will visit if they have 24 hours to spare in Korea.

Seoul Foreign School has been asked to host the ‘Open’ programs for colleges including the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, Rice University, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Princeton, Northwestern, Oxford University, Cornell, Brown, and the University of California. But the opportunities for our Students to meet with key representatives from colleges doesn’t stop there.

By the end of this calendar year, we will have had over 130 universities visit SFS since August. This represents an increase of 20% over the same period last year, and 27% over the same period two years ago.

The number of visiting Colleges continues to increase and have represented: USA, Australia, the UK, Canada, Korea, China, UAE, Switzerland, and Japan. This has broadened the range of options our Graduates have.

NIK Building Success

Under the operation of Seoul Foreign School, Namsan International Kindergarten in the Hanam-dong area, is providing our students with an outstanding, diverse, and rich early years program.

With attention to every detail, our students at NIK are enjoying the benefits of our whole school resources and their intimate premises. Students have the best of both worlds at their fingertips swimming lessons at the main SFS campus, Mandarin classes, Taekwondo, Art, Music and more at NIK. Using the PYP early years program, the NIK curriculum provides our students with an excellent grounding to tranistion to our main campus in their years to come. For a tour of NIK contact: admissions@seoulforeign.org or call 330-3121.

1:1 Smooth Rolling in Gr4

In August, our 1:1 laptop program rolled into the ES Grade 4 classrooms, with an emphasis on “cloudbased” learning.

Having an audience makes for higher engagement with the students. Knowing that other students are viewing their work leads to higher quality.

Brad Thies, Gr. 4 Teacher

The introduction of 1:1 laptops hasn’t diminished the importance of learning the basics in reading and writing. But it has challenged students to use their ‘tech-tools’ to develop better communication skills, problem solve, and most importantly to work collaboratively with their peers.

Inspiring Excellence, Building Character - Since 1912

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A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE

High Ropes

James Hooper - inspiring our students A young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit. to climb Everest, James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams.

students producing websites on biomes Remember producing your own website when you were at school? Probably not! In Year 8 geography in the British School, students have produced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth. Projects like this one are on-going throughout our school divisions and evidence of the growing importance of Information & Media Skills, just one of the new Essential Competencies being intergrated into our curriculum.

Here are two examples you can check out: Chaparral: Henk Jan de Boer, Year 8 http://bit.ly/19VEKwv Coniferous: Awani Cuddon, Year 8 http://bit.ly/19Xw4rA

On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju. Whether it was the individual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith, or the cooperative challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course, students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones. It was a great day of fun, team building, and personal accomplishment.

Justin Jang, Gr. 8G

MS New Assessment

The new assessment systems will allow students to be more well-rounded.

Instead of focusing on the results, they’ll focus more on the journey to get to those results.

Menya Jefferson, MS French Teacher

In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and students about learning, students in the Middle School will receive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year. Under the new system, the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately.

Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activist We were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees. See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit.

It was awesome! We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that we’d never done before. The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the air.

Achievement measures a student’s understanding, skills, and knowledge of concepts learned in class. Citizenship represents the student’s attitude, preparedness, and partic-

ipation. Additionally, teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class. Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count towards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade.

With a variety of types of formative assessment, students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being “penalized” with a grade. By the time students take a final, or summative assessment, they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed.

Tim Relyea,

MS Humanities Teacher

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TODAY SFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION

Ancient Egypt Comes Alive

Recently, Mrs. Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist. She talked about her training and job, some of the sites she had dug, and the tools she used.

Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers, our Year 4 students gained a hands-on perspective to Ancient Egypt, replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques.

Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the students to reflect more authentically in their written responses and

their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization. Their culminating celebration was to showcase their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum.

It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt. It was first grey and then brown.

Mario Hessmann, Yr. 4L

It became very smelly! Imagine the smell if it had been real humans!

Maxence Morel-Dierckx, Yr. 4L

SFS Google Summit In Numbers

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