Dear Parents,
What a great week we have had! Book Week resulted in a great array of costumes at assembly last Monday, a fantastic set of book doors, and a real focus on reading throughout the campus over the week. Our sports teams have done well in many competitions. Some members of our community joined a two-day workshop in Scenario Planning as a prelude to the school’s own strategic planning. Our M4/M5 students began their exams (which continue this week), and our D2 artists displayed their work in a fantastic exhibition. This week is now the final week of the quarter – we hope to see many parents at either the secondary parent-teacher meetings on Friday or at the primary student-led conferences on Thursday. Read more below…
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IB Diploma Art
We hope that many families and friends will be able to visit the IB Diploma Art Exhibition in Karibu Hall on Monday and Tuesday, 23rd/24th March. I can guarantee that there is an extremely high level of quality art on display and we are proud of our art students’ achievements. The exhibition is open on Monday afternoon and all day on Tuesday up to 4pm.
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Soccer Sevens
On Saturday March 22, ISM hosted the annual Soccer 7s. We hosted schools from Mawenzi, Kibo, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Watu, Moshi Tech, St. Jude, Eden Garden, St. Constantine’s, Braeburn, and Hindu Mandal. With boys and girls playing over 100 games in the day, it was a fun and exciting day. The ISM Senior Girls team won the championship in a penalty shoot out nail-biting final over Braeburn. The ISM Senior Boys A team narrowly missed making the finals, and the ISM Senior Boys B team had tough games throughout the day.
For the second year in succession ISM’s senior girls won the U19 Soccer sevens tournament on Saturday. Although they didn’t concede a goal throughout the tournament they found scoring difficult and progressed to the final on the back of two goalless draws and a Stine Pristed strike in a 1-0 victory over Moshi Tech. Their opponents in the final, Braeburn Arusha, had impressed whilst winning their own pool scoring 4 goals. But with Janeth and Emma commanding in defence it was ISM who were to dominate the final narrowly missing chances in either half. A tense sudden death extra time quickly turned to a penalty shoot out. The quality of ISM penalty taking was outstanding. Only one missed penalty in 7 meant that when the luckless Braeburn keeper struck her own penalty against a post the silverware was once again destined to sparkle for another 12 months in the ISM trophy cabinet.
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M4/5 Assessments
Our M4 and M5 students continue their formal examinations this week as part of their overall assessment. The exams go on till Thursday, 27th March.
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Primary Conferences
On Thursday, 27 March our primary students will be inviting their parents to share their learning journey with them. All our primary students will show their parents their portfolios; these are folders of work which have been specially chosen by the student and the teacher, demonstrating their unit of inquiries and specialist subjects. We do hope you will join your child on this special occasion to celebrate their learning. Next week a letter will come home with times for you to choose, we always try to allocate times so that parents can see siblings back to back. Parents of boarders please email the teacher directly if you prefer to make a special arrangement for Friday 28 March.
There will be no formal classes for primary students on Thursday, 27 March. Once you have visited your child’s class you will need to take your child home with you.
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End of Term Arrangements
On Friday, 28 March there will be some classes for both primary and secondary students starting, as usual, at 7:30am. We will hold an end-of-quarter assembly in Karibu Hall for all students at 9am. Students will be free to leave school at 10:15am on that day.
Parents of secondary students are invited to meet your child’s teachers at parent-teacher meetings in Karibu Hall from 10:35am to 12 noon. This is a ideal opportunity for parents to meet their child’s teachers and discuss any questions or issues with them. We look forward to seeing you.
Boarders may leave school any time from 10:15 on the Friday. Please DO NOT arrange for your child to leave school early as this can be detrimental to to his/her own learning and disruptive to the classes in general. If your child is flying from Moshi or KIA, please send flight details as soon as possible to Rosemary Bango on and indicate whether or not you would like the school to provide airport transport. Please note that we may not allow boarders to leave the school campus if we have not heard details from you on how they are travelling.
On Thursday 27 March we will issue the full reports for D2 and interim reports for M1-D1. If you would like a soft copy please email .
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Ski Trip
A small group of ISM students from both campuses is leaving on Thursday, 27th March for our annual ski trip to Switzerland accompanied by Mr Holt and one Arusha teacher. We wish them all the best for this adventure – they are due to return on 6th April.
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Book Week
Bookweek has highlighted the importance of reading across the school. Every day we have been Dropping Everything And Reading from P1- D2. The Book Doors are still up if you wish to walk around the school and see a host of creativity; this year’s winners were Room 30 – Holes, and Room 16 – James and the Giant Peach. Thank you to the parents, teachers and students who popped in to be Mystery Readers to primary. We also have a secondary book reading competition which started in January; the winners will be announced in assembly on Friday March 28.
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Library Books
If your child has any library books at home that need to be returned, could you please help him/her to get them back to the library? There are a large number of overdue books at present out on loan!
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MYP – M3 Book Club
In M3, the Language & Literature students have had a year-long push to encourage their personal reading through the Book Review Challenge. Each month they are expected to read a novel in their own time. This is an additional expectation, which runs alongside their MYP unit work. These book reviews are assessed on their presentation and their write-up either through peer assessment or teacher assessment.
The book club is an opportunity for the M3 students to talk about books that they have chosen from a range of genres; fantasy, science fiction, realistic fiction and non-fiction. Every book review day each student presents their book in class; the challenge is not to give away the end, but to review the novel according to the obstacles the characters face as well as highlights such as the setting or events. They also have to choose a special quote and explain its importance. One month we mixed it up and each student chose a book for a peer to read and review. We have had some really interesting books recently such as The Book Thief Lord (Markus Zusak), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon) , Ethan’s Voice (Rachel Carter), A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hossein) or Things Not Seen (Andrew Clements).
The beauty of this book club is that it motivates reading but also the joy of sharing a good book, as often a fellow student may want to read the book themselves.
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MYP – PE Classes
The M1-M5 classes have begun swimming in PE, and we need your support to help ensure your son/daughter comes prepared to class. Swimming is a very important life skill and we would like to ensure that ALL students are participating. We have 3 different levels of classes going at the same time, so that everyone will benefit.
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M5 Work Experience
The M5 students will be spending a week at work gaining employment experience from 5th to 9th May. Some parents of M5 students have not yet returned permission slips – please do so as soon as possible.
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Diploma Scholarships
We are pleased to announce that following interviews held last week, ISM is offering two full scholarships to diploma students from August 2014 to May 2016. Our successful applicants are Angel Ngulumbi from St Francis Girls Secondary School, and Clevance Mbilinyi from Feza Boys Secondary School. We congratulate them both and wish them much success with ISM in the future.
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Rugby at ISM
The picture to the left shows our girls’ rugby team after a practice session last week. This week an international group will be visiting ISM to undertake rugby coaching on the campus. They are inviting young, hopeful rugby players from schools and teams in Kilimanjaro region to join them for some demanding training exercises. We are pleased to be able to welcome them to ISM and to offer our facilities for this visit.
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Basketball
LEOPARD SENIOR BOYS DID IT AGAIN! Round Robin Tournament Champions @ ESSO Pallotti! With 1 loss (11-10 to Ilboru) & 3 wins (v Pallotti 33-15; v Orkeeswa 28-11; v Arusha Sec 29-5) in the round robin our ISM Leopards advanced to and WON the championship against Pallotti 30-16!!! Siamito shined as the MOST VALUABLE PLAYER of the tournament! Way to go GUYS!!!
STATS from ALL 5 GAMES today @ ESSO Pallotti…
Daniel M: 33 points, 34 rebounds, 5 assists, 11 steals, 4 blocked shots;
Siamito: 27 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists, 7 steals;
David K: 20 points, 25 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal (+GREAT DEFENSE in the paint!);
Twan: 17 points, 34 rebounds, 1 assist, 11 steals;
Leo: 16 points, 21 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals 1 blocked shot;
Joseph: 7 points, 1 rebound, 1 steal;
Louie: 4 rebounds.
Keep dat swagga, Coach Greg
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D1: TOEFL and ACT tests
During the holidays a number of D1 students will be spending a week at TANSAO attending ACT prepration classes offered by that organisation and many will also be taking tests on 12th April in Dar. More ACT tests will be held in ISM in Moshi on Saturday, 14th June. Registration for these tests (required only for students applying to universities in the USA) will take place early next quarter.
ISM will also be a center for the TOEFL paper-based test in Moshi on Saturday, 31st May. These tests are required for second language English speakers applying to study in the USA or Canada. Registration for the TOEFL PBT will also take place early next quarter. Note: Students who have already registered for the IELTS test in Moshi on 10th May do NOT need to register for TOEFL as well.
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School Holidays
During the school holidays (from 31st March to 17th April), the school office will be open and Library and IT facilities will also be available during working hours (7:30m to 5pm, Mon-Fri). However please note that all will be closed at weekends and on public holidays: 18th, 20th and 21st April.
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Quarter 4
We look forward to welcoming all boarders back to school on Easter Monday, 21st April. Please ensure that your child arrives on this day (preferably before 6pm) so that they are well prepared for classes the next morning. Classes will begin at 7:30am on Tuesday, 22nd April.
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Diploma News
D1 French B students have recently been working on creating entertaining advertisements for fictitious products and this past Monday they presented a sketch about their special and new product. The students’ work was very creative and they performed very well on their role play.
On Thursday, DI and D2 had a common French lesson to work collaboratively on a past IB French B Exam paper 1. The purpose of this session was to offer the D2 another practice before their study leave and also to share some of their techniques with D1 students to help them to get better at paper 1. This was a very productive lesson and a great experience for everybody. We finished the session by taking this group photo as a lovely souvenir! (Prepared by Valerie Veillon, French teacher)
In this Monday’s Life Skills class, Mr Jon Bigg (DP Physics and Math Studies teacher) will be addressing learning strategies (L2L, thinking skills, metacognition, etc). One way D2 parents can further support their children’s revision over the break would be to dialogue about what they learned in this Life Skills session. Its focus underpins what we are doing across the spectrum of DP classes. Read more about Learning to Learn (L2L) at: www.uwcea.org/dip12 and www.uwcea.org/dip13. Hone your understanding of metacognition by reading: www.uwcea.org/dip14 and www.uwcea.org/dip15. I as DP Coordinator particularly appreciate Mr. Bigg’s efforts with this D2 Life Skills (on this lesson and his Life Skills lesson throughout this past school year) as addressing these key issues is timely, relevant and essential.
ISM’s IB DP students encountered again this week a rich array of learning opportunities inside and outside of the ISM classroom. A thrilling co-ed intra-mural basketball mini-tournament called “March Madness” included nearly one quarter of DP students and some super basketball thanks to the efforts of our coach Greg Wagoner. Moreover this weekend’s ‘Soccer 7s’ tournament was tremendous and dozens of DP students participated.
D2s continue planning for their May 24th graduation. This week they advanced on their practice of their class song and the national anthem. Similarly, plans for decorating the Karibu Hall moved forward.
PLEASE find a way if at all possible to attend the parent-teacher meeting on the morning of next Friday March 28th. I cannot overstate how important it is for parents to regularly visit ISM and get a sense of your son or daughter’s progress. Find a way please to make it to Moshi a few times a year if you are within an hour or two-flight range and can. It makes such a difference!
D2 students finalized last week the decision regarding the venue for the Friday May 23rd Graduation dinner which will be held at the AMEG Lodge ( www.ameglodge.com) and it has special hotel rates for ISM. To get more details, write to info@ameglodge.com.
Regular lessons continue until Friday March 28th and resume on Tuesday April 22nd. Parents do a disservice to their child if they permit early departures or late returns. Irreplaceable D2 exam revision sessions amplify the importance of this for D2s.
Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Rick Fitzpatrick
Diploma Programme Coordinator
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Early Childhood Preview
Many thanks to all our wonderful mystery readers this week; Ms Jann, Mr Horton, Townes’ Grandad and Ms Melissa. We also enjoyed DEAR time, particularly when we sat under a tree to read.
We had a great week introducing Ms Melissa, our new student teacher to the class. She enjoyed working with small groups on their research of different life cycles. Each group chose how to present what they had found out; one group made models, one painted, two groups made a power point and others drew pictures of what they had found out. She will finish this over the next three days so that groups can finish presenting to the class before they present to their parents on Thursday.
The portfolios are almost ready and the children will practise talking about their work this week with an older child from Primary. They will also be preparing a language activity, a number activity and a 3D shape activity. I am also going to ask them to choose their favourite piece of artwork for the art show and concert on Wednesday evening.
Monday will be our last swimming lesson this school year.
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P1/2 Preview
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P2/3 Preview
Book Week was wonderful! Our class is full of book lovers and we enjoyed the chance to celebrate reading. Almost everyone came in costume on Monday and we all enjoyed taking time to Drop Everything And Read each day. Thanks again to our Mystery Readers who popped in and shared terrific books. If you would like to join in on the fun, Miss Maggie would be happy to schedule a time for you to surprise the class with a book sometime during Term 4.
The week ahead promises to be busy. We will spend some time in class preparing for Thursday’s Student Led Conferences. The children are very excited about sharing their portfolios with their parents. Please do return the slip that was sent home on Thursday in order to secure a time slot that works with your schedule.
Don’t forget the Primary Concert on Wednesday night. Our class will be performing and students’ art work will be on display in the Karibu Hall. The concert begins at 6:30 so please bring your children by 6:15 wearing their favorite ISM t-shirt and trousers. Should be a nice evening for all!
Friday will be a short day with the closing term assembly beginning at 9. The school day ends early at 10:15.
So in the three class days that remain, we will be continuing to read stories from Tanzania and reviewing them. We are working on the skill of retelling a story by summarizing the most important points. Our spelling chunk of the week is -ew.
Maths – Both classes will continue to work with telling time. Students are reading time on clocks and drawing times on clocks. Please reinforce these lessons at home and ask them to tell you the time!
Unit of Inquiry – We loved hearing from Simon Mtuy last week about village life in Tanzania. Students asked many questions. We will continue to discuss the differences between tribes across the country. We will also label the salt dough topographical maps we made in order to reinforce our understanding of the geography of Tanzania.
Monday: Library, please bring your books and bag. Homework sent home.
Wednesday: PE, remember to wear your sneakers and a hat and bring your water bottle.
Thursday: Student-led Conferences. No classes!
Friday: Spelling test and return completed homework.
End of Quarter Assembly- class over at 10:15. Please make arrangements to pick up your child by that time.
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P3/4 Preview
The last week of Quarter 3 has arrived! Well done to all the students who dressed up for last week’s book week assembly – there were some great costumes! A big thank you to all the parents who took the time to come into class last week to read to us. We all loved the stories!
This week we will be saying farewell to a member of our class, Brandon, as he moves back to Swaziland. We will miss you Brandon and wish you all the best in your new home and school.
This is what our learning in class will look like this week:
UOI
Unit 5 – How we organise ourselves – “People Helping People”.
Central Idea: People around the world are engaged in helping others in need.
Lines of Inquiry: Identifying people in need
The motivation to help others
Empowering people to help themselves
Structure and function of humanitarian organisations
We are looking forward to having two visiting speakers this week, who will tell us what they are doing in Tanzania to try and help others and what their motivation for this is. One of these individuals is in the medical field and the other in education.
If there are any parents who are able to come and share what they are doing to help others in Tanzania or have contacts that we could use for this purpose, please let me know.
Maths – Miss Jann’s Group – We will continue with our learning about measurement – weight and capacity/volume – units of measurement, conversions and problems related to these concepts.
Miss Debbie’s Group – Time. Reading digital and analogue clocks to the hour, half-hour and quarter-hour.
Language – Letter writing e.g. writing letters to thank our mystery and guest speakers for taking the time to share with us and help us in our learning.
We will also be working on our portfolios in preparation for student led conferences.
Spelling – Group 1: wr as in write and wrong
Group 2: Blocking magic -en and- est – double consonants that protect the short vowel e.g. happen, biggest
Group 3: dropping the “e” before adding -ing e.g. giving, riding
Reminders
Every day: School T-shirts or polo shirts, zip bags (reading book, reading log, spelling book all need to come to school every day), a healthy snack for break time.
Library books : Please make sure all books are returned to the library before school breaks up for the holidays. Because there are no classes on Thursday, children/families will need to make their own arrangements to return library books this week.
Monday: Only spelling, reading and times tables for homework this week.
Wednesday: P.E. – house T-shirts and shorts or tights. Long hair tied up.
Thursday: Student-led conferences. No formal classes today.
Friday: Spelling test.
Times tables test – 12x
Final assembly for the term – Karibu Hall 9.00 am. All parents, family and friends welcome to attend.
School will finish at 10.15am. Any P3/4 students whose parents are involved with high school parent-teacher interviews, are welcome to stay in class ’till 12.00pm.
Looking forward to a great last week of term together.
Have a great holiday and if you are going away, safe travels.
Miss Jann
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P5/6 Preview
Last week in Maths we calculated the volume of different cuboids and boxes. The children have been working hard on their exhibition inquiries but still have much to do particularly in the next 7 days before the spring break.
UOI – P5 Unit 5 – ‘Law and Order’
Central Idea: Different communities and groups establish different rules by which they operate
The children will work in groups to make posters demonstrating the knowledge gained from their research into laws and punishments in societies throughout history.
P6 Exhibition Unit – ‘Shaping positive change’
Central Idea: A rapidly changing planet requires modern approaches, thinking and action
The children should have completed their research this week. In addition, they should have conducted interviews preferably taking photos. Next week they will need to type up their interviews, to collate data from their surveys, create graphs and charts that reflect the results and begin their ‘action’. With only one week to go before the break it is essential they begin to do something positive in response to their findings.
Reading and Writing
For P6 Language lessons will be consumed by work on the exhibition now which will involve much reading, note taking and writing up. P5 will be researching, note taking and re-writing their notes on laws and punishments in different societies.
Maths
Last week we calculated volumes of certain cuboids. This week we will compare standard units of measurement related to capacity (litres and milliliters) and weight (kilograms and grams).
P.E. – is on Wednesday.
Library – will be on Monday morning. Please remind your child to return any finished books.
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CONTACT US
International School Moshi
PO Box 733 Moshi, Tanzania
Tel: +255 27 2755005
Fax: +255 736 605320
Email:
Mobile: +255 767 534766 |
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MEET US
If you wish to meet with either Keiron White (Head of Campus) or Totty Aris (Deputy Head of Campus), you are welcome to make an appointment to do so at any mutually convenient time. We also have an “open door” time each week during which parents are welcome to drop in without an appointment:
Keiron: Tuesdays 8am-9am
Totty: Fridays 8am-9am |
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