Moshi Campus News – 1 June 2014

We will be having a whole school community spirit day this Tuesday. Each class will be choosing their own theme. On the day itself we will take this opportunity to take class photos of each group, which will be a nice keepsake at the end of the academic year.

The ISM Brownie Guides are running a “good as new” sale on Saturday June 7th from 10.00 am to 1.00pm in Karibu Hall. If you are leaving Moshi this year, this is an ideal opportunity for you to sell items you do not wish to take with you. Tables will cost TSh 15,000/- and need to be paid for in advance by Wednesday June 4th in the main school office to secure a place.
All proceeds from the sale of tables will be divided between brownie funds and children in need of cleft palette operations. There will also be a chance for you to donate clothes, shoes, toys and books for ‘Treasures of Africa’ Children’s Home that P3/4 made a link with during their last unit of inquiry. You can support this event by buying a table to sell your goods or by coming to buy from the stalls. Refreshments will be on sale throughout the morning. Please see Annalee Horton if you have any questions about this event.

SAT & ACT Tests will take place in school on 7th and 14th June respectively. Regular registrations have now closed, but late registrations are still possible on payment of an additional fee. See Keiron White for details.

Congratulations to our Basketball teams who competed in the junior inter-schools basketball tournament yesterday. Our boys’ team won their competition, whilst the girls’ team came second in theirs.

Next Saturday (7th June) we will be hosting a junior inter-schools football tournament on campus. All are welcome to watch and support our teams.

At ISM, the MYP Physical Education program has been designed to increase the physical fitness, skill development, self-discipline, health-related fitness, and enjoyment of physical activity for all students. It is important that our students have the correct PE kit for the right type of sport they are doing for both safety and hygiene reasons. Physical Education helps with improving self-confidence and self esteem, and participation in sports help with stress reduction and strengthens peer relationships.
In Quarter 4, we have had the great opportunity to have a guest coach come in to teach our M1-M5 classes the game of Field Hockey. Felix Holter is an 18-year-old International Level Field Hockey player, who comes from Hamburg Germany. He has been teaching the students basic stick control, passing, dribbling and shooting. He has explained and showed the students lots of fun drills, and they are gearing up for a final week of full games. We have been very lucky to have this opportunity, and our own ISM Field Hockey Team will be even stronger next season! Thanks Felix!!

Next week on Monday and Tuesday, 9th and 10th June, our P6 students will be following a special programme designed to help them prepare for the transition to M1. Mored etails will be given next week.

From Monday, 9th June to Thursday, 12th June, our D1 Biology and Environmental Systems & Societies students will be in Pangani undertaking field study as part of their diploma course.

There will be some special arrangements for M5 students at the end of this quarter. As the M5 students are completing the MYP programme in ISM, we will hold a special ceremony on Friday, 13th June to mark this transition in their education. All parents are warmly invited to the event when we will recognise each student individually. The ceremony will be followed by a tea and refreshments here in school. And then we will look forward to seeing almost all of the students back in ISM for the diploma programme in August.
M5 students will be expected to leave school with their parents on Friday, 13th June. There are no classes or activities for M5 students in the following week.

All other students will finish school on Friday, 20th June.

The following 11 Brownies completed their designer badge; Mandi, Vialet, Sharleen, Careen, Sayaada, Irene, Emmy, Nicole, Anita, Rhobi and Paulyne. It was very interesting to hear them talk about the famous designers they had researched and also look at their own designs. We are very grateful to Ms Anine for being the tester for this badge. Thanks also to Tawny Owl (Felicity) for giving up many hours of her time to help the boarding girls complete this badge.
Other congratulations go to Emily, Doris, Zainab and Phoebe for achieving their cooking badge, to Merel and Alicia for achieving their Hostess Badge, Phoebe for her craft badge, Simran for her Friend to animals badge and Noga for her Book lovers Badge.

Primary Clubs will continue until Thursday 12 June. Unfortunately Ms Jann will not be here to run the gymnastics club this week, therefore please arrange for your child to go home or they are welcome to join one of the other clubs on Monday such as Music Fun Club or Tennis. She will be back to work after Monday 9 June when the gymnastics club will run again.


In découpage club the children were finishing their beautiful découpage eggs and varnishing their rocks. Here are some photographs of them at work.

Secondary Students are working hard towards their final assessments in all of their subjects over the next few weeks. Please support your child by asking them about their forthcoming deadlines. These contribute towards their final report which will be issued on Thursday, 19th June at 3 pm. Anybody wishing to have a soft copy emailed to them on that day should please email . Please note that reports will not be issued to students whose fees are not fully paid.

As usual we will have our end of year assembly on Friday, 20th June. This is not only a chance to celebrate the last quarter of the year but also an occasion to say goodbye to our leavers and celebrate outstanding students. Awards will be given each year group for Most Improved student, Top Academic Student, CAS Student & IB Learner Profile student of the year. We will also be awarding certificates for the students who have showed the most commitment and enthusiasm in each subject. After the assembly parents of secondary students will have an opportunity to meet with teachers for our final Parent-Teacher consultation 10.35-12.00.
Students will be free to leave school after 10:15am on Friday, 20th June. Once again we strongly urge you NOT to arrange for your child to leave school earlier than this. Parents of boarders are asked to let Rosemary Bango know of travel arrangements as soon as possible on

We will be increasing our internet bandwidth with effect from today, 1st June. Bandwidth has now risen from 10MB/s to 12Mb/s with a boost to 20Mb/s at night and during weekends.

D1 students received their grades and feedback on their recently taken all-important end-of-year-exams. This constructive criticism provides essential tips that enable D1 students to improve their work. For example, the inclusion of detailed support evidence on DP History answers was one frequent suggestion I gave my students as we reviewed how they could improve their analytical essays.
As a team our DP faculty team reflected on the recent D1 and D2 exams as well as the Graduation weekend and we analyzed how we could do both better in May 2015. Other topics we analyzed in this week’s DP meeting included upcoming responsibilities for D1 Extended Essay Supervisors, plans for the incoming D1 orientation in August and the plans for the D1 students’ special program days focused on their Theory of Knowledge/Extended Essays.
On Monday June 16th all full diploma D1 students will present to their peers an overview of their Extended Essay and an explanation of what they will need to do to complete it. Encourage your D1 son or daughter to focus fully on EE preparations in these weeks in order to enter the upcoming long holiday in a good position regarding the EE status.
At least a dozen recent DP graduates who are presently studying in universities worldwide returned to ISM for last Saturday’s graduation. One commented: “ISM provided me with a great foundation and my first year at university was quite manageable and relatively easy after the rigor of the IB DP.”
For the first time ever, we have reached an incoming DP student total of fifty in terms of the number of students enrolled in the DP class of 2016. The provenance of the incoming class is intriguing with 44% of these students are continuing ISM Moshi M5 students and 72% of the total are drawn from international curriculum schools while 24% are from Tanzanian curriculum schools and 4% from other overseas schools.
D1 parents should, if at all possible, make special plans to be on campus for the critically important June 20th Parent-Teacher meeting. The end-of-D1-year feedback from all of the teachers is highly critical for you and your son/daughter. Please make a real effort to be here.
Nearly all of our ISM DP graduates go on to study in higher education. This article confirms the value of such a step and it is entitled: Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say at www.uwcea.org/dip24.
Adolescents worldwide are different and make choices differently than we adults. This National Geographic article review entitled ‘The Evolving Teenage Brain’ in the NY Times highlight this reality www.uwcea.org/dip25.
The results of a ground-breaking study on learning entitled Study: You Really Can ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder’ is worth reviewing – www.uwcea.org/dip26
Feel free to write or call with any questions or concerns. Sincerely, Rick Fitzpatrick Diploma Programme Coordinator

Unit of Inquiry We will continue to work with a variety of art media to produce art pieces. Finally we finished our splatter painting and you can see some wonderful pieces displayed outside the classroom. There will also be some lovely flower pictures in the glass fronted display cabinet, also outside the classroom. Try and guess what we used to make them! The children are discovering that art can be produced with so many different objects!!! At the beginning of the unit we had a silent gallery walk looking at a variety of art posters. Next week we will do this again and compare the different thoughts and feelings that the children have about the artwork, trying to understand how and why we interpret art in different ways.
Language

• New children will be introduced to the sound k made by Kicking king. We will play some sound sorting games with the letters introduced so far. The children will also finish their umbrella pictures started last week when finding out about Uppy Umbrella.
• EC1 children will work on initial sounds in words and make CVC words using the short u sound (if developmentally ready)

• EC2 children are extending their sight word recognition through games and a new powerpoint. This week we will use the book, “The runaway pizza” as the basis of our literacy work. The children will retell the story, identify and discuss characters and learn and recite simple poems and rhymes.

Spirit Day – Tuesday 3rd June The whole school will participate in a Spirit Day on Tuesday. Each class has chosen its theme. P1 and 2 will wear anything with a pattern. Maybe your child has a spotty or stripy T shirt. Any kind of pattern is fine.
Unit of Inquiry – Art Theme – How we express ourselves Central Idea – There are different ways to express our ideas and feelings. Lines of Inquiry: 1. There are many types of artists.     Elements of art and design. 2. Expression through the arts. 3. Art appreciation. We are learning about the elements of art and design: line, shape, colour, value, texture, form and space. We will focus on texture and create some pictures with rubbings. We will also make a warm and cold colour collage. We will begin to look at some artists and how they express their ideas through art.
Language focus for the week Write a recount of the weekend. Children will be encouraged to use the language of time. (First, Next, Then, After that, The next day…) Sentence and word level work will also focus on descriptive language. Continue to work on a colour poem. Handwriting: Patterns, own name, numerals and spelling patterns. We will also continue to work on capital letters. Some P2 children will learn to join letters together. Phonics – Group 1: oo as in moon. Group 2: add ed and ing to words
Maths focus for the week Mental skills will focus on counting on and back from any number. Quick recall of addition facts of 10 and 20. Tell simple addition and subtraction stories. Add 9, 10 and 11 to numbers. All children will learn about measures. We will use vocabulary related to length, mass and capacity. We will begin to use standard units such as metres, centimetres, litres and kilograms.
What to bring to school: Everyday: A hat for playtime, a healthy snack, water bottle and reading folder.
Timetable: Monday New reading books and homework packets including spelling lists will be issued. PE (wear your house T shirt, shorts and trainers) Tuesday SPIRIT DAY Come to school wearing patterns. Thursday Library (Bring library books in your special library bag to return and then choose new ones) New class reading books will be issued. Friday Spelling Test

This past week in P2/3 we have done a lot of activities to explore our unit on adaptation. On Wednesday we went on a nature walk around campus and observed and sketched various plants that we saw. The sketches came out amazing and the students had a great time finding plants of different sizes, shapes, colors, and textures. In IT we created our own animals using different animals’ body parts. We expanded that by writing stories about our made up animals including information such as where the animal would live, what they would eat, and what adaptations would help them survive in their environments. We were excited and surprised by two special visitors on Thursday. Miss Kacey and beautiful baby Louise came in to visit us and the kids were ecstatic. They are both happy and healthy and we look forward to seeing more of both of them in the last few weeks of school! Next week we will be doing some grade level assessments throughout the week for Maths, Spelling, and Reading.
Language Arts We will continue our poetry study by going on some walks around campus and observing different aspects of nature around campus. We will write “I see”, “I feel”, “I smell” poems in which we describe different senses that we use when observing. We really got into detail while talking about our walk on Wednesday and I would like to expand on that. P2/3 will be taking their grade level spelling and reading tests throughout the week. Miss Kacey will be in to help conduct the reading tests.
Maths The past two weeks we have been working on subtraction using regrouping as well as counting backwards using mental math skills. We will continue practicing this at the beginning of the week before moving on to some measuring. We began our maths assessment on Friday and will complete it on Monday.
Unit This week students will look more in depth at specific plants and animals. I would like them to each choose a biome or habitat and then select a plant or animal within that habitat to research. We have discussed some habitats thus far and will continue to do so next week as a group.
Reminders: Monday: Library- please bring back books and book bags!! Homework sent home, and return reading logs. Wednesday: PE- please bring hat and sneakers. Thursday: PE- please bring hat and sneakers. Return reading logs. Friday: Homework to be turned in!

Miss Jann will be away again from school this week, although she is expected to return on Monday, 9th March. Many thanks to Miss Pearl who has stepped in to teach the P3/P4 class during Jann’s absence.

Last week the children produced some impressive recounts of the lives of chosen individuals. There were some interesting choices ranging from Bob Dylan to Princess Diana, Kate Chopin to Bill Cosby. We also revised several strands of Maths including fractions, percentages, division and metric measurement conversion. Next week will feature assessments, the scourge of every student’s last few weeks.
UOI – Beliefs Central Idea: People’s beliefs influence their behaviour The children will consider the responsibilities we have when we pursue and uphold our beliefs.
Reading, Writing and Drama Assessments
Maths Further revision and assessments.
P.E. – is on Wednesday. Swimming will once again be on Thursday.
Library – Will be on Monday. Please remind your child to bring their books for exchange.

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