Moshi Campus News – 5 Dec 2015

Wednesday, 9th December is Tanzania’s Independence Day and we will have no classes on that day; there will be activities on Wednesday for boarders. Many people may have seen the news that the President has cancelled national celebrations for Independence Day, but please note that the day is still a public holiday. Citizens are encouraged to clean up areas around their homes on this day.
On Tuesday, 8th December we will mark Tanzania’s national day by asking students to dress in Tanzanian dress or the colours of the national flag.

We look forward to welcoming all parents and community members to our secondary musical production of the Little Shop of Horrors on Thursday, 10th and Friday 11th December at 19:30 in Karibu Hall. Tickets will be sold at the door. Please note that this production may not be suitable for children under 9 years of age.

All are invited to the Winterfest on ISM Arusha Campus on Tuesday, December 8th. There will be Christmas carols, a craft fair, mince pies and refreshments from 5pm.

The Moshi PA Committee will be meeting this Monday, 7th December. Parents who wish to meet the committee are welcome to join at 8am in Bob Horton’s office.
We welcome Priya Joshi as a new member of the committee joining Anna Maze and Rishi Shah. There is still one vacancy on the PA Committee. If you would like to join the committee, please let us know.
Minutes of the PA AGM held last month and many PA committee meetings are obtainable from the parent pages of the school website at www.uwcea.org/ism-parents/parent-documents.

After this weekend’s Usambara Mountains trip, there will be one more OP trip this quarter to Mawenzi Hut on Kilimanjaro from 10th to 13th December.

We are coming to the end of the quarter. Thank you to all those parents who have already sent us details of the boarders’ end of quarter arrangements or tickets. School closes on Friday 18th December at 10.15 and boarders are free to leave immediately. Kindly send us details of their travel (). If this is sent early, it helps us to plan for movement on that day. We provide transport to KIA upon request, and then bill the parents. For those who may want to book return flights, school opens on Tuesday 12th January, when we expect all boarders to be back . Classes resume on Wednesday 13th January.
The Christmas mood is in the air, and primary boarding has already put up their Christmas tree. The primary boarders also had dinner in Arusha on Friday 4th December to bid farewell to Ms Shaheen, who has been a volunteer in Primary boarding since last quarter. Other boarders have various activities planned for the weekend. Rosemary Bango, (Head of Boarding)

   
This weekend’s tennis tournament is continuing. If you haven’t been to watch yet, please join us tomorrow (Sunday) morning.
Many thanks to Rishi Shah & Coach Charles for organising this; thanks also to Kilimanjaro Water for their sponsorship.

Congratulations to our Moshi Campus students for winning the tournament sportsmanship award at last weekend’s event. Apologies that the full list of trophy winners is not yet included here, but we hope to publish this by next week.

Dear Parents and Swimmers,
The swimming community may be breathing a bit easier now that we are on the quieter side of two consecutive weeks of competitions and tough race preparation. Looking back, nearly all of our regular swimmers have achieved personal best times in their events, which is a strong indication that the work they are putting into practice each day is paying off. But there are also many other positive indicators for an athlete to reflect upon, and each of these are part of the written Quarter Review that will be completed by each swimmer this week.
Athletes depend on a strong body and mind, on reliable and consistent behaviour, and on their desire for academic success to match what they do in the pool. Growth as an athlete means being able to problem solve independently and communicate with a growing sense of responsibility and awareness. The Quarter Review asks each varsity athlete to reflect upon their progress in each of these areas, and to give an honest assessment of what they can do to improve. In many ways, this reflection process is more important than the training we do everyday, for it is where learning takes place.
Coach Sabini, Mary, Noah, and Sullivan are constantly impressed with what we see in the pool. ISM has many teams with players who are equally as dedicated to their sport, and together, we represented the Leopards incredibly well last weekend.
It is very hard to single out anyone from our group. There are so many people who are doing the right thing week and week out. Sanne and Freddy have been doing the right thing in the pool for longer than I have been around, and uphold the Swimmers Code of Conduct as captains and role models. As such, they are our Athletes of the Month for October and November.
Our next senior (MYP – DP) competition will be the Tallis Invitational in Dar, Fri 29 Jan and Sat 30 Jan 2015. Parents of senior swimmers should contact Mr. Sullivan for more details. The team will be travelling on Fastjet flight FN0152 and FN 0151 on Thur 28 Jan 2015 (depart) and Sun 30 Jan 2016 (return). The competition is being held on Friday and Saturday at IST. Yours in swimming, The Coaches

Classes will continue for all secondary students until Friday, 18th December. The schedule for this day is as follows:
07:30-09:15 Classes as usual 09:15-10:15 Assembly in Karibu Hall. Parents are welcome to join us for the assembly. 10:15           Students are free to leave from 10:15am 10:35-12:00 Secondary parent-teacher meetings in Karibu Hall. We hope to see many parents for this event.
The last day for secondary CAS and Sports activities this quarter will be on Wednesday, 16th December.
Secondary students will receive their first semester reports on Thursday, 17th December. If you wish to receive a digital copy by email, please let Totty Aris know this on .
Arrangements for primary students in the last week of this quarter are detailed below.

D2 students have commenced their study for their late-January mock exams (18th-25th). The thirty-seven class of 2016 students taking DP Theory of Knowledge completed their 10-minute presentations this past week.

These remaining two weeks are very demanding for all the D2 students with the following deadlines:

Thur December 10 – Historical Investigation (Final)

Fri December 11 – Visual Arts Comparative Study (Final) and TOK Essay (Draft)

Mon December 13th – Dutch Written Assignment (Final) and Math HL/Math SL/Math Studies Coursework (Draft)

Wed December 16th – Biology, Chemistry, ESS, Physics Coursework (Draft)
“Listening, supportive, non-judgemental – familylives,org” – DP parents may benefit from the excellent tips provided on this webpage and concerning assisting adolescents facing exam stress as this relates directly to the typical IB stress especially in the D2 year – www.uwcea.org/dip100.
DP parents should not remove their children in the ISM DP prior to the last day of school – Dec 18th – and ensure that they are back for the first day of lessons on Wed January 13th. One cannot overstate how detrimental it is to their education when parents – often unwittingly – set up vacation schedules wherein school days are missed.
It is great to hear that many DP parents are planning to attend the end-of-semester one parent-teacher conference on the morning of Fri Dec 18th. Our job as educators is enhanced tremendously by parental involvement and these parent-teacher meetings are a critical element of this process.
ISM’s class of 2016 graduation will occur on Saturday May 21st and will preceded by the Graduation Dinner the night before. Reserve these dates on your calendar as it will be a great celebration.
Feel free to contact me with any DP-related questions or concerns. Rick Fitzpatrick, DP Coordinator

Dear Parents, At the Board meeting last week, the Board of ISM considered the fees that we will be charging for the school year 2016/17 which begins in August 2016.
We are very aware of the economic issues over the last year, including the devaluation of the shilling a few months ago, and the difficulties that these have caused for many families in meeting school fee payments. At the same time the school has faced increases in a number of costs and the addition of new taxes which have raised our expenses. We do appreciate the support that we receive from all our families, both financial and in other ways and recognise that we must work to keep fee rises as low as we can whilst still ensuring a high quality of education. With all these factors in mind, the Board has decided to raise tuition and boarding fees by about 3% next school year.
We have also discussed ways to reduce some of the additional charges that have been added in the past. With effect from August 2016, we will no longer be charging transport costs to students travelling to participate in sports events in Kilimanjaro or Arusha regions and we will also no longer be charging boarding students for transport from/to Kilimanjaro airport on the first/last day of each quarter.
If you wish to view the school fees for 2016/17, these are available on our website at www.uwcea.org/fees. Bob Horton, Director

When newborn babies become jaundiced, it means that for some reason they are producing too much, or excreting too little, bilirubin. Bilirubin is a yellow pigment which is a breakdown product of haemoglobin in the blood, and can be toxic to the brain. To help the body excrete bilirubin, babies are put on phototherapy. To protect their young eyes against bright light, we doctors working in the nearby hospital KCMC need small-sized sleep masks.
Our school has the perfect, international, population to ask for them as they are often distributed during long haul flights, and never used again! So please in case you have any of those small sleep masks around which are not being used, kindly hand them in to Grace Mkumbwa at the Head of Campus’ Office. Many thanks on behalf of the neonatology ward of KCMC,
Marieke Dekker.

Quench your sense of guilt: stuff a bottle!
The Eco Bricks Primary Club needs the entire school community to stuff! You can prepare your own EcoBrick at home for our building project , a bench in ISM’s Orchard.

Sit an empty, dry 0.5 litre PET bottle on your kitchen surface, waiting to be fed

Stuff in any clean, dry, soft plastics you are disposing of (spaghetti bags; sweet wrappers, plastic bags, bread bags, etc)

As it fills up, stuff it with a stick to make it as compact as you can

You can even make patterns of layers and separate colours

Stuff it, stuff it again and close with the bottle lid

Optionally add your name, date and a message to the next generation onto the bottle, cover the message with tape.
You end up having a recycled plastic building block which is highly insulating and great for building! When using cob instead of cement it can be used over and over again. What a great use for plastic, instead of it ending up in landfills or the ocean! It also shows you how much of this poorly degradable plastic there is in your household. Thank you!
Hand in your Brick on Mondays 2-3 pm, or in the wicker basket underneath the notice board on your way to the carpark. THANK YOU!!!

Dear Parents, As you know, we have been leading a global search for a new Head of Primary (Moshi Campus) since late August. We received over 30 applications from a wide range of well-qualified and experienced candidates and my senior colleagues and I have spent countless hours interviewing many of these both face to face and on Skype. I am delighted to announce that I have taken the decision to appoint Kate Schermbrucker, the current PYP Coordinator at Moshi Campus to this important position from 1st August 2016.
Kate holds a BA (Hons) degree in American and English History from the University of East Anglia, UK and an MA in Gender Analysis and Development and Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the same university. She began her career as a volunteer teacher in Mozambique and then spent four years as the Head of Year 5 and Geography Coordinator at Cliff Park Community Middle School in the UK. After four years as Head of History at The Banda School, Nairobi, Kenya she spent two years in the same role at Beeston Hall School, UK. She returned overseas in 2009 and spent three years as a PYP Grade 5 teacher at the Metropolitan School, Frankfurt, Germany. Kate joined us here at ISM in August 2014 where she has been the PYP Coordinator, P5/6, and P2/3 teacher. We feel that her experience of both UK and international education combined with her love of Africa will serve the school well as an administrator in the Primary School over the coming years.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Kate on her appointment and know that you will join me in offering her all the support that she needs to move forward positively in this new role. Warm regards, Bob Horton, Director

We only have one full week left of clubs. A big thank you to our parents who have volunteered their time this quarter, Coach Michael, Coach Nick and Coach Noah for running sports clubs and Caroline and Marieke for the Ecobricks club and Hugette for the French Club allowing us to offer a range of clubs.
If any parents would like to volunteer to run a club in Q3: January 14-March 15, the time commitment is one hour a week from 2 to 3pm on a day of your choice. Please email Totty Aris on tottyaris@ed.ismoshi.com in the next week.

The events for primary children in the last week of this quarter are as follows: Monday, 14 Dec – A team from Alliance Française in Arusha will be running mini-workshops for our primary students. We are very excited to have this opportunity for our primary students to participate in fun role-plays and games. In the morning this will include P3, P4, P5. In the afternoon during club time all of P6 will attend their workshop 2-3pm
Monday is also the LAST day for organised clubs
Tuesday 15 Dec – optional swimming fun club
Wednesday 16 Dec – no clubs Primary Happy Holiday Disco 6-8pm Tickets: 5000 Tsh towards Pizza, drink & ice cream. Students can get their tickets from their class teacher. Dress: green and red
Thursday 17 Dec – Primary Parent-teacher consultations There will be no formal classes for primary on this day. This is a chance for you to speak with your child’s teacher about their progress. If you need to bring your child they can play in the playground under supervision. A letter will be sent home this week to arrange the times you are available.
Friday 18 Dec: Our End of Semester Assembly will be at 09.15 am in Karibu Hall. Parents are most welcome to join us for a celebration of the students successes this quarter. Formal classes finish at 10.15. If you are meeting with Secondary teachers during the Secondary Parent/teacher consultation then your child can stay with the teaching assistants for that duration.

Unit of Inquiry This week we will wrap up the unit of inquiry on ‘Our senses.’ Next week we will inquire using our sense of taste. We will play some taste guessing games and do some more cooking. We will brainstorm words to describe tastes and examine taste buds and how each part of our tongue detects different tastes. We will also continue to think about our third line of inquiry, ‘How our senses work together’ as smell and taste are special partners.
Literacy Our focus this week will be writing holiday cards to each other. Many families are celebrating at this time of the year for many reasons and it is a good time to think about card making and helping children to write simple greetings. There is a postbox outside our classroom and the EC children will be delivering letters and cards to the whole of primary for the last 2 weeks of term.
Numeracy We will continue with our measuring unit and make another graph for favourite tastes. The children will also be sorting objects using their senses.

   
Information for Parents On Tuesday we will have an all-school dress up day. It’s Tanzania Day! Children could dress up in traditional cultural clothing or maybe Tanzanian colors. Of course it’s optional, but it would be great to have all of the children participate.
Language focus for the week This week Group 1 will be learning how to read short vowel words, and Group 2 will work with “bossy r’s”. We will also continue to read and write every day.
Maths focus for the week Both groups of children will work with lists of numbers. They will order them, add them, and sort them.
Unit of Inquiry Last week we focused on transportation. We even made transportation dictionar-ies. We will finish those up this week, and then we will shift to learning about dif-ferent places people can travel. Each child will make a globe and learn about the seven continents.
What to bring to school: A hat for playtime and a healthful snack.
Timetable: Monday PE (wear PE shoes) Tuesday Library (please send your books in the library bag) Friday Swimming (please send swimsuit, goggles, and towel)

Thanks to all the parents who came to our Primary Gathering presentation. We hope you enjoyed the mini-show. We started our week by discussing what a friend should be like for each of us. For this, we created our very own colourful little friends, which you can see now attached to our classroom door.
This week in maths we played lots of fun multiplication games and sang songs, which helped us to learn our 2, 5 and 10 times tables much better. Our IT work connected to our English focus – story writing. We were able to type up a story setting on the computer, using Microsoft Word. In English itself we learned all about adjectives and how to use them while describing a noun for a story setting.
This week the children were excited to be able to take PYP Action for our unit about relationships. After some discussion they realised that they could share their skills with other people to make them happy and develop a new relationship. The EC class was pleased to welcome us as ‘Reading Buddies’ to join their class for 15 minutes to read with them.
As this week was the last week for our young volunteer Ms Shaheen to come to our class and read with individual children, we decided to surprise her with a home-made zawadi which she could read on her flight back home. Every student made a page with writing and decoration and Ms Shaheen was very touched.
Unit: Transdisciplinary Theme: Who we are Central Idea: People’s relationships with each other can have an impact on well-being We will continue our PYP Action of reading with the EC students so that we can forge more meaningful relationships. This will lead to discussions relating to what it means to develop relationships and what makes them meaningful. We will use the experiences to make connections with our PYP Attitudes – respect, empathy and cooperation.
Mathematics Focus: multiplication
English Focus: story writing and grammar
What to bring to school every day: A hat, water bottle, a pair of indoor shoes and a healthy snack.
The Week Ahead: Monday: Homework will be set | swimming lesson Tuesday: Library session | Spirit Day – children may come dressed in a Tanzanian outfit Wednesday: Public holiday – no lessons Thursday: PE lesson Friday: Homework due in
Kate Schermbrucker – P2/3 Teacher and PYP Coordinator

This week the students were busy applying the different skills they learned in their Language, Math and our Unit about the Arts. We were inspired by Polly Dunbar who wrote the story, “Ideas Everywhere,” and this gave us a good start to creating our story characters, setting, plot and all other story elements. Everyone has come up with extraordinary stories.
Language Arts – “Putting it all together” In the coming week, the students will be editing their stories and use the skills acquired to put their story together. Their knowledge of punctuation, spellings, adjectives, capitalization and tenses will be reflected in our stories. We will continue with word study, which will comprise of unit words and other high frequency words.
Math – “Not as easy as it looks” Some students will continue to practice multiplication but in the form of word problems and others will move onto working on the division concept. They will also continue to practice calculating the area of different objects around them. We will review the concept of half and double, as some of the students found it challenging when we were calculating area of irregular shapes. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, for some of the students.
Unit of Inquiry – “It’s a matter of perspective” Our Unit of Inquiry is great fun. We continue to explore the different perspectives of Visual Arts in the different cultures, as well as study the works of different artists. The students will also look into how the Arts have changed over a number of years.

Information for Parents We had a fabulous time on the camping trip. The kids were troopers on our hike in the rain and were able to explore the area. We were able to see evidence related to our last unit, such as the burned out wildfire areas on Mount Meru and volcanic rocks, while also doing several activities relating to our current mythology unit.
Language focus for the week This week we will write our own hero myths. We will learn when to use commas in our writing and try to work them into our hero myths correctly. The last reading group is finishing their book this week and then all the groups will be on to reading nonfiction articles in order to find information.
Maths focus for the week We will continue our study of probability by playing several games. We will also be taking a look at how to represent probability using fractions. We will also learn how to convert fractions into a percentage. We will have a quiz on Friday to review what we have learned so far.
Unit of Inquiry Our focus this week is on hero myths. We will design our own mythical hero and write a story about them. We will also discuss how male characters are more prevalent in myths than females and inquire into the reasons that might be. We will then work to create our own modern-day heroine for a myth.
What to bring to school: A hat for playtime and a healthful snack.
Timetable: Monday PE (wear PE shoes and a house T-shirt) Wednesday No school (Tanzanian holiday) Thursday Swimming (bring swim kit) Friday Library (bring books to return or renew)

In English, students have been looking deeper into migration issues through picture books. They have used ideas and points of view gained from these to write letters, taking on the role of various characters. In maths, after completing some measuring activities from last week, we gathered information and data from text about migration, and found ways of representing this with graphs. The students have explored various forms of craft used by indigenous peoples – they have been weaving papers and fabrics, and making coil pots using clay.
This Week: Unit of Inquiry: The students will be working in pairs on an interest of their choice. They will be using their findings about migration to prepare a presentation, which they will deliver to their classmates during the final week.
English language focus: We will read a range of information texts about major historic events linked with migration, using the information to create our own written understandings.
Maths focus: Interpreting a range of charts, graphs and diagrams.
Notices: Monday 7th December: Exhibition Retreat Day. The P6 students from Arusha will be joining us for the day. We will be doing a range of activities to promote collaboration, passions and action in the community, and thinking ahead to the exhibition unit. We will be having a slightly earlier lunch on that day, before Arusha leave at 1pm. Lunch will be provided (for free) in the lunch-hall for all P6 students on that day, although students can bring their own lunch if they still wish to.
Tuesday 8th: Spirit day. Wear Tanzanian colours or Tanzanian traditional clothes on this day!
Wednesday 9th: National Holiday      

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