Moshi Campus News – 5 Aug 2017

Dear Parents,

Wecome to the 2017/18 school year here at ISM.  We hope that your holiday was restful and enjoyable and you are ready for the start of school again.  We now look forward to welcoming all our continuing students back to school, and to meeting the many new students and parents who will be joining our community on the Moshi Campus in a week. Boarding students will be coming to school on Sunday, 13th August, and all will begin their classes or orientation programmes at 7:30am on Monday, 14th August.

Welcome to a new year at International School Moshi. It is with great excitement that I write to you for the first time and I take this opportunity to thank everyone who has made my initial days at ISM so enjoyable. In both Arusha and Moshi it is evident that the spirit of tunategemeana is alive and well, and I am confident that as we work together ISM will continue to flourish and remain a school who keeps the students in our care at the heart of all we do. I look forward to having the opportunity to meet with you all in the weeks, months and years to come.

We have spent the last week in school helping our new teachers settle in to life in Moshi and getting all prepared for the new school year.

We welcome (left to right):

• Owain Evans who is joining us full time in EC.
• Anthony Hemmens who will be teaching MYP and DP English as well as working as the CAS Coordinator
• Jaime Strattan who will teach MYP Science and will be the boarding Parent for MYP Girls
• Laura Webb who is our new MYP and DP French techer
• Mboka Mwasongwe who will teach in Primary
• Eva Toth-Nagy who will be taking over as the Head of Learning Support
• Emmanuel Kileo who will be joining us part-time as a counsellor (not pictured)

We are very pleased to have such an experienced and qualified group joining the school and are looking forward to a successful year ahead.

As you will know, it is school policy to expect payment of school fees for each quarter on a date before the start of the quarter. If we have not yet received your child’s fees for this quarter, you will have been advised by our accounts office. In this situation it is likely that we will not allow your child to attend classes and we will need to arrange to send boarding students home. To avoid this difficult situation, please do ensure that fees are always paid before the due date specified on invoices.

If you anticipate difficulty in paying school fees and would like to move to a monthly payment plan or reschedule payment dates, please contact me on bobcofer@ed.ismoshi.com before Friday so that we can discuss possible arrangements.

There has been a great deal of activity on our campus over the past couple of weeks as we gear up for the new academic year. Teaching assistants have been preparing classrooms, gardeners have been tidying up the grounds and builders and other fundis have fixed and made improvements to the classroom blocks etc. New teachers are arriving and beginning their orientation programme. We are very excited to meet and welcome them to ISM. I am delighted that we are always able to attract such good quality staff members to our school. I hope you will join with me in welcoming our new primary staff members:

Mboka Mwasongwe – Ms Mboka is an ISM (Moshi) Alumna who is very much looking forward to starting work as the P1/2 Class Teacher. She attended a few different well respected international schools and universities herself and so has a very good appreciation of life as an international student. Mboka is highly educated and experienced, having worked in a number of well respected international schools. She is moving back to Moshi with her husband and two children.

Elisafi Wilson – Coach Eli is taking over the Primary PE teaching. He is passionate about sports and is committed to the ISM Primary PE programme. Eli has worked in Tanzania and abroad, including coaching in international schools and universities. He has won several prestigious awards for his work. He is employed as a full time TA and will work alongside the Primary Teachers to run lessons, clubs and lead matches.

The primary staffing for 2017-18 is as follows:

• EC – Owain Evans (Room 2)
• P1/2 – Mboka Mwasongwe (Room 3)
• P2/3 – Clare Hibbard (Room 4)
• P4 – Julie Bowen (Room 6)
• P5 – Debbie Mills (Room 15)
• P6 – Cathy Wambua (Room 16)
• Music – Mary Pantlin
• Swahili – Linda Kileo
• French – Pearl Fon Sing
• Learning Support – Eva Toth-Nagy
• PE – Eli Wilson
• Swimming – Sabini Temba
• Library – Tahera Madan
• Head of Primary/PYP Coordinator – Kate Schermbrucker

Primary Clubs and Collection Times: Clubs will not begin until the second week, i.e. on Monday 21st August. Parents will be able to sign up their children for clubs during the first week back at school. All P1 – P6 primary day children will go home at 13.05 for the first week of school. Please make arrangements to collect them and take them home. (EC children will go home at 11.15am and all EC – P6 will go home at 12.35 on Friday).

First Day of School: Lessons begin on Monday 14th August. Children should arrive by 7:20am for a 7:30am start. You are welcome to come directly to classrooms to met your child’s class teacher. Children should be sent to school with a bag containing a healthy snack and a water bottle (or else purchase a snack ticket from Reception). Children should wear an ISM t-shirt (also available from Reception) and sensible closed shoes (not flipflops or Crocs). Children should be collected and taken home at 13:05 (11:15 for EC children).

Secondary students will start the new year on Monday the 14th at 7:30am.  This first day is designed to provide an orientation for our new students and a chance for our returning students to reconnect to the school.  After time in the morning before break with their new tutors, M2-M5 students will start attending their classes.  The M1 students will have an extended period with their tutor, Ms Sullivan, before starting their classes.  During the day, our M1-M2 students will get a paper copy of their schedule and our M3-D2 students will use the electronic versions sent to them.

For our D1 students the first two days will be part of an introduction to the IB Diploma Program and they will follow a different schedule for these days.  Our D2 students will restart classes on Monday after the initial time with their tutors.

We are expecting all our boarding students to join us this Sunday, 13th August. The boarding houses will be open from 8am and all boarders should be in school before supper at 6pm. If your child is arriving by air at either Moshi or Kilimanjaro airports, we can meet them at the airport and bring them to school. There is no charge for this service on 13th August. If you would like us to meet your child, please email the Head of Boarding, Rosemary Bango, as soon as possible on rosemarybango@ed.ismoshi.com.

Parents of new and returning boarders are very welcome to join the boarding parents and others at tea in the Dining Hall at 4pm on Sunday. We look forward to seeing you.

All boarders are expected to have a new Parental Consent Form for the 2017/18 school year. If you have not yet sent this to us, please email it this weekend, or send a printed copy with your child on Sunday. Blank forms (in Word format) are available to download from the school website – there are different forms for different age groups: Primary | M1-M4 | M5, D1 & D2.

Primary students are asked to wear an ISM T-shirt when attending school. A good selection of T-shirts are available from Reception at school at a cost of TSh 10,000/- per shirt. We are still awaiting a new stock of T-shirts to increase the number of and colours available in different sizes.

All students in both primary and secondary are asked to buy a house T-Shirt according to the house they are in (Kibo – blue, Mawenzi – green, Meru – yellow). New students will be told their houses on Monday. House T-shirts are also available from Reception at 10,000/- each.

Day students may eat lunch in the school dining hall by first buying a lunch ticket in Reception and handing this in when they go for a meal. Lunch tickets cost TSh 6,500/- each and can be purchased one at a time or in larger quantities.

Day students can also purchase morning snacks tickets to eat the morning snack in the dining hall during morning break. These tickets cost TSh 13,000/- for a week’s snacks and are also available from Reception.

Boarders do not pay extra for school meals as these are included within the boarding fee.

All students in M3 – M5, D1 or D2 are required to come to school with a laptop. The minimum requirements for this laptop are given in the Secondary Students’ Handbook. They will use this laptop in many classes as well as for private study, so please help us to ensure that every student in M3 or above does have a laptop. Students will be asked to sign our Technology Use Agreement and will be given free access to the school’s wi-fi network with internet connection.

Students in M1-M2 are also welcome to bring a laptop to school, although these are not required

Secondary day students find it useful to have a locker in school to store their various books, rather than having to carry a heavy weight all day. Lockers are also a secure place to keep more valuable items such as phones or laptops. A key for a locker is available from Reception.  We will ask for a key deposit of TSh 5,000/- which will be forfeit if the key is lost.

Day students get priority for lockers as boarders do not usually need these. However some lockers may be available for boarders after a couple of weeks.

Over the holiday, all families were emailed a set of the various school handbooks for 2017/18. If you did not receive these, all handbooks can also be found on our website at www.uwcea.org/about-us/publications. These contain important information about our programmes and expectations. I would encourage you to read those appropriate for your child and to share them with him/her:

• Primary Handbook
• Secondary Student’s Handbook
• Boarding Handbooks
• MYP Handbook
• Diploma Handbook

All students in D1 and D2 are required to have a Graphic Calculator for use in Mathematics, Science and other classes. We strongly recommend the purchase of a TI-84 calculator and all teaching on the use of calculators will be based on the TI-84. If you do not yet have one of these, they are for sale in school at a price of US$150 for a black and white model, or $170 for the colour screen model. Please send your child with sufficient money to purchase this (in US$ or TSh) or send an email to me at bobcofer@ed.ismoshi.com if you wish to have this cost invoiced to you through the school’s accounts office.

Students in other secondary classes need a simple calculator (M1-M3) or scientific calculator (M4 & M5).  Students in the Extended Mathematics M5 class are encouraged to abtain the TI-84.

You can also access the school calendar which is available at https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=intsmoshi%40gmail.com&ctz=Africa/Dar_es_Salaam.

Alternatively you can add the calendar to your Google Calendar account by searching for the ISM Public Calendar owned by intsmoshi@gmail.com [Please do not use this address for correspondence].

All regular secondary CAS [Creativity, Activity, Service] and Sports activities will start from Monday, 21st August. The first week of school will be used to publish information about our activities and for students to select their choices. There will be a CAS Fair for secondary students on Wednesday, 16th August and also pick-up sports activities on that day starting at 3pm.

All students are required to participate in one sport and one creative activity per semester with M4-M5 students also participating in one service activity per year.  The Diploma students must complete one activity in each of the three areas per semester.  Students will sign up for activities via a Google form to be completed by Friday the 18th.