Moshi Campus News – 18 Aug 2017

I would like to say welcome back to all returning students and parents and a warm welcome to all new members of our community.  The first week back can be an emotional time filled with excitement, joy, nervousness, wonder and also some sadness.  I have to say looking around this week I saw a lot of laughter and smiles, so I am hoping that happiness was the predominate emotion.

As we settle in we will be sending you updates on various items like music lessons, PTA and other items via email.  If you find out that you are not receiving these or want them sent to a different address, please let us know.

As well we will start registering new parents with ManageBac soon so that you have access to student progress and reports.  If you are a returning parent and cannot access the system please email Grace and she will re-connect you.

Lastly let me say once again, congratulations to everyone for a successful first week and best wishes for a fun and fulfilling year.

Bob Cofer

The children have enjoyed getting to know their new teachers and classmates. They have started to tune into their first unit of inquiry. Teachers are carrying out pre-assessments to find out more about each child, i.e. so that they can pitch the lessons at exactly the right level – not too easy, not too hard.

Teachers will send home homework on Monday for your child to complete throughout the week. Please return the homework on Friday. Weekend work is not set, i.e. so that the children can have a rest. It’s a good idea for your child to read everyday of the week.

By now you have will received a slip of paper showing the clubs that your child will partake in this Quarter. They start on Monday. Please discuss with your child when and where you will collect them from each day of the week to avoid any confusion at the end of the day.

I look forward to meeting you all on Wednesday at our Meet the Teacher evening. This runs from 6.30-7.30pm and will begin in Room 4. After that you will go to your child’s own classroom.

Kate Schermbrucker

We welcome all returning students and new students. All students have had a very smooth first week and the new students are adjusting well.

SUBJECT CHOICES
All students in M4 and M5 made choices in the Arts (Drama, Music and Visual Arts), Languages and Mathematics at the end of last year. Please let us know in case you are not clear with your child’s choices. We have introduced Extended Mathematics course in M5 to allow able students to access Mathematics HL at the Diploma. Students were expected to have discussed the subject choices with parents comprehensively.

PERSONAL PROJECT
The M5 students are close to finishing the projects having started them in May. Each returning student already has a supervisor for guidance. Consistent parental support is greatly needed at this point. The students may need to visit or contact experts with information in their project areas or seek transport to the project locations. Frequent conversations about the Personal Project with these students at home will go a long way in making them committed.

eASSESSMENT
The May 2017 examinations results were released in early August. The school’s performance improved in Science, Mathematics, Music and Visual Arts. The majority of the M5 students have joined our Diploma Programme.

All M5 students are shortly beginning registration for the IB examinations due in May 2018. Students will be required to register with names in their birth or travel documents. In case a student is using a different name at the moment in school, we will need information on change of names as early as possible before the end of the month.

David Ochieng Oloo

Update:
Highlights of the engaging ‘success’-themed orientation program included subject exploratory presentations from all DP teachers, the stimulating ‘Defining Success’ individual presentations by 10 ‘successful adults in the ISM community’ [including among others two CEOs, the only Tanzanian who climbed Everest, a stellar ISM boarding parent and an ex-Indian stock market trader], a fabulous D2s sharing with D1s session and a 2-hour Pare Mountains hike.  The anonymous google-form based D1 orientation feedback was positive and was typified by this feedback: “The D1 orientation was really interesting and good because I got to learn a lot during the lectures concerning success and had lots of fun, hiking, made new friends.”

Upcoming: 

• D2 deadlines in the next three weeks include:  History HL/SL (Final) Investigation submitted, Economics Commentary #2 (Draft), Global Politics HL/SL (Draft) Engagement Activity and the Geography (Draft) coursework.
• Mon, Sept 11, 2017 is the date for the submission of the EE full 4,000-word (Draft)

Weblinks:
On the Teenage Brain (National Geographic) – https://bit.ly/2wfGIPU;
On Non-academic Skills as the Key to 21st Century Success – https://bit.ly/nonacademicskills;
On What the New Era Portends for Young People according to Thomas Friedman NY Times; https://nyti.ms/2v6Quys
Onto the special IB DP website page for DP parents – https://bit.ly/2v6x4tR.
Onto the author’s education-angled Twitter page – https://twitter.com/RickFitzpatric3.

Rick Fitzpatrick

ACT Test – 9th September
We will be hosting an ACT test in school on 9th September. This test is recommended for students applying to universities in the USA.  Only students currently in D2 who wish to take this test or improve on their previous score need register for this.  The regular registration deadline has now passed, but standby registration may be possible at www.uwcea.org/act for a few more days.

SAT Tests – 7th October
D2 students who wish to take SAT subject tests will want to register for this date.  SAT subject tests may be required for some students applying to competitive universities in the USA – The college Counsellor, Mr Daryl Rustad, can advise you if you need to take these tests.  You must register online at www.uwcea.org/sat before 8th September at the very latest and be ready to pay with an international credit card.  If you need help with registration or with payment, please contact the Test Supervisor, Keiron White, on keironw@ed.ismoshi.com before 31st August.

TOEFL Paper-Based test – 11th November
This test is for D2 students who need to demonstrate their English proficiency and are NOT applying to study in the UK.  Only D2 students who need to improve their TOEFL score need to register. You must register online at www.uwcea.org/toefl before 13th October at the very latest and be ready to pay with an international credit card or PayPal.  If you need help with registration or with payment, please contact the Test Supervisor, Keiron White, on keironw@ed.ismoshi.com before 6th October.

There will also be more SAT tests held on 2nd December and ACT tests held on 9th December.  D1 students do not need to register for tests until the second semester of this year.

Boarders returned to school for the quarter on Sunday 13th August.

The boarding parents have helped them to settle down, and the week has been very smooth, especially for the new boarders who had to adjust to the boarding routine.

A number of parents have filled and sent to us  Parent Consent forms for this year, but I would wish to remind those who have not done so to fill them and send them to the us. Note that students will not be allowed out of campus if these forms are not filled.

New students should also have sent to us health forms. Kindly access these forms from our website and let them be sent to us.

This weekend, we have lined a number of activities that will occupy the boarders this whole weekend.

Rosemary Bango

HOME OF THE LEOPARDS

The ISM Sports Department hopes that all secondary school students had a great first week. Thursday’s Activities, Outdoor Pursuits and Sports Social was a great success. It was great to see the students’ enthusiasm for the programs and getting themselves involved.

Please find below important links:

Click here for the Secondary School Sports Practice Timetable

Click here for the Leopards Sports Calendar of Events

This coming Saturday August 26th our boys’ and girls’ basketball teams will play a local school, games will start at 10:00 in Karibu Hall, come out and cheer them on.

The ISM Sports Department would also like to inform students of the opportunity to do horse riding, and tennis. Please contact Mr Preva (0758053280) and Coach Charles (0757606766) respectively

As the season and year progresses please keep up with all the info, news, and sports reports by reading the Moshi Campus News.

Go Leopards

Scott Hibbard

What a great week. The children are making a smooth transition to a new teacher and classroom. We are already seeing some fantastic interactions between them. They share well, negotiate paired or small group games between themselves and show many of the beginnings of the elements in our Learner Profile I shared with you last week.Their confidence and independence have been a real pleasure to see.

We have a new display board in our classroom- the ‘Action Board’….

Parent: “Have you been learning about water conservation in school?”

Teacher: “Yes, why do you ask?”

Parent: “Well because over the weekend I started the shower for my 4YO. He ran out, came back with a bucket and put it in the shower. When I asked him what he was doing he said “I’m catching the water that is not hot enough yet so I can give the garden a drink after my shower”

Teacher: Really interesting- he is taking action as a result of what he learned.

Please let me know if you notice anything like this. We’ll add it to our new display board! Have a fantastic weekend, and I hope to see you all next Wednesday.

Owain Evans

We have had a fantastic week. We took time to get to know one another. Everyone showed great attitude, empathizing with one another, especially with new students.

We tuned into our unit of inquiry by asking ourselves what needs and wants were. Complex discussions rose as to whether laptops and Ipads were real needs or wants. We will delve deeper into this in the following week as we continue to inquire deeper into our questions. You will be able to hear more of what we are learning as you work through the homework that will be sent on Monday with your child. Please remember that it will be due on Friday.

In the coming week, reading books will be sent home. Please take time to read with your child and let them read their books to you. Ideas of how you can help your child will be placed into their homework folders.

I am looking forward to meeting you all on Wednesday so that we can unpack more of what we are learning in P1/2.

Mboka Mwasongwe

We all had a wonderful first week back at school. The children worked well together and have made excellent connections with the activities we have done. The children discussed and decided on the class essential agreements.

Next week the class will be inquiring into: The connection between positive relationships and wellbeing. They will be looking at the choices they make in their day to day lives. The children will be writing about the memories they have and turning them into personal narratives. I will be continuing to assess the children in their reading ability. Home readers will be sent home soon. In Math, the children will be looking at different ways to solve problems and sharing their strategies openly. They will also play several number games to improve number sense.

Homework begins this week. Please return it on Friday

Meet the teacher: Wednesday 23rd August 6:30pm.

Have a great weekend.

Clare Hibbard

We have had an amazing week together. I am enjoying getting to know the students. We introduced our new unit on Wednesday with a provocation which got the children thinking about the inequalities of this world. There is a picture of the boys fuming at the thought of losing their “right” to break time. They also got a taste of the impact of the ‘digital divide’ when they lost expected tablet time. The students examined their responses to inequality and were encouraged to be communicators of their feelings.

In the upcoming week we will look at features of writing and in math we will look at properties of number and place value in more detail. We will be reading and writing persuasive texts and sharing our opinions in English.

Monday is library time so don’t forget to send in a library bag or plastic pocket to carry books.

Julie Bowen

The children have had a productive and happy week settling into P5. We have completed several getting to know you and team building activities (see photo of Saving Fred challenge.)

The week ahead:

Maths
We will look at place value and carry out some maths investigations.

Language
We will start reading circles and the children will complete some free writing and use a thesaurus to widen their vocabulary.

Unit of Inquiry
The focus of our unit is migration. We have tuned into the unit by discussing what we know about animal migration and have talked about the reasons that humans migrate to identify differences and similarities. Next week we will inquire into why humans have migrated throughout history. We will learn some vocabulary associated with this unit.

Deborah Mills

The students had a good week and have been settling in very well. We had plenty of games and circle time where they shared their holiday news and got to know more about each other. It was great to see the P5s and P6s have fun as they got to know each other during a bingo game.

The Unit of Inquiry we are working on is on digital media.

Central Idea: Media empowers people to create, extends and challenge our perception of the world.

Lines of Inquiry
Why we use digital media (Reflection)
How the use of media can shape our perception of the world (Change)
The role of bias (Change)
Our responsibility in virtual environments (Responsibility)

Our language will focus around persuasive writing and in Math we will be reviewing concepts on fractions and decimals.

The timetable and other information has been sent directly to your email. Incase you have not received this, kindly let me know through cathywambua@ed.ismoshi.com

Have a pleasant weekend,
Cathy Wambua