Moshi Campus News – 31 Mar 2018

Welcome back for the last quarter of the 2017/2018 school year.  It is a funny quarter as it contains the D2 and M5 exams so we say goodbye to different students at different times.

However, before we get to any of that we have a few school functions.  One is the Kanga Gala on April 14th, a very big thank you goes to the PTA for creating this event which will hopefully become an annual affair.  Please note that there is a ticket limit, so please order yours soon.  In the week after we will have the Farmers’ Market and the KCMC Blood Drive on Friday April 20th.  That Sunday, the 22nd, is Earth Day and there will be an event in the area that will be the new garden.  Please keep an eye on this space next week for more details.

At this time of the year we also start looking to next year.  We have almost finished the hiring process and there will be an email with details about the new teachers coming out in the next few weeks.  Additionally, we have selected the scholarship candidates for next year.  This is a diverse group that I believe will represent ISM well and contribute to the school in a variety of ways.  I will send out an email introducing them in the next week.

See you on Wednesday.

On March 22nd an array of ISM community members shared their story and advice on different careers for the annual “Career Day” for students in M5 to D2. 

The D2 students will conclude their studies on Friday April 20th and this will be followed by ‘study week’ and then the 3-weeks of IB DP exams commence on Friday April 27th. Plans are advancing for the D2 graduation weekend – Friday May 18th and Saturday May 19th – save the dates! 

The D1 students have started their internal assessment coursework in DP Economics, History and Global Politics.  By starting early, this should ease some pressure on students in the D2 year.  Parents of D1 students ought to remember to continue to regularly monitor your child’s progress using ManageBac. 

The IB Learner Profile and an ISM DP education educate each student holistically but prepare students to be change-makers in the future, something highlighted in this article. (https://nyti.ms/2BgENfA)

Rick Fitzpatrick

Boarders will return to school for quarter 4 on Tuesday 3rd April 2018. Kindly note that this time they will not return to school on Sunday. For those using flights, we remind parents to send us the details as soon as possible, and also inform us if your child will need transport from the airport.

The school provides free transport from Kilimanjaro International Airport and Moshi Airport on the scheduled opening and closing days. However, we charge for transport on other days.
Information about travel can be sent to the child’s boarding parent or to the Head of Boarding on rosemarybango@ed.ismoshi.com.

All boarders are expected to furnish the school with medical information. This information can be provided in a prescribed medical form that can be downloaded from our website. Parents are reminded to fill this form and send it to us if they have not already done so.

We have embarked on the renovation of our Diploma boys’ dorms. Kipepeo and Kilele dorms should be ready by the next school year. This will affect the common rooms, kitchen and the structure of the rooms.

Rosemary Bango

Great news, the Boys U19 Basketball Team was crowned as Champions at Braeburn. The U19 Boys team entered the game undefeated and were looking to beat Braeburn for a 2nd time. Unfortunately, that did not happen as several mitigating factors saw the boys lose by 3 points 26 to 23. However, based on their overall record of 9 and 1 and better tiebreakers, the boys are the U19 Basketball Champions.

The results for our other Season Two teams were:

• U15 Boys Football  5th place
• U15 Girls Football  6th place
• U19 Girls Basketball  6th place

March Madness Basketball was upon us to end the quarter. There were 5 teams with 50 secondary students participating in the traditional March Madness Basketball Tournament. Great fun was had by all and the winner was Hardeep2K

Please find below the following information regarding Secondary Sports Schedule for Quarter 4:

April 4th -6th  No practices

April 9th – May 6th  Practices and games will resume for the following the NTAA U15 and U19 Netball teams

April 9th – June 8th Practices will resume for the following teams on their regular practice days:

• Tennis (Mondays and Wednesdays)
• Ultimate (Mondays)
• Athletics (Thursdays)
• Swimming (normal practice days)

April 9th – June 8th Intramurals

• Basketball (Thursdays)
• Football (Wednesdays)
• Netball (Tuesdays)

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

Go Leopards

Scott Hibbard

Many thanks to the PTA for taking and selling the school photos in Semester 1. Parent photographer, Gelske Noorlander, took great quality class photos and headshots and edited them beautifully. We are pleased to announce, that by purchasing the digital and hard copies you raised $324 for the Scholarship Fund.

We are now looking to help others by collecting donations of unwanted soccer boots. If your child has outgrown their soccer boots and wishes to donate them to MOSKISA (the Moshi Street Kids Soccer Academy) then please give them to Kate Schermbrucker or Coach Eli. Coach Eli is the founder and director of MOSKISA. The ISM Primary boys have enjoyed playing quite a few matches against these talented players; including at the ISM Sports Gala at the end of Quarter 3. Your soccer boot donations will be much appreciated by these 50 boys who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Kate Schermbrucker

I hope you have all had relaxing holidays and enjoyed spending time with family and friends. I was lucky enough to visit beautiful Mafia Island; one of my favourite places. Many thanks to all the parents who attended the Student Led Conferences at the end of Quarter 3. It was wonderful seeing the children share their knowledge, learning and skills with you.

Lessons will resume at 7.30am on Wednesday 4th April. It’s a good idea to bring your child to school 10 or 15 minutes before that so that they can catch up with their friends and hear all about their holidays. Teachers will be in classrooms from 7.15am if you need to speak to them. We welcome our Primary Boarding students back on campus on Tuesday 3rd April. Please ensure children are sent back to school with hats, a water bottle and a pair of indoor shoes.

The EC children will begin their unit on how to express themselves through stories. The P6 children continue their PYP Exhibition journeys. The P1 – P5 children will continue their inquiries from where they left off – going more deeply into the issues.

Dates for your diary:

• Wednesday 4th April – No clubs. Collect children at 1.05pm (11.15am for EC)
• Thursday 5th April – No clubs. Collect children at 1.05pm (11.15am for EC)
• Friday 6th April – Collect children at 12.35pm (11.15am for EC)
• Monday 9th April – Clubs will start. (Slips will be sent home shortly giving club details)

Kate Schermbrucker

Our final week of last quarter saw us sharing our learning and portfolios with parents. We finished up our unit and completed the summative assessment work. We also visited a fantastic set of energy experiments in the P5 classroom. We will now be starting our final unit of the academic year; it is based all around stories and storytelling. This fits fantastically with our EC2 children’s first forays into their own personal reading journeys. We said goodbye to Ms Mary who will rejoin the cleaning staff. She will be missed and we wish her well. Mary has shown a lot of love to our EC children.

Please remember to bring hats, water bottles and clean indoor shoes at the start of Quarter 4.

Owain Evans

Welcome back to school. Thank you to all who came for the student-led conferences to celebrate the children’s work. They were very excited to show you their development.

The week before we closed, in our quest to understand natural resources, we were visited by two P6 groups who shared their exhibition topics with us. We had a very insightful discussion with the pollution group who shared their research process with us. We were fascinated to learn more about water pollution as well as how plastic islands form. Knowing that seagulls and albatrosses die because of swallowing bits of plastic made some of us cry. The group that was researching about endangered animals quizzed them and they realized that they only knew a few. The group taught us about many more of them and why they were endangered.

As we open, we will continue our exploration of natural resources and how we affect them.

Show and Tell: Sabine and Simreet

Mboka Mwasongwe

Dear P2/3 Parents,

Thank you to everyone who came and supported their child during the Student Led Conferences. The children were so excited about the whole process and were very proud to present.

This week will be a short week. The children will be working on writing poems about the solar system. They will begin to make a planet fact flip book and continue to research the planets in IT.
In Math we will review fact families both addition, subtraction and multiplication and division.

Homework will be sent, and clubs start on Monday 9th April.
Swimming will continue during this quarter; however, the children will be asked to have their PE kit in school in case the weather changes and it becomes too cold, and rainy.

• Wednesday: Return to school
• Thursday: Swimming
• Friday:  Finish at 12:35pm

Have a wonderful weekend
Clare Hibbard

We finished last quarter with a lovely Student Led Conference. I was impressed with how much confidence the students had when showing their work. This Quarter we will continue looking at natural hazards and the effect of weather on our lives. We will begin to research further into types of wild weather and look at the impact of Global Warming. In math we will look at measurement and collect data related to weather. We will start to look at positive and negative numbers. In English/Art we are making calligrams and shape poetry related to the unit. There will be no homework for this short week.

We look forward to a positive term ahead!

Julie Bowen

I hope you and your children have had a restful and enjoyable break. It was great to see the P5 students sharing their portfolios at Student Led Conferences at the end of the last quarter – thank you for taking the time to come to school to celebrate your child’s learning. Thank you also to M. Jean Pierre Julien who took time out of his busy schedule to talk to the P5 class about energy production at TPC (see photo.) He brought some sugar cane and bagasse to show to the children and gave us a very interesting presentation.

The first week of the quarter will be spent considering what are the responsibilities and roles of a government. The children will also learn new vocabulary associated with this unit. In maths we will complete our work on probability. Please talk to your child about getting this final quarter off to an efficient start by ensuring they have a hat, indoor shoes and a named water bottle in school each day (there are places to store these things inside the classroom.)

Deborah Mills

Welcome back to Quarter 4! I hope you had a great break and that your child is ready to continue the Exhibition journey.
We ended last quarter with students going to an animal rescue home in Uchira and another group heading out to APK Coffee farm in Kibosho. A huge thanks to Mr Thadeus, Caroline (Jelte’s mum) and Sanae (Koji’s mum) for organising and accompanying the groups.

We continue to work on our various projects and prepare for our upcoming presentation on the 9th of April in K-Hall from 7:45 a.m. The students will be sharing what the Exhibition has meant to them so far. We look forward to seeing all the P6 parents there.

Cathy Wambua