Moshi Campus News – 24 Aug 2018

In my mind today was an excellent example of the best side of ISM.  Students, parents, staff and community members were involved in various events around campus intermixed with classes on various subjects.  In Rafiki hall we had our regular blood drive that once again produced over 50 units for the local blood bank.  In the green space we had the monthly Farmers’ Market that is driven by parents and welcomes the local community.  In K-hall we had teachers starting the Wilderness First Aid course that happens each year so that teachers are well prepared for trips like outdoor pursuits.  In the afternoon we had 25 students working with the Sparkling Elephant Project heading out to Tinga Tinga.  Please see below for more about this student activity.

As I moved through the different parts of campus during this time, I would note one additional thing.  People seemed to be having fun.  Maybe it was that it is Friday, but there was a lot of laughter.

Bob Cofer

I have always believed that a school is a reflection of the community and Thursday’s Meet the Teacher evening was a lovely opportunity to come together and celebrate as a Primary School community. Thank you to all the parents who were able to join us. I hope the evening was beneficial and, hopefully, laid the foundations for a successful year of learning ahead. We trust you enjoyed a glimpse into the shared values and expectations across the Primary School and gained some insight into the holistic learning experiences the children will experience at school. As was mentioned on the evening, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher if you require any further clarification or have any questions.

One thing that I think I can say we all agree on as a staff is the importance of maintaining and promoting this genuine sense of community that exists here at ISM. We strongly believe we have a shared responsibility for the learning and a shared duty of care for all the students in our school.

Elsewhere this week, the Secondary students made their choices for CAS and Sports for the coming Semester. Many of them opted to become involved in activities outside of school, experiences that will not only allow for personal growth and development but will also have a positive impact on others in the wider community.

As educators, we understand that learning is more meaningful, purposeful and, ultimately, longer lasting if and when students are challenged and encouraged to make connections between the classroom and real life. However, we also appreciate that any school would be hard pressed to accomplish this without support from the surrounding community.

Today was the perfect example of a community coming together, as members of the wider Moshi community organised our first Blood Drive of the year, alongside the delicious offerings at the Farmer’s Market. Bridging the gap between the school and the local community is something we should all endeavour to support and a big thank you to the members of our community who tirelessly organise events such as these.

My Swahili is limited to a few words (at the moment!) but I already have a favourite phrase, “Mtu ni watu,” which roughly translates as “a person is people.” If we can all remember this sentiment throughout the year, ISM will be a safe and happy community for us all to live and learn.

Have a lovely weekend,
Ben Morley

Kofi Annan, diplomat and 7th Secretary General of the United National, died last weekend. Kofi Annan was passionate about education and how education could be used to bring about change and progress in societies and families. As we have on our ‘pink’ wall:

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

                                                                                             Kofi Annan (1938 -2018)

The 24 hour run Scholarship Fund raising event is just around the corner. Everyday more people are signing up, so if you haven’t joined a team yet please visit the sign up lists that will be posted in the main breeze way next week. We want to see our entire ISM family come out for some great music, tasty foods, and do a good deed for well deserving students. Your participation and support will be well received!!

We also need to find sponsors for the runners, so ask around and see if someone you know is interested in donating some money for each lap the participant completes.

It going to be an exciting 24 hours and we don’t want anyone to miss out on the fun !!

Jaime Strattan

Week two saw the D2 students settling back into school, while D1 students are increasingly getting to grips with the Diploma Course.

On Wednesday, students signed-up for their co-curricular activities. The Diploma course requires that each student take part in at least one co-curricular activity for each of the following categories: Creative, Action and Service. Students are, of course, encouraged to take part in as many as they would like! There was a wide range of activities from which to choose, from Ultimate Frizbee to Model United Nations.

A good number of diploma students chose to give blood on Friday, during the KCMC blood-drive. These young people set an excellent example through their choice to make a donation. Some were nervous but overcame this in order to make a life-saving contribution.

Laura Webb

M2 Interdisciplinary Unit Trip
The M2 students will be proceeding to Pangani for their educational trip as from September 24-27. This trip will focus on topics from Mathematics and Integrated Humanities. We will communicate full details later.

Language and Literature courses
This week M3s had a session on languages that they will take in M4-5. Students will need one Language and Literature subject (Swahili or English) and one Language Acquisition subject (French or English) for their studies in M4 and M5. This year is an opportunity for those wishing to take Language and Literature in English or in Swahili to make the progress needed to move to these language groups if they are not in them already.

Personal Project Supervision
The M5 students now have their PP supervisors. They should consult with their supervisors as often as necessary and adhere to the PP timelines fully.

MAP tests
The MAP tests are scheduled to begin on the week of Monday September 10, 2018 and cover two weeks. We will give more details including the schedules soon. MAP Tests are computer-based tests for students where they are tested in Reading, (English) Language and Mathematics. In ISM students take these tests from P4 to M3. In M3 students also take a test in Science in addition to the subjects above. 
MAP Growth tests are unique in that they are adaptive tests taken on a computer. This means the test becomes more difficult when a student answers a question correctly. However, when the answer is incorrect, the test becomes easier. Ultimately, the students take a test specifically targeting their learning level.

David Ochieng

The ISM Swimming Leopards are still looking for swimmers! Anyone who would like to swim for ISM and compete in swim meets is most welcome to come and train. A minimum of 3 training sessions per week are recommended, the more, the better! The training times are as follows (don’t forget swim goggles, cap, towel, water bottle and any swim equipment you might have):

Junior Swim Squad (P1-P6):

• MON: 14:00 – 15:00
• TUE:  13:30 – 13:50
• WED: 13:30 – 13:50
• THU:  13:30 – 13:50
• SAT:   10:30 – 12:00

Varsity Swim Squad (M1-D2):

• MON:  16:30-18:00
• TUE:    06:00-06:50
• WED:   15:15-16:30
• THU:    06:00-06:50
• FRI:     06:00-06:50
• SAT:     08:00-10:00

For more information, please see Coach Sabini directly or, email Debbie at uwceaswimming@gmail.com. See you in the pool!

OFF TO TINGA TINGA!

A group of ISM students in conjunction with the Sparkling Elephant Project will be representing ISM in a community and service based  project at the Enduimet WMA this weekend. The main activity will be to help set up bee-hives fences that the students refurbished last year and  will donate to the Maasai community living in Tinga Tinga. This is an effort aimed at supporting bee farming and providing the local community with an additional income generating activity. The bee-hive fences  also act as an deterrent to elephant encroachment  to the crop fields, mitigating human-animal conflict.

Hazel Ndong

A school counsellor is an adult your child can turn to when they need extra emotional support. The school counsellor helps students of all ages handle different types of challenges in and out of school. For example, a counsellor helps students:

• define their goals and plan how to reach those goals
• gain insights over the issues they are facing (which may sometimes hinder academic excellence)
• talk through and reflect on their emotional experiences
• feel supported through a family problem
• work out how to solve friendship troubles
• face and overcome feelings of nervousness about future challenges

If your child is going through any type of emotional challenge, or just needs someone else to talk to, the ISM school counsellor is Emmanuel Kileo. You can contact him at: emmanuelkileo@ed.ismoshi.com.  

The ISM Counseling Office is located between the Library and Art Room.

Working Hours: Monday 2 – 5pm, Tuesday 1 – 4pm, Wednesday 12 – 4pm, Thursday 12 – 4pm (issues for primary students have priority before 1pm).

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 us as soon as possible. Note that students will not be allowed out of campus if these forms are not filled.  The website has three different PC forms, for Primary, MYP (M1 to M4) and M5 to D2. Fill in the right one and send to us by mail.

Students should also have sent to us health forms. Kindly access these forms from our website and let them be sent to us.
There a school bank where boarders can keep money while in school. This is operated twice every week. Boarders are encouraged to keep money in the school bank, and avoid holding large sums of money in the dorms.

There are some changes in the composition of our boarding team. Mr Ian Horne is now the boarding parent for the second diploma boys’ dorm, Kipepeo. He can be reached on ianhorne@ed.ismoshi.com. He is assisted in the dorm by Mr. William Mmassy who can be reached on williammmassy@ed.ismoshi.com.

Mr Brian Jackson has joined the team as the MYP boys boarding parent. His email address is brianjackson@ed.ismoshi.com.

The boarding team is also assisted by a number of teaching staff and interns, who work alongside the boarding parents in the evenings and over the weekends.

Rosemary Bango

Meet the Teacher Evening: I would like to thank the Primary parents for the good turnout during the “Meet the teacher” evening. I received feedback from a couple of parents appreciating the information shared in Rafiki Hall and in the classrooms. It was lovely to have the Educational Assistants with us as well on this evening.

Clubs: The first week of clubs has gone smoothly and students have enjoyed getting their first choices. Updated club lists with students’ names will be up on the PYP Notice board.

PTA News: The PTA is organising a “Welcome back to Moshi” lunch which is a great way to bring the community together and welcome the new staff. More details can be found on the Primary notice board. On the same board is also a sign up sheet for parents interested in being part of the PTA  and a schedule for upcoming meetings.

Cathy Wambua Saha

This week the children have begun to make simple statements about themselves in terms of age, hair and eye colour. We used our art area and a small mirror to begin to look more closely at how a face and it’s most prominent features actually look. The children were able to name and mix appropriate colours and apply the paint carefully using fine motor control. We used the opportunity to discuss face shapes in terms of circles, ovals, squares and rectangles. When focusing on the eyes we were able to see and begin to consider why our pupils might open and close in response to light conditions.

Huge thanks to our M5 storytellers this week, it’s great to see how our smallest children benefit from working with the wider school community.

Please remember to send us some family photographs if you have not already done so.

Next week we’ll be surveying lots of friends around school to get some informtion about them.

Owain Evans

Recognizing how special we are can be daunting for some. It is not every day that we focus on ourselves and seek to understand what makes us unique. The children have been trying to do that this week. Please help us by telling us why you think we are special everyday this coming week. I am sure that there can be one thing to focus on for every day. We read ‘Elmer’ by David Mckee and this helped us to spark this idea that everyone is unique and special in their own way.

Keeping to our ‘colourful friendships’ theme, we have been looking at number bonds/friends. Apart from other math activities, they have been investigating numbers that go together to make certain totals. We will continue this in the coming week.

Thank you to all the parents who made it to meet the teacher night. If you were not able to attend, you would have received a packet of information from me. Please do send ‘the letter’ back to school for Monday.

Show and Tell Friday: Atuganile and Christian

Mboka Mwasongwe

The P 2/3s have been inquirers this week! They have looked at metal and the characteristics of it in order to look at the reaction between coins and various sodas. We have begun this experiment, and the results will be ready for us on Monday morning! The P 2/3 class has buddied up with the P6 students who came in on Thursday morning to read to us and play a game of Poisonous Frog. Students had a great time getting to know the P6 students, and they look forward to sharing their learning, as well as becoming more knowledgable by learning new things from the P6 students. I’d like to thank all the parents who came out to the Meet the Teachers event on Thursday evening. It was great seeing you, and I look forward to a healthy partnership!

Reminders:

• Monday – Homework sent home and PE.
• Wednesday – PE
• Friday – Homework brought back in and Library

Elisha Jaffer

The week has gone by really well and the children are up and about working more independently. We have been reviewing concepts in number using a game based learning website known as Manga-high to practise. The students have their login details and can work on this at home as well. In the coming week, we will continue practising mental Math strategies and will collect and represent data related to our unit of inquiry. In Language we will look at stories from different places around the world and focus on the comprehension strategy; making connections.

In Art we are looking at work by Tanzanian artists and would appreciate artefacts (something you can spare for class displays until the end of the unit) from local communities so students can look at various patterns, materials used and try and create their own pieces.

Cathy Wambua Saha

We introduced our new Unit of Inquiry about Rules and Responsibilities this week. The class enjoyed a debate about the importance of rules, where some showed their strengths with supporting their opinion in a respectful manner. The class is looking forward to creating skits about Rules and Responsibilities.  In math, we have been reviewing number sense and math facts in multiplication. The children have learned a few games that support learning math facts in addition, subtraction, and multiplication. We had fun with Bingo, Competition, and Race to 100. In reading, we finished “Chocolate Fever,” which brought about discussions of responsibility, balanced living, and being principled.

Next week, we will dive deeper into our Unit of Inquiry with a look at rules and responsibilities in different cultures and regions.  Our lines of inquiry are: Rules by which people live (PERSPECTIVE), The connections between rules and responsibilities (FUNCTION), and Analyzing the fairness of rules (REFLECTIVE).

Sarah Brummel

Our exploration unit of inquiry is now well underway. We have had two extended reading times this week where the children have made good use of the lovely new books we have in class and have read about a variety of explorers. The level of interest and concentration during this reading time has been impressive. The unit vocabulary wall is up and we will now focus on learning the meanings of the words. Next week we will consider the different ways we can inquire and we will focus on Christopher Columbus and use books, videos, websites and primary sources to learn about his explorations. In maths this week the children completed an assessment on time and we will continue to work on this area. We have also been looking at scale and have made links between maths and map work. A highlight of the week was visiting the P2/3 class. We are looking forward to working closely with them as “learning buddies” this school year.

Please note that P6 will be presenting in the Primary Gathering at 7:35 on Friday 31st August in Rafiki Hall. We look forward to seeing you.

Deborah Mills