Spotlights Issue 5 - August 2022

issue 6 | August 2022

Spotlights A MONTHLY CELEBRATION OF THE CIS COMMUNITY

WHAT'S INSIDE

CIS students are officially back to school!

Take a look at how we've kicked off the new school year with a bang this month.

For any queries, please contact dani.bell@cis.dk

Contents 4

Welcome to Spotlights A welcome note and introduction to this month's edition

5

School Life Spotlight See what our students have been up to at CIS this month

10

Curriculum Spotlight See what our students have been doing as part of their IB learning this month

23

Meet some of the faces behind the scenes at CIS 31

16

Community Spotlight

Event Spotlight

Student Life Spotlight See this month's afterschool activities including sports, music and more.

Take a look at the school activities from across the month 33

Sustainability Spotlight See snippets of our sustainability in action.

Welcome to the new school year!

To the students, staff and parents of the CIS community, Welcome to a new school year!

I have now been at CIS for around a month, and what a first month it’s been. There is no such thing as a slow start to school – when the new year kicks off, it does so with a bang!

This month saw us welcome in almost 200 new students, dozens of new staff members…as well as a new Director - me! We’ve had school trips, PTA events, and - as ever - one-of-a-kind learning experiences across our classrooms.

In this edition of Spotlights you be able to read about these events and more, as well as meet a number of people from the CIS community; from parents, to teachers and students. I'm always amazed at how interesting and diverse the CIS community is, I'm sure you'll feel the same too reading their stories.

If you have a story to tell and would like to be featured in a future edition, please reach out any time!

Timothy Veale Director at CIS

OUT AND ABOUT

School Life Spotlight The first weeks post-summer break at CIS

Back in the Classroom After long, relaxing summer, it was great to see both students and staff back on campus this month! A new year brings new opportunities, new challenges, new friends and new routines, and this first month has been a hive of activity as everyone gets settled into a new rhythm.

...and back to Sports

Grade 6 took a trip to Copenhagen Zoo this month to work on a realworld art commission... watch this space!

Have you seen our new website?

If you visit the CIS website, you'll see it's had an exciting make over!

Over the past year, we've been listening to feedback from existing and prospective families, and have redesigned our website to (we hope!) make information much more accessible, alongside a fresh new design.

The website will feature up-to-date content about what is happening on campus each month, so keep checking back for news and insights each month.

As with any big project, there will undoubtedly be a few unexpected bugs and tweaks to be made, so if you spot anything that doesn't quite seem right, reach out to dani.bell@cis.dk.

LEARNING

Curriculum Spotlight Take a look at some of the wonderful things our students have been doing as part of their IB curriculum at CIS

Product Design Inquiry focused learning a key differentiator of the IB to other curricula. The IB is constantly asking students to think critically and to question knowledge, and this can be seen across all subjects at CIS. This month, we would like to share some examples of this with our community - starting off with a creative subject: Product Design.

During Product Design in Secondary School, our students go through the different steps of the Design Cycle - first inquiring and analysing their ideas, then developing and creating a prototype to eventually evaluate their products.

Our Product Design curricula encourage students to apply these four stages when creating a new product, as this mimics a real-life design process. Having students understand the reason behind their work is a key aim: who are we designing a product for and what is the purpose of the product?

This month, Grade 10 students found their own client to craft something made of wood for. It is impressive to see the products turn out so differently, although everyone started off with the same brief, and the same material!

Our Grade 6 students experimented with edible building elements like spaghetti and marshmallows to construct a tower - the highest one - an impressive 37 cm! - surprisingly did not need much planning, but good teamwork!

"They try and they fail and they try again, and they fail again but they keep trying, luckily! That is the most important in the process of creating - not giving up, but learning from the mistakes.", says David Ferguson, Product Design Teacher at CIS.

Danish B All students are able to learn Danish during their time at CIS. We are particularly proud of the innovative and playful way that our teachers explore Danish for beginners at the school, through a language learning model called TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling). In a nutshell, students learn Danish through storytelling; a process that encourages students to actively 'try out' the language they are learning, rather than simply learning in a passive way.

Here are a few pictures from Danish B teacher Eva Christensen's Grade 5 class, in which her students learnt how to express their feelings and emotions in Danish, all through the medium of storytelling. By the time the class was done, students had gone from having no vocabulary in this area, to being able to convey full sentences about what makes them happy, upset or sad. Impressive!

School Values Project in Class 3C Our community at CIS stands for Compassion, Integrity, Creativity, Inclusion and Growth. We are proud to pass on these values to our students and see them develop their own understanding of them.

Class 3C students and their teacher Christy Lee discussed the meaning of the five values in their native languages. Seeing the students display great empathy for their peers’ home cultures shows their sense of inclusion already at such young age.

Explorative and self-driven learning is a central part of the Primary School curriculum, and is designed in a way to support students’ independence and critical thinking. Our teachers are, of course, here to encourage and facilitate this process and to provide the necessary support every step of the way, as we can see here in Christy's class.

EVENTS

Event Spotlight Here's a look at just some of the special events that have been taking place around campus this month

Sail Grand Prix 2022 August was a month to remember as the global competition - Sail Grand Prix 2022 - arrived on our doorstep, providing a whole host of learning opportunities along the way!

Sail GP is the Formula 1 equivalent of boat racing. It's a high speed, high adrenaline sport, and we were delighted to see it unfold right outside our school.

The Grand Prix races were to take place on Friday and Saturday, August 19th and 20th, yet due to weather conditions, the race was only carried out on the second day of the event. Our students got lucky to still participate in the workshops throughout the day, despite the challenging weather!

Students of Grades 7 and 8 were invited to participate in the workshops given by the SailGP Inspire crew. They learnt about the four elements of sun, water, wind and earth and what role they play not only in sailing, but also how they affect the planet. Students were challenged to plan and construct their own sail, build solar panels and form their own algae.

With good teamwork, curious spirit and the needed bit of skill, the small groups of students came to great end results!

Secondary School Overnight Socials Every year, our Grade 6-12 students go on overnight social trips at the beginning of the new school year. During the trip, they do a whole host of activities to encourage team work and bonding. At CIS we believe that great inter-personal relationships is the basis of all successful learning, which is why these trips are such a valuable experience for students and teachers alike.

Itineraries were varied and plentiful, including everything from playing ball sports, going alpaca trekking and uniting by the campfire - a successful, albeit tiring, few days all round!

PEOPLE

Community Spotlight Turn the page to meet some of the wonderful people from around the CIS community.

Meet your PTA CoChair, Sharon Cunningham We spoke to Sharon Cunningham, Co-Chair of CIS' Parent Teacher Association, about their great initiatives and how new parents can get involved.

To parents unfamiliar with the PTA can you explain what it is?

When a family relocates to a new location, it’s the difference between “staying somewhere” and “feeling at home”.

Our role within the PTA is to foster this sense of belonging and engage the CIS community through the exchange of information, hosting of events (school, grade and classroom wide) and facilitating special interest groups - All those elements large and small that help families feel that Copenhagen is now home.

PTA Chair - Interview On a typical day, what does the PTA do?

There is a perception that the PTA only organises coffee mornings, Halloween and the International Fest. But it goes far beyond that, whilst these events are outstanding and showcase the possibilities when a community comes together.

On a daily basis the PTA is living and breathing through the simpler interactions.

Read more about them here:

Parent events If you are a new family to CIS, there was a team of volunteers working over the summer updating information, planning welcome dates and setting up buddy networks. In addition, we have hosted 3 newcomer events already this year, including a canal tour and she organised a ladies' wine night for September 2nd. The PTA Indoor Soccer team (mostly dads) meet on Wednesday night (19.30-21.00) in the primary school gym.

Community Partners "Room Parents and Grade Parents” organise coffee/play-dates for classes, which stimulates the PTA community building. These smaller community activities are intimate and fosters relationships and a support network for families.

Communication "Classlist” - Our internal social media is an amazing online tool and facilitates busy parents, especially those not at drop off/pick up to engage and connect with others. The Newsfeed, Marketplace and Special Interest Groups are categories in which there should be something for everyone. For example, I posted an announcement about a farmers market.

52% of “Classlist” members read the message – 602 individuals. This, I say, is community building!

Events Finally, but definitely not least, we do host the BIG school events like Halloween and the International Fest. For anyone who hasn’t yet had the experience - these are truly WOW moments! They are months in the preparation and planning and require a huge team from across the school to come together. I would call it "CIS community at its best", and it is definitely not to be missed.

How can I get involved?

Membership of the PTA includes every parent and teacher - by being a parent here you already are part of the PTA - welcome! Your involvement is simply defined by your level of engagement. We currently have 24 volunteers within our PTA board and 33 community partners.

Your involvement could be turning up for a coffee or buying tickets for Halloween. It could be posting info on Classlist that would be useful to other families. It could be setting up a special interest group. Even a “liked” acknowledgement allows the community to know you are listening and that we add value.

A special call out to all Primary Parents...

If you are new to PTA, you can start by getting involved become a Room Parent, just reach out to a teacher, they are happy to help! Specifically, we are extremely short of volunteer parents in the early years of PYP. Room Parents are required in PreKinder and Kinder grades. This is a fabulous opportunity to enrich your child’s experience, too!

Feel free to speak to Marta or Jennifer to find out more at marta@cispta.dk or jennifer@cispta.dk.

Would you like to join the PTA board?

If you have been a Room Parent and looking for a different challenge, I would like to invite you to explore the opportunities within the PTA board. The skills you have learnt within the classroom are everything we require.

You will expand your social network, create memorable events, make new friends and, importantly, have fun!

For more info, email info@cispta.dk.

We believe we should always be looking to challenge ourselves and evolve and that’s why we always need volunteers.

Join us!

Staff Spotlight Meet Laura Ream...

Name: Laura Ream Title: MYP Coordinator Years at CIS: 6 (since 2016) Nationality: British, Hometown Manchester

...our Middle Years ProgrammeCoordinator!

Hi Laura! Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I am originally from the UK, and before moving here, I taught in London for 12 years. I entered teaching through a program called TeachFirst (based on Teach for America), where they place university graduates in challenging schools.

I taught science and later moved into school leadership, before my husband Jack and I decided we wanted to work internationally. One afternoon we made a list of five international cities we would like to live in (Copenhagen being one) and the following week went to a recruitment fair looking for the right opportunity. We ended up both accepting jobs as teachers at CIS (Jack is a Secondary School English teacher).

We quickly flew to Copenhagen to visit the school and were thrilled with our choice. We moved here in 2016, had a brilliant first year at CIS, got married in Rådhuset in 2017 and had two children in 2018 and 2021.

We just bought an apartment in the city, so we are here to stay for a while. We enjoy the compact size of Copenhagen, how child-friendly it is, being able to cycle everywhere, swimming in the harbour, running in Dyrehaven, the food….. I could go on!

Can you tell us about your role at CIS? Since returning from maternity leave, I have taken up the role as MYP Coordinator, coordinating and developing the Middle Years Programme in Grades 6-10. My role is to work with teachers to deliver an engaging and inquiry-driven curriculum, which feels both challenging and accessible to students.

One of our foci this year is to empower students to develop their own service and sustainability projects - an initiative very much in line with the philosophy of the IB. I also teach two Grade 10 biology classes, which I love and time in the classroom is often the high point of my day.

What's your favourite part about working at CIS? I love teaching and learning. Working with our with students, I am always so impressed with how open-minded they are and by the diverse perspectives they bring. I also really appreciate the inclusivity at the heart of CIS and how caring our students are towards one another. The MYP allows real autonomy, allowing teachers to develop the curriculum in a way that follows student interest and helps them develop authentic real-life skills that will go beyond school.

It's not an exam factory; it's all about using inquiry-based learning to develop students holistically, so they are ready for the challenges of the future.

EXTRA CURRICULAR

Student Life Spotlight Here are just some of the things our students and staff have been doing on campus when the school day ends

After School Activities We are very excited that our After School Programme is now running again after summer break - there have been so many great activities already taking place across campus, with lots of new things planned for the coming semester!

From different kinds of sports like dance and tennis to crafts like calligraphy and knitting to drama, cooking and chess - we are sure there is something for everyone! From Monday through Thursday, our students have the chance to participate in the offered after schoolactivities.

If you are curious and would like to find out about more detailed information about the different activities, please refer to the Activities' Descriptions and the Weekly Schedule or contact Aga Debowska: aga.debowska@cis.dk.

SUSTAINABILITY

SDG Spotlight Our mission at CIS is to Educate Champions of a Just and Sustainable World. Here's a look at some of the ways we are doing that.

Team Peru If you read Director Tim's Weekly Announcement on Fridays, you may have recently seen a video with Grade 12 students Annika and Tania speaking about their volunteer work for Team Peru.

Together with other volunteers of CIS, they help fight poverty at Mama Cocha Children's Center in Peru. By organizing activities such as charity runs and donation events, they collect money and helpful resources like clothing and medicine for the Peruvian children in need.

As the prelude to the video series focusing on CIS' contribution to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, Team Peru shared their insight on the topic of Goal 1, "No Poverty". Find out more by clicking in the video below!

Click the image to view the interview

Thank You! A warm thank you to everyone in our community for another great month!

For any queries, please contact dani.bell@cis.dk