The ISL Headlines April 2016

s e n i l d a e H The ISL From the Head of School : Mr. Martin Gough “Striving for Excellence” Important Dates School Holiday

2nd May

IBDP1 IYA trip to Ndubaluba

8th-11th May

Coffee Morning and PYP workshop

17th May

Africa Free- 25th dom Day– May school closed

Contents Head of School

1

Primary principal

2

Early years

3

Upper Primary

4

PYP

5

DINO ALIVE

6

Secondary Principal

7

IB

8

IGCSE

9

IBDP ART

10

BBSRC

11

CAS

12

Secondary Production

13

April 2016

Hard to believe that there are only just over 30 days of school left before the long vacation. Year 11 and IBDP2 students are already sitting their final IGCSE and IB Diploma Program exams. Following the exams, Graduation for the IBDP2 students will take place on Saturday 11th June and then the last day of school for students is Thursday 16th June. You can see next year’s calendar on the school website.

Residential Field Trips: The last of our residential trips are taking place. Last week Year 4 travelled to Itezhi Tezhi, this week Year 8 visited Livingstone, Year 3 will go to Eureka Camp in early May, Years 2 & 1 will have overnights at school, and the IBDP1 students will be completing their International Award Bronze Level Expedition to Ndubaluba soon after. The residential field trips are an extremely important part of our experiential education programme, along with participation in after-school activities and sports, day trips to local factories, institutions and workplaces, service opportunities in the local community and the Year 10 work-experience week.

Experiential Learning: The benefits of teaching and learning outside the classroom are enormous. Putting students, as a class, into a different physical setting promotes team building, generates bonds among class members, helping to create an effective learning community, and also presents opportunities for students to demonstrate leadership and other skills that may not be evident in the classroom.

Even travelling together on the school bus is another opportunity for students to get to know each other and their teacher better, leading to more effective relationships back in school. Active field trips can also offer unprecedented opportunities for experiential learning, which may often have a more lasting impact than classroom teaching. We strongly recommend that all students go on the annual residential field trip for their Year group. Students who don’t go on these trips are really missing out on important learning experiences.

PE, Sports & Activities: Linked to the idea of everyone taking the opportunity to go on field trips is a request from us for parents to encourage their children to make the best use of all opportunities to be active at school, particularly in PE, sports and other afternoon activities. Levels of obesity and lack of fitness in children are increasing globally, caused by over-eating of the wrong foods and, increasingly, a lack of exercise. Fit, active children learn better and will achieve more in the future. I am often disappointed to see how many of our students turn up to PE with excuses to not take part. I am sure that some of the reasons are genuine, but some are definitely not. Please do encourage your children to take an active part in PE and after-school sports and activities - even when, at times, they might not want to!

Wishing you an enjoyable May Day long-weekend.

Primary

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Message from the Primary Principal: Mrs Sunita Nair

Nearly there with April and we are soon approaching the end of this academic year too. I am glad to return from an evaluation visit in Dubai which was intense but went well and was a great learning experience. It was great to see familiar faces and be missed on my return!

We have had a lot of sporting events this month in the Primary school with some more to go next month and the month after. Your presence at these events helps encourage children to participate and is an enormous support to the faculty. We are sure you will be present for the ones coming up too.

Dinos Alive this week: a very exciting exhibition at the Showgrounds , where children get a chance to see dinosaurs and understand what “extinct” means. All of our Primary school intends to partake in this exhibition on Wednesday 27th April and gain a fabulous experience .

Many of our Primary students have been staying over for residential field trips which are closely aligned to our curriculum and we support it in order to provide them with the required provocation and inquiry for the unit. Field trips are an important and integral part of the curriculum at our school.

CIS and NEASC accreditation work is on course and faculty are now in the process of reviewing vertical articulation in the school curriculum. We are working towards getting this complete by May and completing the report for this section by June.

Events to look forward to next month include School sporting dates, Ultra Marathon, a PYP Parent workshop and Movie camping night. Keep your ears and eyes open for more information as the event gets closer.

As you can see, the school is always on the move- a very dynamic place to be in indeed!!

Ciao

GO GREEN …..

Scrub up your act!

You can make your own pan scourers using the nets that oranges come in. This saves on waste and saves money.

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From the Early Years Coordinator: Mrs Karen Hedstrom Our school swim season came to a wet and wonderful end with our two Early Years galas. It was fantastic watching the confidence in the Nursery and Pre School children as they kicked and splashed around in the pool. The next day the Reception, Year 1 & 2s had their Splash Gala. The progress the children have made this year in swimming has been amazing and a majority of the children are swimming one length of the pool. Well done to them all!

The Year 1s have been learning how communities grow and depend on the values and relationships of individuals. This led them to take a drive around Lusaka as they learnt about their wider community. They were fascinated to find out that we have a fire station, a police station and a railway station. They kept a tally of the number of banks, schools and shops they saw on their journey and using this information they are creating their own towns.

It was really encouraging to see so many parents come to visit the classrooms for our student-led conferences on Wednesday 13th April. We are very proud of the way our students explained and shared their learning. It was good to have feedback from parents so that we can make next year even better.

On the same day, the Yellow Corridor was ablaze with colour as the Year 2s had their annual art exhibition as the culminating event of their unit “How We Express Ourselves.� All money raised from the sale of their paintings and the auctions will go towards Nyumba Yanga Orphanage. I hope you had a chance to walk down and admire the diversity of painting techniques the students tried out.

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From the Upper Primary Coordinator: Mrs Tasneem Mohmed It's been a very exciting and competitive couple of months in Upper Primary with inter-house competitions. Just when you think Kafue, Luangwa or Zambezi are in the lead you get another surprise win!

There was the cross country, swimming gala, and recently, a very tense, nail biting football and netball inter-house competition. Well done to all the students for participating and count down to the final house points score begins.

Inter-house cross country champions 2015/16 ZAMBEZI Inter-house swimming champions 2015/16 KAFUE Inter-house football champions 2015/16 LUANGWA Inter-house netball champions 2015/16 KAFUE and ZAMBEZI

The Year 4s had a fantastic time on their 2 day field tip to New Kalala in Kafue National Park. They managed to fit in swimming, fishing and orienteering as well as a game drive and were lucky enough to see antelope, zebra, buffalo, elephant, hyrax and even glimpsed a leopard.

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Message from the IBPYP Coordinator: Mrs Grace Kambeu YEAR 6 EXHIBITION UPDATE The Year 6 students have been working hard for the past six weeks exploring the theme: “Where we are in time and place” and investigating “Better Ways of doing things”. The Central Idea is: Our actions may influence and inspire others to find solutions to world problems. They are ready to showcase what they have achieved in Primary.

The Music mentor club in action during a rehearsal session for the Gala

On Tuesday 3rd May from 11:00 till 13:00 the American International School along with the Upper Primary will be joining the Year 6 students for their first take of the gala performance.

Finally, the Exhibition Gala Performance will take place Thursday 5th May at 17:30hrs at the Amphitheatre and along the yellow corridor.

We cordially invite family, friends, staff and Board members to come and watch the performance. Hope to see you all there!

Thank you to all mentors and parents who have been helping Year 6 teachers and students. Without your support this undertaking would be impossible.

Teacher Assistant Workshop A big thank you to all the TAs who attended The Destiny Online Catalog Workshop on 14th April, 2016 led by Mrs B. Chilambu and Mrs V. Munsanje!

The objective of the workshop was to give the TAs an opportunity to explore the destiny catalog and get an overview of how it operates. Components such as searching for books using different entries, web path express a tool used to find any required information and checking books in library collection were demonstrated.

The Professional library was also revealed to them as a place where they could find professional information and Teaching Assistants were encouraged to use it as often as possible.

PYP Parent Workshop on Assessment in the PYP Our next PYP (Primary Years Programme) workshop is scheduled for May 17th. We hope to provide an insight into how Assessment is done in our Primary Years Programme.

Please register with our Primary Secretary. More details will be sent out through emails closer to the date.

Looking forward to seeing you at the workshop.

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DINOS ALIVE EXHIBITION

On Wednesday 27th April, the whole primary school attended the Dinos Alive exhibition at the Lusaka showgrounds.

The exhibition had 25 animatronic dinosaurs. It was well put together and the children thoroughly enjoyed them selves.

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Secondary From the Secondary Principal: Mr. Craig Patterson As we head into the home stretch of the academic year, allow me to return to a few basics ideas about time-management and self-organization. Of course the Year 11 and 13’s are well into that zone already as the IGCSE exams begin this week and the IBDP exams next week.

For the rest of the Secondary students in Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12, the final internal exams will take place from Monday, June 6th until Friday, June 10th. An exam timetable will be produced shortly and communicated to parents.

In anticipation of both the internal and external final exams I’d like to send out a few reminders to parents about how they can help over the next month or so, as research indicates that parents who are involved in their child’s schooling will find that their son/ daughter is more likely to enjoy learning, adapt well to school, and do better on their examinations.

Although homework is given out on a regular basis, at this time of year it may appear that your son/daughter is now getting and doing more. Helping them organize their time and even helping them with their homework is a natural tendency. But is there a point when parents can be too involved—specifically, with homework? If parents (or home tutors) end up taking over homework tasks, involvement can quickly turn into interference.

Some parents find that doing their own “homework” when their child is doing theirs can serve as an active example.

Parents may read, write emails, work on personal accounts etc., but be ready to help their child when needed. Remember, homework serves as a reinforcement of concepts and/or content learned at school. You can help your child understand their homework assignments most by allowing them to walk you through the way he or she learned to solve a math problem, explain a historical concept or a biological process, asking questions at the appropriate time. This approach obviously takes more time, but is more effective in terms of long term-learning.

If your child is more of an independent learner and needs less support for you, you can still assist them in their preparation by: - creating conditions conducive to learning: make sure your child has a quiet, well-lit space to do work, away from their phone, TV or other distractions.

- helping your child learn time-management: set a time each day for doing homework, and block off time on the weekends for working on big projects or preparing for big exams.

- making sure your child is using their Student Planner or ManageBac to maintain a record of what needs to get done.

(There are many more tips for helping out at home on page 6 of the Secondary Student Planner) If you need to speak to a subject teacher, please get in touch with him/her via ManageBac or call the Secondary Office and ask for an appointment. Parents who attended the Student Parent-Teacher Conferences a few weeks back had the opportunity to discuss the progress made to date and the steps needed to ensure future success. Above all, try to be positive and accentuate the effort being made. If your child is frustrated with a project or a tough new concept, be encouraging and guide, but don’t do.

Do remember that we have “drop-in” homework and academic support classes after school every day. The schedule for these sessions should be written in your child’s Student Planner on page 8. If it isn’t, just let me know and I’ll send you a soft copy, or you can pick a hard copy up at the Secondary Office.

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IB Corner! From Nathalie Vignard Thank you to all the IBDP2 students and teachers who attended the annual ‘Last Supper’ event last Thursday. Friday 22nd April was indeed the last day of formal lessons for our DP2 students who will begin their examinations on May 2nd, while everyone else enjoys a Labour Day Holiday!

Here is a reflection on the Diploma programme and some last piece of advice and from a former IBDP student: http://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2016/04/22/ib-finals/ While the DP2 are now on study leave, the DP1 have been very busy lately. Indeed, many students took part in this year’s Secondary School production, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was fantastic to see them involved in the project whether on stage or behind the scenes. Congratulations to all the participants and a big thank you to Mrs Petit for making it possible!

The DP1 students attend a PaCAS period every fortnight during which, Ms Rapaport (College Councellor), Ms Gough (CAS Coordinator) or myself go through important deadlines and IBDP requirements. For example, the students have been asked to complete their Extended Essay by the end of the summer holiday in order to avoid a heavy load of internal assessments next term while completing their college application.

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From the IGCSE coordinator: Mr R Van de Velde

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After a short but refreshing Easter Holiday, back to business. The Year 9 students have sorted out their options and are ready to start Year 10 in August 2016.

They can still change subjects within an option block until mid-September 2016.

The Year 10 students had a successful work week (thank you Leah for organising) and the Year 11’s are going through their last practical exams before embarking on their written IGCSE exams starting April 26th and lasting till 10th of June.

On Tuesday 19th of April, the Year 11’s had their last supper at school from 18.00 till 21.00, all organised and provided for by themselves and/ or their parents. This is an informal get-together of the Year11 students and their teachers, with usually a simple but great meal and the exchange of fun awards. Friday 22 nd of April was the official last day of lessons for the Year 11’s.

Concerning the IGCSE exams, the candidates are explicitly told NOT to take any mobile phones into the exam room (CIE regulation). Ideally, phones are left at home; alternatively they can keep them safely at school at the candidate’s own initiative and responsibility.

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IBDP Visual Arts Exhibition

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I would like to congratulate our IBDP student Chiluba Chomba on the excellent IBDP Art Exhibition that was opened on Friday 8th April 2016.

Thank-you to all the students for producing great works that went on display and for supporting Chiluba Chomba through the second year of his IBDP Visual Arts course and getting him to a point where we were able to confidently exhibit his art works. Thanks also goes to Mr and Mrs Chomba for assisting with the snacks and getting the exhibition on the wall and also to Andrew Simwanza and the maintenance crew for getting the Fine Arts Building ready for the Exhibition day. Thank you to Martin Gough & the administration staff for the support too, especially organizing refreshments and paper work. Without all this teamwork, the event would not have happened or have been so successful.

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BBSRC Downsizing Research – Professor Marion Hetherington I was delighted to be able to visit ISL to stay with Ms Fiona Munro from April 3-16 2016 to conduct research on portion size selection. On my previous visit (September 2015) I had arranged to collaborate with paediatricians based at the WHO, University of Zambia (UNZA) and University Teaching Hospital (UTH) along with Dr Pam Blundell, University of Leeds. We applied for a grant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support a study of weaning in rural and urban contexts in Zambia. However, the application was not successful. During this, my second visit, I asked Mr Martin Gough Headteacher and Ms Munro if I could collect some data for our funded project supported by the BBSRC DRINC initiative on portion size selection for high and low energy density snacks among the international students at the school. With the ethical clearance from the School of Psychology, University of Leeds and from the Biomedical Ethics Committee at UNZA we collected data from 66 students ranging in age from 6 to 18 years. So far the data indicate that children (but not necessarily adolescents) tend to “downsize” their choice of snack when selecting from highly palatable, high energy density foods such as cookies, crackers, crisps and chocolate and tend to “supersize” low energy density foods such as fruits and vegetables. I would like to thank Dr Pam Blundell and Ms Ifrah Shafiq for their help in designing the study and for taking photographs of the various foods for the online survey and card sort task (adapted for younger children). I was also invited to teach a few classes to the Year 2/Year 3 children on healthy eating (after data collection). As a trained primary school teacher who has not been in a school classroom for many years this was both challenging and exciting!

Teaching year 2 children at ISL

Portion size selection in action!

In addition to visiting ISL there was the opportunity to visit community schools with Ms Cherry Gough and Ms Barbara Duvivier. These are schools which IB2 students visit each week as part of the CAS programme and it was my pleasure to join them as an observer. We paid a visit to both Chasdale School (see below) and Sun Spring School. I have now returned to the UK, where it is cold and overcast. I already miss the sunshine of Zambia and the warm welcome I received at ISL. I hope that I can come back again soon to see all my new friends at the schools.

Chasdale Community School, Chaisa Compound

Sun Spring Community School, Ngombe Compound.

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From the CAS Coordinator—Mrs Cherry Gough I’d like to congratulate Green Team for their efforts in the past term. This small group of CAS students kicked off the term with an environmental assembly in which they introduced the topic of saving our environment with a variety of video clips and a guest speaker, alumna Angelika Huwiler from Foxdale Court.

Green Team then moved on to providing paper recycling boxes for all rooms in secondary and labels for our bins to encourage students to recycle plastic bottles. While these tasks seemed easy, it proved to be a bigger job than first anticipated: first boxes had to be collected, painted and correctly labelled before being delivered to classrooms and we have lots of classrooms and offices! I am happy to report that staff are very happy to have the boxes and eager to encourage students to use them. Our recycled paper will be reused in school, reused in our community schools or recycled by a paper recycling company.

Green Team’s current task is to encourage students to deal with our rubbish properly. They are finding that progress is slow and that reminders need to be frequent. Their aim is to make all our staff and students aware so that we all care for our school environment.

The Green Team: Srivatsan, Mushfikur, Uma, Shruti and Rafeeah

Preparing the boxes recycling bins

Completed label for bottle

Paper recycling boxes in the classroom

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Congratulations to the cast and crew of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" for a successful show!

Thank you to everyone in the ISL community who came to support the secondary school's production.

The actors loved hearing your laughs! Performing under the stars, the students' hard work shone with their creative and energetic portrayals of those beloved (or loathed, as the case may be) characters. Bravo!

CONTACT US

http://www.cois.org/

http://www.ibo.org/

The International School of Lusaka 6945 Nangwenya Road Lusaka, Zambia Phone: +260 211 252291 Fax: +260 211 252865 E-mail: info@islzambia.org www.islzambia.org

http://www.pamojaeducation.com/

http://www.cie.org.uk/

http://www.neasc.org/