Volume 6 13/09/2019
Newsletter of International School Suva
Principal’s Report Dear Parents, Staff, and Friends of ISS,
Inside this issue:
It is hard to believe Term 3 is ending! Much has happened in recent weeks and progress toward our strategic goals is evident. The two-week break is starting and will, we hope, provid needed refreshment for a strong Term 4! We are losing several staff and have said good-bye to a few very long-time staff. In fact, at the final assembly for Term 3, we said farewells to eight instructional staff: Milika Wakainabete is stepping down after 28 years at ISS teaching History and English. Alex Karountzos is moving on after 14 years of dedicated service to our students teaching drama and as our IB Diploma Coordinator. Kathryn Chang is retiring after 10 years at ISS as a Primary teacher and Department Head. Angelina Devi is moving on from ISS after 10 years of service in our ECH program. Wakanisi Vaciloa is leaving as our librarian after 8 years. Luc Delneuville is leaving after more than a year of teaching French, Sisi Tamanikoula has left following two years of Primary teaching, and Roshni Lata departed during last term. We wish all of them well as they pursue new endeavours. New staff are taking on the vacated roles and we feel students will be well-cared for!
Respect the bus, fellow riders, and the driver. Remain seated while on the bus. Keep hands and feet inside the bus and from touching or disturbing others. Follow all directions from the driver or bus monitor. Keep noise levels low and refrain from abusive or harassing speech. Refrain from eating or drinking on the bus. Only occupy one seat and share space with others as needed.
Thank you for helping us improve our bus service.
Photography Winners
Year 4 Article
PYP Exhibition
Child Labour
ECH 2
Butterflies & Moths Primary Options Program Literacy Week
China Trip
MYP Corner
Year 6 Designs
Ocean Stewardship - Beqa Island
Beqa Island Photos
Upcoming Events
Most of you know we conducted a lock-down training drill recently. You may wonder what a lock-down drill is. A lock-down can be used when there is any outdoor threat in the school area. Threats can come from natural disasters, such as cyclones with flying debris, acts of war, or from dangerous individuals in the vicinity of the school. For all of these, we can use a lock-down procedure to quickly bring students, staff, and visitors inside locked spaces at the school and out of harm's way. Because this was a training drill, all students were told in advance about the procedure and that it was a drill and not real. They were also told what they were to do during the drill, which was to stay in the room and be out of sight as much as possible. For the drill, PA announcements were made to say the exercise was a drill and what to do. The drill was very quiet, efficient, and calm and took only about 6 minutes. A staff survey following the drill revealed two windows with non-working locks, several areas with poor or non-existent PA announcement coverage, alert chimes not heard in several areas, and several doors that were difficult to lock. Continued…..
Library
Bus service is changing for the better! We are beginning to have adult bus monitors on most afternoon buses and some morning buses now. This has been requested by parents and should help make transportation to and from home more pleasant for our students. Please encourage your children who ride buses to follow bus rules and to assist the bus monitors in every way. We are committed to having safe buses and expect all students to do the following:
Year 3 Article
Term Dates
Our basic procedure is as follows: 1. We sound announcement chimes repeatedly as an alert and to get attention (without any confusion with an evacuation drill); 2. All staff immediately help bring everyone into closed rooms (with a real drill, law enforcement would be called at this point if threats were from individuals); 3. Doors are locked and all people take positions out of sight as much as possible; 4. Any individuals thought to be missing are reported to the administration by telephone or text message, 5. A safety assessment is made by a) staff in the case of a natural disaster, or b) law enforcement officials in the case of possible threatening persons; 6. Following a confirmation that all is safe, an all-clear announcement is made; 7. Parents are notified of the lock-down immediately after the all-clear; 8. With any actual lock-down, close monitoring of students for anxiety or distress is done and intervention support provided if so; 9. A de-brief is conducted soon after a lock-down to analyze the circumstances and procedure. Thank you for your support of school safety. We always have one or more safety drills per term. If you are on campus during any kind of drill, please participate appropriately. Safety procedures always apply to everyone on our campus, and the temporary inconvenience is outweighed by the safety of our children! This is important so that if we were to ever have a real emergency, students would be aware of the procedures, take them seriously, and be able to manage the necessary safety response calmly. In the area of improved facilities, our new ECH outdoor area is now approved for occupancy, so in Term 4 we will have a great new student area to use! We are moving forward to add new Middle School classrooms, offices, and meeting spaces because of capacity enrolment in two of the three Middle School year levels. We hope to have this addition finished by the start of next year’s classes in January. We are making good progress with the new “J Block” building which will provide a new auditorium and needed classrooms. We will also have some new outdoor meeting spaces and an ocean science area for wet lab and ocean study. In the coming year, we hope to also be able to open a new access road to the school from Nokonoko road with better parking and bus and parent drop-off areas. This should make student drop-offs safer and easier for everyone. Best wishes as you begin the term break. I hope your students’ holiday includes some family adventures and fun times!
Steve Cathers, Head of International School Suva
Year 4 Article Year 4 has just finished our trade UOI and for our summative assessment we had to do a shark tank pitch. A shark tank pitch is when you are an entrepreneur and are looking for investment in your company for an equity share in your company. An equity share is when a person owns a part of your company an example of this if you got a $100 from a customer and the investor owns 20% of your company then he/she would get $ from the $100. We were first told to think of a category and then think about what could be in that category. Next we created a name, a slogan and a logo plus an advertisement. We used a table called the 5ps to control our work. PRODUCT
PEOPLE
PLACE
PRICE
PROMOTION
In the Product/service column we had to write what our product was, why we chose it and the supply and demand of the item. In the People column we had to decide who our target audience was and why so we couldn’t just say teachers we have to say why we picked teachers. In the Place column we had to decide where we wanted to sell our product and why. In the Price column we had to determine a reasonable price for our product an example of how to do this ia to add up the price of the components and make your price about $1.00 higher than your profit would be one dollar per 1 copy of whatever your product is. The Promotion column is all about how you are going to promote your work by using things such as a poster and an advert. Next came the presenting. This was toward the end of the unit and we had to find time to finish our presentation and writing practise on our own, and rehearsal altogether. There were two rounds to presenting our presentations. In round one, we had to present to our fellow peers and then we would do a silent vote on two groups to make it to the next round. In round two we had to present it in front of the sharks. They where Annalisa Tolstoff, Nakita Bingham and Leanne Hunter. They were judging creativeness and productiveness. Here are some photos of the winners. Hudson Rivers, Kele Hunter Noah, Jayda
Kelly, Rui Zhie, Suji, Riley
Olivia Wild, Olivia Cullen, Mikeala Bingham.
Year 5 PYP Exhibition By Nikhil, Fana and Sasha For the Year 5 Exhibition, we started off with identifying our passions and interests then we connected our topic to an UN Sustainable Development Goal. We worked hard to become experts at our topic by applying our research skills, getting advice from our mentors and teachers, listening to guest speakers and some of us organised excursions related to our topic. Our key concept questions helped us to go deeper with our research. On the 3rd of September, we presented our Exhibition to parents, guests and teachers. We had to be brave so that our nervousness would not get the best of us. It was amazing to see the diverse ways that our peers presented their work. The Exhibition was then open to the public on Wednesday and Thursday. Our night started with an unforgettable band performance, with all of us taking part. Many played the guitar, while others played the violin, xylophone, drums and more. The song we sang was composed by Year 5 students. Several talented Year 5 students read their creative writing pieces and for our final performance, we did an upbeat dance that we choreographed ourselves with a lot of enthusiasm. To round off the night, we shared our findings and displays with our guests. Throughout the Exhibition week, we displayed the different elements of the PYP program such as the IT, Maths, Art, Music and the written component. We put great effort and creativity into choosing and presenting our topics that ranged from health problems to water pollution. In a way, the Exhibition was like any other Unit Of Inquiry we do in class but it was more in-depth and longer. It was a great way to showcase the communication, research, self-management, cooperation and presentation skills that we have developed through our years in Primary. During the learning journey, we worked hard to keep to our goals so we would finish tasks on time. Despite all the mixed feelings, all the hard work and all the stress, we had so much fun. We were so excited to share our learning and to see what we had accomplished throughout the seven weeks. All in all, Exhibition was a huge learning experience and an amazing project. Not only did other people love it but we loved it too, and I’m sure we will remember Exhibition forever!
Child Labour To start off with, Child labour is really important to discuss because it can get way worse than it already is and it is already really bad. It also has a huge negative impact in many countries. With 168 million children in child labour, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) will use the iconic Red Card. Here is a photograph showing hundreds of people forming an aerial art instillation saying “Red Card to child labour” in Botafogo beach, Rio de Janeiro in June 2014:
Most of us love football. It is sad that the football stitching industry employs little children to work. The Red Card program was first launched to correspond with the 2002 African Cup of Nations and to highlight the use of child labour of in the football stitching industry which came to light during the UEFA Cup in 1996. Child labour has continued to spread through multiple countries including: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Burundi, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and, Myanmar. Approximately 197 countries have child labour, but above are the most prevalent. Child labour in the United States started in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Children in the United States worked in clothes factories, though they were also often in the army as well as many trained adults. The next time you buy clothes, chocolates, football or any other product, you can make sure that they don’t use child labour. This way you can help stop child labour. Jenah Stice
ECH 2
Early childhood 2 Dolphins students taking action. An inquiry into……. Living things Life cycle of living things Needs of living things Planting seeds to see the growth and change of plants.
Central Idea: All living things go through a process of change and growth. Students made the garden and planted the seeds to see the growth and change. Students took action by watering the plants daily, collecting banana and orange peelings from their lunch box and adding them to the soil to make it rich. Every week students collected data and recorded it in their diary. They found out that plants need water, sunlight, nutrients and air.
Butterflies & Moths
Butterflies are the most attractive insects to most people. You’ll understand why when you look at these lovely pictures. Look how charming they are! I am quite fascinated by butterflies and would like to share some of my knowledge in this article. Monarch butterfly (Danaus Plexippus)
Great Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina)
The monarch butterfly and the great eggfly belongs to the family of Nymphalidae in butterflies. There are some species of moths too. While the luna moth belongs to the family of Saturniidae in moths and the yam hawk moth belongs to the family of Sphingidae. Fiji has not got many species of butterflies and moths, although you could see some. The main reasons monarch butterflies are endangered are the overcutting of milkweeds and the impact from vehicles and agriculture. The loss of milkweed means that the monarch butterflies can’t find host plants to lay eggs on and so they cannot continue their generation. Most of the times, milkweeds have been cut off or damaged without noticing what has been done because milkweeds just grow like normal plants by the roadside. Other butterflies and moths have been threatened to extinction from the loss of host plants. So we need to help these beautiful insects - for us, for the plants, and for the environment. Grow plants, go green, save butterflies! Xizi Hu (Kitty, Year 5 student)
Primary Options Program This year we wanted to strengthen the opportunities our students have within the Options program to:
Work collaboratively with a range of students Work creatively through science, engineering, technology, arts and mathematics (STEAM) Research a personal passion To play a range of team sports
So the Primary Options program was born. This program looks to offer students the opportunity to participate in these areas while working across a range of ages and groupings. Now every Friday at 1:15pm – 2:15pm, Reception to Year 5 students take part in the Options program. Classes are cross grouped into groups: Reception and Year 1, Years 2 and 3, Years 4 and 5 and have three seasons throughout the year. Currently the Rec – Year 1 students are participating in extended STEAM, Years 2 and 3 are rotating through different sports and the Years 4 and 5 students are experiencing different STEAM rotations. The children have been thoroughly enjoying these offerings each Friday.
Literacy Week During Literacy Week, Year 8 Chinese & French Studies read books to Reception students in Chinese and French languages.
China Trip 2018 On June 20th a group of nine Year 8 students and Ms Dan, Mr Ludher and Ms Fox departed from Fiji to start an epic adventure in China. Over two weeks we visited three cities, Shanghai, Xian and Beijing. During this trip, every day was a new learning experience, as we learned new vocabulary, strengthened our knowledge of Chinese history and even went Dragon Boat racing. During the trip we also went to visit a lot of historic sites in China. Near Shanghai we went to visit the gardens in Shuzou. In Xian we went to visit the eighth ‘Wonder of the World’, the Terracotta Warriors and rode bicycles around the city wall of Xian. Last but not least, in Beijing we visited one of China's most recognised landmarks, the Great Wall of China. By Papanui Liew-Marsters on behalf on the China Trip 2019
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MYP Corner September, 2019 Dear ISS Community, Many thanks for taking the time to read this month’s installment of MYP Corner. During the second week of Term 4 we will be receiving a consultation visit from the IB to help in our progression towards full authorisation. The visit is a great opportunity for us to showcase the progress we have made so far and get some ideas about how we can further develop our MYP program. The school will be assessed against the IB Standards and Practices which are summarised below: Section A: Philosophy Standard A: Philosophy
The school’s educational beliefs and values reflect IB philosophy
Section B: Organization Standard B1: Leader ship and Structure Standard B2: Resour ces and support Section C: Curriculum Standard C1: Planning Standard C2: riculum Standard C3: Learning Standard C4:
Collabor ative
The school’s leadership and administrative structures ensure the implementation of the IB programme(s). The school’s resources and support structures ensure the implementation of the IB programme(s).
Wr itten Cur -
Collaborative planning and reflection supports the implementation of the IB programme(s). The school’s written curriculum reflects IB philosophy.
Teaching and
Teaching and learning reflects IB philosophy
Assessment
Assessment at the school reflects IB assessment philosophy.
The IB is aware that for each school, the implementation of an IB programme is a journey and that the school will meet these standards and practices to varying degrees along the way. However, the IB expects that the school must make a commitment towards meeting all the standards, practices and programme requirements. Have a great break and I look forward to continuing our journey in Term 4. Kind Regards,
Luke Ramsdale HAPPENINGS IN YEAR 6!!! This term has been a rigorous term for Year 6 as they were involved in a variety of stimulating activities that allowed them to acquire concepts and skills. Regardless of the workload the students rose to the occasion working laboriously to complete their projects on time. Two such projects were the Science Fair and the Poetry Anthology. SCIENCE FAIR The Science Fair project allowed students to demonstrate how science works through research, observation and experimentation. While working on the projects there was active learning and inquiry going on. As part of the Middle School Science Fair competition, the students had to come up with a testable question which they had to investigate and find a solution. The students became scientific inquirers as they worked diligently on their projects. By the Christian and Kevin testing ito see if mass end of Week 8 the projects were ready to be displayed. There was an invasion of ideas in the breezeway where the students displayed their projects for all to see. The display boards invited the viewers to stop and learn more about the project. It was a colorful display of ideas and inventions. POETRY ANTHOLOGY In Language and Literature, the students studied poetry. They learnt about the different types of poems and how each poem is structured. Literacy devices were also taught and the students were given the opportunity to embed literacy devices into poems they wrote. The students learnt a lot from this unit. Learning how to write poems enabled students to express themselves and expand their oral and written vocabulary. This was evident in the poems they recited and recorded. The students were enthusiastic about poetry as it allowed them to be creative and this was clearly showcased in their poems. By the end of Week 8 each student had created a Poetry Anthology book.
Completed Poetry Anthology books.
Year 6 Designers In Term 3 2019, the Year 6 unit in Design was to create a costume for a client in ECH 2. We had to choose a ECH 2 child to be our client. We had to go through the design process to complete our costume. Our first lesson began with a trip to the ECH 2 classrooms to interview our clients with some questions we came up with. Some of the questions were “What is your favorite colour?”, “What shape do you like the most?”. We needed to come up with 3 sketches, then choose one of the sketches. We then came up with our design specification and started making. The costume making was quite a challenge for most of us because we all decided to sew our costumes. Most of us had to learn how to sew, whether it was with a sewing machine or hand sewing. Here's what some of the Year 6 students thought: “It is a big challenge to learn how to sew. The skills I learnt were sewing, if I were to do it again I would be prepared with other good materials.”- Ma Yue “The challenge was cutting out the shape of the pants and sewing. The skills that I learned were how to use the sewing machine, measuring out my pants and printing out my sticker. If I were to do it again I would try to make the pants look more like pants and I would try to make the t-shirt myself.” - Christain “The challenge was the pants because it was hard to look for pants and it was hard making the pants. The skills I learnt was to paint on shirts and to sew. If I were to do it again I would be more persistent and I would change the design.” - Ethan “I enjoyed sewing with the sewing machine” - Kalista
“There was a lot of changes during it (the process), I did not enjoy that because I did a terrible job of planning and did not check all my materials. I enjoyed creating the costume and seeing how it turned out” - Chuchu “I think my client is happy with my costume. She likes the bag and the skirt the best. I enjoyed this unit, I learnt how to use the small sewing machine and how to design the clothes.” - Ruitong We are doing a fashion show with Year 8s in Term 4. Some of us are going to show our costumes in the fashion show. Please come and watch us! Written by: Corazon, Ma Yue, Ethan, Ruitong, Chuchu, Kalista and Christain.
Ni Sa Bula Beqa – Ocean stewardship in the village of Rukua A group of Year 10 to Year 12 students recently sailed to Rukua village in Beqa. In collaboration with the Uto ni Yalo Trust and thanks to Mr Cathers & Mr Legaz, the students were introduced to modern day sailing. It was nice to see students implement what they had learnt through the Uto ni Yalo program. Students planned and made our meals, eagerly helped Mr. Cathers and Mr Legaz, carried out some community and service work as well as spending a memorable bonding time as a group. We would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Uto ni Yalo Trust that facilitated our visit to the village of Rukua. Areki Dawai of the UNYT paved the way for us in the midst of his busy schedule to ensure that we were following Fijian protocol while we were in Beqa. He led our morning activities with a beach cleanup and the sorting of rubbish. In the evening, leading our reflections and discussions, Rex steered our ocean pollution message by highlighting the Moturiki Experience and the ban of single use plastic bags. I would also like to thank Sefanoa Kutze from the Pacific Blue Foundation who rallied the youth of Rukua in his program of mangrove restoration and the collection of Crown of Thorns starfish in the sea. We quickly realised the extent to which the Crown of Thorns starfish are killing the coral. In just about half an hour of snorkeling we collected 79 of the starfish close to the beach. The video footage that was put together by our students and shared with the people of Rukua, revealed the extent of this problem. Although we were initially hoping to show the beauty of Fiji’s underwater world to Rukua, we quickly changed our message, showing the people how much damage the Crown of Thorns starfish are doing by eating away at the coral.
We would like to thank the village of Rukua for their hospitality and their caring spirit. Vinaka to the village Headman (Turaga ni Koro), Orisi Cagilaba who ensured that we were well looked after. Thank you to BSP for supporting us by donating shopping bags to the different villages that we have visited so far. Vinaka also to the Ministry of Forestry and the forest guards of Colo-i-Suva who are always so generous in supplying us with hardwood seedlings that we take to these remote parts of Fiji to help and encourage them to plant more trees for a healthy planet. Moce mada vakalailai Rukua. Sota tale!
Upcoming Events Term 3 Week 9 to Week 7 Term 4 T3 Week 9 Monday 9th September Constitution Day Thursday 12th September HS Arts Evening Friday 13th September Mock Reports IGCSE IB Whole School Assembly T4 Week 1 Monday 30th September Teacher Only Day Tuesday October 1st All Students Start Friday 4th October Whole School Fiji Day Assembly
T4 Week 2 Monday 7th October ISA Testing Thursday 10th October Fiji Day Friday 11th October ISS Vacation—School Closed
T4 Week 3 Thursday 17th October Coffee Chat with the Counselor Primary & Middle School Arts Evening Friday 18th October Primary Assembly
T4 Week 4 Monday 21st October Year 9 Camp Mon– Wed Thursday 24th October Year 3 Camp Friday 25th October Last Day for Year 12 IB Students Primary Assembly
T4 Week 5 Monday 28th October Diwali— Public Holiday Friday 1st November Year 3 Camp Halloween Social Primary Assembly Saturday 2nd November Garage Sale
T4 Week 6 Monday 4th November IB Exams Begin Thursday 7th November Internal Exams Begin Year 11 Friday 8th November Chow Games ECH to Reception Transition Parent Info Session Last Day for year 12 ACT Primary Assembly— Lower Primary ECH2
T4 Week 7 Monday 11th November Prophet Mohammed's Birthday Friday 15th November Year 11 Exams End Primary Assembly—Lower Reception
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL SUVA TERM DATES 2019 TERM 1 (11 weeks) New Teachers Start
Monday, 14 January 2019
All Teachers Start
Thursday, 17 January 2019
Students Start
Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Term Ends
Friday, 5 April 2019
TERM 2 (9 weeks) Y11 & 12 ACT Students Start
Tuesday, 23 April 2019
Students Start
Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Term Ends
Friday, 21 June 2019
TERM 3 (9 weeks) Teachers Start
Monday, 15 July 2019
Y11 & 12 ACT Students Start
Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Students Start
Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Constitution Day
Monday, 9 September 2019
Term Ends
Friday, 13 September 2019
TERM 4 (10 weeks) Teachers Start
Monday, 30 September 2019
Students Start
Tuesday, 1 October 2019
Fiji Day
Thursday, 10 October 2019
ISS Vacation
Friday, 11 October 2019
Diwali
Monday, 28 October 2019
Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday
Monday, 11 November 2019
Term Ends for Students
Thursday, 5 December 2019
Term Ends for Teachers
Friday, 6 December 2019