Beliefs in Action Issue 01: Respect and Collaboration

Developing Minds

Developing Character

To Educate for International Understanding

Developing Community Issue 01: Respect and Collaboration 02: Integrity and Compassion 03: Choices & Risks 04: Balanced Lives

Beliefs in Action Highlights from our Community

Grade 4 Celebrates International Dot Day

Each year on International Dot Day – with the help of teachers from our Grade 4 team – the inspiration continues. After learning about International Dot Day and the story of The Dot Grade 4 classes spend the day focusing on creativity and collaboration. The annual celebration is always a hit with Grade 4 students, who enjoy the opportunity to express their creativity in a variety of ways.

Each class engaged with a wide range of projects in many different areas, including poetry, maths, and art, in sync with classrooms all around the world who join in with this celebration of creativity and collaboration.

Each year, Grade 4 takes part in a global celebration of 'creativity, courage and collaboration': International Dot Day. It all began in 2009 when teacher Terry Shay introduced his classroom to Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot. The Dot is the story of a caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe.

A global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration.

Kinderboeken Week Kinderboekenweek is an annual celebration of children's literature throughout the Netherlands. Lovers of literature, art, dance, and music join together to celebrate Dutch authors and illustrators of children's books for ages 2-10.

This year, the ISA Lower School libraries teamed up with the Dutch and PE departments to organise the week-long celebration. Students took part in many fun activities, including listening to Dutch guest readers in library lessons and enjoying special musical and dance performances at the student assemblies that were a part of the literary festivities.

What a great week it was! The PE and Dutch departments prepared students to kick off the week with the official Kinderboekenweek song and dance at assemblies.

The Upper School student band made a wildly popular guest appearance - everybody agreed how inspirational the older students were, providing brilliant role models for our students linked to this year's theme 'Worden wat je wil' (be what you want to be) which also inspired reading and writing in Dutch lessons. Dutch guest readers from our ISA community helped us celebrate Dutch children's literature both in Dutch and in translation in the libraries.

Children met classic Dutch book characters like 'Kikker' and 'Nijntje' as well as newer ones such as 'Lampje'. Many new titles have been added to the Dutch collections in the Early Childhood and Lower School libraries.

Annual Lower School Student Council Food Drive The annual Lower School Student Council Food Drive is an established Fall tradition at ISA. As the days become shorter and the weather turns colder, the ISA community comes together to help those most in need by collecting and donating food items.

This year's theme was 'Feed the Needy' and, with the hard work of our Facilities team, an iconic display of 'food monsters' was placed in the Main Foyer where the food was collected.

Once again, the ISA community rallied and donated an astonishing amount of food: two full pallets! The Facilities team donated the food to the Sisters of Charity, an organisation that ISA has had a longstanding relationship with for over ten years. The challenge of the ongoing pandemic made our community even more determined to continue supporting our local community and our partner organisation, enabling them to provide food through their soup kitchen to those most vulnerable in society.

While students were unable to attend the food drop-off in person, as in previous years, they were involved at every step of the Food Drive, from coming up with and pitching a theme, to putting up posters, and sorting and packing food donations. They even painted and named the monsters on display in the Main Foyer, with 'Spaghetti Monster' being a firm community favourite! Well done to the Lower School Student Council and all of the students involved for the commendable hard work, integrity and compassion you have shown throughout the food drive.

The DISSC Volleyball and Soccer Championship

Visual Arts and Security Team Collaboration

Athletics at ISA stands for more than sports: it stands for respect, sportsmanship, teamwork and collaboration. ISA uses an inclusive model, where everyone who wants to participate in a sport can play and is challenged at their own level. The only conditions are commitment and hard work.

This Fall season developed into a season full of fun, new experiences, challenges and friendships for all of our athletes.

When we work together, great things can happen. During the last school year, ISA security team member Nico Anches wanted to make the outdoor area brighter and more lively to cheer everyone up during the pandemic. Wanting to approach his idea creatively, he consulted Upper School art teacher Julia Hope and her Grade 8 Visual Arts students to get involved.

Athletics at ISA wouldn't be the same without our partners and friends in the local Dutch community, with whom we unite together to play sports. While the ongoing pandemic has made it more difficult for teams across Europe to come together to play, schools in the Netherlands decided to come together to create a competition, since it remained uncertain whether travel for games would be possible. And so the Dutch International School Sports Competition (DISSC) was born.

Taking place from the 3-5 November 2021, almost at the end of the ISA Fall Athletics season, the ISA U12, U14, JV & Varsity Soccer and Volleyball teams took part, with the volleyball games being hosted at ISA. The games were live-streamed for our community to enjoy. Although it wasn’t the same as a full NECIS Tournament, all of our student athletes were happy to take part in a small tournament setting again and had fun representing our school.

Julia decided it would be a great part of the Grade 8 students art unit of "Journey and Narrative", exploring how various cultures use symbols to share narratives and cultural values. Together, they decided to decorate the trash cans outside with bright and colourful motifs. Using the techniques they had been learning in class, students addressed a different theme with each of the five trash cans they designed and decorated, including plastic in our oceans, climate change and international communities. Then, before the summer break, students brought their designs to life and painted the trash cans.

The result is a set of new eye-catching and thought-provoking trash cans for display outside, which they hope will bring a smile to everyone's faces and get people thinking.

All of the trash cans are currently on display outside in the playground, a reflection of the diversity and collaborative nature of our ISA community.

ISA's Continued Collaboration with Succes Schoonmaak For over 20 years, Succes Schoonmaak has been ISA's cleaning partner. Each day, around twenty-five cleaners are kept busy with around 1600 users, ensuring that all of ISA's hallways, classrooms, cafeterias, offices, toilets and gyms are kept clean.

Keeping up such a high standard and a happy environment is an ongoing process of collaboration. One of the joint projects ISA and Succes Schoonmaak have recently undertaken is to help cleaners to feel more involved with the ISA community.

Some steps towards this have been that the cleaners received extra training in hospitality, as well as ISA-specific information to help them feel included, and the introduction of a new team lead over the summer break, Brian Plet. The cleaners have also received new uniforms with the ISA logo on them to help them feel more at home within our pink castle and our ISA community. Due to Success Schoonmaak's innovations and quality, we recently signed a new three-year contract with them. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with them to make ISA a clean and healthy environment for all of our community members.

in International Education