January 2023 ISF Tervuren Newsletter

Newsletter

NEWS FROM THE HEAD OF CAMPUS

January 2023

the52 nationalities that we haveacross both campuses. Our values aim to develop students that areresponsible, respectful, open-minded and effectivecitizens of a global world.

Students aretaught to face

At ISF, our school values areat theheart of everything that wedo. Wetakea holistic approach to learning at our school, and our values help to unite their challenges with courage, creativity and perseverance, building character and resilienceas they grow and achievetheir goals.

Students and staff work together throughout the year to exploreour valuestatement and also learn about our ten personal character values that are

introduced and developed each month.

Thesecharacter values also givedirection to our students to help them shape their personalities and character for thefuture.

Wefeel it is important to exploreand practicethese values from a very young age, and our Early Years students havesomespecial superheroes that help them to understand thesebig ideas. Agent Kind teaches thechildren how to berespectful; Captain

Right encourages them to makeethical choices, while theBounceBack Hero helps them develop resilience. Weintroducea new valueto all students each month, focusing across theschool on understanding the meaning of that valueand how wecan best incorporateit into our daily practice.

Newsletter January 2023

NEWS FROM THE HEAD OF CAMPUS

Each student in each year group will also receivea special sticker for consistently demonstrating school values, whilea special certificateis given each month to onestudent and oneteacher that has madean exceptional effort to exhibit thevaluefor that month.

Our children havetheopportunity to sharetheir thoughts about thesevalues and how they havebeen displaying them during our monthly assemblies. One student in each year group will also receivea special sticker for consistently demonstrating school values, whilea special certificateis given each month to one student and oneteacher that has madean exceptional effort to exhibit thevaluefor that month.

Our Student Council takes great pridein choosing and presenting theteacher award as it allows them to sharetheir voicewith theschool community. Our children havetheopportunity to sharetheir thoughts

about thesevalues and how they havebeen displaying them during our monthly assemblies.

Onestudent in each year group will also receivea special sticker for consistently demonstrating school values, whilea special certificateis given each month to onestudent and oneteacher that has madean exceptional effort to exhibit thevaluefor that month.

As parents, you can seethesevalues in all areas of theschool and in your child?s classroom.

They arereferred to in our communications, and on our websiteand social media channels. We encourageyou also to explorethesevalues at homewith your children so that our values are shared and known throughout thewholeschool community.

Órla Mc Loughlin Head of Campus I SF Tervuren

January 2023

NEWS FROM THE EXECUTIVE HEAD

Happy New Year! I want to extend my best wishes to our ISF Community for 2023!

Planning for thefutureat ISF

This term ISF school leadership will bebusy planning for our new 3 year Strategic Plan. Strategic Plans areimportant becausethey ensurethat all members of thecommunity, including students, parents, staff, leadership and theschool board all havetheopportunity to makesuggestions on the priorities and improvements to ensureour school achieves our school mission and values. The plan looks at 4 aspects of the organisation, shown in this Diagram.

Weask ourselves 3 questions:

1. Whereis theschool now in this area?

2. Wheredoes theschool want to be?

3. What do weneed to do to get there?

Your ideas and suggestions areimportant, and all get discussed. Thefinal plan, including budgets and resources, is created and shared with thecommunity at thebeginning of thenew academic year. However great our plan is, it is always important to beableto adapt and beflexibleif therearechanging circumstances. This is oneof theadvantages of our school. This is why our strategic plan is also reviewed internally every year.

Welook forward to hearing your ideas!

Belinda Yates

Executive Head

FROM OURLEADERS -DEPUTY HEAD OF CAMPUS

FROM OURLEADERS -DEPUTY HEAD OF CAMPUS

It has been a very busy term and thestudents and staff havebeen producing their wonderful work as ever. This was particularly demonstrated in the STEM activities, which this term, had thetheme ?Robotics? . Thethemeitself got thestudents excited beforethey even began.

In theEarly Years, Pre-School and Pre-Primary students used litter pickers to pick up all of the litter on theschool field and they talked about how they worked. They also programmed a ?Beebot?to tell thestory of ?TheThreeLittlePigs? . Their faces werea delight to seeas therobot followed its instructions.

In Years 1 and 2, thestudents madetheir very own robots. Their robots werepowered by batteries and they used marker pens for their legs. When the robots moved, they bounced around to make exciting circular patterns and drawings. The?Bots? drew a beautiful picture, which is now displayed in

theclassroom. Even theolder students buzzed with excitement as they watched the?Bots?createtheir drawings. ?Can wemakeone??they called out enthusiastically.

In Years 3 and 4 they built mini-robots called ?BugBots? . They learned that making a design first was essential beforebuilding their final project. When they connected thecircuits and watched their ?BugBots?buzz, it was a wonderful moment.

Years 5 and 6 used ?Lego Robotics?to createtheir own ?Mars Rovers?to explorethered planet. They weregiven a set of criteria that their Rovers

FROM OURLEADERS -DEPUTY HEAD OF CAMPUS

had to meet, including traveling unaided (using the Lego control program) across a simulated Mars terrain. It was touch and go for oneof theRovers, but in theend thewholeclass completed their missions.

STEM days arean essential part of our curriculum, fostering creativity, collaboration, communication, critical thinking skills and aboveall a curiosity of theworld around us. Happiness and enjoyment in learning is thebest form of education.

Wecan? t wait for thenext project.

Mrs. Julie Deputy Head of Campus

PRE-SCHOOL

Theexcitement in Pre-School was mounting when weleft our shoes in theclassroom and went to the gym. Wewerehoping that Sinterklaas might arrive.

To our absolutedelight hedid arriveand wesang him a song beforehegaveeach class a present. Wehad obviously all been very good, as on our return to theclassroom, wefound delicious oranges and chocolatehad been left in our shoes! Welearnt about thestory of Sinterklaas and had fun making and wearing our Sinterklaas hats!

PRE-PRIMARY

The Pre-Primary children enjoyed a lovely ?Entry Point?for their new IPC unit ?Let?s Pretend? . The children were very excited to come to school dressed up as their favourite character from a story. They listened to lots of different traditional stories and made some crafts: a gingerbread man out of playdough, a Cinderella shoe using lots of glitter and a bed for the Princess and the Pea. The children also learnt about puppets; we looked at many different kinds of puppets. We had great fun selling tickets for the puppet shows of some of our favouritestories!

YEAR1

Year 1 children were very busy during STEM day. This year?s topic was robotics and Year 1 learnt about different types of robots and artificial intelligence. They discovered how a simple robot can work. Then they had the chance to build their own little wigglebots, made out of a paper cup, markers, some wires, a small engine and a battery. The children had a blast when they turned the bots on and they walked across the paper, leaving a colourful traceon thepaper.

YEAR2

During the IPC unit ?Brainwave?the Year 1 and 2?s have been receiving mysterious letters that include instructions to complete tasks. The first letter they?ve received instructed them to make 3D glasses. The blue lens represents knowledge and the red lens skills. By wearing the glasses, the blue and red would create understanding together. The students enjoyed this activity because they were ableto decipher theriddlesent by Professor Spark, and apply the instructions to the provided materials.

The second letter instructed the students to use the methods they already learned to connect movements in a sequence when doing an obstacle course. They used themap and key provided and went to thegym to build and complete the challenge. This activity also required the students to be able to send and receive a variety of objects likeballs and beanbags. They truly enjoyed this challenge and in the next IPC lesson, they planned and designed their own obstacle course! This IPC unit helped the students to understand that the combination of skills and knowledge will help you to understand. We are looking forward to more letters from Professor Spark!

YEAR3 AND 4

For our IPC unit 'Explorers and Adventurers', students have made interesting arguments for either 'For or Against' exploration. We have researched Explorers from many different countries, and we have discussed some of the events of the Exploration Age to present exploration, which has led to each student giving their ideas and opinions about whether these events have enriched or inhibited what it means to behuman.

YEAR5 AND 6

We cannot believe the autumn term is almost at an end. students are beginning to get to grips with their new reasoning approach and they have thoroughly enjoyed using concrete apparatus. Some of the students even chose to create cube numbers out of multi-link blocks in their own time - because it was fun! In Literacy, we have concentrated on the use of persuasive language and the students have participated in class debates and they had to persuadeothers to read a book of their choice. The students arebecoming moreawareof an audience

Thestudents havebeen extremely busy with their Winter Show rehearsals, and yet, they havestill managed to producesuper work in theclassroom. In Mathematics, the

and they havebeen learning theskill of using notes for presentations, rather than just reading out a text. They all used lots of persuasive

languageand successfully completed thetask. Fun advertisements for spacethemed snacks werealso created to tiein with our ?Mission To Mars?IPC unit.

Theplay on words was brilliant and alliteration (e.g. Mars Martian Munchies) used successfully. Our trip to the?Legoland Discovery Centre?in Brussels was thehighlight of this term, and the students absolutely loved thecreativeworkshop and the4D movie, wherewewerecovered in simulated car wash foam! Thestudents sent Lego rockets virtually into space, rodeon a computer gametrain and studied, in aweand wonder, thelandmarks of Brussels madefrom Lego. Thebus on theway home was full of happy students.

DUTCH

MUSIC

Tijd om tefeesten!

We enjoy starting every lesson with our happy welcoming song. The past couple of weeks was a festive period as we learned all about Sinterklaas. We prepared for his visit to school through storytime and singing. An exciting time for the children to express themselves with new vocabulary.

Term 1 was devoted to developing our wonderful Winter Show the'TheButton Box'. Sincethebeginning of the year, theteachers and students havebeen working intensively on songs and dances for theshow while learning their lines with dramatic expression to give their parents a wonderful end of theyear performance. It's a lot of fun and excitement!

We also learned about Winter, using a new sing-and-movesong with lots of new images. A fun way to learn and remember new words. The children worked very hard during the past weeks and enjoyed completing their challenges, showing lots of enthusiasm to celebratetheWinter!

STUDENT COUNCIL

As a Student Leadership Team, we have continued to meet regularly and we have organised a charity event to raise money for our sister school in Uganda. We decided that the students could bring in a donation if they worea funny winter jumper or if they preferred they could come to school in pyjamas. The most important thing is to raise money for a good cause. We have also arranged hot chocolate and marshmallows to be enjoyed during a class movie of their choice. We think the students have worked very hard and they deserve a treat. Finally, thefriendship benches arebeing painted, and wewill updateyou on their progress in the next newsletter.

From all of theStudent Leadership Team, wehopeyou havea wonderful winter break.

TheStudent Leadership Team would liketo thank everyonefor their kind donations (a euro to wear a fun jumper or cosy pyjamas to school) which will besent to our sister school in Uganda. It is always wonderful to seeour community's generosity. Wehopeyou all havea wonderful winter break and welook forward to seeing you all back safely in theNew Year.

For more inquiries, please contact our office at office@isftervuren.org

WINTERSHOW 2022

As every year, wehavea wonderful time presenting theWinter Show. This year, our show was 'TheButton Box'.

Thechildren and staff put all their energy into this event and created an amazing spectacle.

Wethank each and every singleoneof you for taking thetimeto cometo this extraordinary show. A big thank you to theteachers and staff for making this happen and for putting every ounceof their energy into making this a fun show.

Wehad a blast and wehopeyou did too! Wearealready thinking about next year's show!