Panaga School Newsletter Featuring this month...
Science Challenge Day Tuesday 9th October 2012
….More on Page 2
Message from the Headteacher of the International Stream and Teraja site The school year is well underway with our first half term holiday already behind us. The 640 children on roll have not wasted any time in engrossing themselves in their learning, at the beginning of this new academic year, through a myriad of planned learning opportunities and experiences. Highlights from the first half term include: the Science Challenge Day, Primary 7’s Temburong residential, P5’s venture into the Labi Road rainforest and many IPC entry and exit points across both sites. As an International School, we constantly reflect on our classroom practice and how to further improve children's quality of learning by responding to new research in the field of education. In particular, this term, teachers in the International Stream have been exploring the use of the Primacy-Recency effect. The Primacy-Recency effect is not a new discovery. German researcher, Hermann Ebbinghaus, published the first studies on it in the 1880s. Basically, it establishes the concept that during a learning episode, we remember best what comes first, secondbest what comes last, and least what comes just past the middle. More recent studies help to further explain
why this is so. The first items of new information are within the working memory’s functional capacity, so they command our attention and are likely to be retained. Latter information however, exceeds our working memory's capacity and is lost! As the learning episode concludes, our working memory has started to sort the information and therefore frees up capacity. We have been exploring this in terms of our classroom practice and learning. For example, how do we maximise the ‘prime time’ at the start of a lesson to teach new knowledge or a new skill because information is most likely to be remembered then. Plus, how do we use the plenary segment of the lesson to extend learning and even introduce new learning. The Primacy-Recency effect is also a great reminder to parents to ensure children arrive at school on time so that they maximize prime learning opportunities!
Issue 36, October 2012 Panaga School Brunei Darussalam Jalan Utara, Seria, KB3534, Brunei Phone: +673 3372139 Fax: +6733373028 Web: www.panagaschool.com
Inside this month’s issue: Page 2 ∗ Science Challenge Day eggstravaganza! Page 3 ∗ P7 explore the Temburong jungle ∗ P5’s special report from the Labi rainforest Page 4 ∗ Introducing the 2012/2013 Parent Teacher Association Page 5 ∗ Upcoming PTA events: School Disco, PTA Social Night and Charity Teatowels Page 6 ∗ Introducing the Panaga School Board for 2012/2013 Page 7 ∗ Parents eye off their children’s great work at the ‘Open Sessions’ ∗ ‘Discussing and Designing’ - A P6 IPC Entry Point Page 8 ∗ Feathers flies off to Gabon on a mascot exchange Page 9 ∗ The Panaga Community continues its support of the Penan people Page 10 ∗ Great DP7/8B stories - worth Google translating! Page 11 ∗ IP1 and DP1/2 - Family and Friends Exit Point ∗ P8 art so good, you’d swear you were Dreaming! Page12 ∗ P2 learn many things about themselves and others ∗ Pre Nursery children are making changes Page 13 ∗ From the Sports Desk, with Mr Tim Walsh
Quote for the month:
Each learning moment is important, especially as time continues to fly by.
“The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.” - Alexander Pope
Warm regards, Craig Heaton
Newsletter designed and edited by Damian Brady