June Newsletter 2015 - 2016
From the Principal
Dear School Community, The school year 2015/16 has successfully ended this week. It was a school year with comprehensive activities and traditional celebrations. Some events and activities happened for the first time; for example, Movie Night and Evening Cafe, having a lunch caterer for all days of the week, and having Early Years students participate in the swimming program. Like every year we participated in an International School's Assessment (ISA) and, taking into account that we have a good number of non-native English speakers, we can be very content with its outcome. By using tests like this one to compare ourselves with other international schools, we can better understand the impact of our educational decisions and ensure we are an excellent IB World School inspiring lifelong learners. For lifelong learning it is necessary to have a balance between between challenging oneself and relaxing. Summer break is mandatory for relaxation, a time to recharge the mind and body for the coming school year. When the new school year starts, it will be with more space available thanks to our new and beautiful building. We will also have some new and committed teachers, and fresh determination to start another successful and motivating academic year. I wish you the very best for the summer. Looking forward to a great start in September! Gerhard Lebherz, Principal
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Bye Bye Ms. Onishi, Ms. d’Amours & Ms. Brabant
First of all, we will have a couple new staff joining us and unfortunately a couple teachers leaving us. Ms. A. Onishi, Ms. S. d’Amours and Ms. C. Brabant will not be returning to Deutsche Schule / European School next school year. The staff and students will really miss working with them. We wish them all the best for their upcoming challenges and would like to say thank you for all your work and commitment. We truly appreciate you being part of our school community. “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” - Winnie The Pooh
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Welcome Ms. Veerashingam
Grade 2
It is with great pleasure that I am writing this letter of introduction. My name is Shanthi Veerashingam and I am originally from Singapore. I moved to the UK in my twenties. The wet and gloomy weather in Kent got to me and I moved to Wales. I loved Wales, the views were stunning and the people in the valleys were lovely! Growing up in Singapore, I had the opportunity to learn many languages. I am bilingual in English and Mandarin. I speak a smattering of other languages as well – Malay, Tamil, Hokkien (Chinese dialect). I am looking forward to the challenge of learning Japanese. My partner, Todd, who is from New Zealand, took Mandarin lessons for three years in Taiwan. He complains that all my languages were acquired when I was a child, learning a new language as an adult would be harder. I am keen to take up the challenge and it would be fun to learn a new language with him for a change. I have taught in a few countries, both in public and international schools. I started my career as a Primary teacher and in the last four years, I have been working with younger children. I believe in the IB model of education and love the idea that we are truly cultivating global values, dispositions and internationalism in the children. The world needs problem solvers. Critical thinking, big ideas and the ‘so what’ aspect of knowledge are what is needed to grow learners who are empowered and reflective. I am a reader and I read a lot of books, sometimes two books at the same time. The need to wear reading glasses has slowed me down a little as I am in denial. I love to learn and am on a constant quest for new knowledge and learning. Todd thinks I have a short attention span but the truth is I have lots of ideas in my head and not enough time to execute them all! Todd and I are very excited about our move to Japan. We look forward to growing and learning with the DSK community! Warm regards, Shanthi Veerashingam
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Welcome Ms. Jamandra
Hi DESK. My name is Maria Elena Jamandra. Please simply call me Elena. I am a teacher not only by profession but also by heart. The 13 years of experience I have will support my calling and mission. I believe very strongly in your school’s mission. Just like you, I would also like to be a big part in nurturing lifelong learners. Aside from reading books, I also delight in dancing and acting in a play. My athletic side also enjoys volleyball. I am not good in playing musical instruments but I can play a few simple songs in the guitar. Besides these, I am fond of children. Having one of my own makes me understand their nature more. The process of understanding them will always be a continuous journey for me. I value time. As much as possible, I try to have a balanced time for my work, my family and myself. This is a challenge for me yet I am working on achieving it. Being in a PYP school for a long time taught me to be a collaborative learner. I truly appreciate learning together and doing things in groups. I am so enthusiastic to be part of your community and I am looking forward to meeting everyone in person.
Grade 3
Have a blessed day! Elena
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Welcome Ms. O’Brien
Middle Years
Hi! My name is Helen O’Brien and I am pleased to be joining DSK for the 2016/17 year. I’m a Kiwi, but have been living in Brunei for the past four years, where I have been teaching English, enjoying the tropical weather, travelling around South East Asia, and through my well-connected son, rubbing shoulders with the local royalty! I have had an interest in Japan for many years, since spending a year deep in the heart of Hyogo-ken on a working holiday in my twenties. I have also lived in Ehime and Hiroshima. While my studies were predominantly in International Relations, my teaching experience to date has mainly been in Japanese language teaching, though since being in Brunei it has definitely become rusty! I am looking forward to using my Japanese again, eating a lot of Japanese food, and enjoying the seasons after four years of heat! In my free time you will likely find me running, or at the gym or on a sports field somewhere. I love to keep fit, and help others keep fit too. My favourite days of the school year are sports day and cross-country day! In coming to DSK I am leaving my young family in New Zealand, which will be a big change, and a challenge for us all. However I plan to make the most of this new experience, and I’m sure my adventures in Kobe, and theirs in New Zealand, will be constantly relayed through various media. It really is a small and shrinking world after all!
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Event: End of Year Party
Celebrating the end of the school year is always special in many different ways. Everybody comes together, students, teachers, parents and friends. We perform and show case what we learned throughout the whole school year. And sometimes we have to say goodbye. Let us look back on the highlights of this year’s end of year party remembering this great event. Thank you to all students, parents and teachers. Enjoy the summer and see you next school year.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Pre School
Sharing our Learning! This week was a huge success for Preschool. A real opportunity for them to celebrate their learning and their many achievements together with you during the Student Led Conferences! They did such a wonderful job showcasing their progress and taking ownership for all the wonderful skills and work they have completed this year.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 1
Grade 1 is Out of this World Our 5th unit of inquiry was by far the most popular unit for the first graders as they were all so interested in learning about space! We began the inquiry with many questions about space and then started searching for answers by researching about the planets.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 2 Message from Miss d'Amours to the Grade 2 families: Thank you very much for following this blog this year. We had such a wonderful time together, and it was amazing to witness the emotional as well as academic development of each child. I truly appreciate the support given by parents and the school community throughout the year. I hope that you all have a great summer! Sincerely, Miss d'Amours
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 3 & 4
endangered animals Students of grade 3 and 4 were working on the habitats of endangered animals of this Earth. First they drew and coloured them and after cutting them out they glued the animals on one of the three habitats forest, grass land and aquatic. After all the animals werde glued, the whole artistic work was put together and hung up at the wall next to the staircase. There it could be seen for weeks.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 5
During this year I had a great time with my friends and the teachers. I learned many things this year and improved many skills. I have also built my social skills, collaborating with my friends. I think I need to work on improving on my self management skills during middle school. I am very happy to graduate my primary year at this school. We have went to many trips to learn many things, for our unit. I was able to change my weaknesses to strength during this year. I had a hard time working on exhibition but I think that I enjoyed this exhibition unit the most. I think that grade 5 was the most successful year. -Jacob
In this year, I learned a ton of things and my mind is full with information! I had a hard time with math but I think I got much more better with math because I was in Ms.Robinson’s class. I think if it was not Ms. Robinson, then I did not improve much this year. Math is still my least favorite subject but now I know much more things, I like math more than last year! My favorite subject with Ms. Robinson is Unit and Language. I can’t choose which I like more. For language, I love writing fiction stories, I like writing stories because I can express the charter’s feeling with words I like, and I really like to brainstorm the story. And also after I wrote my master piece, I love typing up the story. I learned how to type fast when I was 3rd grade and I now always want to type information. For unit, I really loved the PYPX. ( exhibition ) In exhibition, my topic was making kids with cancer happy. At first, the researching was very hard. I was exhausted when I came home, and also I researched a lot at home so I was like a mummy. But in the action bit, I had a lot of fun meeting new people, talking to people who I don’t know, and etc. Also in the science unit that was the one before PYPX, we went to the Asahi soft drink factory and there, we learned about chemical reaction. We also got drinks for free too! German was not that hard but we learned the earth ( countries ), we learned the history of trade routes, viking routes and etc. In music, we practiced a lot for the stage, and we also learned about how to read the notes. ( I already new how to read notes so for me, it was kind of like a review and a race for me to get more faster at reading the treble clef and the base clef. Thank you Ms. Robinson, classmates, parents and other people who supported me through out the year. I had a great time, I hope next year will be a fun year! -Mia
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 5
This year I really liked to do the exhibition. In my old school in Germany I never heard of it before. When I heard about it in this school (DESK) when I was 4th grade I was very interested into it. It sounded very fun. I finally could do the exhibition this year. I chose my topic as litter. When I started we needed to do the research for 3 weeks. I started very excited but then when 2 weeks were over I was a little stressed out. I learned that it was very hard in the exhibition in the first bit. Then we moved on to the action bit. My action was to clean up around Rokko Island and I think it was a very good experience for me because I could see how many people and how much garbage people were littering. After that we needed to plan how our exhibition presentation is going to be. We needed to plan our visual presentation, activity for the kids during the presentation and we needed to include German and Japanese. At last we made the presentation boards. It was very difficult to mount all the pictures and the information with colored paper. At the exhibition day I was super nervous. But after I presented to the middle school I got confident ad I presented to my parents very good. It was a super big project! -Lu
This year was my last year in Deutsche Schule Kobe European School. I had so much fun this year, especially when we did our exhibition project. The units was very interesting and the field trips was awesome. One of my favorite unit this year was science unit. We had a fun trip to Asahi Bottling Company. We did many cool experiments and also learned some from Bill Nye. Of course, my favorite was exhibition and I think I did a good job my self too. My knowledge accumulated a lot this year. -Ryusei
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 6 & 7
Taiko Update: Racing to the Finish Line As the End of Year Party edges nearer, the middle school students are also nearing the finish line on the Taiko project. They hope to finish the drum in time for their performance! In the meantime, they are working hard and having fun!
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org