ISY Elementary Blog
WELCOME BACK AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
Sandy Sheppard , Elementary School Principal
13th January, 2023
Welcome Back! Happy New Year!
We have strategic planning next week, don’t forget to attend any meeting you may be scheduled to be part of.
There are lots of schedules shared below, please take note of them all. Included are:
Classroom cleaning
Playground Responsibilities
Updated duty schedule
New class schedules
The Olympiad for Grades 2-5 is on next Friday, look out for information on this event.
Don’t forget to let me know if you would like support with Mindfulness. It is an expectation to include this in your classroom routines.
Have a great weekend,
Sandy
REMINDER
OLYMPIAD SCHEDULE
The Olympiad for Grades 2-5 will begin at 8:45 in the Gym. Please ensure you read the information that will be sent to you carefully, so you know your responsibilities for the day.
8:45 – 9:15 – Gym
9:15 – 11:30 – Activities
11:30 – 12:00 – Gym
12:00 – 12:30 – Lunch
12:30 – 1:00 – Recess for all
1:00 – Back to classes
COMPASSION CONFERENCE INFORMATION
This year’s Compassion Conference will be on Thursday, March 2. The date has changed as SEASAC tournaments will take some teachers away on the original date, February 3.
More details will follow, but I wanted to introduce our keynote speaker. Kathryn Berkett will speak to us in 2 workshops:
The Impact of Early Development and Adolescent Brain Changes. If you want to learn more about Kathryn and her work, check out the resources on this website:
https://www.engagetraining.co.nz/online-resources
Kathryn will present to us in the morning. The afternoon session will be set aside for teacher workshops. This is a great opportunity for us to hear from those teachers who have put together a workshop proposal for EARCOS, along with any other teachers who have an idea or practice to share. Please let Mike or Sandy know if you would like to share something.
Quarter 2 Reports Timeline & Instructions 2022-2023
We will work to basically the same timeline as we did for Quarter 1 reports.
However, we will peer review our comments, and I will check them before they are entered on Powerschool. Therefore we will write our comments on a Google Document which will be shared with peer reviewers.
Monday, January 16
- Subject blurbs to be entered on Grade Level documents
- documents here
Monday, January 23, by 8am
- All comments (Subject Blurb + Personalized Comment = 800 characters max) are to be written on a Google Document and shared with the peer reviewer and Sandy.
- Monday afternoon is set aside for peer-reviewing report comments.
Tuesday, January 25, by 5pm
- Sandy will let teachers know comments are ok to be entered into Powerschool.
Wednesday, January 25, by 5pm
- All comments and grades are to be entered into Powerschool. Copy and paste comments from Google Documents to Powerschool
SAMPLES
Reports can be found here
Professional Growth Plans
Everything can be found on our ISY Faculty Pages.
Thank you all for completing your Professional Growth Plans.
Quarter 2 Colleague Observations / Assisted Reflections
For Quarter 2, please arrange for a colleague to observe you and help you reflect on your practice. It can be very effective to ask your colleague to provide feedback on your Professional Growth Plan focus.
Just make another copy of the Assisted Reflection Form in your Professional Growth Folder.
Observers, please remember to also complete the ISY Inclusive Practices Checklist (UDL: Engagement) at the top of the Assisted Reflection Form. This is an anonymous form that gives good school-wide data about the inclusive practices we are using.
DATES TO REMEMBER
20th January – Annual Olympiad event
20th January – Quarter 2 ends
20th January – 2nd peer observation completed
25th January – Reports completed
27th January – Lunar New Year Assembly
30th January – After School Activities start
18th February – Family Fun Fair – 4:00-7:00 PM – all should attend
2nd March – Compassion Conference (no school for students)
Mindfulness Activities
TEACHER NOTICES
Beginning in Quarter 3, there will be a shift in how we teach languages. We will be adding an additional Mandarin teacher. We welcome Grace Wu to our team, she will start on the 23rd of January.
We have students at all levels of language proficiency. The schedule change will allow for students in different grade levels to learn together based on their language proficiency levels and language learning needs. This will allow for students to receive more targeted language instruction at their proficiency level.
The change will be as follows:
In Elementary School Grade, 2 and 3 will have languages at the same time. Grades 4, and 5 will have languages separately; however, the schedules will change.
NEW SCHEDULES CAN BE FOUND HERE
- We will be starting playground clean-up duties. Each week a class will be assigned. This will start the week of the 16th of January. PLEASE SEE THE DUTY SCHEDULE HERE
- There have been a few small changes to supervision see the new Quarter 3 supervision schedule here
- Classroom clean up responsibilities for the end of day, can be found here
DUTIES BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL
Monday – Patty, Snow, Tuesday – Dan, May Zin Wednesday – Laura, Zarchi, Thursday – Beth, Sandy, Friday – LuAnn, Htut Htut
PLAYGROUND RESPONSIBILITIY – 5L
NOTE – when there are no ASA’s afternoon duty can finish earlier.
Previous Elementary School Posts
Elementary School Faculty Blog – April 9, 2021
Thank you, Delphine. We appreciate all that you have done for us and our school.
Elementary School Faculty Blog – April 2, 2021
Each day this week has seen more emails from families preparing to leave Yangon and we expect that this will continue throughout this quarter.
Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 26, 2021
I have a tremendous amount of respect for you all. It means a lot to be part of this group and I think it will mean even more as time goes on.
Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 19, 2021
We might not feel like experts but today’s assembly was a chance to remind ourselves that we are now good at many things that we did not know how to do at all just a matter of months or weeks or days ago.
Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 12, 2021
The reality of the current situation can make finding the bright side difficult. But research shows that in difficult times, it is important for our mental health to allow ourselves to acknowledge that times are difficult and to feel rather than suppress negative emotions.
Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 5, 2021
We have long term, yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly plans but our planning and preparation has now taken more of a day by day focus. It will therefore need to be very fluid as we plan for our students’ safety and wellbeing, connectedness, and learning.
The International School Yangon
20 Shwe Taungyar Street
Bahan Township
Yangon, Myanmar
+95 1 512 793 /94 /95