Elementary School Blog – January 13th, 2023

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

Next week we will meet for our next round of writing moderation. We will be moderating Informative writing. Please can you share either Google Docs or hard copies before the meetings. I can come past to collect them when they are ready and we will prepare copies beforehand. Again, you can pick a ‘high’ ‘medium’, and ‘low’. Please make sure there are no comments, grades, or names on the papers.

Based on feedback we will change the process slightly. We will go over the purpose and process at the start of the meeting.

ES will meet on Monday 2:30 pm- 4 pm. Grades 6-10 will meet on Wednesday from 2:45 pm-4:15 pm. I will follow up on this email with calendar invites.

Also as a reminder, can you please add your running records data to this document. As discussed at the start of the year we would like data for January. This will also be helpful for your report card writing. We have PM and DRA boxes available. We also have another resource called an IPI. Not only does this provide data on accuracy but also retelling and comprehension. Please let me know if you would like to try it out and I can come and show you.

Please let me know if you need anything,

Cheers,

Stacey

AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES INFORMATION

Today teachers will be asked to enter their information into Powerschool for their ASA.

Next week we will finalise the ASA schedule and adjust anything that needs to be done.

On Friday the 20th, the information will be sent to the parents.

On Monday the 23rd, at 7:00PM the booking system will be opened for two ASAs per student.

On Tuesday the 24th and 7:00PM, the booking system will be opened for any more

ASAs that a student would like.

On Wednesday the 25th and 7:00PM we will close the signup.

On Thursday we will check everything and then send a note to the parents to check on Power School for their child(ren)’s information.

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

51 Mindfulness Exercises for Kids in the Classroom

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 – February 26, 2021

Feb 26, 2021 | Updates

June is coming!

Elementary School Faculty Blog – February 19, 2021

Feb 19, 2021 | Updates

To my Myanmar colleagues, on behalf of all my international colleagues, thank you for the support that you continue to give us as we work together for our students in these most challenging of times. We want you to know that we support you and can adapt the way that we work to allow you to deal with whatever you need to deal with outside of school.