Thank you for completing your report cards and getting the international orders in, it was a busy week.

This blog will be your reference point for the next two weeks, if you require any information on dates, it can be found on the faculty pages. I will not be resending the blog while I am absent. If anything important comes up reminders will be sent via email. 

Thank you to the Mandarin teachers and the Parent Association for their organization and support of the Lunar New Year assembly.

Please check out the dates to remember below, there are some new dates on there that are important.

I am returning home to New Zealand for my daughters wedding. I will be returning on the 13th of February. In my absence please direct support needs and questions to Mike. Student quesitons can be directed to Patty. I will be checking my email regularly.

Have a great weekend,

Sandy

FYI

In case parents ask you for information. This was sent to all parents via email and is also in their blog.

Your child’s Quarter 2  Report Card is now available on PowerSchool.

The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of what has been covered this term and an indication of your child’s academic achievement at this point in time. 

Please take the time to review this report together with your child. If you have any questions relating to your child’s reports, please email your child’s teacher(s) for clarification. If you have any questions relating to the reporting process in general, you can contact Ms Sheppard at ssheppard@isyedu.org 

 Accessing PowerSchool:

• Click the following link to access PowerSchool
• Enter your username
• Enter your password. If you have forgotten your username and password contact powerschool@isyedu.org for assistance.
• Click on the login button

 Accessing your child’s Quarter 2 Report:

• Once you log in, you will see your child/children’s name on the left-hand side top of the screen along with the information of the student schedule. 
• Click on your child’s name 
• Click on the “Document” icon on the left side of the screen
• Student Documents box will appear on the screen
• Click on the file name “Q2 Report Card 22-23”

If you have difficulty accessing your child’s report, please know that you can contact the Elementary School office by email elementaryoffice@isyedu.org  for assistance.

The best way to determine whether a student’s work is their own is to get to know them as a learner – in this case, as a writer. By guiding our students through the writing process from start to finish, conferencing along the way and providing feedback and revisions, we will know them as writers. Not only will we know them as writers, we will also be able to assess them as writers before they hand in a finished product. 

ChatGPT is a shortcut to a finished product. It is designed to bypass the writing process. By putting more emphasis on the process and assessing our students throughout the process, then I think ChatGPT will become less of an issue in terms of cheating and will ultimately become part of the process just as tools such as Grammarly have. As we become more familiar with ChatGPT and clearer in our purpose for using it to improve learning, I am sure that it will become more of a cause for excitement than concern.

PLAYGROUND CLEAN UP – From 5L

Here are a few of the takeaways from the opportunity:

• Setting clear expectations on Monday morning before starting
• Expect to review and clarify these expectations a few times during the week
• Students were assigned into 3 teams: sandbox, sand kitchen, picking up general trash
• We agreed it would take 5 minutes to do this if everyone was helping. 
• The clean-up after lunch will cut slightly into class time because there isn’t a transition time.
• We framed these jobs as a way to be responsible for the school and our toys. Every class will take turns doing this. However, we should still try to leave areas clean as we finish playing there. My class was fearful that other students would try and leave big messes for them to clean up. This wasn’t the case. We focused on this being a team effort from everyone to take care of our space and things. 

Have a fabulous birthday:

29th Janaury – Anshu

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