ISY Elementary Blog

EVENTS, EVENTS, EVENTS

Sandy Sheppard , Elementary School Principal

21st October, 2022

Dear all,

Many events are coming up, so please take a careful look at event dates in the blog. It is important that you give students reminders in regard to any events that include them; please do include them in classroom discussions. The next events are our special access to education events next week which fit with sustainable goal development #4, and also the Halloween Parade on the 31st. There is no assembly next week, but Patty will be hosting a Kahoot activity which you can do in your classrooms.

It is great to see so many service learning projects starting and also classroom work related to our strategic themes. Don’t forget to share what you are doing. Sharing can happen as a Learning Story, something to put in the blog, sharing with communications for our school’s Facebook page, or similar. We want to celebrate all the good things that are happening.

Remember to set up your professional goal-setting meetings with me.

We want to ensure that the SDGs become a focus in Social Studies and Science. There will be more discussion on this in the coming weeks. To help make them a priority when planning, always consider the SDG focus before anything else.

There are also lots of teacher notices in this blog; please read them carefully.

Thank you for your patience with our caterpillar problem. I hope this will be taken care of soon.

Thank you for your support in assembly today. I love how the students positively celebrate each other’s successes. It would take too long to read out why students get the POP award. Therefore, please follow up with an explanation in the classroom. As before, we send home an email to each of the parents.

Please note that I will be absent next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as I will be attending the EARCOS Leadership Conference.

Sandy

You are encouraged to join in the fun and dress up for Halloween.

WELCOME

A warm ISY welcome to Ms Lea Yee Mon who is joining us as a shadow teacher in Grade 4, Isabel’s classroom. 

SUPPORT MEETINGS

 

 

 

 

 

Our next round of support meetings will begin next week. Look out for your scheduled time. These meetings happen every 6 weeks. They usually start to take less time as we move forward. We will be looking at reading levels at this time among other things.

DATES TO REMEMBER

24th October – Use of turnstiles will begin

24th-28th October – Access to Education Week (look out for all the activities planned)

28th October – Quarter one ends

31st October – Halloween Parade at the end of the school day 1:40 start

1st November – Cashless system starts

4th November – Call to Earth Day – there will be a special rotation of activities during our usual assembly time. More info to come.

4th November – Halloween Evening Event

11th November – Next Assembly

16th November – Parent Conferences 9-5 PM

26th November – International Day

END QUARTER – student survey completed and reflection, one peer walk thro and reflection meeting, meeting planned with the Principal to discuss goal setting.

 

PROGRESS REPORTING DATES

 

31st October – Buddy reading progress reports

2nd November – Progress Reports in PowerSchool

4th November – Progress Reports go home

16th November – Parent Conferences

Professional Growth Plans

Once everything has happened, make time to meet with your Principal. 

If you have any questions at all or feel that you need more time to do these things by the end of the Quarter, please let me know, and I will be happy to help.

Quarter 1 Report Cards and ‘Subject Blurbs’

Report cards will be posted for parents on Powerschool on Friday, November 4.

Here is the organization and timeline for report writing:

3rd – 7th October – work on subject blogs
31st October – Buddy Reading
2nd November – Reports in PowerSchool
4th November – Reports go out
6th November – Parent Conferences

As we did last year, we will also use progress report card comments as unit summaries for our Quarter 1 curriculum maps. You will write one or two sentences as a ‘subject blurb’ to describe what was covered in your class. Every student’s progress report card comment will have this blurb in it. There is one general comment. 

Please write your subject blurbs on these grade-level documents – you should find your courses on these documents, but if you don’t, please let Mike know. We are using these documents so Mike can copy and paste the blurbs into your Quarter 1 Curriculum Maps.

Subject Blurbs: PK
Subject Blurbs: KG
Subject Blurbs: Grade 1
Subject Blurbs: Grade 2
Subject Blurbs: Grade 3
Subject Blurbs: Grade 4
Subject Blurbs: Grade 5

Message re: Focus on Learning 2022-2023

After such a disrupted couple of years, this year is an important year to figure out exactly what our student’s needs are in every subject area and how we are going to address them next year and beyond.

We will do this with Focus on Learning Collaborations, which we introduced before Covid hit and also did in April last year. The idea is to identify our students’ Critical Learner Needs, which then become our Problems of Practice. This language comes from WASC and ties in with how we will review all curriculum areas this year.

A Problem of Practice isn’t a shortcoming on the part of us as teachers – it just recognizes the fact that we are the ones who cause learning, and meeting student learning needs is our problem to solve.

Below are links to Focus on Learning Collaboration documents which we will review on Monday, November 7 – once the reports cards are finished. We do it at this time as we have just reported on the needs of our students, and we also have MAP data that we can use to guide us.

For now, focus on finishing your Quarter 1 report cards. Once you have finished with them, take a moment to fill out the document to be reviewed on November 7. On the documents, you will also see what was recorded last year.

EARCOS NEWS

EARCOS Teachers’ Conference (ETC2023) is scheduled for March 23-25, 2023, in Sutera Harbour Hotel, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. If you are interested in presenting a workshop at this conference, please email Isabel, and she will be able to provide you with more details. The 28th is the last day for proposals to be given in to Isabel.

REQUEST

If you reply to an email that I have been included in, can you ensure that I am cc’d on the reply. By doing this, I know that the email has been followed up on. Thanks

TEACHER NOTICES

  • The next assembly will be on the 11th of November at the same time. If you have something you would like your class to share, please let me or Patty know. These do not have to be polished performances.
  • Remember all progress report comments need to be buddy read. 
  • There is now a usable kitchen in the back of the cafeteria, which can be used by small groups of students supervised by a teacher. 
  • Remind students at the end of the week about the Halloween Parade on Monday the 31st. They should change at school. 
  • A parent has donated Halloween cup cakes for the 31st; these will be sent to your room on the day. 
  • FYI – sign-up for parent conferences will be 15-minute slots with 5 minutes in between. When the sign-up is ready, you will be able to go in and block out a lunch break along with two other shorter breaks. Specialist teachers will not have a sign-up. Specialist teachers will be in the Gym with the Senior School teachers (especially since a lot of you are cross-over teachers), and parents will be able to visit you there if required. 
  • Please promote composting in your classrooms. 
  • I will share the video on cashless payments; please review it with your classes before it starts on the 1st of November.
  • The playground will still be closed on Monday but should reopen on Tuesday.
  • No Monday meeting – we will start our support meetings then.
  • We have field trip procedures. The first step is to discuss with your Principal.

Dear Grade 4 & 5 Teachers,

There will be a meeting of anyone that plays soccer before or during recess in Grades 4 & 5 during snack break on Monday.  There have been several reports of poor sportsmanship and other issues that need to be addressed.  We will work toward a more enjoyable soccer experience.
Please ask your soccer students to come to Ms. Patty’s Room A 108 at recess.
Please note: The soccer field will be closed for soccer during this recess to encourage everyone to attend the meeting.
If you have questions, please let me or Albert know.

STUDENT NEWS

  • The playground will be closed on Monday.
  • There are games that can be borrowed at break times outside the office. Please make sure you read the guidelines for the game’s use before borrowing.
  • Halloween Parade is ont the 31st; bring your costumes to change into at school.
  • Please, do not put posters around the school without permission from Ms. Sheppard. Starting clubs also should receive permission.
  • See the student announcement below from Jono and above from Patty.

Dear All,

Thank you for your replies regarding the number of students that are interested in a doubles 4Square tournament. If you haven’t counted how many students are interested in your class, can you do that and send me the number.
The 4Square tournament looks like it will be very popular. The planning committee will need some time to plan this event. We envision that it will be during lunch times, and it won’t be for a couple more weeks.
I have heard some reports of some students excluding some students from playing four square during recess because they are practicing for the tournament. Would it be okay if you could remind the students that they can’t just reserve a four-square court for themselves and that four square is inclusive, not exclusive. Also that the tournament is not for a couple of weeks, so they will just need to relax a little. 
Thanks for your help with this.
Jono

MONDAY MATH ANSWERS

Grade 2 – How much is 6 tens and 2 ones? 62

Grade 3 – Ms. Sheppard needs 14 pencils. She already has 6 pencils. How many more does she need? 8

Grade 4 – How many socks does a family of 4 have if each person has 3 pairs of socks? 24 (a lot got this one wrong)

Grade 5 – How many sides does a Decagon have? 10

 

DUTIES BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL after the break

Monday – Sabine/Saw John, Tuesday – Dan, Mabel, Wednesday – Laura, Me Me,  Thursday – Beth, Sandy, Friday – LuAnn, Htut Htut

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