ISY Elementary Blog

ON TRACK WITH PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

Sandy Sheppard , Elementary School Principal

15th September 2022

Dear all,

MAP testing seemed to go very smoothly, thanks for taking care of this. More information is in this blog about catch-up testing.

I hope you have all had a little time to think about the Professional Growth Cycle since our PD on Monday. If you have any questions let me know.  Principal Walk thros will start next week. If my visit is a formal walk thro then I will email you afterwards so you know it is completed.

Please remember to look at the student announcements and share them on a Monday morning if they are appropriate for your grade.

We will have an assembly on Friday

Have a fabulous weekend Sandy.

 

GUIDED READING

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF GUIDED READING? - Lamentable

 

Guided reading is reading out loud to an adult, or other proficient reader, with feedback. This is NOT independent silent reading. The key part to the effectiveness in developing skills is to provide ‘guidance’ to the student. Do not confuse this beneficial teaching tool of true guided reading with various independent reading programs some of which are labeled ‘guided reading’. The process of the student reading out loud with correction and instruction is the essential criteria of guided reading that actually help the student learn and improve skills.

In order to achieve significant beneficial impact on word recognition, fluency and comprehension:

#1 The student must read out loud to an adult (or other proficient reader) and

#2 The adult must provide correction, feedback and instruction on specific skill development.

Miscese Gagen

DATES TO REMEMBER

19th September – PD in Learning Commons for Faculty. PD in #108 for Teaching Assistants

23rd September – Assembly 1-1:30 in the Gym

12th -23rd September – MAP testing

12th and 17th September Teacher Assitant training from medical clinic room #208 

10th – 14th October – Thidingyut Holiday

24th October – Use of turnstiles will begin

26th November – International Day

END SEPTEMBER – reading assessments completed

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

THIS Monday, September 19:

Grade Level Curriculum Review Meetings from 2:45pm

These curriculum review meetings serve two purposes:
Sharing of ideas between teachers.
Gathering information to inform our Continuous Curriculum Review.

We will meet in the grade level groups below (these have changed since last week’s blog) record the ways we are teaching or can teach the (PEOPLE) SDGs through our current Quarter 1 units. We will also connect these ideas to our ISY Strategic Themes of Service Learning, Environmental Consciousness and Culture and Diversity.

Here is the organization for these meetings: SDGs Teacher Brainstorm (PEOPLE). It would speed the meeting along if you have already read the SDG Learning Objectives linked to the document.

Before the meeting:
Please make sure your Grade Level Scope and Sequences are complete for Quarter 1.

Grade Level Room Teachers
PK – Grade 5 The Learning Commons Bekka, Beth, Brett, Charlie, Dan, Ian, Isabel, John, Jono, Laura, Lindsey, LuAnn, Patty, Rosita, Ruth, Sabine, Samia, Stacey, Vickie, Zarchi

 

PRINTING

Please note in line with our strategic goal of environmental consciousness, our printing habits are being looked at closely.

Last month 10,000 photocopies were made from one printer in the school.

To put that into perspective, 10,000 copies means the loss of one large tree.

 

The following initiatives are happening:

  • On Monday, all small printers will be removed from any rooms that have them.
  • Copying no longer needs to be sent to Bobo. Limits will be removed from the other printers. This is so that usage can be tracked more efficiently.

Two-Factor Authentication:

The technology office will be implementing mandatory two-factor authentication for all ISY employee email accounts on Monday, 19th October 2022.
Please note that once we enforce the two-factor authentication, you will not be able to log into your ISY mail and PowerSchool account without enabling it.
To enrol yourself in Two-factor authentication, please follow the instructions below:
  • Open your Google Account.
  • In the navigation panel, select “Sign-In & Security.”
  • Under “Password and sign-in Method,” choose 2-Step Verification and then Get started.
  • Follow the on-screen steps.
Here is a quick tutorial on how to enable two-factor authentication:

For additional support:
  • Contact the ISY Tech Support team at TechGroup@isyedu.org
  • Visit the technology office
As a general reminder, ISY tech support staff will never ask for your password or security codes. Please do not share this information with anyone.

ASSEMBLY INFORMATION

The assembly is for Grades KG to 5.

The location: The Gym.

The time: After lunch, 1:00 PM – we know it will probably be 1:10 before we can get started, but that is okay.

This week is all about community connections and will mostly be run by the Student Council. Assemblies will not happen every week, although we may use this time as ‘community time’, and there may be other events scheduled e.g. Earth Day or similar. It is also fine for a Grade level or students to come up with initiatives for this time that can be brought to myself or Patty.

PROFESSIONAL GROWTH PLANS

Everything can be found on our ISY Faculty Pages.

As a reminder, the following is what you need to do this Quarter. They can be done in any order:
Reflect on a Colleague Walkthrough
Reflect on a Student Survey
Christina and/or Sandy will also walk through at some point this Quarter and will share with you a reflection form.
Once these 3 things have happened, make a time to meet with your Principal. You can see from Faculty Pages whether Sandy or Christina and Mike will be working with you on this.
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 Sandy, Christina or Mike know and we will be happy to help.

 

MAP TESTING CATCHUPS: GRADE 2-5

 

This is always a bit messy! I will run a report at the end of the day today to see who needs to finish what and confirm that with you on Monday. This is how we will catch students up:

Teaching Assistants will take students who need to finish tests to Room 303.
Students will bring their laptops. There will be a technician who can help with technical issues and Teaching Assistants can supervise students and get them back to class.
We will try to catch all students by Wednesday. To help with scheduling these catch up tests, could you please indicate on the MAP Schedule when a good time might be for your grade level to have catch up tests. We will try to use these times but these catch ups can be a bit messy as you know!

TEACHER NEWS

  • I hope you have all had the opportunity to check out the new TV screen on the 3rd floor.
  • The turnstiles will be activated again on the 24th of October. They will be distributed before this date. For students in Grades 2-5, they can also be used for cashless payments at the food providers. Training will be scheduled. 
  • This Friday the 23rd will be our first KG to Grade 5 assembly.  

STUDENT ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • No back playground on 2nd break.
  • There is still room in the UWS ASA if anyone wants to sign up.
  • On Tuesdays students/teachers are invited to the music room (A304) to come listen to performances during the morning/snack recess. Students that wish to perform can sign up on a sign up sheet located on the outside of Ms. Bekka’s office door the Thursday before. There is only time for about 4 performances each week. If the sign up is full for that week, they will have to wait until the following week to sign up. Performances can be anything: magic, drama, singing, instruments… Please contact Ms. Bekka if there are any questions. 

MUSIC ANNOUNCEMENT (Teacher Information)

On Tuesdays students/teachers are invited to the music room (A304) to come listen to performances during the morning/snack recess. All are welcome and we will see how full the room gets, but I don’t think it will be too full.

Students that wish to perform can sign up on a sign up sheet located on the outside of Ms. Bekka’s office door. There is only time for about 4 performances each week. If the sign up is full for that week, they will have to wait until the following week to sign up. The sign up is posted on Thursday (before the performance) to give students time to prepare. Teachers are also welcome to sign up to perform if they would like. Performances can be anything: magic, drama, singing, instruments… Please contact Bekka if there are any questions.

RECESS REMINDERS

Please ensure that you supervise the area that you are assigned to. Please also note that in the 2nd break, the back playground is not supervised, so students should not be there. For the 2nd break, there is someone assigned to the A Block Playground and to the field only. Thank you.

DUTIES BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL THIS WEEK

Monday – Sabine/Snow White, Tuesday – Dan, Mabel, Wednesday – Laura, Zarchi,  Thursday – Beth, Sandy, Friday – LuAnn, Htut Htut

Previous Elementary School Posts

Elementary School Faculty Blog – October 23, 2020

Elementary School Faculty Blog – October 23, 2020

In case you are wondering why you are tired, we went online 219 days ago. This is the first chance we have had to rest for a very long time. Your work up until this point has set us up for the rest of the year and the rest of the year can wait for week!