ISY Elementary School Faculty Blog

Reports and Quarter 4

Mike Simpson

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. Most students are staying within time zones which allow them to Zoom into synchronous classes but others will need to learn asynchronously. This obviously creates a few headaches but it is manageable if we implement the plan outlined below in this blog.

We will meet on Monday afternoon at 2:30pm to clarify what we need to do to get through these last 10 weeks. In the meantime, please reach out to me if you have any questions.

QUARTER 4 SCHEDULE (incl. ABC Schedule)

Quarter 4 will begin on Monday, April 5.

Here is the Quarter 4 Specialist Schedule up until May 12.

On Wednesdays we will have an ABC Schedule between 11:30am to 1:00pm. This is designed to break up the week and give students a choice of 2 activities between Art, Body, and Communication.

QUARTER 4 PLANNING

IMPORTANT: In the last couple of days we have had a few parents tell us that they are moving into time zones that do not work for synchronous learning. We expect that more students will move into such time zones during up until the end of the Quarter.

These students will still get their work from their current synchronous classes but Jordan (Grades 4 & 5) and Mike (Grades 2 & 3) will meet with them online during the week to help them with the work.

This is manageable if we do the following important steps:

1. Grade 2-5 students will get all assignments from Google Classroom.

2. All assignments must include simple instructions on how to do the assignment plus links to all online resources that they will need to complete it. These do not need to be long – simple is best.

3. Specialists are also to post what they are doing each week to Google Classroom as an assignment. 

4. Please post assignments in this manner from next week.

Because of this change, we will not be requiring learning summaries on Fridays in Quarter 4. We will just send out a short email with the offline learning activities attached. If we do not need to use our current offline learning activities, we will need to update our offline activities for Friday, April 23.

5. Homeroom teachers within the same grade level should be assigning the same assignments to make this easier on students from different classes to work together with Jordan and Mike.

This quarter’s interdisciplinary theme is PARTNERSHIPS.

Here is a link to a summary of the PK-1, 2-3, and 4-5 Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions that we will use to connect learning in all subjects.

Here is a link to the Q4 PARTNERSHIPS SCOPE & SEQUENCE document from which all planning will be linked. Please complete this scope and sequence for your grade level by the end of Friday, April 9. It is ok if you are finishing up Quarter 3 up until Friday, April 9.

We have purposefully chosen EUs and EQs that allow teachers in all subjects to focus on whatever skills and knowledge that you feel the students need to either learn or revise before the year ends.

In all grade levels we are basically focusing on partnerships and how we work together and this interdisciplinary focus can be maintained while teaching anything. This will minimize the need for interdisciplinary planning meetings and detailed scope and sequences.

On Monday, we will provide more guidance on how we can record our planning. For now, just think about how you can incorporate a partnership theme into your subject over this last quarter.

HERE is a link to a folder with all of the slides that were created for Quarter 4 last year. These may or may not be of use this year. 

Students Leaving Yangon

If you become aware of a student who is planning to leave, please email Patty, Nimmi, and I and we will follow up with the parents. Please email us even if you have just heard this from the student and you are unsure if this is true.

Students withdrawing from ISY:

Students who are withdrawing from ISY are obviously no longer our responsibility from their date of withdrawal. These students will no longer be attending Zoom classes and teachers will no longer be providing feedback on their learning. These students will be removed from Powerschool.

However, given the extraordinary circumstances under which these families are leaving, we will keep them enrolled in our Seesaw and Google Classroom platforms until the end of the year. We will also keep them on other platforms such as RazKids. This will allow them to access learning should they wish to. This work is not for teachers to give feedback on and assess. We are unable to disable the chat and messaging functions of Seesaw and Google Classroom for individual students. We hope that this is not a distraction and if this becomes an issue with a withdrawn student, please let me know and I will reach out to the parents. 

These students will be asked to return their Chromebook or iPads and library books before they leave Yangon.

QUARTER 3 PROGRESS REPORTS

Mike will check comments over the weekend and will email to confirm that they can be posted.

PK-KG Report Writing Instructions

Grade 1-5 Report Writing Instructions

Spreadsheet for individualized ISY Learner Attributes comments  (due 8am, Friday, April 2)

Common Grade Level Subject Comments (due 8am, Friday, April 2) :

Enter all comments and grades into Powerschool by 4pm, Wednesday, April 7.

Reports will go live on Powerschool on Friday, April 9

PACKING UP ROOMS BEFORE WE LEAVE

This will be very simple.

Please have all materials off the floor and on a shelf or ledge. Please cover anything special to avoid it getting too dusty. 

Nothing needs to be boxed up or moved out of your room.

Leave the furniture set up as it is.

You can leave posters etc on the wall but please put a note on any that you want to be put back on the wall if the maintenance team needs to paint.

The maintenance team will do touch up work over the summer. If your room has any maintenance needs, please add them to this ES Summer Room Maintenance document by the end of next week when I will forward it to John.

Elementary School Preferential Play Time

This message went out to the community today…

With students no longer being able to attend Transitional Day classes on campus, we have decided to set aside weekly times between 2:30pm and 3:30pm for each grade level to have preferential access to the facilities and playground. These times will provide opportunities for students in the same classes and grades to connect and play in person

Schedule:

  • Monday: Pre-Kindergarten & Grade 1
  • Tuesday: Kindergarten & Grade 2
  • Wednesday: Pre-Kindergarten & Grade 3
  • Thursday: Kindergarten & Grade 4
  • Friday: Grade 5

You can use the ES Preferential Play Times Sign Up Form to book a time for you and your children to come on campus as per the schedule below. The same rules for facility use apply:

  • We can only have up to 30 community members on campus at any one time (including adults and children)
  • Every child must be actively supervised by a responsible adult at all times. There will be no ISY staff or faculty supervision.Students cannot be dropped off at school without adult supervision.
  • Masks must be worn at all times by both adults and children. This is particularly important for us to be able to safely keep our campus open for our community.
  • Siblings may come on campus with their brother or sister during their brother or sister’s play time (e.g. a Grade 1 student may come on to campus with their grade 2 sibling during the Grade 2 play time)

In addition to these allocated times, we have sent this Students in Yangon Over Thingyan form out to our families to join a list of families staying in Yangon over the Thingyan break. The purpose of the list is to let families know who is still in Yangon so ISY children can connect over the break if families wish. We will share the list with those people who have responded to this form next Wednesday, April 7 so they can contact each other as they wish.

PRIDE OF THE PRINCIPAL

If you have any student (or students) that you would like me to recognise for living the ISY Attributes send me an email with a sentence about why they are to be recognised and a time that I could come on Zoom and say hi. Any time or day is OK – If I have a meeting I’ll suggest another time until we get one that works. I will jump on your Zoom and then I’ll get you to put the student or student(s) into a break out room with me. I’ll have a chat with them and take a screenshot that I will send to their parents.

Previous Elementary School Posts

Elementary School Faculty Blog – October 23, 2020

Elementary School Faculty Blog – October 23, 2020

Oct 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!