I hope you have all had a good week. I know the students have. 

Teaching is a caring profession and good teachers care a lot. About everything. We care about our students and they care about our colleagues. We care about what we are teaching and how we are teaching it. We also care about the school and community in which we work. This is a heavy load at the best of times and the load is undoubtedly heavier this year. 

When a load gets too heavy to carry it makes sense to drop a few things. But caring teachers won’t drop the heaviest things. We will drop whatever we can that won’t impact those things that we care about as teachers – our students, our colleagues, our subjects, our schools, and our communities. So the first thing we are likely to drop is ourselves.  

I think we do this because we do not want to add to anyone else’s burden. But we forget that we are all carrying bits of the same burden! This week reminded me that if you have to put something down, for whatever reason, somebody at ISY will pick it up. I felt a bit guilty having to put a few things down this week but now I just feel grateful for those who picked them up. 

WORLD LANGUAGES

CHANGE OF PROGRAM DELIVERY IN GRADES 2 TO 5

The following message will go out to parents today:

‘With COVID, we needed to adapt our schedule for online learning and we felt we needed to prioritise our core curriculum subjects as we started the year. This meant we needed to combine our World Language and Culture and Communication programs. These classes are related but intended to be taught separately so students can focus on developing specific skills in their chosen language. 

For the first semester (ending today, January 29), we decided upon a Culture and Communication focus with all Grade 2-5 students (French and Mandarin) in the same class. We decided to use the Education Perfect app to provide our students with skills practice in the language of their choice. This is not how we would normally teach languages in the Elementary School at ISY and, while this app is a useful supplementary resource, it is not the basis of our language program.

For our second semester (beginning this Monday, February 1) we will shift our focus from general Culture and Communication classes to specific French and Mandarin classes. We will be separating the students into separate French and Mandarin classes which will allow for smaller groups all focusing on the target language. We will have two teachers assigned to each of our French and Mandarin classes to allow for more specific instruction.’

Our schedule will not change but instead of Grade 2 to 5 students going to the Grade Level Link for Culture and Communication, they will go to separate Mandarin or French Links. These links will be posted in this ES Zoom Links document. These links are also to be posted on Google Classrooms so the students can access them.

ONLINE RECESS with PATTY:

New Schedule

Patty will still be offering Online Recess for our students but given the small numbers in each grade, we will consolidate the students into these sessions:

• Grades 3, 4, & 5: Tuesday at 1pm
• Grades 1 & 2: Thursday at 1pm

‘International Week’: February 1-5

We are unable to have our regular International Day this year.

During the week of February 1-5, the Middle School is running a ‘Students Without Borders’ program that has a strong cultural focus.

To coincide with what is happening in the Middle School, we will encourage students to come to school on their Transition Day wearing something that represents their culture or country. Students online can do the same. This will be an easy way to celebrate our students’ culture and countries without adding something complicated to our very full plates.

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.

Instructional Orders

Instructional Orders are to be completed by January 31. Here are the ordering instructions. Please let me know if you need any last minute help.

Report Writing

Report Writing Instructions:

• PK/KG Instructions
• Grades 1-5 Instructions

Timeline:

January 29: Semester Ends

February 5: Reports Completed for Checking (a spreadsheet will be created for this and shared with you next week).

February 12: Reports to Parents

There will be no conferences for this reporting period. As always, if you have any students who are struggling or may be disappointed with their projected mark, please reach out to their families before they receive the report.