NingBo International School www.nbis.net.cn / sac- nbis@outlook.com

Ph: +86 574 8761 1005

NEWSLETTER No 9 19th Oct 2017

Dates to Remember 2nd October – 24th November Secondary Cambridge Exams

24th October UN International Day

Congratulations to our Secondary Star Students for Quarter 1

Yi Wei Cici Wang (Y8 Rainbirds) Phatthasaya Ajarabun (Y11 Unicorns)

Diego Carvajal de la Rosa (Y 7 Dragons) Borys Baranov (Y10 Phoenix)

The underdogs are now the top dogs ……

Saturday the 14/10/2017 was a triumphant and jubilant day for football at NBIS. We overcame a

colossal task to achieve the impossible and, as the old cliché goes: ‘ Never underestimate the underdogs.’

We went in as the underdogs as we are still newbies to this sort of tournament. Our last outing saw us

losing one of our keepers and the other couldn’t make the game on Saturday. Our fabulous footballers

arrived bright and early with Coach Martin and our captain going through the warm up. Coach O arrived

soon afterwards and, along with Coach Martin, took the team though passing and tackling drills which

really paid off for our first game against ISN.

Lead by our captain, Jonathan, we went into the game with quite a few changes, nevertheless as a

TEAM …….. Together Everybody Achieves More. Jace deputized in goal; a task he shared with Mohit.

Elin, leading the defence, made countless tackles; Grace always raced to face any inbound attacker,

never giving up; Astrid was fantastic and made important interceptions, while Maria ensured none of

the opposition made it past the defensive line with her well-timed tackles. We won our first match after

Jonathan converted a penalty and scored a second goal. The great news was that neither Mohit nor Jace

conceded a goal. Go NBIS!

Our second match was our ‘thrilla in Manila.’ This was our second encounter with Huamao and we had a

score to settle. Khadijat, our young striker, latched on to a pass from the midfield, muscled her way past

their defiant defence and slotted the ball past their oncoming keeper. Today was going to be a good day

for NBIS. This was short lived as their excellent midfield and striker combined to equalize 4 mins later.

Tension was growing in our camp as the two coaches combined to put their heads together to come up

with a new strategy.

You now have to remember that even though we had 17 players, they had all even more than given

their best in the previous game. Nonetheless, after the break Cristian dazzled his way through their

defences with his quick feet, and the midfield were now playing together as a team. Josh and Maria

came on to give us more attacking support. Pratham began stringing passes together with Mohit and

they sent the ball to Cristian, who got past one defender then another and placed the ball past the

keeper for our equalizer. Now we started to believe. Jonathan took the ball to the right, got past one

defender, then another. He crossed the ball into Huamao’s half which they then converted into an own

goal to make it 4-3 to NBIS!

Unfortunately, Coach O had to leave 8mins before the end but tactical changes made sure everybody

had a chance to play, while at the same time protecting our lead. We achieved the impossible; we came

with 17 players but left with 17 warriors who fought hard to turn the underdogs into top dogs. Thank

you to parents, NBIS staff and students who came to support us on the day. Congratulations to the

players. Coach Martin and I are so proud of you. We are now top of the league and looking forward to

our next games on Saturday, October 28th.

Nothing is impossible with hope and determination.

Environment Week 9-13 October

Last week NBIS held their first Environment

Week. Each day the children spent a few

minutes learning and thinking about the

environment, and how they can help to

improve it. They had informative videos to

watch and discuss. They were given a recycled

piece of plastic and asked to think and come

up with ideas of how it could be reused. Each

class were asked to conserve energy and turn

their lights off for one lesson each day, one

class in Year 3 turned them off for a whole day!

Each class throughout the week also kept

their trash from their classrooms. It was collected up on the Friday for a “trash mountain” on the stage

at the assembly. It was a great visual representation of how much rubbish we make and provided

thought on what could be done about this to either; reduce, reuse or recycle. Helena, Lily and Kirubell

from the secondary school presented

a powerpoint to illustrate the

importance of recycling.

The big talk around school, leading

up to environment week and during

the week, was the TRASH TO FLASH

competition. Children throughout

the whole school were talking about

what they were making and how cool

it was going to look. The idea was to

make something they could wear out

of clean recycled materials. There

was an assembly on the last day with

a huge fashion parade. The children were very creative and a large majority of them took part. The

judging of the competition was difficult at times but there were winners for each year group. Thank you

to our sponsors; Subway, Chat Chat Café and Mrs Wylie for the prizes.

It was a great event and is sure to be on the calendar for a sustainable future.

Art of the Week

Jack Zhou, Jie Cheng 4B, Diwali rangoli design 001

Did anyone notice the amazing Cave Paintings

which have appeared in our School Canteen?

Buses and ECAs

Reminder: It's very important to inform the school if you want your child, who normally stays for ECA on

Monday or Thursday, to go home after school and not attend the ECA. We cannot accept a verbal

message from the student. Please write a note to the Teacher or contact the School Office to inform

Ms Vicky.

SAC OPEN FORUM

On Wednesday evening, interested Parents

gathered in Building 11 Room 102 for the SAC

Open Forum.

We were pleased to see more Parents attending,

and want to encourage even more for next time.

We are all busy people; but there is nothing quite

like face-to-face communication to facilitate

understanding, share ideas, solve problems and

find ways to help the school develop.

Items on the agenda included:

An introduction to the SAC Members … as indicated in last week’s Newsletter

A brief presentation from the principal of matters currently on the school’s agenda

A review of the results of the Parent Survey for Strategic Planning

Dress Code

Community Liaison

PARENT SURVEY / SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES 44 Quality of Teachers and Teaching

Methodology Focus on Quality Studies 19

21 Good Environment Lack of curriculum options … and insufficient ECAs

12

20 Diversity Food 11 10 Campus and Facilities Stability and Retention of Quality Teachers 10 09 Cambridge Curriculum Communication with Parents 07

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS 08 Raise Results (A*) Competition from other Schools 12 04 Cooperation with other International Schools Maintaining quality as school size increases 08 04 More ECAs with transport provided Shortage of Professional Teachers 08 03 Increase Marketing Activity Balance between International and National

Students 06

03 Teaching of Health and Safety Acceptance in International Universities of Renown

04

Notes:

NBIS has 264 families

The Survey Form was provided in English, Chinese and Korean

87 Survey Forms were returned – about 33%

After collating the data, the top 5 descriptors for each of the 4 categories has been listed

The numbers in the outside columns represent the number of comments received for that

descriptor

From the Parent Survey Returns we learn that:

50% of respondents regard the Quality of Teachers and Teaching Methods at NBIS as the #1

Strength of the school.

20% of respondents regard the lack of Focus on Quality Studies as the most serious Weakness *

of the school.

10% of respondents think that we now have an Opportunity to raise the attainment of our

students.

12% think that competition from other (new) international schools poses a Threat to NBIS.

* The range of topics presented by Parents and included in this figure was very broad: strength in quality

studies, more quality studies in different levels, improvement in Secondary, considering IBMYP courses,

increasing the diversity of A-level courses.

The complete Parent Survey Results will be made available on the SAC Official WeChat Account.

Full account of the results will be taken as the Principal formulates the 2017-20 Strategic Plan for

Development.

The Principal presented information and accepted questions regarding the issues currently on the table

at NBIS. See the lists below.

In the constructive discussions which followed, Parents pointed to some of the difficulties they face

regarding compliance with the Dress Code. A small Parent Group will now look into solutions and then

consult with the Principal about how to proceed. As always, SAC Members will share with the

concerned Parents any information which may help them in their task.

Parents asked about the use of technology in the school. Their children were encountering significant

difficulty in doing internet-based homework because the technology infrastructure in parts of the city is

not robust enough to support this. Others wondered about how much technology-based teaching and

learning is taking place … is it too much too soon? Is there a plan for the phased increment in

technology-based learning?

We all acknowledged that technology is here to stay and will play an increasingly important role in the

education of children. At the same time, we wish to ensure that technology is developed in an

appropriate manner and measure. The Strategic Plan will paint the broad parameters for this and NBIS

will build policy and practice accordingly, with plenty of input from Teachers and Parents.

Communication was another topic of interest, with Parents anxious to find more efficient and effective

ways of communicating with Teachers and with each other.

As indicated in our Current Issues slides, NBIS is looking to install a digital School Management System

which will greatly assist all parts of our Learning Community to communicate with greater ease. We are

currently viewing demos from a number of providers with a view to purchasing and installing by April

2018. We can then run the system, identify any issues and resolve them, and give time for Teacher,

Student and Parent training in the use of the software. The final roll out will be at the start of School

Year 2018-19.

Going forward, NBIS will also develop a Communications Policy so that there is standard practice across

the school in our communication with parents.