The Weekly Bulletin of

Stonehill International School

Volume 8, Issue 167

28th February 2020

Follow us on:

FEATURED STORY

The P6 students learn to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

The P6 students created an eco-friendly school group and repurposed plastic bottles and made bird feeders to give to other grades for their gardens.

CONTENTS FEATURED STORY WHOLE SCHOOL NEWS MESSAGE FROM HEAD OF SCHOOL MESSAGE FROM HEAD OF PRIMARY PRIMARY LEARNING FOCUS MESSAGE FROM HEAD OF SECONDARY SECONDARY LEARNING FOCUS

THE TIGER

IMPORTANT DATES March’20 2nd - 6th Book Week 3rd MYP Sports Day 5th Parent Workshop-The Purpose of Assessment in the PYP 9th - 13th PYP Creative Arts Informances Week 13th P5 Production 17th D2 Reports Published 19th D2 Parent/Teacher Conference 20th Francophonie Day

The P6 students’ unit on ‘How the World Works’ was focused on taking action. Learners were interested in the central idea that changes on earth challenge human survival and were put into focus groups. These groups were eco-friendly schools, fashion sustainability, animal extinction, deforestation, pollution and reduce, reuse and recycle. Learners created three questions; “What is the problem? What are people doing about the problem? What action can we take?”

The eco-friendly school group repurposed plastic bottles and made bird feeders to give to other grades for their gardens. Bags and jewellery from worn t-shirts were created by the fashion sustainability focus group. The pollution focus group made compost using cafeteria waste. The deforestation group is creating a vertical garden for our break-out space. The animal extinction group is planting a butterfly garden. The reduce, reuse and recycle group made many items from recycled newspaper and cardboard. One student said, “We learnt about animal extinction and we worked in groups to make plans for a butterfly garden here at SIS. I learnt many names of butterflies and plants that butterflies like. People are not buying plants that are good for butterflies and lack of habitat is challenging animal survival!” Student-led actions will be a continual process and we are excited about the journey ahead!

The P6 Team

WHOLE SCHOOL NEWS

Stonehill celebrates its first Literature & Drama Fest on the 5th and 6th of March

5th March 8.00 am- 12.00 pm The Inter-house lit fest aims to inculcate a healthy house spirit with a range of fun-filled activities such as Whoosh, Back Out Poetry, Flash Fiction and Taboo. The secondary school (M1- D1) will participate in these activities largely led by D1 students.

6th March 8.30 am- 2.30 pm The inter-school Literature & Drama Fest aims to motivate young learners to experience the joie de vivre of literature and to create their own interpretations by partaking in a mélange of literature and drama based activities.

This inter-school event will have a selected team of eight students. Teams from five other schools will be participating in this festival. This is a great opportunity to connect and collaborate with our student community. Some of the contests, both planned and impromptu, include creative performances, writing, and quizzes.

The other participating schools are: -

1. Indus International School 2. Canadian International School 3. Neev Academy 4. Trio World Academy 5. Capstone High School

The Student Council will be organizing bake sales on both days. Preethi Menon Head of Department, DP & MYP Language A (English)

WHOLE SCHOOL NEWS

Author Visit

We are thrilled to share that Nick Arnold, the celebrated British writer of science books for children, is visiting Stonehill on the 4th and 5th of March, 2020. He is best known for the Horrible Science and Wild Lives series. His highly energetic and interactive shows bring to life the Horrible Science book series, using funny experiments and activities. The aim is to show students that science can be exciting in an amusing and gruesome way! He will lead sessions and workshops for the secondary students on Wednesday, 4th March and for the primary students on Thursday, 5th March . For further information visit http://www.nickarnold-website.com/index.htm Autographed copies of his books will be on sale:

• Space Stars & Slimy Aliens • Blood Bones and Body Bits • Shocking Electricity

The price is 650 INR for 1 book or 1,200 INR for 2 or more. Let’s celebrate reading!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Book Character Day

On Friday, 6th March we will be celebrating Book Character Day. We encourage all SIS students and adults to come to school dressed up in a book character. The Primary School will have a parade, led by a band. Parents, please help your child to plan their book character outfits.

Lamiya Bharmal Primary Librarian/Information Literacy Teacher

FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

Greetings to our Stonehill Community! The secondary school has been away this week on their Experiential Learning Trip exploring various destinations in India. They will be back this weekend with many memorable experiences and a deeper understanding of Indian culture. These trips are a great opportunity for students to not only strengthen their self-management, communication and social skills, but to also relate and learn authentically from one another outside the classroom.

Brian Brumsickle

The Stonehill Strategic Planning Committee The Stonehill Strategic Planning Committee will meet on the 5th and 6th of March to develop a strategic plan for the next four years, from 2020-21 through to 2024-2025. The committee will focus on the principles of learning and teaching, human resources, infrastructure and school growth, identity, financial sustainability, governance, well-being and child protection. The future of Stonehill is an exciting journey ahead! Novel Coronavirus Update We are continuously monitoring the Coronavirus situation in India and worldwide and unfortunately the virus seems to be spreading at a rapid pace. Here at School, we are doing the best we can to remain vigilant, by maintaining a healthy environment. We are in process of putting together a preparedness plan and will keep you informed of the same. Brian Brumsickle Head of School

FROM THE HEAD OF PRIMARY

IB Workshops Twelve teachers attended the on-campus regional IB Workshops over the weekend. The courses included ‘Making the PYP Happen, Conceptual Learning and Evidencing Learning and Implementing Agency’. The workshops gave teachers inspiration and impetus to make changes in their instruction - a sure sign of success!

Karen Crooke

Professional Development We worked on developing single lined writing rubrics. A rubric is a grid that identifies the criteria of success. These include understanding the genre and success in implementing the 6+1 traits of writing. Grade teams completed two rubrics that will be used as summative assessments later in the year. By the end of the academic year, teams will have all six genres and traits covered and ready for the new academic year. We also examined the new documentation from the IB on learning environments and evaluated our colleagues’ classes using the criteria. We continue to work on making our learning environments as learner-friendly as possible. P7 Breakthrough camp The P7 students went off to camp at Breakthrough on Bannerghatta road, on Wednesday, 26th February. We have had some very excited children at school this week...Phionn packed his bag last Friday! We are in close contact with our groups who are away. A photo is posted on Seesaw at the end of each day to make sure parents know what the teams have been up to. A pause in swimming lessons Our learner numbers are growing and too many swimmers may create an unsafe environment. To keep our learners’ safe, we have made the decision to pause lessons for six weeks, for the P4-P8 students, from the 23rd of March to the 11th of May. During this time, classes will have three PE lessons. The M1-D1 students will complete their swimming unit at this time. The P1, P2 and P3 students will continue lessons as they generally use the small pool. Have a lovely week Karen Crooke Primary School Principal

PRIMARY LEARNING FOCUS

The P1 and P2 students explore different stories on the unit of inquiry ‘How We Express Ourselves’

We have shared and retold different stories in different ways including the ‘Stone Soup, Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. We made our own cooking pot and made up a rhyme to help us tell the story of Stone Soup. We used gestures to help us show different parts of the story, for example, chopping up carrots or tasting the soup when it was finished. When we read the story, ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ we talked about onomatopoeic language and how we can make sounds to represent the noises that different objects might make. We can even make sounds to represent who we are and we can try and record our sounds using our knowledge of graphophonics.

We created our own stories using puppets and cards. We understood that stories need a setting, characters and a beginning, middle and an end. We also loved using our voices to represent different characters. Our favourite voices were the ‘troll’ and ‘giant’ voices. We got to use our big deep sounds when these characters were talking!

Recently, we have been reading the story ‘Measuring Penny’. We then talked about how we could measure ourselves and what tools we could use to help us. There was lots of discussion about how to use the tools and whether they need to be the same size if our measurement is going to be accurate! We are still thinking about this concept and exploring through lots of hands-on play!

Honor Dargan P1 & P2 Homeroom Teacher

FROM THE HEAD OF SECONDARY

Coming up in a few weeks are our second round of MAP Tests in the secondary school. The students will be completing the math and reading tests, and the data we obtain will allow us to see how their numeracy and literacy skills have developed. MAP tests are very different in nature to IB assessments. Very few IB assessments are multiple choice tests, and many students much prefer the creative opportunities that IB-style assessments afford them. However, I firmly believe that MAP tests provide us with fairly reliable data about our Joe Lumsden students’ likely performance in IB assessments, particularly DP exams and MYP eAssessments. The reason for this is that although IB assessments seem varied in nature, at the end of the day, success in any assessment depends on numeracy and literacy skills. The strong correlation between MAP results from September 2019 for our M5 students and their Semester 1 scores in February proves the point even with a small sample size:

MAP Mathematics MAP Reading MAP Maths

Percentile (99 is the best)

Number of Students

MYP Grade Average for

Semester One

MAP Reading Percentile (99 is the

best)

Number of Students

MYP Grade Average for

Semester One 99 8 6.41 90-99 8 6.16

90-98 12 5.84 80-89 7 5.95 70-89 8 5.29 70-79 14 5.48 50-69 7 5.06 50-69 5 5.12 1-50 5 4.25 1-50 7 4.18

Message for parents 1.Encourage your children to read as widely as possible. All assessment in schools depends on language ability. Regular reading is the best way for your child to develop vocabulary and to be comfortable manipulating language. 2.Encourage your children to take the MAP tests seriously and to do their best. This will give us confidence that even if they are underperforming in some subjects, the basic numeracy and literacy skills are in place for academic success. Joe Lumsden Secondary School Principal

SECONDARY LEARNING FOCUS

M3 Visual Arts

Suhotra Nabeeha Simran The M3 Visual arts class is completing a very detailed unit of work where students have worked from memory, observation, imagination and used appropriation to create original works of art. The students started with observing line drawings of plants, leaves and flowers. They also closely observed and followed detailed shaded drawings. They then compared the two different types of drawings and questioned how the character of a single object could change with added detail. They studied various abstract images to further understand the impact of detail on a piece of work. The students created original works by integrating technology and abstract images. They used Photoshop and Google Draw to create circular patterns. Hyunseok Interestingly, patterns are used in every culture for various purposes. We looked at Sri Lankan moonstone designs for inspiration on arranging shapes into interesting designs.

Chelsea Ignace Ranmali Hapugalle HoD Arts & Design & Visual Art

SECONDARY LEARNING FOCUS

D1 Drama: Ladies Foursome

On the 30th of January, taking inspiration from the play ‘Ladies Foursome’ by Norm Foster, the D1 drama students impressed their teachers, peers and parents with a highly polished performance. The girls successfully constructed a tight forty minute mad-cap comedy. The dialogue was delivered with verve and panache, with peals of laughter from the audience.

They showed bravery and creativity during rehearsals and many new ‘moments’ were added to the final performance. All of them showed a mature mastery of the technical requirements of farce comedy, articulating all their lines and hitting their marks during the frantic physical sequences!

In total, two hundred people watched the production and everyone enjoyed the performance immensely!

They will now apply what they have learnt to their collaborative theatre project which they will perform in March.

Jonathan Sanger Secondary Drama Teacher

STONEHILL CAFETERIA MENU FOR MARCH 2020

A detailed monthly menu can now be downloaded from the menu page on the school website. It contains the Continental, Indian and Boarding Menus.

Stonehill International School

259/333/334/335 | Tarahunise Village Post | Jala Hobli (Bangalore North) Bangalore 562157

T +91.80.43418300 | E info@stonehill.in | www.stonehill.in