Moshi Campus News – 24 Nov 13

Next weekend, Friday, 29th November to Sunday, 1st December, we will be hosting 11 visiting schools on the campus and accommodating about 580 visiting staff and students, most of whom will be sleeping in tents or classrooms on the campus. Together with our own 150 boarders and 80 secondary day students as well as our staff and parents, there will be well over 800 participants. This is our biggest and most exciting sports weekend and should prove to be a fantastic time for all who play and/or support. We look forward to welcoming Internatonal School Tanganyika, Morogoro International School, Braeburn School, St Constantine’s, St Jude’s, Al Muntazir, Dar Independent School, Haven of Peace Academy, Aga Khan Dar, Orkeeswa and ISM Arusha Campus.

The sports events start on Friday afternoon and continue until Sunday afternoon. Day students who are on campus are welcome to eat in the dining hall, but MUST buy meal tickets from reception BEFORE the weekend. Because of the numbers involved, we will be unable to provide meals in the dining hall for parents or families. The only access to/from campus throughout the weekend will be the main gate on Lema Road – other gates will be closed.

Other events are also taking place around the main sports weekend:

• Horse Show – Thursday and Friday
• Primary Aquathlon – Saturday
• Christmas Craft Fair – Saturday

This semester’s Horse Show is taking place in the afternoons of Thursday/Friday, 28th and 29th November. Thursday will have more of a focus for the secondary students, while Friday will be mainly for the younger riders. All are welcome to join us at the stables for the events.

Many of our primary students will be engaged in a mini-event during the Sports Weekend, although it is not compulsory! Students will swim and then run in race within their class groups. This takes place on Saturday, 30th November from 9am to 10am.

Everyone in our community is very welcome to come to our Christmas Craft Fair this Saturday, 30th November from 9am to 3pm. This craft fair is an opportunity to buy some holiday gifts; we have a range of stalls joining us for our annual fair. If you wish to run a stall please contact our CAS Coordinator Madeline Leno on for further information. We still have room for a few more tables.

We will be welcoming a representative from Arizona State University to campus on Tuesday, 26th November. She will be presenting to M5, D1 and D2 students at 2:20pm and will also meet with interested students individually.

Daryl Rustad, our university counsellor, will also be in school from Tuesday to Thursday to meet with students.

At our UN Assembly last Monday, it was great to see so many students celebrate their nationality through what they were wearing. The primary students sung their hearts out and all our soloists and readers were clear and audible – well done!






On Monday next week, 2nd December, we will have an assembly to mark World AIDS Day.

Rehearsals are hotting up now in preparation for our musical production of I’d Do Anything For You on Wednesday & Thursday, 11th & 12th December. Tickets will be on sale the week before at reception. We will now be doing a run-through on Friday, 6 December at 1.20- 3.30pm and we hope to have as many primary students as possible join us for this. There are also rehearsals on Monday 9 December (daytime) and Tuesday 10 December – a final dress rehearsal in the evening. With every primary student involved it essential that we practise as much as possible so they know what they are doing! We are very grateful to the PA for offering to run a refreshment stall on both nights.

Primary Clubs will continue until only this Thursday 29 November. A reminder that the following week teachers and students will be involved in the Musical rehearsal. Please check carefully which afternoon your child is needed.
We are already looking ahead to the 3rd quarter January to March Clubs. If you as a parent would like to volunteer your time one afternoon then we would be very pleased to welcome you. Please email me on . I will be putting together the Q3 programme over the next few weeks, the deadline is Dec 5 for any ideas or volunteers. Please also email me if you wish to continue your current club next semester.
Please note that secondary CAS activities will continue as normal until 19th December.

This is a reminder that Monday, 9th December is Tanzania’s Independence Day. There are no classes on that day, although there will be activities for the boarders and also a rehearsal for the musical.

We heartily invite you to our first semester secondary Parent-Teacher Consultations on the final Friday of this semester – 20th December. We have an assembly at 09:00 to which parents are very welcome, as we celebrate the achievements of the 2nd quarter. Parent-Teacher meetings will run 10:30-12:00. We hope you will take this opportunity to meet the teachers and discuss your child’s progress. Full reports will be issued for secondary students on Thursday 19 December. If you wish to receive a soft copy by email, please email me on .
Totty Aris (Deputy Head of Campus)

We will be very sorry to say goodbye to the Dombkins family when they leave us at the end of this quarter. When they arrived in 2010, Anna joined Kijana as the diploma girls’ boarding parent and has also been the ISM counsellor. Mark has been the head of our Mathematics department and recently took on the role of MYP Coordinator for this semester. They will be sorely missed as will their children who have formed a considerable presence in the school.

We will be very happy to welcome Coen and Val Wesselink to ISM in January. Coen will join the Mathematics department and Val will take over responsibiliy for Kijana boarding house.

Many D1 and D2 students had multiple tests and coursework assignments this week. The immense challenge of balancing these academic demands is significant for DP students everywhere including at ISM. Most DP schools do not have boarding so the parental presence contributes significantly to the well-being of these IB DP day scholars. DP students are somewhat handicapped in this regard as there does not exist the useful parent-adolescent face-to-face dialogue and sharing. While ISM DP boarding students do have the presence of caring boarding parents, quite obviously they are not parents nor can it be expected that they can fully fill that role. Bottom line – VERY regular parent-ISM DP boarding student communication remains absolutely critical and irreplaceable. If ISM DP parents do not make weekly phone calls to their adolescent in boarding there are generally negative side effects. D2 parents should likely be calling twice per week – we cannot overstate how stressful this quarter 2 is with innumerable coursework assignments, regular content reading and tests as well as university application preparation work.
Our D2 Math Standard Level students have been very busy making the final changes to their Mathematical Exploration, which is an internal assessment and counts for 20% of their final grade for the subject. This May 2014 cohort is the first to complete these new form of internal assessment, which the IB only recently introduced. Each student must explore an area of mathematics in depth, and relate it to a specific personal interest they have. According to Mark Dombkins, their Math SL teacher, it has been quite a challenge coordinating the progress of these twenty unique explorations, but he has been thrilled with the amount of diversity and creativity involved with each students’ choice. Some examples of the areas explored include: Modeling the path of the missiles used in the Cuban Missile Crisis midway through last century; Attempting to calculate when it will be possible for humans to travel through time, based on rates of progress over the last 100 years; Calculating the exact distance of the trail to the summit of Kilimanjaro using Calculus; Use of complex probability to calculate the likelihood of Chelsea winning the Premier League. The final copies of these Math SL explorations will be submitted next Wednesday November 27th.
We expect nearly all DP parents at the hugely important end of semester parent-teacher meeting on Friday December 20th. Your sons/daughters will likely be disappointed if the effort is not made to set aside this day for a trip to Moshi for this.
DP faculty met this week for our regular meeting and strategized about how we can improve upon the May 2013 IB DP exam results.
A reminder: do not remove your DP child from school early – we finish on December 20th – and ensure that they are present on the first day of school in 2014 on Wednesday January 15th. Every class lesson day missed leaves a hole in their DP education.
We are working with DP students to develop these “Top 10 Skills for High-School Students” which you can find at https://school.familyeducation.com/skill-builder/college-prep/37653.html, but as usual so much rests with the student – so your encouragement in this direction would be so critical. At a recent DP faculty meeting, repeatedly we observed that those DP students who have underdeveloped study skills, particularly time management and motivation, are those who are the least academically successful. Our DP mentor program aims to facilitate and further develop these abilities but again it still returns not surprisingly to the issues of effort level and focus of the DP student.
DP History students this week have discussed the US President Kennedy’s assassination 50 years ago which this piece presents well – www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002563395/november-22-1963.html.
Feel free to raise any questions or concerns with me. Sincerely, Rick Fitzpatrick Diploma Programme Coordinator

This quarter in M5 we are trialing the use of Google Calendar to help students become more aware of when their major assessments are due and then plan accordingly. As any D2 student will tell you, being able to manage your time effectively is a key attribute for success when facing the demands of the IB Diploma program. Just as importantly, managing ones time well allows them to achieve balance and give priority to the many other important aspects of life. However, effective time management doesn’t come easily to most of us. It is something we become better at with both practice and guidance.
This week M5 attended a class on this very subject, and were introduced to some of the ideas presented by Stephen Covey in his Bestseller ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. When discussing time management, Covey says “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” M5 were invited to reflect on their lives, both within school and beyond, and create a list of the things that consume their time. They then had to allocate these activities into one of the 4 following quadrants:
For effective time management, Covey advises us to focus our time in Quadrant 2 (not urgent & important). This way, we focus on completing tasks before they become urgent & important, which leads to crises and stress.
M5 were encouraged to apply these time management to their lives in conjunction with their new Google Assessment Calendar. Hopefully they will be more effective students as a result, and more importantly, live a balanced lifestyle – both throughout their years at ISM and beyond. Mark Dombkins MYP Coordinator

Unit of Inquiry We began to think about our sense of hearing at the end of last week in our PE lesson when the children had to listen very carefully to instructions. Next week we will continue inquiring into hearing with a range of activities:

• Creating a poster about what we already know about our sense of hearing
• Free play with instruments
• Thinking about what it would be like if we couldn’t hear
• Playing sound games

UN Day Assembly Thank you to parents attending the UN peace assembly last week. The primary children sang beautifully! The children also looked amazing dressed in their national costumes and colours.
Assessments and Reports Next week I will assess the children in reading, writing and maths. I will also be making notes on their behaviour, attitudes and other areas of the curriculum. This is in preparation to write their end of semester reports.
Unit of Inquiry – Going Places Central Idea: People move around the world for different reasons. We have talked about different places children have travelled to. This could be a different country they may have lived in or a holiday destination. We have started to look at the world map and talk about continents and countries. I will be sending home a questionnaire with the homework pack on Monday asking questions about why we live here.
Art We will continue our theme on rubbings. We will begin to look at Tinga Tinga paintings.
Language focus for the week Write a recount of your weekend. Some children will be encouraged to use the language of time. (First, Next, Then, After that, The next day…) Retell a simple story sequencing events in the right order. Handwriting: Patterns, own name, numerals and continue Caterpillar letters. (c a d g o q ) Contractions – I am = I’m, you are = you’re Phonics: Group 1 – Learn about words ending in ng, (ing, ang, ong, ung,) Group 2 – Introduce ow as in snow.
Maths focus for the week Mental skills will include counting forwards and back to 20 and beyond. Fast recall of addition and subtraction facts – 6, 7, 10 and 11. Count in 2s, 5s and 10s. Fast recall of doubles. All children will continue to work on calculations and learn about addition and subtraction. We will learn about symmetry and position. Recognise simple symmetry and use language of position. We will also learn about capacity. We will learn to measure using ml and litres. Look at bottles and cartons at home to find out how much is inside. (a carton of juice holds 1 litre)
What to bring to school: Everyday: A hat for playtime, a healthy snack, water bottle and reading folder.
Timetable: Monday

New reading books and a homework pack will be issued.

PE (wear trainers and a house T shirt) Tuesday

Swimming (swimming costume, towel, flip flops/crocs, swim aids such as floaters if necessary. Goggles and sun cream are optional.) Thursday

Library (Bring library books in your special library bag to return and then choose new ones)

New class reading books will be issued. Friday

Spelling Test

The highlight of last week had to be the introduction of the Pivot animation program during IT! The entire class quickly learned how to make their figures move and to create a short video. We will continue with this program during the unit and also consider the work involved with the production of claymation and cartoon movies. We will also consider the various techniques that illustrators use in making picture books. (We’ll look at Eric Carle, Leo Leoni, Mo Willems, and Barbara Reid over the next few weeks.)
Our Central Idea and our lines of inquiry for the unit have been tweaked a bit to better fit the direction that our lessons have been headed: Central Idea: Images and ideas from our imagination can be expressed in many ways Lines of Inquiry:

How we communicate ideas or images

How expressions can be interpreted

Perception and imagination vary from person to person
Math – P2 will wrap up with their study of 3-D shapes this week and consider symmetry. P3 will continue with symmetry and multiplication.
Language – Ask you children about their Imagine Stories. Spending 20 minutes a day writing a creative story based on a picture of an imaginary creature (fairy, monster, dragon, etc) has stretched every student to be a better writing these past 2 weeks. When I told them on Friday that we would take a break and read our stories to one another, most students groaned and said how much they were looking forward to writing! We are also comparing fairy tales and looking at common elements throughout. We will begin reading some tales together in play format with children taking different roles. Our grammar lessons will be divided into 2 groups this week with one group considering better sentence structure and the other studying the inclusion of dialogue in text. The Spelling chunk for the week is -ock.
Our Timetable: Monday: Library, please bring your books and bag. New homework sent home Wednesday: PE, remember to wear your sneakers and a hat and bring your water bottle. Thursday: Swimming, bring your suit and a towel Thursday: Reading books swapped out, bring your Reading Log as well Friday: Spelling test and return completed homework

Congratulations to the P3/4 students who participated in the inter-schools athletics meeting in Arusha last weekend. They all did extremely well with Theo winning gold in the 400m, long jump and shot putt , Emily winning gold in the 800m and silver in the 100m, Doris winning gold in the 1500m and discus, Thomson winning bronze in the 400m and Joshua winning bronze in the 100m. The girls also won bronze in the 4 x 100m relay and the u/10 team finished third overall.
I was thrilled with the wonderful colour poems the students wrote last week as part of our unit on the arts. They are on display outside our classroom and I would encourage you all to come and view and enjoy the children’s creativity and expressive writing.
This is what our learning in class will look like this week: UOI Unit 3 – How we Express Ourselves – “Setting the Stage”. Central Idea – The arts are an avenue for creative expression. Lines of inquiry – Aspects of the arts       Creative expression through the arts       The role of art in society We spent time last week finding out what we knew about the arts, creativity and expression and making sure we understood the central idea. We then considered the different aspects of the arts – music, drama, dance and visual art. This week we will delve more into what makes up these different disciplines. We will then focus on Eric Carle and look at the art form he uses to create illustrations for children’s books, his motivation and the way he expresses himself and different concepts.
Maths – Miss Jann’s Group Multiplication strategies, times tables, the link between multiplication and division, story sums involving multiplication and division. Miss Debbie’s Group Multiplication and times tables.
Language – Poetry – limericks. Creative writing using a prompt. Adjectives, verbs and adverbs using them to enhance our writing. Reading comprehension using poetry. Spelling – group 1 words that have -mb and- mn in them e.g comb, autumn, group 2 silent e/magic e exceptions and “e” as in they e.g promise., grey group 3 consonant blends gl, pl and sm e.g gloves, plant, smile
REMINDERS Every day: School T-shirts, hats, zip bags (reading book, reading log, spelling book). Too often these are getting left at home and we often need them during class time. A healthy snack. Collection – Please continue to send plastic bottle tops (any colour) and polystyrene trays to school for an art project that I have in mind. Monday: Homework handed out – From this week, homework will come home in a folder rather than a book, as this saves preparation time and paper. The folders are a bit flimsy, so please encourage your child to store then in their zip bags and to try not to scrunch them up. Wednesday: P.E. – wear suitable attire – house/school T-shirts, shorts, tights (please no skirts, dresses. or jeans) and it would be useful if the girls could tie up their hair. We have started a gymnastics unit, so it is not necessary for the children to wear trainers. Thursday: Library. Please remember library bags and any books that are due back for return/renewal. Times tables test Friday: Homework due in Spelling test Swimming – remember towel, costume, goggles (if you use them), sun screen.
Looking forward to another great week together, Miss Jann

Last week we focused heavily on the new Unit and enjoyed a productive week of learning. The children have established the migratory history of themselves and their peers and can identify the motives for someone’s migration categorizing it as economic, political, social or environmental. In addition, they now recognize the difference between internal and external migration.
UOI – ‘Moving On’ Central Idea: Migration has a wide range of effects on those who migrate and the indigenous populations they encounter. The children will begin to consider how migration affects the individuals and communities who embark on these journeys as well as the communities who receive the migrants.
Reading and Writing The children will continue the diaries they began this week in which they have assumed the role of a contemporary migrant from a war stricken, natural disaster hit or economically deprived country. In addition they will continue through IT lessons to write newspaper reports about the situation in their assumed country using Microsoft Publisher.
Maths We will continue to consolidate the understanding that division involves repeated subtraction just as multiplication is repeated addition and explore various written methods of division.
P.E. – is on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday will once again be swimming.
Library – is on Monday. Please remind the children to bring back books for exchange/renewal.

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