Moshi Campus News – 26 Apr 2014

On Monday morning, our M3 students from both campuses will be going on the arts trip for their current unit, “How the Arts can Change Communities”. Students will be camping in Weruweru until Wednesday afternoon, and will be participating in a series of arts related workshops that will be run by teachers from both Moshi and Arusha campus. Throughout the trip, there will be a focus on the developmental workbook (which is used in all three of the MYP arts subjects) and the IB Learner Profile.

We are looking forward to the trip and are keeping our fingers crossed for some blue skies! An article with photos will follow after the trip has been completed.
On Wednesday the students will return to ISM for the end of the school day. CAS and/or Sports are on a voluntary basis that day for the M3s.

Next Wednesday evening, 30th April in Karibu Hall the 13 students of P6 will present their Exhibition. This year the over-riding central idea is, “A rapidly changing planet requires modern approaches, thinking and action”.

The P6 Exhibition is a culmination of the learning experiences the children have enjoyed during their primary years. It challenges the children to embark on an independent in depth investigation and assume responsibility for their own research, organization and presentation. They have the opportunity to transfer the skills and knowledge they have acquired in subjects such as Maths, Language, IT and Art into a meaningful inquiry which investigates an issue both global and local in its significance.

The children are encouraged to find solutions to the issue and take action at a local level to influence change. Furthermore, the exhibition allows the children to demonstrate the extent to which they have embodied various IB traits from within the Learner Profile during their primary years. Lastly, it serves as a rite of passage as they look forward to graduating from P6 in June and entering the MYP in August.

This year the Exhibition will feature 7 separate inquiries into a diverse range of issues that most concerned the children. 6 pairs of children and one brave individual will seek to present and articulate to their audience the evidence they have uncovered, the solutions they offer and the action they have taken. You are all warmly invited to attend on Wednesday evening. The event will begin with an address by Bob Horton at 6pm and conclude sharply at 8pm when the children will undoubtedly need to go home and rest! The children of P6 and I look forward to seeing many of you on Wednesday.
Mr. Scott – P5/6 Teacher, PYP Coordinator

The annual Sports Banquet also takes place on Wednesday, April 30th. All secondary athletes (M1-D2) are invited to the banquet at 5:30pm on that day to celebrate ISM’s sporting achievements and champions of the year. Day students will be asked to sign up for the dinner and to pay a charge of TSh 5000/-.

D2 students have now started their study week in preparation for their exams. During study week, D2 boarders staying in school will be expected to follow all normal school rules, including attendance at all meals. They are not expected to attend classes but should be studying in their own rooms or in the library at the time of classes. D2 teachers will be available at the normal class times to assist where needed. D2 Boarders may elect to return home to their family during study week – if they choose to do so, parents are requested to contact the boarding parent in advance to ensure that we are fully informed. However it is expected that most boarders will remain in school to study. D2 day students are only expected to come to school if they wish to consult a teacher or to study in the library or study room.

D2 exams will begin on Monday, 5th May. The D2 exam schedule is available to download at www.uwcea.org/exams. Boarders who have completed their exams often return home (parents – please let the boarding parent know arrangements for this) but, if they choose to stay in school after exams, they will still be expected to follow all normal school rules. All D2 students must return to school by Friday, May 23rd (see below).

Other notable dates:
Friday, May 23rd – Dinner for graduates and families
Saturday, May 24th – Graduation Ceremony

Thursday, 1st May is a national holiday and there will be no classes on that day. Activities will be organised for boarding students. All classes and activities will take place as normal on both Wednesday (30th April) and Friday (2nd May).

This weekend a number of students are climbing to Mandara Hut, the first hut on Mt Kilimanjaro. They will return on Sunday. We wish them all the best.

Next week (1-4 May), an OP trip to Socialist Peak on Mt Meru is planned. However student sign-up for this trip has been low and it is currently undecided whether the trip will go ahead or not. Students involved will be informed as soon as possible.

on 8th-11th May there will be a trip to Mawenzi Hut at the base of the Mawenzi Peak on Mt Kilimanjaro. This is followed by a Little Meru trip (16-18 May) and an Uhuru Peak trip (28th May – 1st June).

On Friday, May 2nd, ISM is hosting a symposium based at our Arusha Campus to mark the 20th Anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. This event was one of the worst scars in recent African history and those of us who were in ISM at the time will also remember its impact on the school and on Tanzania. The UN’s International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (UN-ICTR) is still deliberating in Arusha at this time and many students whose families have been involved with the tribunal have been in the school.

As ISM’s DP programme endeavours to educate the whole person (academically, socially, etc.) in its students in a globalized and multicultural world, we have finalized plans to take all the D1 History and D1 Psychology students to the ISM Arusha campus for this symposium on the Rwanda Genocide. We will host six other schools and over 120 students involved in this stimulating event. Here are several items on the e-reading list if you wish to read them:

• The ICTR Remembers – 20th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide https://unmict.org/ictr-remembers/index.html
• Following Orders in Rwanda By JEAN-MARIE KAMATALI www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/opinion/following-orders-in-rwanda.html
• Genocide Fax by US Holocaust Memorial Museum www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/rwanda/turning-points/genocide-fax-part-I
• Bystanders to Genocide by Samantha Power – www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-to-genocide/304571/
• Through a Glass Darkly – Genocide Memorials in Rwanda – A Project of Harvard University https://genocidememorials.cga.harvard.edu/project.html

I will be way from the Moshi Campus this week until Saturday, 3rd May. During my absence Totty Aris will act as Head of Campus – please contact her on with any urgent issues.
Keiron White

We are now entering a period in the school’s year when many of our students are focused on tests and exams:

ISA Tests: Students in P4, P5, P6, M1 and M3 took ISA tests in February. The results of these were received last week and have now been individually emailed to all parents. If you have not received your child’s test result, or if you wish to discuss it further, please contact Totty Aris on .

D2 Exams: As you have read above, the D2 final exams are from Monday, 5th May to Friday, 23rd May. We wish them all the very best.

D1 Exams: Our D1 students are taking their end-of-year examinations in the period from Friday, 9th May to Friday, 16th May. These assessments will examine all the work they have studied over the past year and success in these is crucial for their participation in next year’s work.

D1 IELTS Test: About 20 D1 students have registered for the IELTS test of English to be held in school on Saturday, 10th May. Speaking tests will be held for these students on 8th or 9th May in addition to the written test on 10th May. A test of English such as IELTS is required by most unversities for admission.

D1 TOEFL test: Students wishing to study in the USA or Canada who have not taken IELTS are advised to take the TOEFL Paper-based test (PBT) in school on Saturday, 31st May. Registration for this test must be completed on Tuesday, 6th May. The fee is $170. Registration is done by submitting a completed paper form to Keiron White on that date.

D1 ACT test: Students wishing to study in the USA will need to take an ACT test in Maths, English and Science on Saturday, 14th June. Registration is online at a cost of $85.50 and must be completed by Tuesday, 6th May.

D1 SAT Test: A small number of students bound for the USA may alternatively wish to take SAT tests on Saturday, 7th June. Registration is online at a cost of $82 and must be completed by Tuesday, 6th May.

ABRSM Music Exams: A few students have already registered for practical music exams to be held at ISM Arusha Campus on Monday, May 12th

During the period 5th to 9th May our M5 students will not be attending classes, but will instead be engaged in a work experience week. During this week they will work in an organisation or business in Tanzania under the direction of a supervisor. The purpose is to give the students an opportunity to pursue an area of work interest and to gain experience at work.

This year, the class of M4 has been very committed, open minded and very co-operative. They have worked together in different areas to achieve different goals. They have successfully managed to cooperate and analyze two different books known as Watoto wa Mamantilie and Kilio Chetu. They have also managed to make a book door out of one of those two books that got third place in the secondary overall standings. In quarter three they have focused mainly on non-fiction units.

  We welcome two new members of our support staff. Janeth Mwasuka (on the left) is our new receptionist in the front office who will welcome visitors to the school. Parents will also meet with her if you wish to purchase meal tickets, T-shirts, USB memory sticks, check lost or found items, or wish to find somebody in the school.

Haika Simon takes up the new position of adminstrative assistant to support administrators and curriculum coordinators in the campus. She will work from an office adjoining the Head of Campus’ office.

With less than two weeks before the start of the IB exams, ISM’s forty-eight D2 students are revising notebooks, skimming textbooks, practicing past exam questions, doing team work tutoring and preparing outlines or formula review sheets. These May exams will comprise approximately 75% of the final grade for the two-year courses students take – so the stakes are high. Our students kick off their assessments with English A exams on Monday May 5th at 7:30am. ISM faculty exam invigilators are being trained. Logistics will be in place and we expect this will be a very successful exam session and it will conclude on the afternoon of May 23rd. Results will come out on the afternoon of July 6th to D2 students who have a login capacity through which they will see how they did.

In the wind up to exams, the DP Coordinator has repeatedly highlighted his worn-old slogan, “Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance”. Meanwhile, wise D2s can be seen often in the late-afternoon taking a study break to exercise either with a jog, a basketball game or a soccer match. On the “health issues” side of life for DP students, parents would do a great service by encouraging their child in the ISM DP to maintain balance in terms of their sleep, nutrition, water consumption and exercise habits.

A group of D2 parents and student leaders will meet on this coming Wednesday April 30th at 3:00 pm and establish plans for transforming Karibu Hall into a beautiful, colorful setting with an emphasis on “Hollywood stars” for the graduation on the afternoon of May 24th. We need any/all D2 parents as of 8:30am on Friday morning May 23rd to help with the decorating. Meanwhile, the music and food offerings including the traditional huge graduation cake for after-graduation tea in the Director’s Garden were finalized as were the plans for the 6:30 PM Friday evening May 23rd Graduation Dinner at the nearby AMEG Lodge restaurant with several TPC-donated tents in case of rain.

The monthly DP faculty meeting on next Tuesday will focus on planning to make the D1 and D2 exams smooth operations. The D1 exams will run from May 9-16.

We currently have six United World College-Masstricht (Netherlands) students visiting us as part of their CAS project. This is a great opportunity for our D1 students to interact with DP students from another school. As part of their DP programme all IB students are expected to gain an understanding of global issues, with this in mind Mr Brandon, our TOK Coordinator will be leading a session on international mindedness next week. This will be a great opportunity for our students to share their perspectives as well as hear those of other IB students.

Our D2 students are receiving news on their admissions to universities around the world. Here is an update: Lisa Chille – Harvard; Paschalia Nsato – Duke; Moses Swai – Stanford; Fabian Silas – Upenn; Lucky Yona – Yale and Sia Mbatia – Cornell -This article certainly makes one envious of the great courses they will experience – www.uwcea.org/dip17.

Given what this article highlights, it is even more satisfying that the five students above were accepted into these top US universities! www.uwcea.org/dip18.

Looking to the future our IB DP students are on the right track in terms of the future job hunt as per this article – ‘How to Get a Job at Google, Part 2’ – www.uwcea.org/dip19.

As usual, we would like to implore DP parents to maintain VERY frequent and on-going contact with your son/daughter here, as this parent-child communication is never more important than now in their life! Suggestion – Why not plan a visit as these would be much appreciated and invaluable for parent-teacher communication and support for your adolescent in the ISM DP?

Feel free to contact me with any questions about your son or daughter in the ISM DP.
Sincerely,
Rick Fitzpatrick
Diploma Programme Coordinator

With the wet weather upon us please ensure your child has some slippers/crocs to wear at school. We don’t want the class rooms getting too muddy.

We are looking forward to our Muffins for Mums and Dads – a celebration for the people that care for us. Please join us for our primary assembly on Monday 19 May 7.35 am. Tea and Coffee will also be provided.

Our primary swim team have been invited back to St. Constantine’s on 14th May to complete in the Primary Swimming Gala that was cancelled in March. Team members have had letters home, please send back the permission slip and bus payment by Monday 29 Apr.

This is the last split for P5/6 as we approach the end of the PYP exhibition unit. A big thank you to our lovely fill-in PYP teacher Patricia Sipman, we really appreciate the enthusiasm and breath of fresh air that she brought into our primary community during her time with us. From Monday 5 May P5/6 will be back together again for all their classes for their final unit.
Totty Aris
Deputy Head of Campus

Unit of Inquiry
Our new unit of inquiry is called ‘Art Attack’ which comes under the transdisciplinary theme of ‘How we express ourselves.’ This unit will be totally art based with the central idea, ‘Expression through art takes many different forms.’
The lines of inquiry are as follows;

• Expression through art
• Different art media

New Student
Last week we welcomed a new student to P2, Zuberi de Haan.

Unit of Inquiry – Going Going…Gone (Endangered Animals)
Theme – How we share the planet
Central Idea – Many species of animals are endangered and some are already extinct.
Lines of Inquiry:
1. The basic needs of animals.
2. Factors leading to endangerment of species.
3. Humans responsibility to share the planet.
We will continue to research endangered animals. We have started creating simple power point presentations that include pictures, titles, labels and captions. The children are really enjoying using their IT skills to create these presentations.

Language focus for the week
Write a recount of the weekend. Children will be encouraged to use the language of time. (First, Next, Then, After that, The next day…) Sentence and word level work will also focus on descriptive language.
Handwriting: Patterns, own name, numerals and Caterpillar Letters (cadgog). We will also include capital letters.
Some P2 children will learn to join letters together.
Phonics – Group 1: Long vowel sounds, ea as in beak.
Group 2: er as in ladder

Maths focus for the week
Mental skills will focus on counting on and back from any number. Quick recall of addition facts of 10 and 20. Doubles, near doubles and halving. All children will continue to learn about place value and ordering numbers. Some children will learn about tens and units, others will move onto 3 digit numbers and learn about hundreds, tens and units.
All children will also learn about shapes and their properties. They will learn about 2D shape (eg square, circle) and 3D shape (eg cube, pyramid).

Art
We made some amazing clay animals. We will paint them this week.

What to bring to school:
Everyday: A hat for playtime, a healthy snack, water bottle and reading folder.

Timetable:
Monday
New reading books and homework packets including spelling lists will be issued.
PE (wear your house T shirt and shorts for PE in the hall)
Tuesday
PE (wear your house T shirt and shorts for PE in the hall)
Thursday
School Closed Public Holiday
Friday
Spelling Test

This week we had a lot of fun in P2/3 writing stories about animals we would find in Tanzania and using water colors to paint illustrations to go along with our stories. We have really been able to do many fun activities during this unit. We had three D2 students come in and speak to our class about some of the history of Tanzania. It was very exciting to hear all that they know and the P2/3 students had some great questions to ask them.

Maths
We wrapped up working on time this week in both P2 and P3. P3 has begun working on coordinates and cardinal directions. P2 will begin working on this starting on Monday.

Language Arts
This week in IT, we will be typing up the stories we wrote on Tanzanian animals last week. We have been reading some folk tales from different African countries and will continue to do that next week. The students will also write a few journal entries including a folk tale of their own.

Unit of Inquiry
We are in the final weeks of our unit on Tanzania so we will be doing a lot of review of what we have learned before we make our informational posters. The students have been working a lot on their knowledge of the map of Tanzania and so they will have a chance to show what they know next week by filling out a blank map!

Reminders:
Monday: Library, please bring your books and bag, Homework sent home.
Wednesday: PE, remember to wear your sneakers and a hat and bring your water bottle.
Thursday: Holiday – no classes.
Friday: Spelling test and return completed homework.

It was great to welcome back all the P3/4 students last week. Friday seemed to be upon us in no time if this is any indication of how quickly the weeks are going to fly by, then the end of term 4 and the academic year will be upon us before we know it. It promises to be a busy term with many interesting and exciting opportunities and experiences and I know we will have a great time together.

This is what our learning in class will look like this week:
UOI
Unit 5 – How we organise ourselves – “People Helping People”
Central Idea: People around the world are engaged in helping others in need.
Lines of Inquiry: Identifying people in need
        The motivation to help others
        Empowering people to help themselves
        Structure and function of humanitarian organisations
This is a very practical unit as we are learning that everyone has a role to play in helping others and the children have discovered some very simple ways of reaching out to people in need and that there is a huge spectrum of needs in our different communities. We may not be able to help everyone or meet every need, but we can all contribute in simple ways and in so doing, make a difference to our world and the lives of those around us.

This week we will have Noga’s mom coming to share with us about how she is helping people in Tanzania through homeopathy and Miss Anina, the High School Art Teacher, will come and talk to us about the work she was involved in with the children who live on rubbish dumps in Cambodia. I am also hoping to have someone from a local orphanage address us. We will also continue looking at the logos of different aid organisations around the world and find out what they do to help others.

Maths – Miss Jann’s Group – We will start a new unit on data handling. We will learn what data is, how we can collect it, how we can represent/display it and what we can learn from it.
Miss Debbie’s Group – Coordinates and direction. The children will focus on the concepts of rows and columns and location of different points through using ordered pairs. They will also learn about the main compass points and how to determine direction.

Language – Letter writing e.g. writing letters to invite guest speakers to come and talk to us and to thank our guest speakers for taking the time to share with us and help us in our learning. Drawing logos and writing notes about what different NGOs and organisations are doing to help others. Advertising.
Synonyms and antonyms.
Spelling – Group 1: “y” as in bicycle
Group 2: magic “er” through double consonants e.g. better, letter, supper
Group 3: The long o sound – oa in the middle of words e.g. road, toast

Reminders
Every day: School T-shirts or polo shirts, zip bags (reading book, reading log, spelling book all need to come to school every day)’, a healthy snack for break time.
Monday: Homework handed out – spelling, reading, Maths and Language sheets, 7x tables
Wednesday: P.E. – Cooperative games. Wear house t-shirts and shorts or tights. Long hair tied up.
Thursday: No school – Workers’ Day public holiday
Friday: homework due in
Tables test – 7x
Spelling test
Swimming – remember costumes, towels, goggles (if you wear them) etc…

Looking forward to a wonderful week together.
Miss Jann

The P6s have spent an enormous amount of time this week preparing their displays for the exhibition, making them as colourful and attractive as possible. The P5s have been easing back into their unit and reviewing Maths from the last semester.

UOI – P5 Unit 5 – ‘Law and Order’
Central Idea: Different communities and groups establish different rules by which they operate
The children will complete their summative tasks this week.

UOI – Exhibition Unit – ‘Shaping Positive Change’
Central Idea: Seven billion people requires us to confront the threats to our health, environment and society
If they haven’t already, it is very important that the children decide on some ‘Action’ which they personally take in an attempt to alleviate the problems associated with their issue on a local level. Obviously for issues like deforestation this is more straightforward. We can plant trees. For other issues it may mean creating some kind of educational material simply to make others aware of the problem.

It also remains crucial that the children use a variety of means to display their evidence. We will spend Monday filling any gaps in the children’s evidence. Then we will try to ensure each pair is using a variety of presentational methods. Tuesday and Wednesday will be spent arranging their displays and practicing their oral presentations with each other to build confidence before the day of the exhibition. Proofreading and coaching of oral presentations are two ways that you can support your child now.

Reading, Writing and Drama
Reading, writing, viewing and presentation skills will all be much used over the next few weeks as the children look for evidence and information to support their inquiry.

Maths
This week the P6s will be focused entirely on exhibition. The P6s will again review a range of Maths covered this year before we reunite next week.

P.E. – is on Wednesday.
Thursday there will be no swimming as it is a public holiday.

Library – we will try to find a slot during the week to change library books.

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