Moshi Campus News – 23 Sep 17

For us what was a Day of Peace has been a week of activities focused on our ideals of peace and diversity.  The assembly started things off well with great performances from students across the school.  In classes students looked at these in a number of ways, some of which you can read about below in the primary class notes.  I will echo the notes from one student that said this was only a start; that a day needs to become a week, to become a month, a year and so on.  I believe that, in the spirit of the UWC founding principles, students are naturally open to diversity, in fact they sometime don’t even notice the differences. By providing them the opportunity to meet people with different views and from different cultures they learn to be globally focused.  Schools like ours, with our varied student body and boarding culture, provide a perfect place for constant exposure to different ideas and beliefs.  This exposure should lead to understanding of these differences as a positive force and thus ultimacy to helping build peace through this understanding.

Friday our M5 to D2 students met with admissions representatives from MIT and Harvard to discuss the admission process to US universities and in particular what these two universities had to offer.  From the rapt attention throughout the presentation, I believe the students learned a lot from this time.

In line with many schools, and with a focus on security, we are expanding the use of ID cards on campus.  The guards at the gates are being given instructions to check ID to see who should be allowed on campus.  As parents, this means that you will need to come see Grace in the office to be issued an ID card.  If you have a dada that comes to collect your kids they will need one as well.

If you are one of those people that use the south gate, in addition to the main gate, please let us know as this will impact which card you have.  There is an additional part on there that lets security know that you can pass through this gate.

The cards are free, but there will be a replacement charge of 10,000Tsh if they are lost to cover the cost of replacing it.

Thank you to everyone who had a hand in the mural.  Our diversity mural is coming along nicely, all the hand prints are in place and the lettering will likely be done this weekend.  Please check it out as you come in Monday.

Thank you to those who worked to create our first Farmers’ Market here in Moshi.  From everything I saw and heard the day was a great success.  We are working to make this a monthly event so keep an eye out for our next announcement.

On Monday and Tuesday, the PTA will be taking class and individual student photos.  These photos will be available for purchase by parents with proceeds going to the school scholarship fund.  The Secondary student photos will be Monday and the primary student photos will be on Tuesday, so please plan to dress accordingly.

Parents of Diploma students are advised to monitor the progress of their children via ManageBac and communicate any time with DP teachers or myself if you have any questions or concerns.

For parents of D2 students, coursework-related stress increases in the next few months as a majority of the course work is due and students start working on university applications.  This is a particular problem for students who find time management remains a challenge.  Please keep constant conversations with your child so you can provide advice on this, and contact us as well if needed.

Weblinks:
On the positive impacts of CAS & Service Learning – https://bit.ly/2u0fo7t
On childrens’ friendships – https://on.wsj.com/2x2k1hQ
ISM’s DP continues to highlight academic honesty as does the IB.  Here is the winner in the academic honesty IB video completion –https://vimeo.com/215501986

Rick Fitzpatrick

We are approaching the midway point of the semester, and the break is in two weeks.  This means that all of the MYP students are focused on various activities and you can view the results of their assessments on ManageBac.  In particular, the M5 students are back from their leadership symposium and will be involved in a service activity this next weekend at a local school.  They also are working to complete their personal project drafts for this upcoming week.  The M4 students will be off on Tuesday to West Kili for their interdisciplinary trip looking at the impacts of altitude on the eco-system.

David Ochieng

Thanks for sending your children in blue and white clothes on Monday for Spirit Day. As some of you witnessed, the Peace Assembly was very moving. This week some of the children’s learning has focused on the themes of peace and diversity. All the primary children added their hand prints to our hand print mural, i.e. to represent the diversity of the ISM community. We hope to get that completed next week.

Last week the P1 – P6 completed their summative assessment work and you will have received feedback from the class teacher regarding this. Next week they will begin their second unit of inquiry.

I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank those parent volunteers who have run enjoyable and varied primary clubs during Quarter 1; including Ballet, Makerspace and Art Lovers. If any parents wish to commit to running a weekly one-hour club in Quarter 2, please contact me on: kateschermbrucker@ed.ismoshi.com

Notice: On Tuesday all the primary children will have their school photos taken.

Kate Schermbrucker

HOME OF THE LEOPARDS

This past Friday September 15th, the U15 Boys Basketball and U15/19 Boys football were in action. Each team performed well and the results were excellent. More games versus local schools will be organized so keep tuned in.

ISM will host the NTAA schools on Saturday September 23rd when the U11 Rounders team plays. Come out and support the team.

Our Varsity Swim team is competing in Mwanza this weekend, check back here next week for a report and photos.

The Indoor Football Tournament has started with lots of great action, come out and watch the next round of games on Monday September 25th.

On Thursday October 5th, the Secondary School Inter House Sports Day will take place. Please click here for the schedule and important information.

As the season and year progress please keep up with all the info, news, and sports reports by reading the Moshi Campus News.

Go Leopards

Scott Hibbard

We are approaching the end of the quarter on Friday October 6th.  Students in boarding should plan to travel on this day or Saturday morning.  Please contact Rosemary Bango to make arrangements for travel.  If you are coming to collect your child please plan of attending the secondary parent conferences from 10:30 to noon on that Friday.

The children loved our whole school peace assembly on Monday. They sat, listened and sang along for over an hour and we had a great discussion later. This week was diversity week and the children enjoyed adding handprints to our mural.

We researched the school lives of children in England, India, Japan and Mongolia through videos. This helped build our understanding of similarities and differences as we move to our final assessments and the end of this first term together.

The children have been reading with me, beginning to look at the difference between letters and words, remembering letter sounds and trying to blend those sounds together. We’ve worked on confidence with positive encouragement as we start the reading journey. We must first and always work to help create and foster an image within each child of themselves as competent and ‘great readers’.

We ate the first strawberries today from our class garden… fruits of our labour!

Owain Evans

Dear Parents,
We completed our summative assessments this week. You will be receiving your child’s individual assessments through your email with a video recording of their work. They worked very hard, collaborating in groups. For most of them, this was the first time they had to share responsibilities. We begin our next unit on the 25th. We will be inquiring into understanding how and why living things thrive and how this can help us connect with nature.

Thank you to everyone who helped us with our class survey. We chose 6 items to report on. We made a block graph on our board to share the results with you. Please pass by and ask your child questions concerning it.

P1/2 will be giving a short presentation this Friday during primary gathering. You are very welcome to join us.

Sounds of the week:
Phase 2: ck and e
Phase 3: ai

Mboka Mwasongwe

Thank you to everyone who came to our Work Share. I hope you were able to see the learning journey the children have begun.

This week we began our second unit which focuses on the central idea:

• People use many different forms of expression to convey their uniqueness.

We will spend this week tuning into the unit and looking at how artists communicate ideas or feelings.

Whilst reading, the children will be using their schema to help make predictions.

In writing we will be looking at features used in non-fiction books and beginning to write our own group ones.  In math, we will be looking at 2 and 3 dimensional shapes. We will focus on names and attributes of each. We also continue our work on developing our number sense.

Please ensure that you child bring their home readers to school every day and all homework is complete.

Website to try:
https://www.learninggamesforkids.com/spelling_games.html

PE: Tuesday and Thursday
Tuesday – class and individual photographs
Library: Tuesday
Homework due on: Friday

Have a great weekend

Clare Hibbard

We have ended the unit on a high note with a visit to KCMC’s Clinic for Persons with Albinism. The students got to learn about some of the challenges people with Albinism (PWA) face. Understanding what  they need to feel safe and protected the students have taken action and raised over 100,000 tsh. The clinic suggested we use this to buy wide brimmed hats to donate for those in need.  If anyone knows of company that can sell us full brimmed hats at a good price please email me with the details.

The students loved having the parents visit us in celebration of UN Day of Peace on Thursday.  A big thank you to the parents who were able to support our event by bringing foods from all over the world. We got to taste fondue, German biscuits, waffles and lovely Indian treats, on top of this the students were thrilled to have a devoted audience to listen to their presentations. I was really proud of their effort and hope to see continued confidence and growth in researching, speaking and presenting. Next week we are excited to begin our new unit.

Julie Bowen

We had a wonderful week in P5. The children shared information about their home cultures with their classmates. We heard prayers, songs and music. We looked at posters, national costumes, flags and artefacts. We tasted cookies, sweets and scones. Most importantly we learned new things about each other and celebrated our diversity.

Next week we will begin our new Unit of Inquiry:
“People’s relationship with the Earth’s resources drives many of our actions.”

We will consider:

• How communities and individuals use resources.
• Access to resources.
• The impact of the availability of resources on communities.
• Consequences of our choices on the earth’s resources.

If you would be happy to come in to class to talk with the children or have any information to share about good locations for field trips we would love to hear from you.

Deborah Mills

This week kicked off with our Peace Day assembly and the presentations were lots of fun and some were very touching. Thank you Shose and Scarlett for speaking very confidently about making peace around you.

We have worked on our Summative Assessment, and all the students are very proud of their work. We have set up Seesaw accounts, which will allow your child to share their presentations and assessment tasks they have done during the unit.

The P6s are being very proactive in sharing feedback through their Google classroom where they get instructions for their homework and collaborate with each other. Parents/Guardians, you will be added to your child’s account so you can see the homework task they get.

Our new unit:
Central Idea: People’s relationship with the earth’s resources drives many of our actions
Lines of inquiry:

• How communities and individuals use resources
• Access to resources
• The impact of the availability of resources on communities
• Consequences of our choices on the earth’s resources

In the coming week we will take the students to the Karanga River just behind the school to learn about the Earth’s resources and the human activity around there.

Cathy Wambua