Moshi Campus News – 19 April 2019

This next represents the final, yet abbreviated, week of classes for our D2 students. Through two years they have worked hard to get to this point and experienced the highs and lows of the Diploma Programme.  While they are not done yet, there is still a sense of accomplishment having reached this milestone. 

For some students, they know where they will be heading to in September, and for those who have their University acceptance, we congratulate you.  Once again, the graduates to be have received fantastic offers to many top programs around the world.  However, for some, the wait is still there as they have conditional offers. Many of those students feel they are under tremendous pressure. To you I say, if you plan well and take full advantage of the support structure around you, then you can all do well. 

So, in your last week of classes, savor the time with your friends and teachers, do not forget to thank those that helped you get to this point and above all enjoy this week.

For the rest of us, we do have classes beyond next week, but let us not forget the days off still to come:

• Monday, April 22nd
• Friday, April 26th
• Wednesday, May 1st

I hope everyone has a great long weekend.

Bob Cofer

Summit magazine is going digital-first and cutting down on print editions as the school takes steps towards reducing wastefulness.
To pre-order a printed copy of Summit 2019 please email: development@ed.ismoshi.com.

Are you leaving Moshi?

Do you have household items that you want to sell?

Save the date!

ISM Brownies are holding a

Garage Sale

Date: Saturday, 1st June

Time: 10:00 AM  – 1:00 PM

Place: Karibu Hall, International School Moshi, Lema Road.

Come along and stock up on toys, books, household items etc.

More details to follow.

A Chagga Village near Moshi is in great need. They lack any toilet system and, as a result, have resorted to defecating outside. This can potentially be the cause of several diseases and sicknesses that could arise in the village community. To combat this growing hygienic issue, I have decided to fundraise money to have a pit latrine built in the village so that the likelihood of sickness is minimized. In order to do this I plan to have a series of candy sales during this and next quarter. The candy has been brought over from China, and will be available to students and staff during lunch hours and after school. Everyone deserves stable hygienic conditions, and a toilet goes without saying! The sale is on Tuesday April 23rd on the top breezeway during lunchtime and after school. Please come and buy candy to support this cause, and any donations you are willing to offer will greatly be appreciated by both me and the villagers.

The PYP Exhibition is just around the corner and our P6 students are deeply involved in meaningful, purposeful inquiry and, more importantly, action in and around the campus. As many of you are aware, in the final year of the PYP, students, carry out an extended, in-depth, collaborative project known as the PYP Exhibition. This is a prolonged process that involves students working collaboratively to conduct an in-depth inquiry into real life issues or problems. The hope is that, with support, the students will collectively synthesise all of the essential elements of the PYP in ways that can be shared with the whole school community. The Exhibition also provides teachers with a powerful and authentic process for assessing student understanding.

I have been genuinely impressed by our P6 students over the last few weeks. For those of you who were lucky enough to be at our assembly on Monday, you will have heard the P6 students share their planned action relating to their Exhibition group. Not only did each and every one of them speak with confidence, clarity and assurance, their planned action highlighted how connected and purposeful their ongoing learning is. It is easy to see how the Exhibition process provides schools and students with a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the transition of learners to the next phase of their education.

Arguably the most impactful element of the process has been the opportunities for the students to get out into the local community and find real life issues that they can support. Each group has had opportunities to interact with local organisations and initiatives and their planned action has the potential to have genuine impact. We have groups exploring how people’s reliance on plastic is impacting the world, how equal opportunities affect people’s lifestyle and happiness, how human actions can impact the way people think about and treat animals, how technology impacts our lives with a variety of consequences and, last but not least, how limited food resources have an impact on people’s lifestyles and behaviour.

The students are involved in strategic and far reaching research, using protocols such as MISO (Media, Interviews, Surveys, Observations and Experience) to help them. Thank you to the parents and teachers who have been supporting these visits and acting as Mentors throughout the journey. I am already looking forward to the Exhibition in May. Mark your diaries now.

Ben Morley

Well done to everybody that joined us for the eco-brick bench building activity on Saturday 13th April. The eco-brick bench is still not finished so on Saturday 27th April, starting at 8:00 am we will have another building session. We are hoping you can keep making eco-bricks so we can finish the bench. An eco brick is a plastic bottle filled as firmly as possible with soil or plastic waste. Bring your eco-bricks to Room 16 for house points. There is also a box for collecting eco bricks outside room 36.

The Plastic Protesters (Mark and Imani)

And so we move into the final week of school for our D2 students, final lessons will be held on Wednesday, final day of school is on Thursday, and then our D2 students begin their study week before first examinations on the 3rd May.

Graduation Dinner will be held on the evening of Friday 24th May and our annual Graduation Ceremony on Saturday 25th May. We look forward to seeing all parents, guardians and family of our D2 students at both events.

Anthony Hemmens

MAP Tests
The secondary(M1-M3) MAP tests were successfully concluded on Thursday April 18. All the students present during the sessions successfully took the tests. Just like before, the results will be out in the next two weeks.

M1-M2 – Approaches to Learning Workshops
The M1 and M2 students concluded workshops on approaches to learning skills this week. The workshops covered Self-Management and Communication skills. They covered organization, note-taking and command terms (active verbs) used while writing assessments and assignments. We shall now embark on evaluating the impact of these workshops as we review students’ work.

M5 ePortfolio
The ePortfolio student work in English and French LA, Drama, Personal Project, Music and Visual Arts have been uploaded on IB secure site. The final moderated results will be released in August 2019.

M5 Community Service at Kibo Secondary
The M5 students were at Kibo Secondary on Wednesday April 17. The students worked on the walls of the girls’ dormitory in readiness for the paint works slated for the next Wednesday.

M5 Candidates’ Timeline

• May 14 – May 2019 eAssessments begin
• May 24 – eAssessments end
• May 27 – Work Experience Week begins
• June 8 – M5 Ceremony

David Ochieng

A quiet few weeks approaching on the NTAA tournament front as most other schools are on their 2 week April break.  We will have the advantage coming into the last seasons as we will have 2 extra weeks of training and hard work to give us the edge.

We will get cross country training under way next Tuesday at 4.15pm for any students wanting to participate from U9, U11, U13, U15 and U19.  The Race will be held on the 18th of May.  There are extra training sessions available on Friday mornings at 5.30am and also Saturday at 7.15am for those students who want more group sessions. Please contact Mr Marsh if you would like to be added to the team.

See the table below for what is still to come this Quarter.

Saturday Soccer
For the football fans out there don’t forget that Saturday soccer is back on from 9am to 10.30am for PYP students.

Wednesday CrossFit

Community and student CrossFit is on every Wednesday from 3.15pm.

Friday Interval Training
Friday mornings 5.30am there is interval training for those student and community members who want to increase their speed in distance running, ideal for the cross-country team.  Starting after the long weekends have finished, 3rd May.

Have a great Easter
Go Leopards
Robin Marsh

Last weekend, 6 swimmers (Anna B, Delhem R, Patrick S, Sil K, Maria B & Christopher F) representing TEAM ISM flew to Dar to compete in the 2019 Tanzania National Club Championships. Only the 2 fastest swimmers from each age group for each event were allowed to swim for the club – if they made the fast qualifying times – making it very competitive. Our swimmers did really well with the team coming 7th out of 10 clubs overall. Delhem even set a new national record in the 100m IM in the Boys 12 & Under category! Altogether, 12 medals and 482 points were collected by our swimmers.

Last but not least is our final gala which will be swum by our primary team when they travel to IST for the Primary Sports Weekend in Dar on May 17th. We wish them all the best of luck!

Last week we held the inter house basketball competition for M1-M4 and M5-D2 during lunch Monday to Tuesday.  A huge thank you to Mr Jackson who umpired all matches all week.  The competition was fierce, and we had some great games with the 3 houses fighting hard to take the top spot.  The results were as follows:

M1-M4

• 3rd – Mawenzi
• 2nd – Kibo
• 1st – Meru

M5 – D2

• 3rd – Mawenzi
• 2nd – Kibo
• 1st – Meru

Meru were comfortable winners in the M1-M4 category, however the M5-D2 category came down to a for and against count back as both Kibo and Meru were on 3 wins each. Meru girls had a big win over Kibo girls tipping the balance for them to take the accolades with +15 differential vs Kibos’ -5 differential.  This means that Meru have caught up a little on the leader board closing the gap with Kibo by 20 points.

There are still plenty of events to come in the next 10 weeks so expect the action to heat up as we look to see if Meru can make the comeback of the year to take the house competition, will Kibo continue to lead or can Mawenzi replicate some of the successes from the start of the year.  It is all to play for.

The Easter break falls on Friday 19th to Monday 22nd April. We therefore have no classes on Friday 19th and Monday 22nd respectively. A number of boarders have traveled to go and spend the weekend with their parents. Various activities were planned for the weekend for those who remained on campus including a campout night, trips off campus and other activities.

The D2 students are busy, preparing for their final examinations which begin early next month. Their last day in class will be Thursday April 25th. The following week they will begin their study leave. During this period D2 boarders will be allowed to study in their dorms but are encouraged to come to school for consultation with their teachers.

Happy Easter break!

Rosemary Bango

It has been a 4 day week at ISM but, reading the articles below about what has been happening in the PYP classes, we seem to have fitted in 5 days’ worth of activities. The children have participated in field trips (with more planned for next week), class pot luck meals, walks around our beautiful campus, story telling and research. Next week will be another “short” week but will no doubt be just as full with productive activity. Many thanks to those families that came along to help build the eco-brick bench in the PYP playground last Saturday (see photo.) There is another opportunity to join in with this fun and community spirited activity on April 27th. Enjoy the 4 day weekend. We look forward to seeing the children back in school on Tuesday.

Cathy Wambua-Saha

This week the children focused on using art to re-tell the book ‘The Great Kapok Tree’. As you’ll remember, we have focused on this story as a class during book week, producing our own door. We changed the story a little to produce our own show in last week’s primary gathering.

But why spend so much time on a single story? We haven’t of course, a look around our classroom will quickly show that a huge variety of story invitations abound.

That said, we might imagine a central story like this as a way to provide a well understood and familiar ‘landscape’ for young children to operate within.

We can comfortably move around within a known landscape experimenting with things like dance, art, drama and literacy to experience it more fully. We can begin to build and transfer knowledge and skills in a meaningful way that truly connects to our experience. 

The children went on to add letters and words to their drawings. They were able to separate the story of the tree into simple parts (beginning, middle and end).

We can move through a ‘landscape’ with basic skills (like our ‘ABC’s’, or how to build a basic shelter) fully known. Being able to combine them with an understanding of how, when, where and why to use them… that’s something quite different.

Owain Evans

Natural resources groups have been formed and they have been busy carrying out their research on kids YouTube this week. They will continue working on this in the coming short week as well. If you have time over the coming Easter break, please give them access to google or kids You Tube at home so they can continue their research at home.

Counting in fives and working through games on our Ipads got everyone involved in maths this week. P2’s have been quick to link counting in 5’s to multiplication, applying the knowledge from last week. We will continue this in the coming short week and begin to link it to counting in 10’s as well. Practicing these with your children at home will be much appreciated as it will increase their mental math speed.

P1/2 have been working hard to increase the number of books read on Epic. They are devouring books by the day in school and at home. We are glad to see this reading culture growing amongst us. Please encourage them to keep it up.

Mboka Mwasongwe

To start off this week’s newsletter, I’d like to recap to last Friday where many students from P2/3 performed at the school talent show. The students did a fantastic job and I was very proud of them. It was lovely seeing parents and students come out to support the performers.

This week started off with a wonderful Earth Day assembly. Students have been talking about the video they saw about plastic pollution in the Galapagos. Thank you Ms. Webb and the Eco Club for holding this assembly.

Students have spent time in the community garden this week and learnt to differentiate between the sweet corn plants and weeds. We spent some time weeding the corn beds (while some of us may have been attacked by siafu) and realizing there were far more weeds than we initially anticipated.

Students have been learning about perimeter this week, this will be followed up by area next week. We plan on measuring our sweet corn beds to find out what the perimeter and area of them are.  Students have been using a combination of Gliffy and Lucid Charts to create flow charts of how fresh food, and processed food ends up on our tables. These can be seen on SeeSaw.

A reminder that next Thursday, 25th April, is our field trip. Please ensure all permission slips are in by then.

Elisha Jaffer

In P4 this week we have been researching about different biomes, where they are found and which animals live in them. We did a nature walk around the school and the children put their observation skills to good use, pointing out various living things found in our ecosystem (see photo.) Next week we will be looking at the characteristics of ecosystems and the animals found in them. We have also been doing some report writing and reading responses and will continue with this next week. In math we have been working on division, perimeter and fractions. Next week we will be doing some work on shape and space. We will be investigating slides, flips and turns as well as learning new terms such as congruency.

Cathy Wambus-Saha

This week was a shorter week, yet very full with fun activities and awesome moments. Today was Healthy Body Day to celebrate health, which ended with a delicious feast. Thank you all for contributing such great options for the children to eat. I encouraged them to taste a little of everything that was brought, and it turned out with some being very pleased with what they were trying. We took time to run and swim laps today, as well as play games on the pitches.

Yesterday, the class completed five art projects, which left the room a bit messy. At the end though, they worked as an incredible team and cleaned the room, washed the supplies, and put away material. They will bring home their art portfolios next week.  I think you will be as equally impressed as I was on how the pieces turned out. They are brilliant!

Sarah Brummel

This week the GEOs (Gender Equal Opportunities) visited the Tatu Project at Msitu wa Tembo and learned about micro lending and a bicycle renting scheme to support women’s empowerment.  They also organized a girls’ only soccer session at break time on Thursday and ran a sports session for girls from a local primary school. The Plastic Protesters helped co-ordinate the eco bench building on Saturday and are still collecting eco bricks (plastic or soil filled plastic bottles) as part of a house competition. The food fighters are planning to go to TPC next week to collect sticks to weave into a container to store compost, using some of the ISM kitchen waste. On Thursday Teach Tech ran a session to teach children from a local primary school how to use Word on the computer. The Triple As went to a dogs’ home in Arusha and are now busy making dogs’ toys. Next week they will interview a Moshi resident who has adopted several stray dogs. The P6 students look forward to seeing you at their Exhibition on May 16th – they will have a lot of interesting information to share with you.

Deborah Mills