Moshi Campus News – 26 May 2019

Congratulations to the Class of 2019.

This weekend we had our final events culminating with the Graduation on Saturday.  While the weather played games with us in the lead up, it held off for the pictures and for the event itself.  The student introductions, speeches and awards clearly highlighted the strengths and diversity of talents within this class and the promise they hold for the future.  From all of us here at ISM: Good Luck wherever your future path takes you and look back fondly on your time here.  As well, know you are always welcome to come back and visit.

Fantastic is the word that comes to mind looking at K-hall on Saturday. This, Rafiki and the dinner the night before looked great, so thank you to everyone that helped prepare the different halls for these days.  I know there is a tremendous amount of work involved and it took a team to get everything ready.

I would also like to thank the parents for your support over the time your child has been with us and for traveling here to share this event with us.  To the boarding parents and teachers, it is clear the students have valued the work you have done to get them to this weekend, and we all thank you for that.

Pictures of Saturday will be made available soon, and links will be sent out in a separate email.

Bob Cofer

This weekend, all eyes will be on our D2 graduates of 2019 as they celebrate the end of their ISM journey and, together, look forward to all that is to come. At a time when there is such a collective focus on the future, it is, perhaps, timely to also take a moment to look back.

This is a time of significant and exciting development at ISM. In August, we will become the 18th UWC. Undoubtedly, a pivotal moment in our history. However, it is easy to forget that ISM has already changed enormously over the last 50 years. Change is the only constant as the saying goes and the world of education is subject to continual and ongoing adjustments and developments.

Change is often messy. As renowned educational researcher, Michael Fullan says (I think it was him!), change can be like “navigating a swamp.” One of Fullan’s eight lessons about change states that successful change must involve connection with the wider environment. This lesson highlights the assumption that other stakeholders outside of the organisation will have an interest in the change process and a role to play in its successful implementation.

In light of this, a group of M3 students have started creating a “Hall of Memories” at the end of the breezeway. The hope is that this will become an area of happy reflection and contemplation. A place to capture some of our long history. The M3s have designed and implemented this initiative with support from teachers and are making steady progress. The plan is for one wall and the ceiling to be completed before the end of the quarter and for an ISM timeline to be created by our very own alumni during the alumni weekend in July.

Change is never linear and often enormously complex. “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft a-gley.” Much like the ground underfoot at the moment, the swamp may be muddy at times. However, if we look back at everything we have achieved as a community over the last 50 years and as long as we continue to move forward together, it can only bode well for the future.

Ben Morley

M5 Class 
On-Screen Examinations
The M5 onscreen examinations ended successfully on Friday May 24 without any hitches. We are thankful to the school community for the support. Results are due shortly after August 1, 2019. The students have put in a lot of effort and we wish them well.

End Year Reports
The M5 end year reports will be released shortly after May 27. These reports will reflect work done for the whole of this academic year. The rest of the MYP students will have their reports released during the last week of this quarter.

Work Experience Week
The M5 students will be out of campus as from May 27 to 31 for their work experience week. We thank parents for their support in getting their children respective organizations/institutions to work in this year. The students will be back on campus on June 3.

M5 Ceremony
On behalf of the M5 candidates and staff, we invite all members of ISM community to join us during the M5 ceremony slated for Saturday June 8 as from 12 noon. This will be a culminating ceremony that marks the conclusion of MYP for the M5s. Karibuni!!!

M4 Class
The M4 students begin their end year examinations on Thursday May 30. These exams continue up to Monday June 3.

David Ochieng

The Primary sports calendar has really heated up no more so with the Primary Sports Weekend in Dar es Salaam last weekend.  We took 27 students to compete in U9 and U11 mixed Rippa Rugby, U7 –  U11 swim meet and U9 Boys and Girls and U11 Boys soccer. The weather on the Friday afternoon was ideal for a bit of rugby (raining and muddy) and our teams performed exceptionally in the conditions with our U9 team being the highest placed mixed gender team in 3rd place and the U11 team going all the way to take the champions trophy, only having 1 try scored against them in the entire event.  Our Swimmers were amazing as usual, with PBs everywhere, several medals for individual and relay races and with only 24 swimmers coming in 3rd place of 8 schools (most of which had brought much bigger squads).  The U9 soccer didn’t go our way with both girls and boys finishing 6th. The girls team did amazingly as they had to borrow other teams’ players to to get a full team out and most of the team were below U8 let alone U9.  Our U9 boys managed to win 1 game draw 2 and lose 2 and came last in what was such a tight competition (eventual winners won 2 and drew 3), it really came down to the bounce of the ball, or as the case was the lack of bounce in a huge puddle of water.  All up our students had a fantastic weekend away and their progression, knowledge and most importantly enjoyment in sport has increased tenfold.

Tuesday saw our U9 and U11 touch teams travel to Kennedy House for the first of 2 Touch Rugby Tournaments this year.  Both teams did very well to adapt from the Rippa Rugby they were playing at the Primary Sports Weekend back to Touch Rugby.  The U9s had several close games but ended up in sixth place.  Our U11s had a more successful day out with several players geling and developing great combinations to dominate the 2nd half of the tournament and finishing in 3rd place.  Their next tournament is a home fixture on Saturday the 15th June, so come out and support our teams.

Last Saturday we sent our U9, U11, U13, U15 and U19 team of Cross Country runners to Braeburn to run their gruelling and muddy course. The team went well even though the competition was very strong.  Doris van Zwetselaar the top finisher in 3rd place for the U15 girls catergory and Jerome Nsiiro for the Boys came in 4th in the same age category.

Best of luck to our U9 and U11 Netballers who will play in the NTAA tournament at Kennedy house this Saturday. Games start at 9.30am so if you fancy a bit of sport or just want to support our students pop down to Usa River and cheer on our Leopards.

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

Sports Celebration Afternoon – Semester 2
We will run the Sports Celebration Afternoon for semester 2 on Thursday the 13th of June at 5pm in Rafiki Hall where we will present MVP and coaches awards to students from all sports played since February and the much-anticipated sports people of the year awards.  There will be refreshments and nibbles available from 4.30pm with the presentations starting at 5pm. Parents and family welcome.

Athletics Day
Athletics day will be held on Wednesday the 19th of June for all students. Please make sure you have your house banners, chants and colours ready for this event.

Saturday Soccer – Cancelled this week due to netball tournament
For the football fans out there don’t forget that Saturday soccer is back on from 9am to 10.30am for PYP students.  Please make sure students are wearing cleats for this or they will not be able to participate.

Saturday Campus Run
Every Saturday at 7.15 there is a campus run around the perimeter of the school grounds. Meet at the picnic tables by the PE block to join in.

Wednesday CrossFit

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

Community Sports
ISM is now facilitating community Ultimate Frisbee on a Monday and Thursday at 5.30pm and Touch Rugby Wednesday at 5.15pm on the fields for Moshi community members who would like to play.  Note: people who are not in the ISM community need to pay a 3,000TSH fee to help maintain the facilities per session.

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 or just improve their endurance.  Starting after the long weekends have finished, 3rd May.

Go Leopards
Robin Marsh

All that starts well, ends well. This week has been great and students are well into their new units of inquiry. There is an air of excitement and I have heard students already talk about the summer holidays. The P5s were really sweet as they made some invites to teachers and other members of staff for the Gathering of Gratitude. We hope to see as many of you there as possible. This will be on Tuesday, the 28th of May from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m.

On June 10th we will have the P6 Ceremony and Move-up. This is when the P6s get their certificates for finishing the PYP. All P6 parents are welcome. For the move-up, they spend the day with the M1s in the Secondary where they play some team building games, find out more about their next class and meet some of their new teachers.

Parents of the P6 students are invited to a M1 Move-up Q&A session to learn more about the coming year. This will be on the 11th of June from 7:35 in the Social Center.

Cathy Wambua-Saha

Stories can be related back to our own lives. We began by reading the opening part of Charles Dickens fairy tale about a wishbone. The fairy demands only that the one wish given by the wishbone be ‘a good one’. The children discussed with each other the ‘one good wish’ that they would make, and as you’d expect the results were very much a set of wishes that related to thier own selves. After a second discussion about a good wish perhaps being more for others than ourselves, we came up with some further ideas:

“I’d wish for food on everyone’s table in the World”.

“My one wish would be to become the fairy. Then I could grant everyone any wish that they wanted”.

“I wish everyone to be turned into a good Transformer. Then there would be no bad Transformers, and no more fighting”.

This week’s picture is of our three intrepid swimmers. Wim Hof would have been proud.

Owain Evans

We had a chance to upscale our surveys this week. The children came up with a list of questions that would yield useful information and went around the primary classes to carry out their surveys. One group’s question was ‘What kind of clubs do you like most?’ Each group has taken on the responsibility of sharing the information they have collected with a staff member in the school. So the mentioned group will give the information to the teacher responsible for creating the clubs list next school year. All our surveys will be available for you to see once they are complete.

Where do we get information from when we want to learn about the past? This was the question we were investigating this week. Artefacts and museums came up in the top of our list.

‘I have an artefact at home. It is a toy that I have had since I was a baby.’ This is a great place for you to google some information and have interesting discussions with your children. Next week, we will be asking questions about our own family histories.

Mboka Mwasongwe

It’s been a week of projects and tired students recovering from the busy sports weekend in Dar. It’s also hard to believe that there is only a month left of school! The students are excited about the upcoming holiday, while the teachers are still thinking about what material needs to be covered before the break.

This week in class, we have spoken about time, day and night, seasons and living things who are nocturnal and diurnal. Students have undertaken inquiry tasks into how we get day and night? What are the seasons and how do we get them? Why is the sun important? As well as How does the sun give us energy? Videos have been created using Lensoo and Stop Motion Studio. In the lab, students have picked either a nocturnal or diurnal animal, and are busy looking at why the animal has adapted to the particular time of the day. In light of looking at day and night, we have also been talking about time using clocks. This will be ongoing till the end of the year.

A reminder that Tuesday is the Gathering of Gratitude. As a last note, students have asked me to add a special note in the newsletter. They’d like everyone to know that P2/3 is Awesome!

Elisha Jaffer

The week has been a burst of learning. The young inquirers are finding out about needs around us, humanitarians and organizations that help people with different needs. We were visited by Dr Mac and M4 Biology students and learned about evolution and natural selection among other scientific theories. The students have been revising different concepts and using their knowledge to connect to their learning. One of the major connections I have heard this week was, “Poverty is usually portrayed as the lack of money or resources but actually it is also the lack of opportunities as well.” Parents are welcome to share any information on organizations that help different people here in Moshi.

Cathy Wambua-Saha

The P5 class had a grateful week preparing for next Tuesday’s Gratitude Gathering. We all created a skit together on Monday, and have been practicing and fine tuning it daily. They were able to talk about people at ISM that have made their schooling a positive experience. It was nice to hear such a wide variety of appreciation for our school community.

They did their Spring reading assessment with me today, and the whole class has improved their reading fluency by impressive amounts. They are enjoying reading time in class, and begging for more time with DEAR (Drop Everything And Read). Yesterday, they corrected their own math assessment to see their personal growth. I will meet with them next week to reflect on their achievements.

Our final unit about Natural Resources is underway. We are planning for a hike to the river next week, TBD, based on weather. In case weather permits an excursion, children should wear good shoes for a hike daily. Water bottles too please.

Sarah Brummel

This week we have been busy writing thank you letters to the many people that helped us with our exhibition. We have also been preparing for Tuesday’s Gathering of Gratitude. I hope you will be able to attend this event  at 7:35 in Rafiki Hall. In maths we have been looking at strategies to speed up mental multiplication. Our language work has focused on the literary techniques often used in poetry. The children have been reading The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes and have been identifying rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, similes and metaphors. Next week the children will write their own poems and employ some of these techniques. We have made a start on our new Unit of Inquiry about natural resources. Next week the children will look at the uses of plants and will also look at food chains and consider the role that plants play. We had a lovely class party on Thursday to celebrate the end of the PYP exhibition. Mr. Morley taught us some new games and Mr. Marsh led a lively rendition of the Macarena (see photo.)

Deborah Mills