Moshi Campus News – 5 March 2017

On Friday the primary children and teachers enjoyed dressing up for World Wildlife Day. Many thanks to all the parents who helped them create and put together their costumes. They looked fantastic and it was a good opportunity to consider how we can all help to further protect our precious wild animals.

Also on Friday, the P6 students welcomed their Exhibition Mentors to a special ‘get to know you’ gathering. The Exhibition children are showing themselves to be both independent thinkers, as well as responsible team mates. On Monday they will share the Exhibition process with the community at the whole school assembly. Parents are welcome to come and watch. Please come to Karibu Hall at 7.35am to find out more about PYP Exhibition.
On Tuesday we welcomed the P2/3 children back from their overnight camp. They had visited Kahawa Shambani, past Rau, to learn about coffee production on Kilimanjaro. They learned from local, small scale farmers who told them all about how they grow and process coffee and sell it as part of a cooperative. They also visited tunnels in the mountainside, dug by the Chagga people, to escape their former enemies in past times.


The P5 class shared their learning at their own Science Fair held on Thursday morning. It was incredible to see the variety of model boats, cars and other self powered machines which they have designed for their unit about energy transformation. The students demonstrated that they are confident communicators when they explained how these worked to parents, teachers and other primary children.
I also had the honour of attending the P4/5 Dragons’ Den event on Friday. Here the self assured students pitched their creative business plans to the invited ‘dragons’. These included student designed websites and financial plans. What an exciting way to show off their learning and ideas for a unit about the exchange of goods and services.
Many thanks to all the parents who drive slowly and carefully when approaching and entering the school car park each day. Please always take care so that we can continue to keep the children safe and sound.
To keep in touch with the daily goings on in our school – don’t forget to follow us on Twitter (@uwcea).

The big three for this week are the Secondary Swim Gala, the ISTA Drama festival and the OP trip. The Swim Gala will be all Tuesday morning with students already signed up to compete for their house. The ISTA trip involves 12 students from the two campuses and leaves Tuesday for Muscat Oman. The OP trip is a level 3 trip to Mount Hanang with Ms Schermbrucker, Ms van der Mijnsbrugge and Mr Jootna.
In the near future, we also have the M3 Science Fair to be held in K-hall on Tuesday March 14th.
Finally, our D2 students are getting the very last of their required internal assessment work in over the next few weeks. This will allow them to focus on the May exams from that point forward. The end of the quarter is not that far away, time is moving quickly. Bob Cofer

We have 3 weekends to the end of the quarter. We break for Easter on Friday 31st March, and return on Tuesday, 18th April. It is that time again that we remind parents to make transport arrangements for the break, if they have not already done so. Students are allowed to leave on Friday morning. For those using flights, kindly send transport details to the Head of Boarding, Rosemary Bango, on email address rosemarybango@ed.ismoshi.com.
Boarders had a number of activities planned this weekend . Apart from town trip , there were sports, movies, baking with several students and a disco on Saturday evening. Football and Basketball tournaments planned or Saturday at ISMAC were aborted because the grounds were too wet, following heavy rain on Friday night in Arusha.
The boarding community hosted 21 scholarship students on Thursday evening in the Diploma dorms. The students had come for an interview to join the Diploma class next academic year. Some of the students left on Friday evening, but many left on Saturday morning. This gave them an opportunity to join in the Friday evening activities, and it was very encouraging to hear them make positive comments about the school. Rosemary Bango, (Head of Boarding)

Our M1 students returned from their field study trip at Manyara just over a week ago.
More photos from the trip are available to view at www.uwcea.org/m1trip17

Three new sets of photos are now available this week:
M1 Field Study Trip: www.uwcea.org/m1trip17 Boarders in Pangani: www.uwcea.org/pangani17 Moshi Tennis Tournament: www.uwcea.org/tennis17

As the M3 students prepare for their Science Fair presentations and collect their final data for analysis, other MYP students also like to join in the fun. With this in mind, the M5 students investigated how the amount of chewing gum affects the size of bubble one can blow and they came up with an innovative and simple method for measuring the diameter of the bubble. These are the skills which the M3 class are also developing in their individual investigations for the science fair. The planning, data collection and analysis of data for a project you must chose yourself is no easy matter but as always, I have been really impressed with the experimental work the M3 students are doing. They will all present their work on Tuesday, 14th March in Karibu Hall and the show is open to parents (and students) from 10:35am to 12:35.
Please come along and enjoy the enthusiasm, demonstrations and explanations of the M3 students. Zoe McIvor (Dr Mac), MYP Science Teacher

This week a group of our MYP students from both campuses will be attending the Middle School Theatre Festival in Muscat, Oman. Oman is blessed with beautiful beaches and stunning seas. But, like many places in the world, it suffers from a freshwater shortage. How might a place by the sea survive such a shortage? This festival will consider the power and beauty of water and its necessity to life and ask: how can we use theatre to raise awareness of the problems facing our planet? We wish them all an enoyable and rewarding experience. Further details are available at https://ista.co.uk/whats-on/festival/muscat-middle-school-festival.

HOME OF THE LEOPARDS Our Leopard teams had been due back in action on Saturday, 4th March as the 3rd and final round of the NTAA tournament and season had been scheduled at ISMAC. Sadly the tournament was cancelled due to heavy rain in Arusha and some flooding on the Arusha Campus on Saturday morning.
As always you can keep yourself up to date with the important links:

Season Two Practice Timetable: www.uwcea.org/sportspractice

NTAA Schedule of Events. www.uwcea.org/sportsmeeting
The ISM Sports Department is happy to announce two new initiatives. The first is the introduction of Team App. Team App allows us to create our own free custom made smartphone app, which helps us to manage the flow of information and keep the players and parents in touch with the happenings of each team and the ISM Sports Program. During the upcoming season, we will trial this with our Secondary School Rugby team, and Varsity Swimming. The plan will be to monitor the flow of information between these two teams, and ask students and parents for feedback. After the trial we will review the Team App platform, make adjustments and then implement it for the next school year for all ISM teams.
Below you can find a screen shot of the Rugby and Swimming Team pages along with the website links.

https://ismrugbyrugbyleague.teamapp.com
https://ismmoshivarsityswimteam.teamapp.com
The second initiative is the Athletes’ Spotlight. The ISM Sports Department and coaches will be selecting students they believe have demonstrated characteristics of the ISM Leopard Student-Athlete. A picture and short description on why the student-athlete was selected will be presented in the Newsletter and on the Sports Board along the Breezeway, and announced in school assemblies. Please find below the selections from Season One from our NTAA teams:
U15 Boys Basketball – Chris F
U15 Girls Basketball – Magreth B
U19 Boys Football – Louie C
U19 Girls Football – Gladys M
You can find their spotlight picture and coaches write up on the Breezeway Board, as of Monday March 6th.
House Competition The ISM Indoor Football Tournament has taken time off last week, as the M5s have been busy with their Mock Exams, so the tournament will start up again this week, on Monday March 6th. The Championship game will be played on Thursday March 9th.
This has been a great experience for all students involved, so after this event, the ISM Sports Department will run two new tournaments: Co-ed Basketball and Ultimate. Please check your email next week for Information and Sign Ups.
Tuesday, March 7th will be the Secondary Swim Gala. All students and teachers are encouraged to jump in to swim, and compete for their House. Kibo house holds a slim lead over Meru house in the overall points competition. Anything can happen in such a close race.
All students need to be prepared to swim and work as a gala timer or official for their respective house. Every point counts in such a close competition. Please remember to bring a water bottle, sunscreen and a hat.

Click here for the Secondary Swim Gala Schedule: www.uwcea.org/swim
Activities As always the ISM Sports Department wants to advertise three excellent after-school activities, so please find below information regarding swimming, tennis and horseback riding.
Swimming lessons for beginners, intermediate and advanced with Coach Sabini. Those students and parents who are interested in arranging lessons are kindly requested to contact Coach Sabini in person.
Tennis Lessons for beginners, intermediate and advanced players with Coach Charles. Those students and parents who are interested in arranging lessons are kindly requested to contact him at 0757606766.
Horse riding is also available and those interested need to contact Mr Priva at 0758053280 for more information regarding times, prices and requirements.
As the year progresses please keep up with all the info, news, and sports reports by reading the Moshi Campus News.
Go Leopards Scott Hibbard, (Head of Sport and Physical Education)

Jr. Varsity and Varsity swimming took a technical leap this week, going online with Team App. All parents and swimmers in M1 and above were sent an invitation to download Team App for Android or IPhone and benefit from online access to trip permission forms, schedules, photos, events, and much more. This will make communication much easier between the coaches, the school, parents and swimmers, and will compliment the newsletter as a second source of information. With the app, parents can get updates about the swim team sent to their smart device. This app is being used for school teams worldwide! The information can also be viewed at: https://ismmoshivarsityswimteam.teamapp.com
Lots of events coming up. Check out Team App for more details on the following meets:

Tue 7 March 2017 – ISM Secondary Swim Gala – All MYP – DP students

Sat 18 March 2017 – St. Conny’s Swim Gala – Arusha – Primary and Secondary

Thur 23 March – Sun 26 March – ISK Swim Gala – Nairobi

April 7-8, 2017 – TSA National Champs – HOPAC – Dar – All swimmers who wish to attend CANA Zone 4 in Tanzania next year MUST attend

April 10-17, 2017 – ISM Swim Camp – Arusha and Moshi – Day Student option and Boarder option – details soon on Team App!

April 18-May 1, 2017 – Mwanza Swim Gala – details soon on Team App

It’s has been an exciting and full few weeks in Primary Sports. The P2/3 and P4/5 classes are involved in their Striking and Fielding unit. They will have the opportunity to experiment in tennis, rounders, and kickball, through the concepts of form, function, responsibility, and reflection. Recently, we moved into rounders where students looked at proper fielding and batting posture.
The P5 and P6 classes continued their Adventure Challenge unit where they face different challenges in order to analyse how to best solve problems. Effective problem solving cuts across all subject areas, but is a particularly critical skill when playing on a team or during stressful game activity.
Friday was the deadline for teams entering the primary, 5-on-5 indoor football tournament. Teams have been chosen from each house and will play on Wednesday and Thursday at 130pm. The tournament schedule will be posted on Tuesday. Swimmers who are not playing should ensure they attend lunch time swimming with Coach Sabini.

This Thursday, a large group of students from both campuses will be heading south-west to conquer Mt Hanang. Although off the main tourist track, Mt Hanang is the fourth highest mountain in Tanzania at 3417m. We wish all the group much success in their climb.

Photo taken from the 2016 expedition to Hanang

Our D1 students, Sanne and Nandi, have been discussing and writing about sensationalism and censorship in (online) media. We compared countries and also looked at some cases of censorship in the Netherlands. Our current topic is social media. Not only do we focus on risks, but also on advantages. We have looked at text and video and linked both an interactive oral assessment and a written assessment to this topic.
Over the next few weeks, we will be talking about ‘netiquette’ and how to write good emails and official letters in Dutch, for example application letters to Dutch or Belgian universities.
Lianne and Daan, our D2 students, have been working with the topic ‘concepts and stereotypes of beauty’. What are stereotypes? Are there differences between cultures? They made a video called ‘Beautiful is different / Different is beautiful’. The video shows ISM students advocating to break stereotypes. They also completed a writing task linked to this topic and we compared images of stereotypical and atypical beauty. On March, 1, Lianne and Daan submitted the final version of their written assignment, which is part of their official IB exams. We will use this last month of classes to prepare further for the upcoming exams. Elke Van dermijnsbrugge, Dutch B – DP teacher

Congratulations to our teachers who completed the Kilimanjaro Half-Marathon last weekend. Five of the successful runners are pictured here: Ingrid Chavez, Ben Kiema, Gemma May, Doreen Ogello and Valérie Veillon.

As announced above, ISM is now a Beacon School and will be offering Beacon scholarships from 2018. The Beacon Equity Trust is an educational charity whose principal activity is to support the operation of The Beacon Scholarship. It is privately funded and presently operates in the UK and Kenya. More information may be found at www.beaconscholarship.com.
The Beacon Scholarship is a leadership development programme that grows and delivers ‘change-makers’. We find children with leadership potential who have financial need; provide them with access to the highest quality education; offer leadership training and ‘high-touch’ mentoring; and create a vertical pathway for transition into leadership positions. The vision is to develop a group of ethical change-makers who have a multiplier effect to generate positive social change.
The Beacon Equity Trust has built key Partnerships to enable access to top schools and leading international universities via matched-funding scholarships: funding for each Beacon Scholar’s education is usually split equally between Beacon Partners, The Beacon Equity Trust, and Parents/Sponsors/Guardians.

Update:

The next ten days are extremely busy for D2s with final orals in many language classes, written assignments due in these same classes and TOK essays due for submission on March 9th and then the final versions of Math IAs due on March 15th.

D1 Global Politics’ students’ coverage of the ‘Development’ topic included field visits to three Moshi sites that enhanced their learning (see photos).

D1 parents are reminded of the Diploma Progression Policy which states: “At the end of the third quarter, all full diploma students will be expected to have a minimum of 22 points (obtained by adding the reported achievement grades from their six subjects excluding ToK and EE). Any student achieving fewer than 22 points at this stage (or achieving fewer than 11 HL points) will be required to undertake a reduced programme with either fewer subjects or with fewer higher levels in consultation with the Diploma Programme Coordinator.”

M5 students are reflecting on their course selections and meeting with the DPC as they look to commence their D1 studies at ISM in August 2017.

D1s have determined the subjects in which they will write their EEs and are finalizing the research question. This Tuesday’s Guidance hour should see them meeting with their supervisor.
Upcoming The 3rd academic quarter parent-teacher meeting will occur on Friday March 31st. PLEASE ensure that your son/daughter does not leave before 9:15am on that date. It is detrimental to their education to remove them early. Be sure DP students return after the April break for the start of school on Wed April 19th.
Reminder to parents of D2 students re: D2 Graduation weekend events:
a) Decoration of Karibu Hall – Fri May 19th – 9am-noon;
b) Graduation Friday evening dinner at AMEG Lodge in Moshi at 6:30pm;
c) Graduation Ceremony – Saturday May 20th with arrival at 2:00 for a 2:30pm sharp start;
d) Tea in the ISM Director’s Garden 4:30-6:30pm.
Weblinks: On Grit: the power of passion and perseverance (vital for ISM DP students!): www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance
On IB news – www.ibo.org/news
Rick Fitzpatrick, (Diploma Coordinator): rickfitzpatrick@ed.ismoshi.com

Unit of Inquiry This week the children will inquire into our 4th line of inquiry, ‘How light and dark affects the behaviour of living things.’ Before we can tackle this inquiry the children will think once again about ‘living’ means. Then we will inquire into nocturnal animals, plants and humans and how light and dark affect these living things. Please let me know if you would be willing to come into class to talk about any celebrations you may observe in your family that have light as a main focus for example Diwali, Christmas, Chinese New Year and Hanukkah.
Literacy As portfolio conferences are coming up soon, the children will be looking at their portfolios and talking about their work with each other. There will be some assessments to carry out too. This week the EC1 children will find out about the sound x made by Fix -it-Max and EC2 children will think about the sound ch. They will also be looking at upper case letters and matching them to lower case letters. Our writing focus will be about ‘looking out of our windows.’ Describe what you see during the day and at night! We will also continue to look at non-fiction books to help us inquire into nocturnal animals.
Numeracy Our focus in the water and sand trays this week will be on capacity. The children will have some problems to solve involving filling different containers, using vocabulary such as full, empty, half full. Number work continues in groups on estimation, conservation of number, counting skills and number recognition Portfolio assessments will be ongoing this week too.

Congratulations to Maxine, Yuji and Josephine for receiving a green leaf at the Primary Gathering. They all worked very hard in all areas of development to deserve this reward.
International World Wildlife Day – our class was buzzing on Wednesday and Thursday with drawing, painting, cutting and assembling animal masks for this special day. Look at us!!!! We look amazing!
New Unit of Inquiry is: Sharing the planet Central Idea: Human action has the power to preserve or destroy the earth’s natural resources. Lines of Inquiry and key concepts:

Identifying natural resources in the local environment. FORM Discovering how people use natural resources. FUNCTION

Looking at the pros and cons of how we use natural resources. CHANGE

Conserving the natural resources we use. FUNCTION This week we started a fascinating new unit about our planet. We tuned in with a guessing and making connections game. The children needed to name the new unit by looking at pictures and making connections. We also started to find out about different habitat. We watched a beautiful National Geographic documentary about ‘amazing nest architects’ and went outside to collect some sticks, branches and leaves for building a variety of nests in our classroom. English focus of the week This week we were focusing on correct punctuation and using capital letters for names, places and names of the weeks and months. We also try to form letters properly, leave finger spaces between words and making sure that ‘grass letters’ are not as high as ‘sky letters’. We started a new reading activity. Children can bring a book in from home and read a story to the class. Our super reader of the week was Niall. He read The Crocodile tears to the class with great confidence.
Maths focus of the week (Miss Kate) This week the students have been studying place value and this has led to them adding 2, 3 and sometimes 4 digit numbers (column addition). Next week they will learn to carry numbers. I have been pleased with their enthusiasm and commitment. They have also very much enjoyed learning this new place value song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4FXl4zb3E4

What to bring to school every day: Indoor shoes A hat, a water bottle and a healthy snack. The rule is: No hat, no play, no fun.
Monday: Swimming kit | Homework goes home Tuesday: Library Wednesday: ‘Show and Tell’ for Group 1. Thursday: PE lesson – trainers please Friday: ‘Show and tell’ Group 2 | School ends at 12:35.
Thank you for your co-operation! Have a great week ahead! Kind regards, Ms Andrea, P1/2 Teacher

Dear Parents, The P2/3 overnight camp was a huge success. Everyone had a wonderful time camping, learning and exploring. It was such an invaluable experience for all the children. They not only got to understand what a Human Made System looked like, but how it impacted a community of people. They were involved in the production of coffee and were able to make their own coffee and drink the final product. They were also engaged in some local history when we visited the Chagga caves. The children worked together and displayed many of the PYP attributes. Well done P2/3.
Excellent job to everyone who dressed up as an animal to support a good cause.
This Week in class: P2/3 spent the rest of this week reflecting upon what they experienced during their teambuilding camping trip. They identified the highs and the lows. They shared their experiences with each other.
We spent some time reviewing money. Some of the class were working on giving change (subtracting) and others counting by 5s, 10s and multiples of 10 (adding).
We carried out a tuning in activity for our next unit so that we could see what the class knew and what our starting point would be.
The Week Ahead in class Please ensure that your child has indoor shoes to wear in class. This week we will be getting our fifth unit of inquiry into full swing. The children will also be looking at non-fiction books and the different parts each one of them have. We will be planning to make a whole class book based around our new unit where each person will contribute to it.
Unit of Inquiry This week we will be continuing with our new unit and unpacking it further. We will be looking at the following line of inquiry: How the world works Central idea – Life on earth is directly related to how the solar system works. Our lines of inquiry – How day and night are caused
Reading: The children will be continuing to read their Just Right Level books and developing their reading strategies for that level. They will also be working with a reading partner and researching the different aspects of nonfiction books.
Writing: The children will be reviewing non-fiction writing and using certain aspects of it to produce a non-fiction poster. The children will consider what a poster needs in order to make it presentable and informative.
Math: The children will be working on rounding numbers to the nearest ten. We will be estimating during this unit. The children will also be collecting data, interpreting it and recording using a variety of different graphs. Number work is an ongoing and developing skills for all the children.
The Week Ahead: Monday: Homework | Indoor shoes need to be in school Tuesday: Swimming and Library Wednesday: P3 French Thursday: P3 French Friday: PE | Please return completed homework.
Useful websites: www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/money
Well done to Manvir, Mehar and Townes for getting green leaves on their participation during our camping trip. Have a great week Clare Hibbard P2/3

This week the students very proudly presented their business ‘pitches’ in the Dragon’s Den. In this ‘pitch’ they were able to present their business concept in a confident way and requested financial backing from the Dragons (Miss Kate, Sue and Gemma). The students showed teamwork, commitment and confidence as they presented their business plan. Their website will be sent out via email along with the password so you can see what a great effort they had made.
Next week we are starting our new Unit of Inquiry which is Sharing the Planet. Our central idea is natural hazards that result from natural processes often need human intervention. The relationship between natural hazards and earth’s processes (causation), the frequency and intensity of natural hazards (function), how human activity can contribute to some natural hazards.
In math we will explore probability and shape and analyze more complex graphs including weather graphs and data. Julie Bowen, (P4/5 Class Teacher)

This week saw the culmination of our Unit of Inquiry about energy transformation and with it a presentation at a whole school assembly and our P5 science fair. The children are proud and happy after a very successful week. Many thanks to everyone who attended and helped to make it such an enjoyable experience for the P5 children. I would like to draw attention to the contribution made by Ms. Lydia and Mr. Thadeus who sourced many of the materials and tools that we needed and helped the children overcome their difficulties during the design process. The children know that we are very lucky to have such great in class support.
In Maths this week we explored prime numbers and square numbers. It is difficult to work out these numbers without a working knowledge of multiplication tables. Many of the children and quick and accurate in their recall of multiplication facts but some need more practice. Next week we will complete a multiplication self assessment and determine some goals in this area.
The children have been working on the tablets and familiarizing themselves with the Seesaw app. This is an app for storing photos, videos and examples of the children’s work. The children are able to give feedback on each other’s work so it is a very good way to teach digital citizenship and appropriate behaviour when using technology. At our student led conference (March 30th) we hope to show you the work that we have stored on this app.
Next week we will start our new Unit of Inquiry. Central Idea: Governmental systems and decisions can promote or deny equal opportunities and social justice. Lines of Inquiry:

Types of governance – form

How governments use their powers – function

The voice of the people and their rights – responsibility

The problems associated with fairness and decision making – responsibility
If you have any ideas as to where I can take the children for school trips, feel that you would like to come into class to speak to the children, know of someone else who might be able to be a guest speaker or have some other ideas as to how to enhance the learning experience for the children please let me know. I am still new to Moshi and would welcome any suggestions as to how to make the most of the local area and resources available.
The week ahead: Monday: Library, I.T. New homework packet sent home. Tuesday: P.E., Music, French Wednesday: Swahili Thursday: French, I.T. Friday: Swimming, Swahili, Music. Please return homework to school. Deborah Mills, (P5 Teacher)

The P6s were developing their Central ideas and Lines of inquiry and have done a fantastic job. It can be a time consuming process and it surely helped build our character and level of tolerance. We have also tuned into our issues through various sources. The level of curiosity and enthusiasm has led the students to some great findings.
One of the areas that the students are keen about as they continue with their research, is Digital Citizenship. They are aware of respecting each other as they communicate through emails and using age appropriate information when researching. We covered a lot on this while doing our unit on Media and now have a chance to apply what we knowledge.
The students set up a “Meet the mentor” party over break this past Friday, and got to know their mentors better. Thank you parents for sending in snacks and drinks. We appreciate Ms Ogello, Ms Bowen, Ms Pearl and Ms Andrea for offering to be our Exhibition mentors this year.
On Monday the 6th of March, the P6s will be presenting their burning issues, Central Ideas and lines of inquiry through an assembly, in Karibu Hall. The assembly runs from 7:35 to 8:00 a.m. On Friday of the same week, we will be presenting to the Primary students during our Friday Gathering. P6 parents you are welcome to both the presentations.
In the coming week, we move into the Finding out stage. We are looking forward to having a guest speaker in, on Tuesday the 6th of March. This is Nuno’s dad who will be sharing his expertise on biogas. Ms Cathy.

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