Moshi Campus News – 25 Aug 17

Next month we will once again be celebrating the UN Day of Peace, September 21st.  That week we will be having a number of events to celebrate an idea that we strongly believe in.  September 21st also happens to be UWC day, a day the UWC schools use to celebrate their mission and values.  This year’s theme for the day is “The Power of Diversity.” 

As we move forward in our path to become the UWC school in East Africa, this is an opportunity for us to link the concepts of peace and diversity. Unfortunately, there are those in this world that find it hard to connect these two ideas.  Looking around our campus, I can clearly see that our students have no problems connecting these. More importantly, through their everyday actions; through their activities; and through their service our students take action to connect these philosophies.  As we get closer to the week of September 21st, we will be highlighting some of these actions.

Next Friday, September 1st has been announced as a public holiday in Tanzania for Eid El-Hajj.  Due to this there will be no school or clubs on that day.  I hope you enjoy the long weekend.

Thank you to parents who attended the Primary Meet the Teacher evening. It was great to have such a big turnout. We hope you found it useful and that you now have a better understanding of the year ahead for your child. As the children are now delving deeper into their first unit of inquiry please be open to their questions and possible actions; as discussed at the meeting.

Primary Clubs started this week and the children had fun beginning such activities as ballet, makerspace, football, swimming, art lover, tie-dye, rounders, ultimate frisbee, African drums, drama, Brownies and more. Some children have also chosen to attend tennis, football and swim training on Saturday mornings. Many thanks to our parents for always encouraging their children to participate fully.

As Friday is a public holiday, the children should hand their homework in on Thursday morning instead.

Reminder: Please take care when entering and exiting the car park at the start and end of the day. Drive slowly and keep your children next to you when crossing over.

Kate Schermbrucker

This Monday we will have our yearly house assembly.  All students are requested to dress in house shirts for this event.  After competitions like last year’s wrap-up, house captains for secondary and primary will be selected.

This is the season for universities to come visiting.  This is a great opportunity for our M5 to D2 students.  For the M5 this is a chance to learn more about different majors and the requirements for entry that will inform their Diploma course choices.  For the D2 students this is their opportunity to have a last meeting with representatives before they apply.

Current scheduled visits:

Monday September 11th at 2:30pm – UK University Fair

Friday September 22nd at 8:30am – Harvard and MIT

Wednesday September 27th at 2pm – University British Columbia

Monday October 23rd at 3:30pm – Canadian University Fair

This week parents that are new to school should have received an email from our student information system ManageBac.  This was your invite to sign in.

If you did not recieve this eamil, please check your spam filter.  If it is not there, or if you are a parent of a returning student who is having access issues, please contact Grace at gracemkumbwa@ed.ismoshi.com.

ManageBac is the gateway for parents to find out more about the units their children are working on.  In the secondary, parents will also be able to see the results of graded assignments.  ManageBac is also our system for distributing reports, so this access is vital for keeping informed.

Update:

• DP students’ focus and seriousness permeated the campus and the first graded assessments took place this week.  Each subject will have a minimum of two assessments per quarter.  The ISM Assessment Policy guides the DP faculty’s actions in this regard.
• Teachers met and discussed year goals and conversation centered on student accountability and responsibility, homework and issues linked to assessment.
• DP students’ CAS selections have been largely completed.
• D2 History students re-enacted the heated and lengthy South African pre-1994 elections ANC & National Party constitutional negotiations (see photo) with the M5s observing.

Upcoming:

• Pamoja on-line IB courses will start the week of September 6th and those taking these courses will be supported by Mr Jon Bowen, the ISM site-based coordinator.
• D2 students will submit their full Extended Essay draft on September 11th
• D1 course changes should largely be completed by September 16th.

Weblinks:
On grit (huge predictor of future success) by Angela Duckworth – https://bit.ly/2wENAGt

Rick Fitzpatrick

We continue to remind parents to send us Consent forms for the year. This will guide us when  handling  boarders  issues such as permission to leave campus and school bank limits, just to name a few. The forms can be downloaded from the school website.

This weekend, we lined a number of activities that occupied the boarders.

In line with the Presidential directive to clean the environment every last Saturday of the month, our Diploma girls were involved in a clean-up exercise on Lema road  early in the morning. This gave way to other activities.

Efforts are in place to ensure that the new dorm (Kisiwa) is completed, so that the Diploma boys can move in there.

Parents, if you intend to have boarding students travel home for the Eid holiday, please contact me at rosemarybango@ed.ismoshi.com as soon as possible with the details.

Rosemary Bango

This week students have been making OP selections.  We will be confirming these and will send letters via email to parents about the individual selections and the related costs.  Included in this email will be information about how and when to pay for these trips.

HOME OF THE LEOPARDS

It was great to see the students’ enthusiasm this week during practices and we look forward to a great sporting year. Students are highly encouraged to participate in any of the sporting opportunities offered.

Please find below important links:

Click here for the Final Version of the Practice Timetable

Click here for the Leopards Sports Calendar of Events

Tomorrow, Saturday August 26th, our U19 boys’ and girls’ basketball teams will play Orkolili Secondary School, games will start at 10:00 in Karibu Hall, come out and cheer them on.

If you are interested in either horseriding or tennis please contact Mr Preva or Coach Charles directly.

Horseriding: Mr Preva 0758053280    

Tennis Lessons: Coach Charles 0757606766

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

Go Leopards

Scott Hibbard

This week we have been looking at some of the similarities and differences within our class-group. We’ve discussed favourite games, where we have come from and our own strengths within the learner profile.

Children of this age often feel more comfortable expressing themselves indirectly, for example through a puppet or toy. With this in mind we have been reading the book ‘Mouldy Monsters’.

The children went on to discuss which parts of their own monsters they would create by thinking about the learner profile:

“Cutey-Pie sits down nicely” (Principled) – Savannah

“Umimagoomi cares for other people because she is a nice monster” (Caring) – Kayla

“Poop has big ears to listen” (Open-minded) – Atu

“Jibble Jobble has big ears to listen so he can think” (Thinker) – Tiago

“Red is brave, like me” (Risk Taker) – Sofia

“Fluffy has long legs for walking and running” (Balanced) – Eefke

We’ll have a go at making our monsters using craft materials, cutting and sticking during next week.

Have a lovely weekend!
Mr. Evans

Thank you to all the parents who made it to school on Meet the Teacher night. It was an awesome time of getting to know the ins and outs of P1/2.

This week, we had an awesome time with Ms Cathy’s sister, Ms Moreen. She visited our class and we had a chance to interview her. The children began to understand her needs and wants. Our phonics lessons, guided reading sessions began in earnest this week as well. In Maths, we reviewed our numbers and looked at numbers before, after and between.

Next week:

Maths: Addition
Phonics: Sounds of the week     Phase 2: I, n, m, d
                                                     Phase 3: y, z, zz, qu
English: We will be reading ‘Whoever You Are’ by Mem Fox.
Unit of Inquiry: We will be looking into our second line of inquiry, developing empathy for one another. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Mboka Mwasongwe

Thank you to all the parents for coming to Meet the Teacher Night. I hope that you found the information pack useful. If you could return the parent survey as soon as possible that would be greatly appreciated.

This week in class: The children worked on increasing their reading stamina. They began sketching their stories and writing words to match. In Math, the children played different number games to help with their number facts to 10 and above. During our Unit of Inquiry, the children worked on cooperation and identifying what were good choices to make.

Next week we will be focusing on our second line of inquiry: How we develop relationships. In reading the focus will be sounding out tricky words. During writing they will be adding more detail and writing complete sentences. In Math, we will continue to develop our number sense and sharing our math strategies.

Please remember the children need their home readers and homework folders every day.

PE: Tuesday and Thursday
Library: Tuesday
Homework: Thursday (Friday is a holiday)

Have a great weekend.

Clare Hibbard

I enjoyed meeting many of you at the parent information meeting. I can see we are going to have a great year. Many of the students have already showed their enthusiasm by eagerly finishing their homework early! The picture included shows some of the students playing one of these homemade masterpieces.

In language and Unit work we are exploring biographies and some important world changers. The students have written some fantastic ‘I am’ poems and have described themselves in a variety of ways including blossoming flowers, taekwondo masters and footballers.

Don’t forget to send in indoor shoes next week as I am noticing lots of cold toes.

Julie Bowen

Many thanks to those parents who attended the “Meet the Teacher” evening on Wednesday. We had a very good P5 turnout and it was nice to have the opportunity to put faces to names. Happy birthday to Onno (see attached photo.)

Next week in Unit of Inquiry we will continue learning and using useful vocabulary. The children have formulated their own questions regarding migration and we will start researching the answers to these. At the moment their questions mainly focus on why people migrate. We will also consider why migrants are not always welcomed in a new country.

In Maths the children will continue to work on basic number skills (each according to his/her level). They will work in groups to solve problems using strategies that we have identified as being typical of “good mathematicians.” Some of our maths investigations are up in the breezeway.

In Language we will carry out individual and group reading (we will call the latter “book clubs.) The children will work on story writing.

Deborah Mills

The week ended well with students sharing things that they enjoyed during week and set goals for the coming week. The D1 students joined us for an activity where the P6s shared their views about certain pictures. The activity was about our ethical views, which tied in beautifully with our persuasive writing unit.

The students have worked on the different stages of their persuasive writing. In the coming week the students will be publishing their work. We will also continue with reading, grammar and word study all integrated into our units. The students have been working on fractions and will be reviewing multiplication and division concepts. This will enable them to work more confidently when simplifying fractions or finding the lowest common multiples.
I would like to welcome parents who are I.T. experts to come in and share their knowledge with the students about Digital Literacy.

Notices:
Eid Holiday– 1st September 2016 is a public holiday therefore homework is due on Thursday, 31st Aug
Friday Gathering– 8th September 2016- all P6 parents are welcome. It will run from 7:40 to 8:00 a.m. and the P6 are presenting.

Cathy Wambua