August 26th, 2016

Dear all,

As we head into the weekend we can be proud of all number of hats we wore this week.  Thank you, it was appreciated! 

Not only did we kick off our Friday with our first ever fabulous 3-5 ‘Learning Celebration’, we also had a great week of inquiry learning.  Anyone interested in going further - here is a great read on Standards learning vs Inquiry - can they co-exist?  :)

Congratulations & Thank yous!

Congratulations to Daphne who has accepted the position of Grade Team Leader (GTL) to represent the PreKindergarten team.

Thank you to Tania for a great week of Inquiry learning.  If you want to connect with her, or learn more about events organised by Innovative Global Ed, here is her website.

Thank you to Lori who arranged subs so we all could have time working with her.

Thank you to Ron for coordinating our first Learning Celebration on Courage!  Fabulous. 
Thank you also to all the teachers and students who prepared wonderful presentations for this.

Tutoring

Anyone who is tutoring a student this year - please come and have a conversation so we can get this relationship confirmed.

A reminder about our tutoring guidelines:

●   Tutoring should not happen during the school day (8:00 – 4:00) except under mitigating circumstances as approved by the Principal.

●       Teachers (or Teacher Assistants) may not tutor their own students.

●       In all cases of tutoring, the tutor is responsible for adhering to the supervision expectations of the appropriate section (ES, MS, HS).

●       All tutoring of any AISC student by a school employee must be approved by the principal.

Email etiquette

Many of you expressed a concern of the volume of email traffic!  From now Hazel/Cheryl will be publishing faculty absences on our daily bulletin page on my blog rather than via email.  Daily updates for classes can also been seen there.

Whilst this blog will still be pushed out only on Fridays, if you bookmark the link, you can go there daily to view who is absent. Other than that, if your email is so short that a conversation would suffice or long enough that a meeting is needed - let’s try that first.
Other tips for managing email here!

Leave
A reminder about personal leave.  Unless this is an unavoidable emergency, personal leave needs to be applied for (in writing) well in advance, and not the 1-2 days before you require the leave.  Additionally, if possible, please avoid applying for personal leave when school events are already planned.

Learning Celebrations (*rebranded extra Assemblies!)

As mentioned, we have scheduled a few extra Friday celebrations of learning. The purpose behind these is community building and to give our kids greater opportunities to share their learning and practice performing skills.  As decided by the GTL, parents will only be explicitly invited to the already scheduled ‘Assemblies’. 

MAP Testing (Grades 2-5)

MAP testing begins next Wednesday; the schedule can be accessed here. Prior to your first testing session, please make sure you can log in and navigate to “Saved Test Sessions”. As with last year, the naming convention for testing sessions will be ‘class/test’ (i.e. 2A Math). If you need a refresher on proctoring, touch base with Lori for a review session.

Over the next two weeks, students will write the following tests:

●       MAP: Reading 2-5 Common Core 2010 V2

●       MAP: Math 2-5 Common Core 2010 V2

●       MAP: Language 2-12 Common Core 2010

●       MAP: General Science AERO 2011 V2

You’ll need access to the following MAP Resources:

Teacher log-in page

Step by step instructions (You may want to print this page for easy reference.)

Student instruction page to be read prior to testing (You may want to print this page for easy reference.)

Proctor tips and troubleshooting page

Have a great weekend!

Keryn

August 19, 2016

Dear all,

Another great week - check.  Fun social event at the Park Hyatt - check.  Welcome back picnic fun - check.

Hopefully you’re all en route as you are reading this or it is already Saturday!

Lots of info coming up - please read carefully.

Thank yous

Thank you to Rachael, Hilary and Karen for our fabulous introduction to our Culture of Coaching

Thank you to everyone for your patience regarding the 11th hour Inquiry schedule

Thank you to Widi, Amritha and Nancy who willingly offered to cover classes for the blocks with Inquiry consultants

Back to School Message for TAs

Thank you so much, in advance, for your help with ES Back to School Afternoon on Tuesday. The following schedule will allow preschool and KG students to be with their classroom TAs in a familiar area. Students in grades 1-5 will be allowed in the usual recess spots but are not to be in the classrooms or hallways. Each person has been assigned two supervision slots out of four; please do not leave your post until your replacement arrives.

Click here to access the schedule.

At 5:15, we'll ask the person supervising the covered court to ring the bell. At that time, students should do what they normally do - first graders go to their classrooms, third graders will gather at the base of the stairs, and 2nd, 4th and 5th graders will line up on the covered area.

Bulletin boards

If you have a bulletin board outside your class/area please make sure it is updated with a recent display before Tuesday for our back to school afternoon.  It is great to see many student ‘wonderings’ visibly on bulletin boards around school.

Wednesday Early Release

Note that this year our early release time is 2:00. Due to a change in our master schedule, we no longer have the need to run a compacted schedule. All classes, recesses and lunch times will remain the same. Cafeteria and iHub service will also be operating as usual.

TAs, please check with your grade-level teachers for specific work that needs to be done; you are not required to attend the afternoon meetings.

PD

As you see many great PD opportunities are coming up.  (Another great set of workshops here)

If you see something that supports your professional goals, fill out the PD form and give to me.  

Personal PD funds can be availed for teachers wanting to attend an institute/workshop).  Applications for teachers attendance at other ‘conference’ style PD has limited value in enhancing instruction/practice (and as with MS/HS) and therefore are not encouraged - only rarely would these be supported.

Helpful tip from Lauren re F&P reading levels and Razkids!

I find this to be a really useful link for teachers to know when they are inputting kids' reading levels into Raz kids. Foutnas and Pinell does not correlate to Raz-kids easily, so this chart shows how their F&P reading level translates into Raz-kids. For example, my student is a level T in F&P, so she should be in Raz-kids as a Level Y.

ASAs - starting Monday

After discussions regarding the afternoon chaos in the ES Cafeteria, it has been decided that:

In the first week of ASA (August 22-26), all students who are signed up for ASA will meet at the ES Cafeteria.

From the second week onwards:

• Soccer (Gr.3-5) will assemble under the trees close to the ES covered area for ASA every Thursday.
• Basketball (3-5) will assemble at the bleachers close to the ES cafeteria for ASA every Tuesday.
• Raptor's Swim Club students who are in grades 3-5 will go directly to the poolside. Students who are in K-2 for the same activity will meet inside the ES cafeteria.
• Students (Gr.3-5) who participate in different arts and crafts / academic classes, will go directly to their assigned homeroom for activities. Respective instructors will make an announcement about meeting students at the designated classrooms directly after school. ASA team will reiterate.

Telephone tree test - coming next Wednesday 24 August, from 7.00pm

Emergency Drill

Protocol for ALL non-homeroom teachers/TAs is to gather with Cheryl/Hazel (this includes coaches, consultants, visitors, etc)

• Those teaching classes should first walk the class to their designated spot & then join Cheryl/Hazel

Next week’s photo schedule

Linked here

MAP Testing for Grades 2-5

Heads up - ES testing will begin on August 31st and wrap up by September 14th. Step by step instructions, video tutorials, student information pages, etc. will be shared in next week’s announcements. For the time being, you may want to ensure that you have your log in information handy. Your log in name is your school email: name@aischennai.org.  If you can’t remember your password, you can do a reset at the teacher login page.

Priya will be popping in and out of classrooms next week to make sure that student machines are ready to test.

While we’re functioning at a 1:1 level across grades 2-5, it is still helpful to have a schedule so that our IT support team knows where to be when. We also want to restrict testing to 2 grade levels at a time to alleviate stress on our internet systems. This proposed schedule can definitely be considered a draft. Team leaders will discuss logistics on Monday and please know that we have a high degree of flexibility with testing times and dates. Send your feedback and suggestions to Lori via your team leader.

Happy weekend everyone!

Keryn

August 12th, 2016

Dear all,

It is the end of our first week!  Phew….time to celebrate with a 3 day weekend!  Enjoy this extra day of relaxation together with your families and friends - looking forward to seeing you back on Tuesday for another action packed week in the ES!

Time and Schedules

Now that we have looked critically at the blocks of meeting time, Karen, Clayton and I encourage each of you to look at your weekly schedules and look at the scheduled blocks of homeroom time -  and apply the same logic of flexibility and ‘permission’.  This means you may not need to have each ‘subject’ rigidly exist within a 45 minute block.  For example science one day may need an extended chunk of 75 mins, when the next time you visit that unit, it may be only 30 mins.  

Your homeroom time is your own to use as you see fit with your class, you don’t have to mirror it exactly from week to week.  The co-teaching arrangement allows perfectly for this flexibility if both parties agree to allow student learning needs and interests to come first before teacher scheduling.

"Once you break the shackles of time, you will find yourself imagining ways to improve teaching, learning, student motivation and course design that can make a real difference." - Lee Shulman (2008, It's About Time)

Back to School Evening

Please prepare your 15-20 curricular information sessions as a grade.  You then can decide whether you’d like to present this as a grade or (ideally) individually.

Then you are asked to present your own  class routines/expectations in your own classroom individually.

**Every homeroom teacher needs to make a specific Edmodo post with location information

*New for specialists - we will be asking each of you to visit each of the classes you teach to briefly say “hello” so parents can put a face to your name.  If you need to plan this accordingly, please touch base with the homeroom teachers.
Nicole and Ilona - feel free to drop into each class as a team!

As in previous years, each presentation will be repeated so parents with more than one child can attend

4 - 4.30 - Session 1

4.30 - 4.40 transition

4.45 - 5.15 - Repeat session

All TAs should plan on staying until 5:20 on the 23rd. Next week, a TA roster will be sent out to provide playground supervision for students from 3.30 - 5.20pm.

 
If you would like a small snack - some will be available in the ES Principal’s office from 3.15 - please remember we are catering for 100 people and this is not dinner! :)

Counselors in your classrooms

Please look out for communication from your counselor about them coming in to deliver counseling programme sessions in your classes.  The frequency of this and the topics will vary from grade to grade, however it is up to each of you to agree upon a suitable time block.  As the year unfolds, it is highly likely that this counseling programme will also include specific child protection curriculum.

What can you expect?

KG - G2 (Meg)
Mindfulness is: "paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment." (Jon Kabat-Zinn).  

In the course of our sessions, we will experience mindfulness in various ways and settings and explore how mindfulness can help us with our emotions, self-regulation and develop a more positive outlook on life.

Grades 3-5 (Ron)

AISC has adopted the International School Counselor Association Framework, which is a set of recommended student learning competencies directed toward aspects of friendship, conflict (incl. bullying), self-monitoring, organizational skills, and self-awareness etc.  According to the framework, counselors craft this social/academic framework into age-appropriate lessons to be delivered in all classrooms.

For those interested, I have attached the framework appendix here that shows suggested learning indicators for K-12 students.

*Any G3-5 classes who would like an additional counselor slot & would like to take advantage of Meg’s expertise in Mindfulness - please communicate with Meg as she is more than happy to offer this.

Emergency Drill - August 18th, 1.45pm

EMERGENCY EVACUATION DRILL GUIDELINES:

1. Once we have an indication/alarm of an emergency situation, all students and staff should maintain silence at all times to ensure that directions can he heard.  The indicator is a wailing alarm.

2. Once at the soccer field area, all classes/groups should form in straight lines under the respective Grade Signage and maintain the lines until further instruction.

3. The responsible teacher should be at the front of the class/group so that they are accessible to principals.

4. Groups should not sit unless instructed to do so.

5. Silence should be maintained until the drill is over and students are released.

6. Do not use elevators.

All Teachers: Please carry the emergency booklet and class roster with you when you leave the classroom.  The RED and GREEN sign are inbuilt in the booklet.

Note: During an emergency situation the security staff - (QRT - Section Marshal) - on duty will pay attention to ensure safe evacuation process of student/staff using wheelchair through the available safe channel.

Transitions

As mentioned last week, we will continue to keep supervision of transitions as they were last year (with students being accompanied from class to class). Specialists teaching grades 3-5, please communicate with grade level teachers and TAs if your class ends at recess (11:00) or lunch (12:45); as with last year, we may need you to accompany students to recess and lunch if grade levels are in team meetings.

Helpful tip on Setting Wait Time Norms Early in the Year (thanks, Karen!)

After school pick up

This message is reinforced in the principal's’ notes:

All ES students must be collected at the end of the day by a parent or an older sibling.  If their parent/older sibling is late students MUST wait in the ES Reception with Ms Padma; Ms. Padma will remain in reception from 3:15-4:30 and will call parents, siblings and drivers as needed.  Under no circumstances are any ES students allowed to ‘roam’ the soccer field, playground, cafeteria etc alone.

Please can all teachers be vigilant in ensuring handover of all students, and not leave the covered area until every student is picked up.

We have had several incidences already of unsupervised children playing and getting hurt.

*For the next two weeks, can ALL teachers please scan soccer pitch & playground around 3.40-3.45 and check that parents are within sight of their child and not waiting in cafeteria. Lori and I will be doing our best to be out everyday also.

Yearbook photos

Please sign up in the attached schedule for a time to take your class to the BBT for the photos.

From the Discovery Studio

If you have not already signed up your class for the orientation challenge in the Discovery Studios, please do so!  Just sign up on Carl’s calendar. To ensure all students benefit from this orientation challenge, please make sure every homeroom has signed up by the end of the week!

From Kevin Hall

A PD opportunity @NIST (Thailand) that comes highly recommended!

Stephanie Harvey on ‘Reading is Thinking’ - click here for more information!

Happy weekend everyone!

Keryn

August 5th, 2016

Week 2…

Great start back this week everyone!  Thank you all for making everything go so smoothly for our first few days together.  Now the fun begins :)

Thank you’s

Thank you Kay for sharing about Operation Appreciation - a great element of our culture here at AISC

Thank you Lori for putting together the duty schedule

Thank you everyone, particularly TAs for ensuring all classrooms looked very welcoming for our students this week

Thank you Clinton for stepping up for extra soccer field duties!  :)Bi

Purchase Requests

Please provide sufficient detail when submitting a P.O to me - ideally this should have purpose and (approximate) cost!  This will help me process these as quickly as I can.

Student voice in classroom set up

A great article  “Design thinking & the Deskless classroom”, I found relating to what we unpacked in our inquiry workshop last Monday.

Edmodo Expectations

By now all teachers - homeroom and specialists - should have posted their welcome bio to the classes they teach.  If this is not done yet, please ensure it happens over the weekend ready for Monday morning.

Every time you make a future post - please organize your posts under one of the following headings:
* Action
* Important
* Update (weekly update, unit update, curricular update etc)
* Reminder
* Celebration

Homeroom Edmodo Expectations
Thank you for all sharing your ideas - for consistency across and within grades, please follow the following expectations (please note these are minimal & those wanting to post more frequently can do so!)

• Individual classroom weekly update; what has happened this week, main events, big learning ideas (include photos)
• Bi-weekly classroom celebration posts mostly photos; a few sentences only  (if you have a teacher blog already and prefer to do this here and push the link out via Edmodo, then please continue to do this)
• Grade level posts (can be copied onto all class accounts) when a new curricular unit begins

Specialist Edmodo Expectations
* Post each time a new unit begins (copied onto all classes within grade level)
* Monthly celebration update; photos with a few sentences only personalized to each class

Faculty Meeting on Wednesday 10th

All school Curriculum work with Dan.  Please meet at 3.45 in the FAC Cafeteria with a device you can work on.
The Wednesday schedule can be found here, this will continue to be completed over the next week or so.

Hall passes

Thank you for sharing all your thoughts on this so openly.  We have decided to begin the year on a ‘needs basis’ only for hall passes.  Passes are to be given if a child needs assistance with English language support, or to explain a nurse/principal office visit.  Otherwise, passes are not necessary. This will need to be unpacked with returning children.  
We will revise this again towards the end of the trimester if necessary.

Some of you also have questions regarding transitions between classes - for now, please keep as is - but know that we will revisit this topic over the coming weeks.

Student Protection Agreement Follow Up - from Nigel

Thanks for your thought provoking queries and engagement in the Student Protection discussion on Monday. Regarding the Student Protection Agreement I would like to clarify a couple of points.

• The Student Protection agreement is a pledge made by staff annually. It's purpose is to ensure that AISC staff understand the student protection policy and are aware of how they can protect students and themselves at school. It is not a legal document.
• One point on the document that created some confusion was "I will never be alone with students at school or non-school activities on weekends or evenings without another adult being notified." What is important to recognise in this item is that if students are at school on the weekend or during the evening then there are a range of activities in which we would expect those students to be involved. Within these activities, there are certainly times in which we would expect those students to be alone with a teacher. For example practicing for a performance. This is a normal school activity and any parent or colleague would not be surprised to find you doing that with students. The adult notification occurred when the student was sent to school to be engaged in the activities.
• For non-school activities it is not necessary that a parent be told you are alone with student but that another adult knows you are. For example your spouse may have gone out for dinner and is aware you are there with the student.

I still have your signed copies of the Student Protection Agreement and given that the form hasn't changed I am not going to shred them. If anyone is unsure about the document they signed, I am happy to sit down with you and discuss it. Please just get in contact with me via email.
Nigel

From the Discovery Studio

The Discovery Studios are almost open for business. We have got some new tools the kids will love and a ton of new materials to build their science and other projects with. If you are interested in having your students come to the Discovery Studios to work on a project to help them get oriented to the room and meet Dilip and I, please sign up for a time that works for you. Your students will need about an hour. I can take 2 classes at a time. Times can be booked now for sessions beginning on Wednesday August 10. If you have any questions, please let me know.

From the CIC

See here some super helpful suggestions and ideas from Jet!

Book bags, Pass Along Folders and Reading Levels

Pass along folders for returning students have been distributed and this year’s book bag colors are: 1st = red, 2nd = orange, 3rd = blue, 4th = green, 5th = purple. Extra bags for new students can be found in the back corner of the library under the stairs (for all grades except first - your extra bags have been ordered).

IT is not yet able to reconfigure returning students latest independent reading levels through Skyward, but they continue to work on a system for creating class lists with the most current results. In the meantime, the same information can be found in the Pass Along Portfolios.

Bridges and Number Racks

All Bridges materials (workbooks and home connections) have been distributed. Early next week, K-3 teachers will receive a set of 20 kits for students to make their own number racks. If you require additional kits throughout the year, the extras will be kept in Lori’s office. If you’d like to meet with Calley early in the year to discuss pacing, instruction, assessment or differentiation, feel free to invite her to an upcoming team meeting.

That’s it everyone - have a great weekend and see you all back refreshed for our first full week of school together!


Warmly,
Keryn