Friday, March 30, 2018

Dear Staff,

Welcome back from Spring Break!  It has been great to hear everyone’s holiday adventures. This is our final quarter and we have a lot of great learning to continue to do together. Thank you to everyone who went out of their way to welcome Dave this week, he had a great time here and enjoyed meeting all of you too.

 
Please know that as the weather starts to heat up, we keep an eye on the temperature daily. If at any point it hits 40C we will call to have indoor recess. We try to do this before lunch recess begins, but often the temperature conveniently spikes around lunchtime. Please remember to check emails frequently as it gets hotter, and also share messages with those on your team.

Field update - including blurbs about alternate lunch activities

Please remind your students on Monday morning that the field is completely out of use. You can post this document and/or share the alternate lunch recess activities  with your class. Everyone should be super vigilant of any students near the fenced off areas to be proactive about safety. Should you want to take your class on a ‘field trip’ (literally) to view the construction, please arrange this directly through me, Alankrit and Ilangovan.  

Teachers/TAs on recess duty will need to ensure there are no balls in the ES plaza, playground, courtyard or covered areas.  The only option for soccer is during lunch recess on the Raptors field for grades 2-5. The basketball hoops and balls remain accessible.

Teachers normally on field duty should wander between locations and assist in the busiest place. For those on lunch recess field duty for grades 2/3 and 4/5, please swap your location to the Raptor field behind the FAC. We will ring the 2/3 bell at 12:55 and the 4/5 bell at 1:10 to get our kids back to class on time.

Please can everyone be incredibly proactive and vigilant in keeping an eye on all our students whilst construction is underway.

Candy Reminder

A few teachers have noticed an increase in candy at school .  Please read the below which is in our handbook, and follow this up with specific parents if need be too.  Thank you.

Morning Snack and Recess

During the 15-minute morning break time, it is suggested that students have a light, healthy snack (not candy) sent in from home each day. Candy will be sent back home for children to enjoy at home.

SLC Sign Ups
Please can all homeroom teachers check the sign ups for student led conference on Friday 13 April.   Please post the following on Edmodo:

Thank you to all parents who have signed up for their child's student led conference on Friday 13 April.   No regular classes will be held on this day, parents attend together with their child only for the duration of the conference.  If you have not already done so, please click here to sign up for your child’s conference  - Sign Up Link  

If there are still families missing by the middle/end of next week, please follow up with direct emails to parents.

Supervision for SLCs - Message for TAs

For April 13, we need all elementary TAs (except Sarat and Valar) to sign up on the following document for two supervision slots. Please note that EY3 and 4 TAs will supervise our youngest children in the ES library only. All other students have access to their regular recess spots while their siblings are in conferences. Sarat and Valar will be stationed in the ES library to supervise any EY5-Grade 5 children who would like to spend their time indoors.

Discovery Studio Challenges (optional)

The following challenges will run for the next 2 weeks.
EY5 to Gr 2: Paper Towers - Teams of 2 will be challenged to build a paper tower without using tape, glue, staples or anything else to attach the pieces of paper together to create their towers. Students will need one period to do this challenge.

Gr 3 to Gr 5: Zoetropes - Zoetropes are early animation devices. Students will create simple animations that can play on a zoetrope. Students will need one or 2 periods to do this challenge.

Challenge Block times are shown on Carl’s calendar. Simply email him with the block number you’d like and let him know how many students to expect.

English Language Instruction

The below message is going out to parents today.  Please know you have Andrew’s, Lori’s and my full support in further encouraging children to be speaking in English as much as appropriate.  It is up to you how you may want to incentivise or structure this; a couple of 4th Grade classes are having children set goals around English language use and this is working well.  The library is going to ensure all children are checking out English books weekly - what will you do?

English Language Development

Our school is committed to English language development. In response to recent conversations among parents, faculty, and leadership, we would like to share with you additional commitments for how, together, we can continue to enhance English language development at AISC.

What can we be doing at school:

• Develop our guidelines for English language expectations for all teachers to use.
• Further EAL parent education about the English Language learning process.
• Provide more English language resources for parents.
• Further explicitly encourage English language use and recognize English language achievement.
• Offer further recess opportunities to practice English.

 What can parents commit to at home:

• Create as many English language environments outside of school, including having playdates with students who do not speak child’s mother tongue.
• Encourage students to speak English at school.
• Encourage reading in English, and engaging in English media at home.
• Role model English language use.
• Join an ASA after school to gain further practice of English language.
• Ensure children are reading both in their mother tongue, and in English, every night at home.

Our next steps will be to continue to support all teachers to encourage further use of English in their classrooms and to create a English language Use Expectations and Guidelines document for our Elementary student handbook.

In addition, we will be requiring all students who are new to learning English to participate in an intensive Jumpstart summer programme as part of their first few weeks at AISC. This was a programme we piloted with great success last summer, and will now become an enrollment requirement.

  

Students exit this programme with basic English phrases, vocabulary and conversation, as well as an understanding of how our literacy and other programmes at AISC work so they can enter an elementary classroom with greater confidence, understanding and ease.

Between now and the rest of the school year we will continue to communicate all we are doing to support English language development. We will feature a different department each week and highlight ways that it encourages this development among our students.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Warmly,

Keryn and Lori