Dear all,
Only one full week left with students! Our calendars and hearts are full with celebrations, goodbyes, gratitude and creative learning that still continues in the ES. We are wishing you strength and inspiration to get you through the challenging and rewarding moments ahead. Thank you for all you continue to do, to ease children’s and colleagues’ transitions, whether from one school year to the next or from Chennai onward.
Some really nice advice from Nigel and the counselors that we will be sharing with parents; may help you with your students and own children too.
Saying Goodbye
As we near the end of the school year we also enter the all-too-familiar season of goodbyes to the friends and community members that have become such a presence in our lives. There is no way of avoiding goodbyes and they sometimes stir up unpleasant emotions as we grapple with feelings of loss, but what might those uncomfortable emotions be telling us? How might we say goodbye well? Here are some thoughts on supporting your child during this time:
- The most important thing is that we provide space for a well-rounded ending. As researchers in this study found, the way we say goodbye impacts the way we start anew.
- Acknowledge your emotions as they occur. Often they can be an indicator of how important people or this life phase has been to you.
- Children are likely to feel a variety of emotions about moving or about having friends leave them. Know that emotions aren’t permanent. Like the waves at the beach our emotions tend to surge and retreat making space for different emotions in the future.
- If there is anyone that your child needs to “make things right with” or needs to mend a relationship with before they leave, now is the time to try to do that. While it may not always end perfectly, taking the time to try is an important life skill.
- If your child is leaving, encourage your child to take the time to say goodbye to the people s/he has been closest to and to let them know the importance they’ve had in their lives. In our current virtual world, that could be through a video, a chat, a photo collage, a simple email or even a text message with photo or emojis.
- Ask your child to think about goodbyes to the people who have supported your child or looked after their wellbeing in your home, at school or elsewhere in the community. The gesture will leave everyone with a warm feeling.
- If you will be leaving behind pets, be sure to acknowledge the grief that may come with that and work with your child to decide how to best say goodbye to their pet.
- If your child is staying at AISC and has close friends leaving, recognize that this is a challenging time for them as well and they may feel a sense of grief or anxiety. It can be challenging to reach out and tell their friend how they are feeling. However, encouraging your child to do just that and to let them know how important the friendship has been to them, will help your child with maintaining and creating positive relationships in the future.
Virtual Report Card Timeline (repeat announcement)
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Wednesday 27 May - Faculty meeting time - final report card proofreading
During end-of-year report card distribution in person, homeroom and EAL teachers would check through the paper copies before distributing them to students. Since we can’t do that this year, we are going to set up a system which makes sure all reports get the same “final check” after being made into a PDF from Powerschool.
WHO: All homeroom classes have been assigned an EAL or Specialist teacher as collaborator.
WHEN: Wednesday 27 May during Faculty Meeting Time 3:30 - 5:00 PM
WHAT: Report card PDF run will be sent to each homeroom teacher
NEXT: Homeroom teacher share PDF with assigned final PDF proofreader
THEN: Decide how the report cards will be split (50/50)
*The list of proofreaders can be found on the 2nd tab in the error tracking sheet.
ES Student Withdrawals
You can see the list of confirmed withdrawing students listed here. If you know any students who are not returning and who are not on this list, please inform Padma or Hazel and they will reach out to the parents. Homeroom Teachers - if the leaving student has any classroom materials which need to be returned please inform us, otherwise we will take it that you have cleared the student.
Faculty Farewells
As you are aware, we will come together on Monday June 1st at 8:45 - 9:45 a.m IST to farewell all our colleagues who are leaving this year.
We also want to make sure that all departing ES faculty have a chance to say goodbye to students too - so please find 20 minutes next week to share this flipgrid with your class. Watch the messages from departing faculty connected to your class! This will also be posted in the Principal’s Notes. Please encourage your students to visit this link with their families or on their own, and let them know that they can leave a video message for their teachers. Goodbye from Departing Teachers Flipgrid
Faculty Work Days - draft agenda below. Final agenda with focus questions, facilitators assigned etc will be shared next Friday in our final blog of the year. Zoom links will be shared also. We thank you for your final efforts in ensuring all things in the elementary are finalised before we break for the summer, and look forward to connecting in these sessions one last time!
Have an enjoyable weekend!
Keryn, Dave, and Calley
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