Friday, May 18, 2018

Dear teachers,

Whilst we have been fortunate with the weather these last couple of weeks in that we have not had to call indoor recess due to temperatures being over 40C, please continue to be mindful of this and ensure children are drinking adequate water throughout the day.

In addition, please be aware we may need to do this in our last two weeks if we experience a temperature spike! Keep watching your mails.

Congrats to Preetika and Preethi; Preetika has accepted an EAL Co-Teaching position for next year and Preethi will be our Indian Studies Teacher! Congratulations to Sruthi and Sai too who have moved to a permanent TA contract.

Thank yous….

·         To all Grade 2-5 teachers for their flexibility with MAP testing and especially make ups, to Priya and the IT team for their continual support throughout testing, and to Amanda and Melissa for the use of their room during make ups

·         To Alex and Elliot for offering Responsive Classroom training and to the many people who have expressed interest in attending. Thanks, too to those who have been asked to pitch in and cover classes and duties for people who are in training sessions.

·         All teachers who will need to be flexible with many (Korean) students out next week - please note, there should be absolutely full-on continuity of instruction; no compromise with our teaching and learning process.

 

CAL Structure

This form here is to collect feedback on our CAL structure which we dedicated some of our ES faculty time to.

This should only take 5 minutes to reflect on.

Interest in Adopt-A-Garden project for 2018-19

If you have an interest in continuing or being part of this project next year, please let us know on this sheet  This will help us with our summer planning for building additional beds if necessary, as well as ordering seeds, preparing soil etc.

ES Faculty photo - next Thursday 24 May; 7:45am

Shannon will take our annual Elementary faculty group photo next Thursday before school. Please assemble in the ES plaza area, near the covered area and Shannon will organise the group. Thank you!

Year Mapping

Year Mapping is a powerful way to end the year with your class (and share with parents too!).  Edutopia pushed out this article this week and if you are looking for ways to wrap up your year, this could be it.  Definitely worth a read.

Packing up Classrooms & End of Year rituals (repeat announcement)

• A reminder that we do not visibly pack up classrooms whilst students are still with us.   
• Boxes have been ordered and will be delivered to you towards the end of next week.
• Any boxes packed before the last day - we ask that they are please packed and stored out of the sight of students (in cupboards)
• Student art, displays, notebooks and other work should not be sent home until the last week of school
• Remember we have Saturday 2nd June as a working day to complete any packing, as well as check out
• Sign out sheet can start to be filled out as items are completed (except room sign off which can only happen Saturday 2 June)

Kath Murdoch, Inquiry Extraordinaire, is coming to AISC for one day only! Friday August 17 (repeat announcement)

Kath Murdoch is a well known Australian educator who has taught, researched, lectured and published most notably in the field of inquiry based learning, for 30 years. A popular, down to earth consultant, she works with teachers in Asia, Africa, Europe, America and New Zealand while remaining committed to classroom teaching and professional development that is school and classroom based. Kath’s most recent book ‘The Power of Inquiry” has been described as  “a beautiful and sophisticated read that truly inspires quality teaching.”

 

Kath will be running a one day workshop at AISC 'Inquiry in the Elementary Classroom' as part of the Chapters International Workshops, which will also be advertised to outside educators.

Thank you to all of you who have already signed up - if you haven’t had the chance yet, but are interested in attending, please  indicate your interest via this form.

The cost of this workshop is US$300, and 50% of this will be supported by AISC programmatic funds.  Participants will need to contribute the other US$150 from their own personal PD.

Gift of Time Read-aloud (repeat announcement)

As we offered before winter break, optional times are available here if you would like a guest reader/teacher to come into your class and offer a read aloud or activity for up to 30 minutes. You can use this time for packing or completing other end-of-year tasks during the final week of school. Just sign your name up in the white box under the time you’d like. **PLease only sign up for one block so everyone gets an opportunity first to select a block that suits them!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Keryn and Lori