Dear Faculty,
Another great week, topped off with two fabulous days of school and a
welcome back assembly full of smiling faces and elementary spirit. Thank
you to everyone for having your children seated on time and for all the million
other things you did this week to make the first two days go so smoothly. This
week’s notes are long, long, looooong! Read them with your feet up and when you
have some uninterrupted time - and thanks for reading them carefully.
Thank yous and shout outs
- Everyone
involved in remodelling the new Art Rooms!
- Mary
Kelly for helping create the Big Art promo video!
- Mr.
Dave for painstakingly and tirelessly working on the Master Schedule.
- New
Art TA, Prasanth, for pitching in 100%!
- Alex
and Elliot for kick-starting Responsive Classrooms
- Nigel
for handling the challenging and crucial topic of Child Protection
- TAs
across the board for their willingness to help where needed - we couldn’t
do it without you!
- Priya
D, Kavita, Rajasree, and Natalia for extra efforts in the art and music
rooms this week
- To
all of our faculty - thank you for making it so easy to be proud of you
and your work! Let’s have school on Saturdays and Sundays, and holidays
and summer! ;)
Back to School Mornings
As discussed at our last faculty session, and as decided by GTL,
we are trialing a BTS Morning event this year. The general flow will be
as follows below:
Further ideas and any questions should be sent through your GTL, to be
processed at our GTL meeting next Monday PM.
Responding to Q12 - Faculty Community Forum (FCF)
On Thursday mornings from 7:50 - 8:15 a.m we will host faculty forums.
The topic to be discussed will be posted at least two weeks in advance. Once
the topic is posted, faculty can post questions and thoughts on the agenda for
a full week. The agenda will be closed Tuesday before the Thursday forum.
A few notes about the FCF:
- Attendance
(and engaging digitally) is purely optional; attend when you would like to
give input into a topic, don’t attend if you are comfortable with any
outcome
- All
decisions made at or after FCF are final.
- The
idea is to post comments and ideas on the agenda before the forum and for
others to engage digitally with that in advance of the meeting
- If
you have been part of the dialogue, but unable to attend the forum then
please email Calley, Dave or Keryn with your final ideas/vote.
- There
is a section on the agenda to suggest topics for future forums
- In
the spirit of collaboration, all comments/suggestions should have a
faculty member name attached so everyone knows who to dialogue with;
anonymous comments may be deleted
- Minutes
from the forum will be published on the weekly blog
Our first topic is: “Unpacking Unclear
Expectations that are connected to daily responsibilities in my classroom;”
As is one of our building blocks for engagement, faculty are invited to
identify a specific expectation about their daily responsibilities that they
feel is unclear. Giving as much detail around the expectation and perhaps what
makes it unclear would be helpful. Others can respond digitally in advance of
the forum by offering thoughts, advice or answers. Please be sure to leave your
name with any comment you make. Leadership team will prioritise points to
be discussed at the forum if need be.
A reminder that engaging with this is purely optional.
Our first faculty forum will be held in the ES Principal’s office on
Thursday 22 August.
AFO feedback survey
Another suggestion we are implementing from the leadership category is
more feedback surveys. Here is your first chance to provide input about our
AFO. Click here to complete! We appreciate you taking the time and will consider all input for next
year.
Leadership opportunities and expectations
Everyone is doing a great job setting up for the year ahead, and so as
you start to plan further, please consider the following leadership
opportunities that we have open in the ES this year.
As you may remember, all faculty members are expected to lead out in at
least one area beyond their classroom. This can include, for example, leading
an ASA, sports coaching, leading a committee, or an iLab.
The following opportunities are available for you to also consider
- Student
council (2 teachers to co-lead)
- Kitchen
coordinator
- Recess
Activity Coordinators
Please let Keryn know if you are interested in the above. Otherwise,
your leadership input can be discussed with your supervisor during your
professional growth and evaluation conversation.
Using SeeSaw with Families
This link will
teach you how to look for parents that are not connected to your student in
your class. You may then mail them via PowerSchool and send them the
auto-generated message in Seesaw to invite them to join your class.
Responsive Classroom: Week 1 Update from Alex and Elliot
Dear ES Teammates!
The first two days of school complete - check! :-) Now it's time to
think about how to keep momentum going towards building classrooms that help
children grow socially, emotionally and academically all year long. Each week
for the first 6 weeks of school we will post a Responsive Classroom blast with
some framing around one part of RC to think about implementing that week. This
week, Naming Goals is our focus. In all three grade sections of The First Six
Weeks of School calendar, K-2, 3-4, and 5-6, the foundation to establishing
rules/agreements begins in week 1. The process is different at each grade level
but the concept is the same. It's time for students to think about why they are
in school and what they want to accomplish this year.
Check out the PPT called Naming Goals.
Slides 10, 13, 15, and 17 are super helpful in framing these sessions for students.
Take a moment this weekend and watch two master RC teachers in grades 1 and 3
model how to present naming goals to their classes. It may not be as
exciting as The Fast and the Furious movie series, but I found it riveting to
watch what the teachers actually say and how they help students make this a
super important step at the beginning of the year. If you have any questions or
would even like to watch the video together or script a lesson, reach out with
an email. We'd love to support the journey towards adopting the RC approach
across our whole school!
Happy goal naming!
Elliot and Alex
Home Learning
Please remember that home reading starts next week. This offers a soft
start and other home learning can begin on the following Monday 19th. Grade 3
will continue using Prodigy for math home learning. If you are considering
another digital platform for home learning, please reach out to Calley to
consider this resource before signing students up or sending home information.
Discovery and Design Studio
Yearbook Photos (Mon Aug 26 - Fri Aug 30)
Student and Staff individual photos and class photos will be taken
during the week of August 26th - 30th. Please note the scheduled date for
your grade. The venue is in the Madras Hall. Homeroom Teachers please inform
parents via Seesaw. There is a time slot on Friday for absentees. There will be
another session in January for students who are absent and for those joining
later in the year. More info on the ordering process will follow in next week’s
notes.
Elementary T-Shirts
Grade 5 students are invited to submit
a design for our Elementary t-shirts for 2019-20. These should be
submitted to Anita in the art room. A reminder that all class
names and t-shirt sizes should be in this form by next Friday 16th.
Leave
Please be reminded that personal leave can be granted for up to 3 days
in the school year, and can be used for
- Required religious holidays
- Immigration and customs department
appointments
- Personal business that cannot be scheduled
after school hours
- Legal court appointments
- For
other reasons at the Head of School’s discretion.
Faculty members are expected to be on campus from 8 am - 4 pm
(Wednesdays till 5pm). A reminder, if you need to leave campus for an emergent
reason for up to 90 mins (prep block) you do not have to apply for ½ day leave,
although you must seek permission from Keryn. This is very important in case of
an emergency. If you cannot find us in person, please ensure you send an email
and cc Hazel/Padmapriya too. This ‘permission’ will not be granted more than
1-2 times in the year. Anything longer than 90 mins needs to be applied for,
and will count as ½ day leave.
If you are sick or unable to report to
work due to an emergency, please communicate to Hazel by whatsapp, text or
phone call on 9940635826, or email her copying your supervisor / team member
before the school day begins.
Request from Anita
Dear Colleagues,
Occasionally I will
need recycled supplies collected at home for general use in the art room. Thank
you for helping me collect items for your students!
General items
needed
- Toilet Paper Tubes
- SMALL Food or Cosmetic Boxes
(empty)
- Colorful, Plastic Lids off
washing liquid and water bottles
- CLEAN, EMPTY Juice Boxes
(small)
- Textured items for my
"Texture Box". Things that are furry, soft, bumpy, ridged,
rough, scratchy, slick, etc.
- Bubble Wrap
Let’s get tweeting!
Share your classroom wins, strategies,
student successes and questions to AISC teachers and the wider web of teachers
using #aiscelementary. Every week we’ll features a few teacher tweets on
the blog. This week’s selection is from
our session on Seesaw.
Google Calendar Reminder
This year, ES will join the rest of the sections in adding our teaching
blocks to our Google calendars. A reminder that have the option to make
them PUBLIC, which means that your colleagues can see the appointment instead
of it just reading “busy”. See the screenshot below for how to toggle that
menu. You may choose to make the block read simply “Class time” or you
may want to put in your subjects, if you have a more regular schedule, such as
“Math time”.
Finally, please add Elementary School Calendar to your google calendar: click on the link to add it to
your list of Calendars.
In Your mail cubbies: 2019-20 Personnel Handbooks and Staff Emergency
Telephone Tree books - please collect.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Keryn, Dave, and Calley
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