NEWSLETTER NO. 7
MON. 24 SEPT. 2018
REMINDERS FOR THIS WEEK & EARLY NEXT WEEK:
Mon. 24 Sept. - day 2: School photos week. 5DH students will have their individual photos taken from 11:15-11:35am. Students should wear smart casual clothes. School uniforms are also ok.
First Melaka trip parent information letter will be sent home with your child. The attached parent permission and medical/emergency information form should be completed and returned to class teachers by Wed. 3 Oct.
Tues. 25 Sept. - day 3:
Wed. 26 Sept. - day 4: 5DH students will have their class photo taken from 11:15-11:35am. If students have PE on this day they will also need to bring their school uniform to change into for the class photo.
Thurs. 27 Sept. - day 5:
Fri. 28 Sept. - day 6:
Mon. 1 Oct. - day 7 & Tues. 2 Oct. - day 8: ISA testing days
Tues. 2 Oct. - day 8: Parent Band Workshop. Parents from 5CC, 5DH and 5KC are invited to attend from 8:40-9:00am in the ES Band Room.
SCHOOL PHOTOS
Individual student school photos will be taken by our professional photographer next week. 5DH students will have their individual photos taken on Mon. 24 Sept. from 11:15-11:35am. Students should wear smart casual clothes for the individual photos. They can come to school in their smart casual clothes and stay in them throughout the school day. All students must have their individual photos taken for ID and yearbook purposes, even if you choose not to purchase any photos. On Wed. 26 Sept. at the same time as above, the students will have their class photo taken. Students need to be in their school uniform for the class photo. Photo order forms will be sent home next week. Please make sure there is enough money in your child’s POS account to cover the cost of the photos you order.
MELAKA TRIP PARENT PERMISSION FORMS ETC.
Our first parent information letter about the trip will be sent home with your child on Mon. 24 Sept. Please complete, sign and return the attached parent permission, medical information and emergency contact form to me by Wed. 3 Oct.
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS ASSESSMENT (ISA) INFORMATION
The ISA tests will be given to all students in grades 3-5 at the ES campus next Mon. 1 Oct. and Tues. 2 Oct. with a makeup day for students who are absent on the testing days on Wed. 3 Oct. However, if your child misses both testing days due to illness, they will not be expected to complete two days of testing on the one makeup day. Selected tests will be chosen by the classroom teacher. The test designer, ACER (the Australian Council for Educational Research), shares the following about the ISA: ‘The ISA assessment program is designed especially for students in international schools in grades 3 to 10. It is based on the internationally endorsed reading, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy frameworks of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)’. Students will be in the testing process between 115 and 155 minutes each day. Please make sure your child has a good night’s sleep, eats a healthy, substantial breakfast, and has can-do attitude about the ISA test. Your child does not need to prepare for this series of tests. The ISA tests are designed to assess your child’s accumulated concepts and skills in reading, writing and math, up to the time of taking each test. If you have any questions or would like to know more about the ISA, please contact Stephanie Stone, the Student Counselor for G4 and G5 – (sstone@iskl.edu.my) or consult the ISA website at http://www.acer.edu.au/isa
A detailed testing schedule will be communicated to you in next week’s newsletter.
CLASS WORK LAST WEEK
Language Arts: Reading, writing, speaking & listening:
Last week, the students continued reading and discussing their realistic fiction books in their book club groups, using 'think marks' to guide discussion. They also began creating their own sequence brain frames to record the important events happening in their books. For writing, the students chose one of the topics below, or one of their own topics, and wrote an opinion piece in their notebooks:
Kids should have unlimited screen time.
Kids should have pocket money.
Students should not have to wear school uniforms.
All of this practice - identifying themes, making a claim (opinion) and providing evidence will help the students write a literary essay later in our first writing unit. The students also continued their year-long ‘Free Choice Writing Project’ where they continued the process of writing and publishing their own realistic or fantasy story on their laptops using a Google doc. Students were also involved in daily read-to-self sessions, where they worked on building their reading stamina. I also continued reading our read-aloud titled, ‘Home of the Brave’ by Katherine Applegate.
Math:
Last week, the students continued their first math unit titled, ‘Place Value and Whole Number Operations’. Lessons covered last week:
The students completed Lesson 9: Dividing by Multiples of 10
Lesson 10: Divide and Check 1
Lesson 11: Divide and Check 2 - both lessons 10 and 11 involved a lot of estimating division problems and checking estimations with multiplication.
Lesson 12: Divide and Check 3, which also included an intro to the partial quotients division algorithm.
Social Studies:
Last week, the students continued their second unit, titled, ‘Government’. The students started looking at these questions: What is government? How does government affect people’s lives? They reflected on the ‘Deserted Island Simulation’ and the need for groups to agree on how they will operate and who will be the leaders - otherwise chaos/anarchy reigns - as they found during the simulation. I also started reading and showing on the doc camera an excellent information book titled, ‘Who’s In Charge’, by Andrew Marr, which features various types of leadership and governments from both historical and contemporary perspectives. They looked at three types of government in detail: monarchy, dictatorship and democracy. This week, the students will begin to look at the type of government in their home country(ies) and the leaders. Shortly, the students will begin to look at the various waves of leaders and governments that came to power in Melaka and why Melaka was so important, historically.
COUNSELLING LESSONS
Counseling lessons with Stephanie Stone, our G3-5 Student Counselor, have started in G5. Stephanie took 5DH students for a lesson last Wed. morning from 8:00-8:30am. The lesson was on growth versus fixed mindset. Stephanie’s next lesson in 5DH will be on ... Sept. and she will be back in class each day 7.
UPCOMING SEPT. OCT. & NOV. CLASS & SCHOOL EVENTS
Mon. 1 Oct. & Tues. 2 Oct: ISA testing days
Tues. 2 Oct. - day 8: Parent Band Workshop. Parents from 5CC, 5DH and 5KC are invited to attend from 8:40-9:00am in the ES Band Room.
Wed. 3 Oct. - day 1 is the ISA makeup testing day.
G5 Melaka field trip parent permission and emergency information form should be completed and returned to class teachers.
Thurs. 4 Oct. - day 2 & Fri. 5 Oct. - day 3: ES Parent Conferences. G5 students will be doing three-way conferences so students will also need to come with parents.
Tues. 9 Oct: Dr. Teh Kok Hoi presentation from 2:00-2:45pm in the G5 common area. Dr. Teh is the head paediatrician at KL Children’s Hospital Cancer Ward. He was not able to attend the SCMC on Thurs. so we were able to book him earlier.
Thurs. 11 Oct: Our first 6 presenters will present at our Social Change Maker’s Conference - SCMC. Our final 6 presenters will present on Thurs. 4 April 2019
Tues. 16 Oct: Final Melaka trip parent information letter will be sent home with your child.
Fri. 19 Oct: Next Red Hats Free Dress Day. Students can bring a RM5 donation.
Mon. 22 Oct: Faculty Inservice Day - no school for students
Tues. 23, Wed. 24 & Thurs. 25 Oct: G5 Melaka overnight trip:
5DH & 5KC will go on Tues. 23 & Wed. 24 Oct.
5CB, 5CC & 5JV will go on Wed. 24 & Thurs. 25 Oct.
Wed. 31 Oct: ES Halloween Dress-up Day
Mon. 5 Nov: No ES ASAs due to the Deepavali holiday the next day
Tues. 6 Nov: Deepavali holiday - no school
Fri. 9 Nov: ES International Fest Flag Parade, from 8:15-9:00am. Details TBA.
Sat. 10 Nov: International Fest at the ISKL Ampang Hilir Campus from 3:00-7:30pm. Details TBA
Wed. 14 Nov: Parent Workshop: ‘Learning in the ES’ from 8:15-9:45am. Details TBA.
Tues. 20 Nov: Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday holiday - no school
Fri. 23 Nov: Deepavali Cultural Day. Assembly from 10:50-11:30am
Fri. 30 Nov: Red Hats Free Dress Day. Suggested donation - RM5.
ES Semester 1 ASAs end
Until next week,
Best regards,
David
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