Leopard's Tale |
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Leopard's Tale |
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What I’m excited about this week…
The AISL Board of Directors will hold their next open board meeting on Monday, 19 March at 18:00 in the Protea Tree Conference Room. All members of the AISL parent association are welcome to attend. The items on the agenda are as follows:
Did you know that the AISL campus now covers 10 hectares (approximately 25 acres)? The recent acquisition of the adjacent property added approximately 1.4 hectares. This is where we are currently building the Pavilion and four multi-sport courts. As you will know if you have ever walked from the library to the gym and found yourself out of breath, our property is built on a hill side so the top of the campus is 22 meters higher than our gates on Leopard Hill Road.
As part of our recent review of the school’s mission and vision, we have decided to review our current school logo. Unfortunately, over the years the logo has morphed into a few different forms and colors so that we now have multiple versions of it. We would like to pull all of those back to a single unifying school logo. To that end, we are offering interested students and parents the opportunity to propose new logo designs. In short, we are looking for a logo that represents the renewed dynamism of the school while hopefully maintaining some of our old brand features: some representation of a leopard (whole body, head, paws, spots, etc.), the school’s full name or abbreviation, and the school’s colors (yellow and black). We also hope to incorporate our revised vision statement: “Every student thrives”. Please send ideas to me by April 9. You don’t need to be an artist – you can just share your concept with me in a rough sketch and I can have it artistically rendered later on.
It was wonderful to see such a big turnout from families at the Grade 2 Celebration of Learning on Thursday, 15 March. The celebration focused on their recent unit of inquiry, 'How we organise ourselves', which was completely integrated with math and writing. They shared their measurement projects and non-fiction books inspired by our guest speakers and all things measurement in math (i.e. measuring and comparing the length, height, weight of ourselves and objects). They also celebrated their reading skills by retelling a non- fiction topic of their choice as an expert.
It was a great unit which really integrated the other subjects areas perfectly! Students were also using their new found knowledge at home; measuring rainfall and baking sweet treats for lucky parents :-) Mr. Chow Worn's Gr9 Individuals & Societies Students Learn About & Visit the Hacker's Guild15/3/2018 Mr. Edward Chow Worn's Grade 9 Individuals & Societies students have been studying women's empowerment & poverty reduction projects in class. To help students gain a broader perspective of the work people in their community are doing to help with these initiatives, they have had guest speakers come to class to share their expertise. Last week they learned about small grants programs & a wide range of small grants projects in Zambia. Recently they were fortunate to have Mr. Daniel Bevington from the Hacker's Guild of Lusaka come to talk about coding boot camps for girls, boys, and some mixed teams. Mr. Bevington showed students the Raspberry Pi computers he uses to help teach coding. Mr. Bevington said that his goal is "to help create a pipeline for Zambia's hidden talent." The training camps are held during Zambian school holidays to make it easier for students to attend. This week Mr. Chow Worn & Ms. Maguire brought the students to the Hacker's Guild in Woodlands to ask questions of the programmers, developers, and students who were there. Our students also had a great time learning to fly drones! We are always deeply grateful to the adults in our community who give so generously of their time and expertise!
As part of the support classes designed to help IB DP students navigate and manage the extended essay process, the 11th grade DP EE students had a special guest this past week. AISL Director Mr. Russ Menard shared the Pomodoro Technique with students, which involves using a timer to focus on work in 25 minute intervals followed by 5 minute breaks. Sometimes a task the magnitude of the extended essay can seem daunting, but finding 25 minute blocks of time seems far more manageable and when consistently used can yield big results! This technique helps give students a greater sense of control over their time. Many students were spotted around campus using this efficiency technique afterward. Mr. Menard & Ms. Mulazzi also shared their own methods for tracking key findings from a number of sources using spreadsheets & tables, something they both regularly do as part of their work on educational dissertations. It's important for students to see how many adults in their lives are also life-long learners. If you are feeling overwhelmed by a large task, try the Pomodoro Technique and see if it helps!
This Friday 16 March our Grade 10 students will showcase their Personal project. This is the culminating project of their MYP Journey. Please stop by the library from 1300 -1500 to celebrate their hard work. Some of our Grade 10 students will be participating in Nationals for Netball and Football this Friday, they will have the opportunity to share their work next Friday 23 March 1300 - 1400 in front of the Library. We hope to see you at both events! Go Leopards! Visualizing the project objective - International Baccalaureate. Projects guide - 2017. PDF file This week the grade 10 students are taking a break from their classes for an introduction to the Diploma Programme. By the end of the week the grade 10 students will have visited and sat in on every single course AISL offers, in order to help make informed decisions about course selection. Included in the orientation and classroom visits, they had the opportunity to ask questions to current grade 11 and 12 students. Thanks to Emma, Ntama, Michela, Jessica, Jesse, Vyan, Fei Ya, Sage, Mwape, and Mariana, for answering the students' questions honestly! Students asked questions such as, "What's it like to take two science courses at higher level?" and "What course selection decision are you most happy about?" as well as the ultimate question, "Is the IB really as hard as some kids say it is?" The conclusions from the 45-minute conversation are:
1. Choose courses that interest you and let your passion guide you through the two years. 2. You can handle the course work if you take it all one day at a time; there is no need to stress about it! 3. Do not procrastinate; the work starts on Day 1 of grade 11, and you don't have any time to lose! 4. Math Studies is an SL class, just like Math SL. One isn't easier than the other- they teach different themes and concepts! In addition to the asking questions in the student panel, the grade 10 students had a chance to take a career survey and practice navigating through the many different databases from universities around the world that details entrance requirements. Parents, please join Julie Baldry and Francesca Mulazzi in Tuesday's 7:30am Information Session about the Diploma Programme and the diploma choices for your child. |
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The Leopard's Tale is our main medium to keep our families informed on such things as the day to day happenings on campus, after school activities, summaries of any arts and sports events, helpful resources, and important dates and reminders.
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