Leopard's Tale |
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Leopard's Tale |
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This week , we are taking it back to the ISAZ National Championship Games in 2016In 2016 , AISL won ALL the ISAZ Championships in Basketball & Volleyball for all boys and girls teams The trip back to Lusaka was definitely one to remember! way to go Leopards! HS Coffee House is Back! Friday 20 November 19:00-20:00 Under the Stars on the Pavilion Deck29/10/2020
We have a wonderful coffee house tradition in the secondary school of AISL that offers students a chance to share many forms of creative expression in a relaxed, supportive environment. Students have shared song, instrumental pieces, dances, improv theatre, stand-up comedy, poetry, and more. Our first upper secondary (Grades 9-12) coffee house of the year will be held on the outside deck of the Palm Pavilion on Friday 20 November from 19:00-20:00. Space will be limited to the first fifty students who sign up, with priority going to the students who plan to perform / share at the coffee house (sign-up sheet is posted in the AISL Student Portal and this has been announced at assembly). We will need a minimum of 15 acts in order to host the event, as we want to make sure that it will be worthwhile for all attendees. We look forward to scheduling a Middle School Coffee House (grades 6-8) at a later stage as we adjust our organization of coffee houses in light of COVID health and safety protocols. We will keep everyone posted. Please feel welcome to give your son or daughter a nudge to share at this upcoming coffee house! Students who perform often say how empowering it is to put their ideas out there to a real audience. The High School Student Council will be helping to coordinate this event, with Ms. Maguire (Secondary School Librarian) serving as the faculty advisor. Please feel welcome to send any questions to tmaguire@aislusaka.org. Through parent coffee mornings, we have regularly shared information and resources about social media and balanced use and how parents can support from home, all of which can be found here on the Parent LibGuide. Now, more than ever, we are all aware of the importance of being a good digital citizen. With increased screentime at home, challenges related to balance and appropriate use are more prevalent. As a parent, you have the opportunity to support at home and even ‘manage’ the child’s iPad. Please read below for some practical suggestions and solutions: MAKE SPACE FOR LEARNING Your child will work best in a quiet, comfortable space that they helped design away from other distractions and in a public area of the house. Keep in mind that students will be in this space for many hours each day.
AVOID MULTITASKING/DISTRACTIONS Monitor your children’s social media use, especially in a distance learning setting. Make sure that time spent on social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp is monitored/restricted to help students focus on school work.
DIGITAL RECESS Make sure that your children take plenty of breaks in order to get physical activity and plan off-screen activities for the whole family.
References ‘COVID-19 and At-Home Learning’. Children and Screens, https://www.childrenandscreens.com/media/press-releases/covid-19-and-at-home-learning/. Accessed 22 Apr. 2020. PARENT’S GUIDE TO DISTANCE LEARNING | ACS International Schools. https://www.acs-schools.com/parents-guide-distance-learning. Accessed 22 Apr. 2020. Image citation: Photo by Emma Matthews Digital Content Production on Unsplash
What I am excited about this week Campus Reopening! It was wonderful to welcome Grades 7, 9, and 12 to our campus today. I saw a lot of smiling kids. Of course, I couldn’t really see their smiles due to the face masks everyone was wearing but their eyes told the whole story. We are all glad to have students back on campus. Our reopening was possible thanks to the hard work that went into our reopening plan. Called Reunite 2020, this document describes the health and safety measures that we are using on our campus. You can access this plan from the main page of our site as well as our COVID-19 page. Many thanks to the Campus Reopening Task Force, CDC, and the school’s leadership team and faculty for their contributions to this important document. Brilliant IB Diploma Results! As you may recall, we found many anomalies when our IB Diploma results were released in July. At that time, Monica Murphy, our Diploma Program (DP) Coordinator launched a detailed appeal to the IB based on careful analysis of our students’ individual work. In fact, we were not alone. About 700 of the 3000 or so IB schools launched similar appeals. Earlier this week, we received welcome news that the IB amended our results. The final results were outstanding – and were much more in line with what we expected from the Class of 2020. We had an 88% pass rate and an average diploma score of 32. These results are very high for an inclusive program. By inclusive, we mean that, at AISL, any student who wishes to challenge him/herself by pursuing the Diploma Program is encouraged to do so. This is in contrast to many schools that set high bars and require students to qualify for participation. That selective strategy helps those schools publish impressive results statistics but robs many, many students of the opportunity to stretch themselves and achieve in the DP! We firmly believe that we should encourage – not discourage – learners to challenge themselves. You can learn more about this year’s results later in this newsletter. Congratulations to the Class of 2020! Now you can really celebrate! Verbal Jam! Please check out our new Verbal Jam page. Verbal Jam is designed to be an exclusive AISL online environment where thoughts, opinions, news, and advice all come together. We invite all AISL students, parents, and staff to take part in an ongoing online conversation focused on sharing, motivating, and, of course, educating! Please take a few moments to explore the site and please post messages on the Thrive Message Board. The Verbal Jam password is the same as the one we use for the Parent Portal. The Secondary School continues to ensure that every student thrives by now offering Path 1, 2, and 3 options for our Grades 7, 9, and 12 students, and Paths 2 and 3 for our Grade 6, 8, 10, and 12 students. We had our first students back on campus today and we want to celebrate edging further towards the “new normal.” Celebrating our successesOur Grade 7, 9, and 12 students learned this past week about how to prepare for on campus learning, what to expect, and all the things the school is doing to keep them safe. It was great to see them on campus today interacting with each other and teachers and taking the first steps for our school towards bringing everyone back on campus. We will open the opportunity to come on campus to more grade levels as soon as the Zambian government allows. Here are some images of what lessons looked like on campus today with students 1.5 meters apart from each other and wearing masks, Path 2 students live streaming in to join the lessons, and Path 3 students joining when they could. Parent Information SessionsWe have three Parent Information Sessions planned for next two weeks to support our Secondary families. And if you missed the Parent Information Evening this past week on Campus Reopening Procedures for Grades 7, 9, and 12, you can view the slideshow here; the slideshow has detailed information and images about what students can expect when they return to campus. Save the Dates!The upcoming Parent Information Sessions are: Tuesday 25 August 15:30-16:00 - Grade-Level/Advisory Information Session As we experienced technical difficulties that made it impossible for many of our parents to get into their child’s Advisory session on Open Night, we would like to offer parents another opportunity to learn about their child’s grade level and advisory lessons. Please join us at this link on Tuesday 25 August at 15:30 if you would still like to learn about your child’s grade level goals and meet your child’s advisor. Here is the schedule on the “Meet the Advisors” slideshow with all the links to the Google Meets rooms so you have it in advance. Grade 11-12 parents are asked to attend the “Introduction to the DP” Parent Information Session, which is hosted by your child’s advisors, the DP Coordinator, the College Counselor, and which contains information for parents of both Grade 11 and Grade 12 students. Tuesday 25 August 15:30-16:30 - Introduction to the Diploma Programme (DP) This Parent Information Session is for Secondary families new to the DP and anyone who would like a refresher. The session will be an introduction or review of the written, taught, and assessed curriculum as part of the Diploma Programme. Our DP Coordinator, Monica Murphy, and our High School/College Counselor, Julie Baldry, will host this information session. Parents can join by clicking this link. Tuesday 1 September 18:00-19:00 - Introduction to the Middle Years Programme (MYP) This Parent Information Session is for Secondary families new to the MYP and anyone who would like a refresher. The session will be an introduction/review of the written, taught, and assessed curriculum as part of the Middle Years Programme. Our MYP Coordinator, Ingrid Turner, will host this information session. Parents can join by clicking this link. Feedback and communicationThank you for helping us make sure that your child thrives at AISL. Your feedback and communication help us to make sure that your child is successful during distance learning. Please contact us with any questions or feedback you might have. Thank you for all your support at home.
Kind regards, Dr. Rick Odum, Secondary Principal Dr. Sheila Seiler, Secondary Assistant Principal Choosing a reliable internet provider (and a back up or two!) is a challenge worldwide, and even more so here in Africa. This is something that each parent, student and teacher around the world is struggling with, especially through distance learning! Uploading files, participating in Google Meets, accessing Seesaw & ManageBac are all dependent on YOUR internet speed. Sadly we, at AISL, cannot provide a solution to your home internet connection issues - but we can offer some suggestions of how to monitor and, in some cases, improve your situation:
Making connections through the Listening ConferencesIt has been wonderful seeing many of our families on campus or virtually this week during the Listening Conferences. As shared in last week's post, these conferences are a wonderful opportunity for creating connections between home and school. The Listening Conferences have become particularly important because we have opened the school year via Distance Learning. These conferences give students and families the chance to meet the new homeroom teacher, discuss how the Distance Learning experience is going so far, and share any other information that would help support the student. We have had a number of families sign up for a conference this week. If you have not done so already, please access this sign-up sheet for an available slot. If you need to arrange one for the following week, please coordinate directly with your child's homeroom teacher. Engagement with Distance LearningOver the past week, each teacher has been updating our records that indicate which students are engaging in our synchronous, Real-Time Distance Learning path, which students are connecting asynchronously through our Flexible Distance Learning path, and which students are doing a combination of both. We understand that various circumstances may present themselves on different days (power outages, internet connectivity challenges, illness, travel) so please note that there is flexibility and fluidity built into the paths. Class Meets and mini-lessons will be recorded and can be accessed through your child's Google Calendar on their iPad. Students will also find recorded instructions for each learning engagement posted on Seesaw should they not be able to join a live Meet. We are extremely pleased to see the consistent engagement from students, not only with the homeroom lessons, but in the specialist lessons as well. We aim to provide a well-rounded, holistic program so we are grateful to see that students are equally engaging with the arts, modern languages, physical education, library and information technology as part of their learning each week. In the coming weeks, we ask that families keep us updated on any changes to their situation (location, travel plans, asynchronous vs synchronous engagement). We have also begun adding some Q&As on our Distance Learning Set-up and Support website page to share responses to some commonly asked questions pertaining to Distance Learning. We invite you to check that periodically if you have a question about something. If you do not find a response to your question, please feel free to reach out to us. We are here to help.
Until next week, Darlene Huson, Primary Principal Tony Potts, Primary Assistant Principal/ IT Integration Specialist Christine Kelly, Primary Assistant Principal/ PYP Coordinator Dear Parents,
Welcome to the 2020-21 School Year! We are thrilled to be back to school and working with your children. Obviously, the start of this school year is unlike any other year yet we remain committed to our mission of offering the highest-quality international education taught by the most highly-qualified faculty in the country. Our new Distance Learning 3.0 (DL3.0) program has been heavily revised based on feedback from our students, parents, and faculty. It is designed to be highly flexible in order to support the wide range of needs in our community. Our distance learning program has two Learning Paths: Real-time Distance Learning and Flexible Distance Learning. Our Real-time Distance Learning Path is designed to offer a synchronous student experience within our regular school hours and following our normal schedule of classes. The goal of this program is to provide as much of an “in-the-classroom” experience as possible. It is meant to maximize engagement and provide frequent opportunities for students to have direct interactions with their teacher, teaching assistants, and peers. Our Flexible Distance Learning Path is targeted toward students who are located in other time zones or who have unique educational circumstances that are not suited to the Real-time Distance Learning Path. The Flexible Distance Learning Path is largely asynchronous, which allows students to work on learning tasks according to their own schedules. There are still multiple opportunities each week for these students to interact directly with their teachers. Our goal in implementing these two learning paths is to provide as much flexibility as possible. For example, it is conceivable that a student’s unique situation might require that he or she has to switch between these two paths. The critical factor in our success lies in regular contact with the student and parent. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the Primary and Secondary Principals to explain your situation so we can make an educational plan that will best support your child. It is important for parents to remember that this is not a “home-schooling” program. You do not need to teach your children; please leave that to our highly-skilled teachers. We do ask that you provide the necessary support, including adequate rest, a safe and pleasant work-space, and consistent internet access but please feel free to leave the teaching to us! Please take some time to explore our Distance Learning Setup and Support page on the school website. There is a wealth of information designed to ensure a smooth start to the school year. If you have questions, need advice, or technical support, please contact anybody on our staff. If that person cannot help you with the issue, he or she can direct you to someone who can. Of course, the ideal situation is the reopening of campus. Currently, the government of Zambia, by Presidential Decree, only permits the opening of school campuses for “examination” grades. In the Zambian context, that means Grades 7, 9, and 12. You are correct in thinking that these grade levels do not necessarily align with our own program’s “examination” grades; however, at this time, we do not have the legal flexibility to reinterpret the government’s mandates. Rest assured that we are working to seek the necessary permissions. In the mean-time, we are monitoring the COVID-19 situation in Zambia carefully and are planning to reopen the campus to the authorized grade levels (7, 9, and 12) on 20 August. We will review and communicate our plans to reopen campus next week. In other news, we are thrilled to report on the successes of the Class of 2020. Despite having a tumultuous ending to their high school years, these impressive young people have landed very well. First, we were generally pleased with their IB Diploma scores. We believe that the cancellation of the exams and the subsequent measures that were used to calculate student grades disadvantaged some of our students. We have joined with hundreds of schools around the world in a strident appeal to the IB to review the process that they followed and many of the decisions they made. If we are successful, our results will be even better. Second, regardless of the IB Diploma scores, 95% of the students who applied to university were accepted into their first-choice school! Furthermore, the students earned a combined total of $1.7 million in non-repayable university scholarships. These are spectacular university results and are indeed some of our best ever. You can learn more later in this newsletter. Congratulations to the Class of 2020 for rising to the challenge! Dear parents, We had a fun start to the school year with our First Day of School Assembly at 07:30 on Thursday. Almost 200 Secondary students were able to join us from all around the world! We kept the Secondary School tradition of playing “Two Truths and a Lie” to introduce our new Principal and five new teachers. Our new Principal is Dr. Rick Odum and our new teachers are as follows: Joanna Gutierrez (PYP, MYP, and DP Music), Dr. Dean Lindstrom (Grade 9 and DP Mathematics, and Grade 7 Science), Chantra Reinman (Director of Student Support Services), Mark Reinman (Grade 9 and DP Language and Literature, Grade 12 TOK), and Adam Cruickshank (DP Economics and Grade 9 Individuals and Societies). We want to let you know more about what to expect for the start of the school year. In this section, we will explain how we are supporting students and parents during the start of this school year. Supporting students Our students are supported academically, social-emotionally, and technologically through a variety of programs in the Secondary school. Students are supported academically through being able to access learning resources and materials on the Landing Pages for their classes. These Landing Pages are located in the Student Portal, to which all students have access. Students whose families have indicated that they prefer Path 3 (Flexible Distance Learning) can access their learning materials via the Landing Pages and watch recordings of the class videos at times that work for them. Students whose families have indicated that they will join us on Path 2 (Real-Time Distance Learning) should be present in class each day. If they cannot attend for a whole school day for any reason, please contact us at attendance@aislusaka.org so that their teachers are aware they will be absent from class. If they cannot attend a specific class, please notify that class’ teacher. Below is an example of what the links to the Landing Pages looks like. Below are some example Landing Pages so you can get an idea of what they look like for different grades and classes. You'll notice that they all have a link to the Google Meet for the lesson, the learning objectives, and the resources and learning experiences for the students. The Landing Pages ensure that students in Path 2 (Real-Time Distance Learning) and Path 3 (Flexible Distance Learning) can be successful during distance learning. Students are also supported academically through the AISL timetable, starting each day at 7:30 am and ending on Mondays through Thursdays at 2:30 pm and Fridays at 1:00 pm. Students on Path 3 who are not attending classes will be invited by their teachers to check-ins each week so that their teachers can build student-teacher relationships and support them; those check-ins will begin on Monday 17 August. Your child’s timetable is available on ManageBac. Our teachers will support students academically during class by ensuring that the lessons are engaging. Students will participate in group work, all-class discussions, and independent work. If the lesson allows, they will be permitted to log off to work on tasks offline while the teacher stays in the Google Meet so if the student has a question, the student can log back on and receive support. Students’ social and emotional needs are supported through our Advisory program, which continues during distance learning. All Grade 6-10 students have Advisory on Mondays through Thursdays at 8:55-9:30 am. Grade 11 and 12 students have Advisory built into their schedule as part of their Advisory/CAS/EE block. Our counselors are involved in working with the advisors to make sure that student needs are being met. Our students are supported technologically in several ways. On the Student Portal, they can navigate to the Tech@AISL page, which is located at the top of the page on the right. That page contains tutorials and information about all aspects of technology use and agreements in the Secondary school. If they have a problem with accessing ManageBac, their school email, or the Student Portal, or if they have a problem with a device, they can contact our technology support team at it@aislusaka.org. Our teachers and advisors are also supporting students in their classes at being able to navigate the Landing Pages and ManageBac. We extend our technological support to allowing students to take breaks, with permission, during lesson times. If they feel strained during the class from being online, they just need to ask their teacher when might be a good time to take a break. Our teachers will also build breaks into their lessons. If the screen time is too much for your child and you decide to switch to Path 3, which allows students to complete assignments and watch lesson recordings on their own time, please let us know. We will communicate the switch from Path 2 (Real-Time Distance Learning) to Path 3 (Flexible Distance Learning) with your child’s teachers.
Supporting parents Our parents will continue to receive weekly updates on the Secondary program through the Leopard’s Tale. We will also host Open Night at 17:30-19:30 on Tuesday 18 August. Open Night is an evening when parents can meet their children’s teachers and advisor as well as the Secondary school leaders. We will create a schedule with links to the Google Meets presentations for each teacher and class so that parents can meet all their child’s teachers and learn about all their classes. That schedule will be released in the Leopard’s Tale next week, so stay tuned. Feedback and communication We care deeply about making sure that every student thrives. Your feedback and communication help us to make sure that your child manages the academic, social-emotional, and technology challenges of distance learning. Please contact us with any questions or feedback you might have. Thank you for all your support at home. Kind regards, Dr. Rick Odum, Secondary Principal Dr. Sheila Seiler, Secondary Assistant Principal Some parents may be concerned about their children having ‘missed out’ on their education over the last few months. The teachers at AISL are a dedicated, highly qualified cohort who are constantly upskilling in the field of education. Please know that, as educators, we are trained to differentiate learning. Here are two ways you might approach extra ‘learning’, if you are at all concerned, in your home this summer.
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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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