Leopard's Tale |
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Leopard's Tale |
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Dear AISL Secondary families,
Let us begin by expressing my gratitude for your patience while we ironed out the final details of our Secondary Distance Learning Plan. We also greatly appreciate the understanding and calm with which our students, parents, and teachers have handled the news of the unavoidable school closure. This has aided us in the process of making a smooth transition to the new distance learning format. It is unfortunate that the rapid spread of COVID-19 has forced a campus closure. However, we are lucky in that we are one of the last countries and international schools to be affected by the pandemic. In the last months, we have learned a great deal from the trials and errors of our fellow international teaching colleagues in other parts of the globe. We have had a variety of video conference calls with individuals that have been delivering distance education for ten weeks or more. Moreover, administration and teachers receive multiple daily emails from sources, such as the IB, about the best methodology for distance education delivery. Having seen the writing on the wall, we have had the luxury to plan for a campus closure for some weeks now as well as the opportunity to do a small scale simulation with a number of our own students and teachers. Therefore, we feel confident in the plan that we have laid out. Please find the extensive, yet concise, Secondary Distance Learning Plan at this link. Please ensure that you have read through this document and understand it thoroughly. We have tried our best to anticipate as many hurdles as we could and devised structures and procedures for overcoming these. As more questions come to us from you, we will continue to add to this document. Please note that it is inevitable that there will be hiccups along the way. We kindly ask for your continued patience as we address these in a timely manner. We anticipate that there will be a multitude of updates throughout the first weeks, and perhaps month, of distance learning. Therefore, we have created the AISL Secondary Community Daily Comms. This will be the location for the latest news pertaining to the Secondary School and its students and parents. We offer this in place of filling your inbox with multiple emails daily. Moreover, you will be able to scroll to find past information at your convenience. Please bookmark it and check it daily as well as have your child(ren) do the same. In addition, all students are expected to check their emails at least once per day Monday-Friday for communication directly from their teachers. As of today, no students will be permitted on campus for any reason. Staff will continue to work normal hours through Friday. During this time, they will be working on creating high quality instructional plans for the students. We are thankful to the Board for allowing us these grace period days in order to prepare properly. Online distance learning will commence on Sunday 23 March at midnight when weekly modules for each class will be posted. Please note that in the first few weeks, we will be using very basic structures to ensure that students can ease into the new distance learning process. Teachers will be utilizing, as much as possible, the same routines as they have all year such as posting assessments and tasks to ManageBac. The link to the lesson plan will also be posted directly on ManageBac as an event for easy student access. The only new addition to students’ repertoire will be the use of Google Meet for teacher office hours. This is a fairly straightforward tool found in the Google Suite. Regardless, we will be posting some how-to videos shortly to the daily comms. After students and teachers become proficient with distance learning, following midterm break, some teachers may choose to become more technical in their delivery to create more effective lessons. Further notification about this would be posted on the Secondary Community Daily Comms. This morning I met with all of the Secondary students in grade level meetings and presented the distance learning plan to them as well as answered their questions and addressed their concerns. Please find the slideshow presentation here. Please note that we have made two minor changes to the distance learning plan this afternoon. Teachers will post lessons by SATURDAY midnight, not Sunday, and all work will be due by THURSDAY midnight, not FRIDAY. Please take note of some common practices that we ask all parents to monitor in order to respect child safety procedures.
As you child engages in distance learning, we highly encourage them to establish a daily routine. As part of this routine, please consider adding time for school work, exercise, socializing with friends (perhaps online), reading, chores, etc. This has been a simple tactic that has greatly aided student success in schools that have been engaged in distance learning for some time. Here is a possible sample schedule. These will obviously differ by child and students of different ages and work preferences. We also encourage students to spread out the work of each course across the week and not do all of the work for one course in a single stretch. We know that many questions will come up after reviewing this letter and linked documents over the next couple of days. To submit a question, please use the Google Form link found on the AISL Secondary Community Daily Comms. Ty will create a video answering parents’ and students’ questions. The video link will be posted there as well by Friday afternoon. Finally, in the unfortunate circumstance anyone in your family or your circle of contacts should contract COVID-19, it is critical that you inform us immediately to minimize further spread. Fingers crossed that we never receive such a notification. It is our very sincerest hope to see all of you back, and healthy, at school on or near April 28. We are confident that this time will bring us closer as a community and more appreciative of the great gift of education that we are able to share and experience. Kindest regards, Ty & Sheila Comments are closed.
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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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