International Day celebrations
Well done to everyone for a fantastic “International Day” celebration. The school was a blaze of colour for the day as children, staff and parents dressed in their country’s national costume or flag colours. There were three particular highlights to the day. The assembly and parade started the day off in fine style. The hall was full to overflowing as everyone shared their outfits for the day. At lunchtime, the array of international foods was overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who contributed so generously to share traditional foods from your home country. The day was brought to a close with the raising of the Malaysian flag, the Sarawak flag and our own new School flag designed by Deeksha in P7. Deeksha explained the importance of the flag colours – red for the brightness of the students, yellow for the Golden Rules, green to reflect the environment we live in and white for peace and unity. And what a wonderful thought to end the day on. A special thanks to Miss Charlotte and Miss Els who did all the hard work behind the scenes to co-ordinate the whole day.
Malaysian Culture Dance
Just before half term and to finish off our Malaysian Culture focus, some of our girls performed a traditional Malaysian dance in assembly. They were coached by Chris, one of our Personal Assistants, who has herself represented Sarawak in a Malaysian Dance competition. They looked beautiful in the traditional costumes and make up as they performed the “Rampaian Dance” for the whole school assembly. Well done girls and thank you to Chris!
Miri Amateur Swimming Association (MASA)
On Saturday 7th November we entered over 30 children into the MASA swimming championship. Competing against 14 other schools in the area, our children performed superbly achieving 4th place overall. Throughout the day we saw a good deal of determination, co-operation and resilience. There was an impressive amount of team spirit between all the swimmers, and encouragement and support from all the parents there. A huge well done to all the swimmers, some of whom have only been swimming for a short while. We are all very proud of you! I would like to thank Miss Claire and Miss Jackie for the extra time and effort they put in to training the swimmers and making the day so successful.
Book week 30th November – 4th December
Don’t forget to have a look around the school at all the decorated doors on the first Monday of this week. Can you guess what book they represent? On Friday 4th December there will be a book sale in the hall after school. If you are going to have a stall, could we ask you to donate two of your books for Lutong School? There will be many book related events happening throughout the week, including a star appearance of the storyteller at Monday’s assembly. Last year a bedraggled pirate came ashore to open our book week, I wonder who will be coming this year!
Extreme Reading competition
To get in the mood for BOOK WEEK 2009, why not encourage your children to enter the Extreme Reading Competition? All they have to do is to get you to take a photograph of them reading in the weirdest and wackiest place that they can think of. Please put your entries in the box outside Miss Linda’s office by Wednesday 2nd December. Make sure your entry has your child’s name and class clearly written on it. All entries will be displayed during book week.
School Improvement Plan
Following our very successful School Review in May 2009, we have used the outcomes from this alongside our own school self-evaluation to create a three-year improvement plan. This has been divided into short-term annual plans and this year we have the following three whole school targets.
Target 1 will look to address the key recommendation from the report to “use national curriculum levels for all English … assessments”. We will review our assessment of children’s learning within the area of “Writing”, looking at the latest guidance from the Revised Literacy Framework from the UK and adapting this to suit our international context. This supports the English National Curriculum, which all Shell International Schools follow. As we have always done, we shall use these assessments to inform future planning for improved learning. A team of 8 teachers is leading us in this area, with six of them having received up-to-date training over the summer holiday.
Target 2 will look at raising the profile of PE within the school, focussing on gymnastics skills. Miss Claire and Miss Jackie will lead Gym lessons for all the classes in school after our December holiday. This will improve children’s learning in the core skills in gymnastics and provide hands on professional development for all teachers. You may have noticed some changes already to the PE timetable for this year with every class having TWO dedicated PE sessions a week. One for swimming and one for other PE activities, as well as the usual PE activities encompassed by the International Primary Curriculum. Physical education is also our theme for the Curriculum Day on 8th December, when the normal school timetable will be changed for physical activities during the morning sessions.
Target 3 will address the recommendation to “develop differentiation by task more fully at the planning stage so that children can learn at their optimum level and as independently as possible”. To link with the other two targets, we shall look at differentiation within PE and also within Writing tasks.
Request for help in the Library!
Miss Catherine and Miss Jackie are in desperate need of some extra hands to help put away books in the library. If you could spare some time, please let them know. No prior experience necessary!
A few dates to remember
27th November – Hari Raya Qurban – School closed
30th November – Start of book week
1st December – Last after school activities
2nd/3rd December – Last swimming sessions
4th December – Book week parade. Come dressed as a character from your favourite “food” story.
8th December – PE morning. Remember those PE kits!
I really look forward to events planned for the rest of this term. As always, they rely on the hard work of an immensely dedicated team of staff at the school and also your continued support. Many thanks to you all for making the Piasau experience so special!
Please do not hesitate to contact us if there is anything you wish to discuss. Our doors are always open.
Best wishes, Yvette
