Primary Newsletter

NEWS#13

PRIMARY SCHOOL

Primary Newsletter | Issue 13| April 01 2011

The International School of The Hague

Wijndaelerduin 12554 BX The Hague www.ishthehague.nl

Primary SchoolTelephone +31 (0)70 338 4567Fax +31 (0)70 328 2049Email [email protected]

Secondary SchoolTelephone +31 (0)70 328 1450Fax +31 (0)70 328 2049Email [email protected]

In this issue

2 Dear ISH News Readers,

4}5 Mother Tongue News

7 Dates for your Diary

6}12 Primary News and Events

2

Dear Parents,

It has been another eventful week at ISH. On Tuesday, I was delighted to be present at the opening of our Green Space area. Alderman Karsten Klein gave up some of his valuable time to plant a walnut tree and to chat to our children about the sort of wildlife we are hoping to attract and protect in this beautiful area. I invite you to have a wander with your children through the Green Space, but of course please stay on the paths and keep your children supervised at all times. I’m sure we don’t need to remind our primary children to look after this special place and keep it litter-free. We look forward to hearing of the fi rst sightings of animals and birds. Two Canada Geese watched the offi cial proceedings yesterday and a rabbit scampered away just as we arrived. If you do spot any unusual animals or birds, we’d love to hear from you.

We are edging closer to World Book Day and the excitement is building.....and that’s just the teaching staff. Several of us made short video podcasts this week, reading excerpts from our favourite books. All sorts of other exciting events have been planned, coordinated by Ms. Oakley

and our language arts team. Look out for more information coming your way soon.

Preparations for our Spring Fair are now in full swing. We have a great group of parents who are working tirelessly alongside Mrs. Tee to make this year’s event a big success. I’m sure that, come the day, all will be ready. Then all we need to do is hope the sun shines! Mrs. Titan and her team are also working hard on this year’s production, PANGEA. It promises to be an amazing performance and I’m sure you’re going to love it. It was written by our own teachers to fi t our unique international community and I’m certain you’re going to love it. Again, more information will follow soon.

Finally, there is a Spring Breakfast at The Hungry Mind community centre on Tuesday 12th April. I hope to be there and I look forward to seeing you there too.

Kind regards,

Graeme Scott

Dear ISH News Readers,

This Issue is made byVerona Schroder [email protected] Scott

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Mother Tongue News

The Year 3s finished their IPC topic with a chocolate feast! We had a picnic in the glasshouse with hot chocolate and chocolate pancakes. It was a great way to finish the topic. We have now started our new and very exciting topic of dinosaurs. During open day some parents came in to help us make dinosaurs out of play dough.

Language Acquisition, Some Knowledge to Share

During the Holiday Ms. Tee, Ms. Rikers and Ms. McCracken dedicated their free time to participate in the ECIS, ESL and Mother Tongue conference: “Promoting Linguistic Human Rights in International Schools: from Theory to the Classroom” taking place in Dusseldorf. In the coming newsletters they will share what they learned and how it can help all of us to further support our children’s language learning. I would like to thank them for their commitment and dedication.

Mother Tongue News

*After School Mother Tongue:2nd term catch up classes update:- The following Lower School (LS) classes will have a catch up lesson on the 20/04: Italian, French and German.- The following Upper School (US) classes will have a catch up lesson on the 21/04: the 2 French groups and German.- LS German and US French group from Ms. Edith have missed a 2nd session. That session will be deducted from the 3rd term MT fee.Looking for MT tutors: We are always looking at possibilities to open other MT language classes. If you know someone that is a qualifi ed teacher or has experience working with children and is interested to teach their mother tongue and to join our MT tutors team, please ask them to contact me.We are currently looking for a German tutor to take over the US class on Thursdays from 3:00 to 4:10. The tutor could start ASAP this term and will continue next school year as well.

*Mother Tongue within the curriculum:US has been working hard creating beautiful “Spring has sprung” displays. Please feel free to come and admire them in our glasshouse from Wednesday onwards!*International Mother Language Day and “Ecole Soleil d’ Hollande”:

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Mother Tongue

Thank you very much for all the Mother Tongue Books donated to our library. We received around 100 books in many languages. Ms. Sue is busy encoding them into our library system and displaying them on our international library shelves for the children to borrow and enjoy!Thank you also for the donation for the “Ecole Soleil d’ Hollande”. On that day we received some French books and 146 euros. We then had a lovely gift from Lucien, a student in Y2 that I would like to share with you. His mum told me: “Lucien was made aware of and was very affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti last year. For his birthday, which came soon after the earthquake, he chose (without prompting) not to have a birthday party nor presents and just asked that the money been given to those who needed it most in Haiti.” Lucien was not sure where to send this money but his mum kept the envelope with all the bills and the coins saved up. When Lucien heard about “Ecole Soleil de Hollande” and our project to provide them with books he then knew exactly “where his collection will go and what his money will be used for”. Lucien came to my offi ce to hand over his savings and donated over 100 euros extra . What a lovely gesture Lucien and how well you demonstrate our SquISH attitude: Principled, Make Responsible Choices! We decided to round up what we received which will bring our total to 300 euros that will be used to buy books to create a library in their school.

I mentioned previously that other people also offered to support this project. A big thank you to: Isabelle Lopez, local agent of Bayard & Milan Presse for providing our school with English French, Spanish and German magazines and for donating some French magazines; 2 boxes of English books were donated from Scholastic International that will be of a great use for the older students of “Ecole Soleil d’ Hollande”; the librarian of the BCD from the Lycee Francais also collected 2 boxes of French books for us.

Finally IDA foundation, a not for profi t organization that has as its mission, to provide generic medicines at the lowest possible cost to make it affordable to developing countries or NGOs supporting people in need (war places or after natural disaster), is offering to join our books to one of their medicine containers going to Haiti. Therefore we can save shipment costs and use all our donated money to buy as many books as possible!Some of you also contacted me to support this project and “take this opportunity to teach our children that the privileges they enjoy are not shared by all children around the world and that the little things we do collectively can make a huge impact on others”. I will lead an assembly later this year to share with the children some of my travel pictures of less fortunate children to show where they live, where they go to school, …etc. Following this assembly we will invite donations one more time. In the meantime I am now contacting various French book publishers to see if we can make some good deals with them to get as

many books as we can for our money.

p

5


Primary News

class photos will be taken for the yearbook next Tuesday and Thursday.

World Book Day

Celebrations at the ISH

A quick reminder…

As already detailed in the last newsletter, we will be celebrating books and reading in the lead up to World Book Day from Monday 11th April through to Thursday 21st April. Among other events, we will be hosting our ‘Love to Read’ incentive, making hats, and dressing up to parade as our favourite book characters on Wednesday 20th April. There will also be a competition to fi nd the ‘Craziest Place To Read’, a charity book collection and a special surprise assembly!UK children’s author Denis Bond will visit us, and share with the children the process of book making from inspiration and original idea through to

publication. In addition, Years 5 and 6 will attend a workshop with him about the books of various children’s authors, and the art and skill of story writing. Please look out for our whole-school displays over

coming weeks and continue to support your children to develop a love of books by encouraging them to read lots at home.

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Dates for your Diary

Spring Fair

May Holiday, School starts again on 09

May

Konininnedag Queen’s Day

Year 4 Camp, returning 1 May

Year 5 cycling practice

Upper School Sports Day

Meeting with new Reception Parents at

18:00

Annual Upper School Performance

17:00


17:00


17:00

Ms. Jagdev

Mr. Beren

Ms. H. Scott

Ms. Ana (PM)

Mr. Beren

Ms. Fallenius

Ms. Fallenius

Mr. McCarthy (PM)

Ms. Clough

Ms. Welsh

Ms. Welsh

April CT DAYSCT DAYS

30

04 Apr09

Please check our website for a complete calendar

05 Apr

07 Apr

08 Apr

11 Apr

12

May

13

12 Apr

25

22

06 Apr

June

07

08

097


Primary News

Reading incentive fortnight

or

11th – 21st of April

This will be the 3rd annual reading incentive fortnight, which promises to be the best yet! in conjunction with the Language Arts Committee will celebrate World Book Day with activities including a visit from a children’s author, a book-themed fancy-dress / hat parade and sharing a book in our Mother Tongue.

The aim of is to encourage children to read more and, at the same time, make money to buy more books for our school.

Each child can buy their ‘reading strippenkaart’ – pink for lower and blue for upper school. It is divided into 15 segments and costs 3 euros. In Lower School each segment represents 15 minutes reading time, in Upper School 30 minutes. Each kaart can be handed in once every segment has been initialed by an adult. The reading can be by

the child, or an adult reading to them in English or their Mother Tongue.

The money will be used to purchase new books – for the classroom. Children in the winning classes (one class in Lower and one in Upper School, with the highest total of strippenkaarten) can each choose a book for their class. There is no restriction on the number of strippenkaarten each child can buy. Strippenkaarten will also be on sale during the Spring Fling.

There will be a large mobile phone poster in the glasshouse which will chart the progress of the year groups with smilies. The children have loved the competition over the last two years, and last year we raised over 1100 euros.

Karen Gilmour, Ros Evans and Sue Eckersley

CHARITY UPDATEThe past two weeks primary has been busy raising money to help aid Japan. So far we have raised 460 Euros. If you would like to donate money please send it in to the Primary Office in sealed envelope.

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Events

Spring Fair

Spring Fair 11-3pm Saturday 9th April, 2011The ISH Primary Spring Fair is just weeks away now and a lot of work has already gone into making it a great day out for the kids and their families. We have lots of games and activities as well as music and entertainment plus lots of delicious food.

The annual Spring Fair is the most important fundraising event for the ISH Primary PTA. Last year’s Spring Fair raised the money for the new playground equipment that was installed during the mid-term break. This year we are still focused on improving the children’s playing area. To achieve this we need students and parents to get involved with, and most importantly, come along to the Spring Fair on Saturday April 9th!To volunteer please contact [email protected]

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Primary News

It’s Show Time!

Pangea Information

The preparations for the Primary Show 2011 are in full fl ow now! All class representatives must have received and distributed the information on the costumes for years 4, 5 and 6. We will again need as much help as we can get. If you would like to help us with costume making, scenery painting, props production, please send me an email and I will put you in contact with the lovely parents who are helping me this year ([email protected]). We will also need a lot of help on the show days to dress the children, put make up on etc. So please contact your class teacher if you are available on one of those dates. This year there are a few novelties to the show: we will have a live band playing music from time to time. We already had our fi rst rehearsal but I would like you to reserve the following date for fi nal joint rehearsal of Primary Choir and ISH Primary Live Band - Wednesday 1st June from 5pm.Another novelty is the Dancing Crew! The Dancing Crew rehearsals so far have been fantastic and I can only thank the children for their devotion and hard work. Here just a reminder of our extra practices on the following Saturdays.9th of April - 9:30 to 10:30 (just before the Spring Fair)

14th of May – 15:30 to 17:30Just to help us with deadlines and clarity here is a Pangea Show Count Down:• Dancing Crew Rehearsals 9th of April and 14th of May• Tickets will be for sale from the 9th of May onwards – ordering form will be sent home.• PANGEA t-shirts will be for sale with a reproduction of the poster – order form will be going home (mid April).• ALL COSTUMES READY BY the 30th of May. (this allows us time in case extra repair work is needed).• Run Through - 1st of June (no costumes required)• Choir and Live Band rehearsal – 1st June• Dress rehearsal – Monday the 6th of June at 12:30 (costumes required, no make up)• SHOW DATES – 7th 8th and 9th of June – Attention - all shows will start at 17:00.• We will again fi lm and produce a DVD with the show footage and the wonderful pictures of the school photographer and you can order that after the show.

Five Sizzling Sisters Cooking

Four Dishes ...

ISH PRIMARY MUSICAL 2011

June 7th 8th and 9th — 17:00

Thank you for the warm support that so many of you gave, we were be able to collect a total of 571 euros.We will transfer the money to the Japanese Red Cross in the name of ISH.Thank you. From the Japanese families in ISH.

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Primary News & Events

Student Council News

We counted all the coins for KIKA and…..guess how much we raised?!

At the beginning of the year the primary student council children of the International School of the Hague voted to sponsor KIKA. We held a talent show to raise money. We went to Mr. Scott and asked for help. We made a agreement with Mr. Scott that he buy us 365 KIKA key chain bears. We gave them to the primary children ISH to support KIKA. We were trying to raise awareness for the children who have cancer because the children need support. In total we raised 1761,36 Euros!!! We would like to say thank you to Mr. Scott and all the other people that helped.

The Result of Orange Day: 460 euros

raised for Japan

A little while ago the PTA asked the Primary Student Council to choose a charity for the money that would raise on Orange Day.We are all very sad for Japan that they had a tsunami and an earthquake, and we wanted Japan to have help! We asked all the members of the student council to vote, and we unanimously choose to send the money to Japan. Together we counted all the money that was donated and Ms. Rikers gave it to Ms. Tee, and Ms. Tee together with the PTA will donate the money to the Dutch Red Cross Giro 6868. The Dutch red Cross will then give it to the Japanese Red Cross to help the Japanese people right away!

A big Thank You to everyone for helping Japan!Jan, June, Ward, Grisha, Finley, Bhavart, Anya, Eleonora, Brice, Fabianna, Louis, Ana Nusa; The ISH Primary School Student Councilhttp://www.rodekruis.nl/campagnes/tsunami-japan/onze-hulp-in-japan/Paginas/information-in-english.aspx

Hungry Mind

Dear All,The Hungry Mind would like to invite you to join our ‘Spring Breakfast’Tuesday 12 April 8.30-11.30 There will also be a jewellery sale.There will be a demonstration on colour and clothing, a chair masseuse, a beautician, a manicure and a fl orist will be there so, pick your treats. Please let us know if you would like to attend this lovely morning at The Hungry Mind, so we can be prepared for you. We hope to see you on April 12. The Hungry Mind Events Team10% of the proceeds will go to The Hungry Mind - to keep on expanding our community clubhouse)

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Primary Newsletter

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