INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL SUVA

PRIMARY PRESS

ISS CYCLONE RELIEF

Thank you so very much for all of the support we have been receiving. A small group of staff have been meeting with members of our community to assess their individual needs following the cyclone. There are 5 staff members who need to rebuild or repair extensively their homes and we have ensured that these staff members have adequate funds and materials to do so. We have addressed the most pressing requirements of our school community and have now began discussions around what else we can do, working with already established links in Tailevu, Ra and Koro who have already reached out to us.

Our fundraising efforts will need your help and support. Already we have had our f irst MUFTI and sausage sizzle which will enable us to start helping these communities and their most immediate needs. Rather than money, people are invited to bring in goods such as buckets, brushes, soap bars, tarps, pinch bars, hammers and nails. We are also collecting linen, bedding and other useful household goods. We are taking action to make a real dif ference in a very dif f icult t ime for many! Vinaka Vakelevu!

Welcome to our very f irst edition of Primary Press for 2016! The f irst six weeks have passed by so quickly and much has happened.

Our f irst Unit of Inquiry concludes and our second begins this week. With that, we have change of focus with our specialist areas within each UOI. With the change in focus means more collaborative planning after school and during designated planning times. What do we mean by collaborative planning? There is no 'I" in Teacher. Collaborative planning involves a year level team, specialist teacher and facilitator working and learning together as they plan units of inquiry, or lessons including summative assessment tasks. It provides opportunities for teachers to work together to make connections, consult with colleague's and develop their skil ls. With effective collaboration, teachers can achieve effective outcomes for all students, feel happier about their work and be more likely to work together in the future. Why? They know with whom they need to collaborate. They can establish and clarify collaborative goals setting up a positive interdependence with each other. Teachers also learn to recognize and respect dif ferences in motivation of collaborators, expect to be responsible and expect to be accountable. They support and facilitate individual an team actions such as following through on agreements.

Just recently we heard from Mr. James who was our terrif ic Year 5 teacher last year, now back in Australia teaching. His own feedback to me after being successful in attaining a teaching position was this, "the experience at ISS put me ahead of the others." He then continued to say that dif ferentiation work being done at the schools he has been working was not comparable to what we do here at ISS. Such great feedback for us as a school to know that what we are doing is excellent when preparing beginning teachers such as James for a bright future elsewhere and of course, what all teachers at ISS continue to do on a daily basis.

Our swimming program is proceeding well, except of course for the cyclone disruption to the Reception and Year 1 swimming. We have tried to reschedule but with larger numbers in our Year 3/4/5 classes, it will be impossible to also include the younger children in our next two week rotation. We look forward to seeing them all participate in our upcoming swimming carnival in week 9. Week 7 and 8 have our Year 3/4, 4 and 5 classes now swimming from Monday to Thursday in the morning sessions. Thank you Ms Amele and Mr. Petero for your organisation and implementation of our swim program this term. Great job!

The topic of homework is on our agenda at present . With any topic, people will have varying opinions of why, what, how and how much, including the teachers on staff . We now need to take these collective opinions and carry out some solid research on how we at ISS wish to move forward with 'one' policy that f its all. We would love your input, so please email me your thoughts on this most debatable topic. I would also love to hear some research to put your thoughts into perspective. Many thanks!

FROM THE HEAD OF PRIMARY

Congratulations to our new primary school captains. - Toby Bower and Isla Robertson, our school captains and Papnui Liew-Marsters and Leamalie Jensen, our vice school captains. We are very proud of you all and know that you will be wonderful leaders and role models for all students at ISS primary.

Please remember to make a time for your parent interview this week.

Karen

Please join us for our internet safety workshop on Wednesday, March 9 starting at 11.45am in the school's amphitheatre. We will discuss topics such as your child's access to inappropriate content, netiquette, passwords, pop-ups, meeting people online, cyberbullying, sexting and posting of personal information. We hope to see as many of you as possible there for this very important topic! Facilitator - Ms Kate Passin, Primary Counsellor.

For those of you who are new this year (or if we did not cross paths last year) I would like to take a moment to introduce myself as the primary school counselor. I will be at the school every Monday and Wednesday. I am thril led to be a part of the ISS team! Prior to our move to Fiji, I was a primary school counselor for 12 years in the United States. I also have my LPC (License for Professional Counseling) which has only helped me to be a better school counselor. I am passionate about school counseling and helping all children.

The role of the school counselor is to help students achieve in school by helping to remove obstacles to learning. The counselor assists in the personal, social, academic and career growth of all students. This is done in many ways such as classroom guidance, small group counseling, individual counseling, teacher consultation, and whole school programs. If you would like to learn more about the primary counseling program here at ISS, please do check out my webpage at http:/ / primaryschoolcounselingiss.weebly.com/ .

In order to target the most students, I will be in the classrooms regularly delivering the social skil ls curriculum, Stop, Think, Do. The value and aim of this educational and preventive program is to develop emotional-social intell igence and skills in students, such as pro-social skil ls, cognitive and behavioral skil ls. I have started with reception and year one, then moving on to other grades when the lessons are complete. Students who need a more targeted intervention will also be referred to meet in small groups or individually with me. Currently, all referrals will come from the classroom teachers. If you think your student would benefit from meeting with me, please contact the classroom teacher. Also, be on the lookout for our new student ambassadors! This is a program which will be implemented soon to help welcome new students to ISS Primary.

On March 9 at 11:45am, I will facil itate a parent?s session on internet safety and digital cit izenship for your children. If you are interested in learning about keeping your child safe and respectful regarding electronic devices, please do attend.

I look forward to working with you and your students!

Sincerely,

Kate Passin

COUNSELOR'S CORNER

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN YEAR 5

We spent the f irst two weeks working together to establish our essential agreement and set expectations for the new year. The students have settled in well and are responding positively to the challenges and expectations of Year 5.

Our f irst Unit of Inquiry (UOI) was focused on understanding personal well-being as being dependent on a complex balance of interconnected factors (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual). We had PSPE integrated into our UOI with Mrs. Amele and Mr. Petero. For their summative task students worked in groups to design an activity to demonstrate their understanding of how dif ferent factors impact personal well-being and shared those activit ies with Year 3 and Year 4 students. To be successful they had to be effective communicators , practice their t ime management skil ls and be organized. They used their marking rubrics to peer-assess and self-ref lect.

Their next UOI will be focused on ?Where We Are In Place And Time? through investigating civil izations and how today?s society incorporates many aspects of past civil izations for the development of society. We will be co-teaching with Mrs. Chandra and integrating Hindi Studies into our learning. We would like to thank the students and parents for preparing the children's leadership videos as they were all outstanding! We would like to congratulate our School Captains Toby Bower, Papanui Liew-Masters, Isla Robertson, and Leamalie Jensen. We look forward to all the Year 5 student?s positive inf luence on the Primary School in 2016.

Year 5 Team

SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST · Reminder: swimming begins week 7 ?8, Monday? Thursday.

· Year 5 Camp, that was scheduled for term 2, week 4, will be postponed, further details will be sent home at a later date.

· Year 5 will be organizing a student-led fundraiser for communities affected by Tropical Cyclone Winston. More details will be sent home soon.

PYP ATTITUDES · Students have focused on demonstrating independence from weeks 1-5. They nominated each other and voted for the students who would receive this award every week.

· Our next focus is currently cooperation.

Check us out on the lef t , unpacking our Transdiscipl inary theme for our last UOI.

What is a transdisciplinary theme?

The PYP has six t ransdiscipl inary themes that provide the framework for learning. These themes are globally signif icant and support the acquisit ion of knowledge, concepts and skills of the traditional subjects. They are revisited throughout the students' t ime in the PYP.

We have had a great start to our year.

Our f irst Unit of Inquiry that we have been learning about is focused on 'Working together'.

We enjoyed our week of swimming lessons. We pract iced showing respect to our instructors and worked with our year 1 f riends!

We had fun making our 2D communit ies where we shared ideas and helped each other to make our special masterpieces.

We have been pract icing being independent in the classroom, being responsible and t rying to complete tasks by ourselves even if they might be hard we have not given up!

We are looking forward to start ing our new UOI next week .

RECEPTION IN ACTION

" PEOPLE WORK TOGETHER TO LIVE

TOGETHER."

Sight Words Sight words, of ten also cal led high f requency sight words, are commonly used words that young children are encouraged to memorize as a whole by sight , so that they can automat ical ly recognize these words in print without having to use any st rategies to decode.

At ISS we are using the 300 Magic Words, also cal led the rainbow words and students are placed on the dif ferent colors up to year 2. There are plenty ways to pract ice the sight words at home.

We found these great ideas for you to use at home on Pinterest .

LEARNING SUPPORT

Groundbreaking Ceremony - New Primary Building

MUSIC WITH MR. TIM

Our Music journey this year has come with a few changes to our exist ing program.

This year we welcomed Ms Bex Nabouta who has been working with our ECH 1/2 and Recept ion level and also Mr Wil l iam Dansey who helps supervise and assist with our new very popular and fast growing Guitar Club. Our Guitar club runs every Monday and Wednesday at lunch play t ime with a group of 23 students at tending these sessions on both days. This club mainly targets students in year 4 and 5 and it is aimed to further improve students guitar ski l ls and knowledge. The admission into our club is now closed for term 1 however, we wil l relook at our intake at the beginning of Term 2.

Our Primary choir started this year with two major performances during whole school assembl ies. Our f irst performance was at the ?Welcome Assembly? in week 1 where we sang ?We are One?and our most recent performance was during our ?Induct ion Assembly? singing our own rendit ion of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston's, ?When you Bel ieve? alongside our year 5?s. Our choir meets every Tuesday and Thursday during our lunch play t ime and our numbers have grown f rom strength to st rength just as much as our l i t t le voices. Choir is open to al l students f rom Year 1- Year 5 and we are welcoming more students to join our group at the beginning of term 2.

Our UOI focus for the past 6 weeks has been with our year 2 students with a unit on ?Relat ionships?. Through this UOI our students studied relat ionships through the music lens with musical instruments and engaging into: ?ident ifying the dif ferent musical famil ies, classifying instruments into their respect ive famil ies, dif ferent iat ing tones of dif ferent instruments, merging instruments and blending their dif ferent tones, exploring why these dif ferent instruments make dif ferent sounds and also creat ing our own l i t t le ensemble with percussion, wind and st ring instruments in class. The resul ts of their learning wil l be performed as part of our Year 2 assembly presentat ion on Friday of week 7.

As we discovered new informat ion through our inquiry, our year 2 students are now more knowledgeable with the three musical famil ies that exist and their relat ionships with each other. We wil l conclude this UOI with an excursion to Nasese to observe the Fij i Pol ice Band with the aim to make connect ions and take act ion.

While our year 2 students have been journeying with relat ionships and instruments, our year 1 and year 3?s have been upgrading their Recorder ski l ls and our year 4 and 5?s have been working on Guitar ski l ls at dif ferent iated skil l levels.

As we approach our new UOI?s with year 1 next week we look forward to an enriching remainder of the term with our music journey across Primary.

For the love of Music,

Tim Ulacake

MARVELLOUS 1/2M NEWSWhat an amazing start to 2016 we?ve had in 1/2m! Our bright and enthusiastic students are inquiring into the Transdisciplinary theme ?Who We Are? and have been focusing on relationships and how we can connect and build better relationships by learning about each other. The children have come up with some wonderful ideas and we look forward to sharing these with you very soon . . . . . . . .(stay tuned!)

In Mathematics we have been investigating numbers and the base 10 number system. We were fortunate to have year 2C and 2B join us to help make a human number line. We needed to work cooperatively with each other to place ourselves in numerical order, and then needed to decide what distance from each other we needed to be on the number line to make it correct. The children enjoyed working with the other year 2 classes and we endeavour to do more collaborative learning in the future.

In Language we have been listening to and analyzing poetry in order to write our own poems. We read a very funny poem tit led ?My Teacher Ate My Homework? and then we were lucky to have Mr Tim play some cords on his guitar for us while we put the poem into song.   We are identifying syllables in each line of poems and searching for patterns, we are also looking at rhyming words and their patterns, and onomatopoeia's and their purpose in poetry. The students are eager to begin penning and performing their own poems.

We have been developing our literacy skil ls of reading, writ ing and listening and will begin our speaking program soon. I am very proud of the achievements the children have already made with literacy and their hard work and determination to become better readers and writers.

In weeks 3 and 4 we ventured out to the Aquatic Centre by bus for intensive swimming lessons. The students enjoyed the bus trip as much as the swimming lessons. I was impressed by the improvement in the swimming skills the students learnt and applied during these lessons and look forward to demonstrating their swimming skills at the swimming carnival.

Personally, I?d like to specif ically thank 1/2m parents for welcoming me to ISS and Fiji. I look forward to your continued support with your child?s education.

Ms MacKellar

We?re now at the end of our f irst unit of inquiry on Adaptation where we have been learning about how living things adapt in order to survive. We are pleased with the amount of prior knowledge the students have in contributing to the discussion on adaptation in a changing world and in animal and plant habitats. This unit has allowed the students to think about and discuss how people also adapt in new environments after having settled in new places for various reasons. Our excursion to Wailea (a squatter settlement) and Goneva was an eye opener. The students were quick to note that most people move for the purpose of educating their children and for employment, and this means giving up the support of their families in their vil lages, l iving with other families which is stressful and also adapting to a somewhat new ?town culture?.

We are working hard to complete our summative assessment for this unit where the students have designed a ?Wanted Poster? of a created species to live in a habitat with specif ic features for adaptation. This is done with Mrs Lindy Stice who co-taught with me and also led the discussions and input into the poster during our UOI Art lessons. You will get to view them once the assessment is completed.

Lastly I thank you for all the cyclone relief donations brought in by the students.

Veniana Baledrokadroka          

Gerard Mastapha             

Lucy Otway

YEAR 3/ 4B

YEAR 3Year 3 started with a group of 37 enthusiastic students in total. We welcomed on board the year 3 team Miss Alexandra, Mr. Kasari Seru, Miss Lucy Otway, Miss Veniana Baledrokadroka (3/4) and Mr. Dasha Singh.

We?re now at the end of our f irst unit of inquiry on Peace & Conflict, where we have been learning about causes of conflict and more importantly, learning the skil ls and strategies on how to resolve conflict. This unit has proven to be very useful in that students are beginning to realize that they, as young individuals have a responsibil ity to keeping the world a peaceful place to live in.

Next week we begin with our new unit of inquiry which is Tourism. Our focus in Math?s this term is for students to understand place value up to ten thousands, to solve 4-5 digit computations in addition and subtraction and understanding odd and even numbers up to ten thousands.

For events so far, Year 3?s have had an exciting and enjoyable time attending swimming lessons at the Damodar Aquatic Centre.

?We must teach our children to resolve their conflicts with words not with weapons (Anonymous)?

Hindi learning experiences are taught within the context of the Units of Inquiry with all the year levels that learn Hindi in Languages.

We began the year with the intensive focus within the Year 3 Unit of Inquiry and transdisciplinary theme of ?Sharing the Planet?. Our central idea was "Finding peaceful solutions to conflict, leads to a better quality of l ife. "

Here are some ref lections shared by some Year 3 students after 6 weeks of Inquiry into Water Conflict - Local and Global.

"I learnt that: 1% of fresh water available is drinkable."

"India and Pakistan share water from Indus River and they have conflict."

"Positive, active, and continuous involvement of a third party is vital in helping to overcome conflict."

Hindi Studies will now feature in the Year 5 UOI over the next 6 weeks. You will hear all about this in our next Primary Press.

Dhanyavaad.

Subadra Chandra

HINDI STUDIESNAMASTE - THE DEVINE IN ME, HONORS THE DEVINE IN YOU.

We?ve hit the ground running at ISS Library! Since the beginning of this year, more than 5000 books have circulated through our l ibrary. Congratulat ions to students and teachers for using your l ibrary resources. We st i l l have more, so come and get them! Parents are also welcome to check books out with their children or borrow a book or two for personal reading f rom our wide col lect ion in the Secondary Fict ion Sect ion.

The l ibrary has been a hive of learning and act ivity daily since we opened this year. Our maker space sect ion is a huge hit with our students as they come in to explore their creat ivity with Lego and other act ivit ies prepared for them by the l ibrary staf f at lunch t ime.

Al l primary classes are scheduled to visit the l ibrary for l ibrary ski l ls and Unit of Inquiry connected lessons for 45 minutes each week. This term, the lower classes are taught the very basics in using the l ibrary and its resources to locate informat ion while Years 1-3 are learning to use the Super 3 research model within their inquiry.

In support of Year?s 4 & 5 summat ive assessments and Year 5 exhibit ion, the Big 6 research model has been incorporated into the l ibrary program to help students locate informat ion, evaluate sources and answer quest ions. In addit ion, our students read text to make connect ions and responded to a wide variety of signif icant works of l i terature.

Al l our students are encouraged to bring a bag to l ibrary classes to store their l ibrary books.

Available soon in the l ibrary wil l be Kindles! Thanks to PTFA, our l ibrary wil l soon have 20 Kindles for students to use later in the term alongside their XO laptops.

The l ibrary staf f are excited and commit ted to making the l ibrary your child?s favorite place in school ! Our opening hours are 7.30 am? 3.50 pm (week days only).

Parents are welcome to visit the l ibrary with their children f rom 2.30 pm - 3.50 pm daily (Monday? Friday).

Hope to see you at the l ibrary soon!

Ms Salu Vaciloa - Librarian

LIBRARY NEWS

The Super 3 Research Model & the Big 6 Research Model used in primary!

Online Databases

Available from the library webpage:

http:/ / issf ijil ibrary.weebly.com/online-databases.html

Available 24/7 and accessible fromhome

MAGAZINES IN THE LIBRARY

MAKER-SPACEOur new "maker-space" is available to all students. If you would like to volunteer to help in the libary to teach a craft such as jewellery making, lego craft, adopt a shelf or just to read a story to our students for 20 minutes during the lunch break, plase let us know. We'd love to have you! Please email: l ibrary@international.school.f j

DISCOVERY AND EARLY CHILDHOOD 1February Greet ings to you al l !

Thank you, Vinaka Vakalevu, Dhanyavad, Merci Beaucoup, Gam Sa Han Ni Da, Arigato and Chee Chee Nee for giving so generously to those in need at this dif f icul t t ime.

Discovery, Vonu?s and their educators have set t led and are very happy in their new cot tage. We are so grateful to the many people who made it possible.

Birthday Celebrat ions:

Ahinoah St ice - 10th January

Elsa Canioga - 22nd February

Amel ia Singh - 3rd March

Grace Khlean - 3rd March

Please be advised of the fol lowing important Green Cot tage date:

Swim Fun Day- Wednesday 16th March

(Please parents, label children?s clothing).

Ms Jacqui, Ms Fariah and Ms Josephine

          ECH 1 Vonu Team

Appreciat ing each other through music!

Enjoying lunch together outside!

Threading and making pat terns is fun!

A science experiment using microscopes to examine an insect

which prompts much thinking!

STARTING OUT IN YEAR 1

Year 1 have begun the year learning how to get organised and how Fijian communities as well as our ISS community are organised. As part of this unit of inquiry, we have explored dif ferent ways to organise information and created lists, word webs, Venn diagrams and labels. We also met and talked with dif ferent people in the ISS primary community and explored road systems using a range of materials to create our own road systems on our table tops so that we could get to each other?s table top houses. Now, we are cooperating to create a sensory garden for the whole of the primary school to enjoy. The planning phase of this project has taken quite some time, and was interrupted by Cyclone Winston, but everyone is excited as we have now begun mapping out the space for the dif ferent parts of our garden, making our own concrete path to go through the garden, planting and creating dif ferent elements in the garden. We had to organise ourselves into collaborative groups. It?s ALMOST f inished! If any parents would like to help us in the garden, please let us know! We want to make sure it is well looked after as well, so we have organised signs, a roster and time with our Primary School gardener, Mr Inoke. We are looking forward to playing in this new space soon!

UNIT OF INQUIRYThis semester, during our literacy sessions, the children have been practicing their reading, writ ing, speaking and listening skills. The News sessions (aka Show and Tell) are a chance for the children to speak and listen to each other?s ideas on dif ferent aspects of being organised. We look forward to this continuing.

The children change their home reading books daily. We are also f inding dif ferent ways to practise sight words and spelling simple words. During our guided reading sessions, we are learning to follow along, help each other and think as we read, with a major focus thus far being on visualising what we are reading about.

This week, we wrote procedures to remind us of the steps involved in planting seeds. We have also written several checklists and labels. The focus is on having a go at writ ing words by sounding them out. Each child is now using their ?Have-a-go-book? to help them learn to write words correctly.

LITERACY We have had a strong focus on building maths skil ls so far this term, as we worked with ordinal numbers, learned about place value, did some work with number patterns, practised lots of counting, used positional language and tried some dif ferent ways to measure a range of things.

MATHS

We are a bit sad that our second week of swimming was cancelled due to the cyclone, but are looking forward to the swimming carnival next month. Our next unit of inquiry will focus on

where we are in time and space, and it begins next week! More on this soon .

Ms Wendy & Ms Renee

YEAR FOURA gl impse through the lenses of ?Adaptat ion? and ?Survival?

The Year 4 and Year 3/4 students are get t ing their heads around the concepts of adaptat ion and evolut ion in the bid to survive. The big idea is that ?Over t ime l iving things need to adapt to survive? with CHANGE as a key concept in order to understand that this is one way that we share the planet . Students commenced the unit with a look at their physical real ity at ISS Primary and the changes that i t had undergone during the hol idays. Basic connect ions were made as to how students, teachers and parents had to adapt to those changes.

Those init ial connect ions were used as a plat form for students to then delve deeper into the concept of adaptat ion and change. Students inquired into how l iving things responded to their environmental condit ions and circumstances that led to adaptat ions through a number of ways.

To provide a balance of scient if ic and human angles to their learning, an excursion was organized to Wailea and Korova Set t lements in Suva for students to observe how and why people adapted to their current circumstances. For many students, this was their f irst experience visit ing a set t lement in Suva city. They asked about the circumstances that made the inhabitants of the outer islands of Fij i move to the city and how they adapted to changes. In our ef forts to share the planet , humans make many adaptat ions in their l ives. The learning connect ions made f rom this excursion assisted students in their research about habitats and physical adaptat ions that animals and plants have to make and the dif ferent ways that their physical features evolve over hundreds, somet imes thousands of years.

Welcome to the 2016 school year! It?s been wonderful to welcome all ISS Primary students into the new Visual Arts classroom, located in the MPH mezzanine. We have a much bigger classroom space, and we?ve found it absolutely ideal for all our learning and creative purposes so far.

Also new to the Visual Arts program this year is our online Art Gallery through Artsonia, known as the world?s largest student art museum. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this for you as a parent or caregiver is that your child is establishing a digital port fol io of artwork. The portfolio is available for you to view and manage f rom the Artsonia app on your device or direct ly f rom the Artsonia website, and can move with your student if the time comes to move to a new country or new school. Your child will be bringing home a notif ication of participation, with his or her Artsonia username and your parent access code. You can look for this within the next week or two, if you haven?t received it already.

Please let me know if you have any questions about Artsonia, or if you would like assistance with your child?s account anytime.

Thank you for your continued support!

-Lindy Stice

VISUAL ARTS

PSPEThe Primary Swimming Program has started and already students are talking and preparing for the   Swimming Carnival. The Year 1/2M, 2 & 3 were the f irst group to go swimming and they were led by the instructors on the basics of swimming which involved get t ing into the water, swimming using f loaters, kicking in water which helps them to f loat , breathing while swimming, diving and f reestyle swim. By the end of their 2 weeks, most of them did not only show improvement but have confidently swam into the deep water, some not requiring a f loater anymore. Most were able to swim 3-4m without any help. Well done everyone!

SWIMMING CARNIVALOn Wednesday, 16th March will be the Swimming Carnival day. Years 1-5 will take part on the day. This will help us identify students who are able to represent the school in the Nationals, but most importantly are for the students to be able to showcase their talents and put into practice what they have learned in the program.

The Discovery, ECH and Reception classes will participate in their very own Fun Water Day program in school on this day!

YEAR ONE LEARNING FREESTYLE

YEAR TWO LEARNING TO DIVE

RECEPTION KICKS AND BREATHES

YEAR 5 UOI - PERSONAL WELLBEINGStudents discussed ways in which our personal, spiritual, social, and physical aspects of l ife are interconnected. Students worked in groups to design an activity to demonstrate their understanding of how dif ferent factors impact personal well-being and share those activit ies with their peers. To be successful they had to be effective communicators, practice their t ime management skil ls and be organized. They used their marking rubrics to peer-assess and self-ref lect.

Ms Amele and Mr Petero

Welcome to Year 2

We are so excited to start this year and welcome all our new friends and their families to ISS. So far we have completed a whole unit of inquiry, enjoyed two weeks of swimming and shared our experiences and ideas for taking action after Cyclone Winston. What a busy few weeks we have had here in Year 2!

Finding out ?Who We Are? with a musical twist.

We have been learning about ?Relationships? with the Central Idea of ?Relationships are enhanced by learning about each other?. In class we discussed conflict and thought of ways that we can solve conflict within our relationships. We realized that in order to solve conflict we need to be caring, open minded and ref lective. Mrs. Passin helped remind us how to deal with conflict using techniques from the ?Stop! Think! Do!? programme. We have learnt to cooperate and work as a team both in our classrooms and in our Music lessons. Mr. Tim has helped us understand the relationships

that exist in Music especially those within an orchestra. We have been busy creating class orchestras and learning how important it is to work together when using the ?Call and Response? and ?Ostinati? techniques. We have worked hard to perfect these techniques and look forward to demonstrating what we have learnt in our Primary assembly in the next couple of weeks.

What?s next for us in Year 2?

Next week we will begin our new unit of inquiry into ?How the World Works?. We will be f inding out about the Solar System with the help of Ms. Kasatoka in the Languages department. We cannot wait to f ind out about the planets, stars and all the fantastic and wonderful things in our galaxy that await our exploration.

For more photos and information on things that we are doing here at school, please be sure to check the Year 2 web page on the ISS website.

WHAT'S NEW IN ECH2

ECH2 has been busy continuing our study of the Senses.   We have discovered how important our senses are for exploring our world and for keeping us safe!

In math we have been learning the many dif ferent ways of counting and data handling which is creating graphs including how many children are in the class.

We have been busy learning our class routines and working with specialist teachers. Going to the Library and Art classes is one of the great opportunities we have in exploring outside our classroom.

We have continued our work with letter S and letter I.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

When you ask me what I?ve done at school today, I say, I ?JUST PLAYED.? Please don?t misunderstand

me. For, you see, I?m learning as I PLAY. I?m learning to enjoy and be successful at my work, I?m preparing

for tomorrow. Today, I?m a child and my work is PLAY.

                                                                          

Tasting is fun: Our tongues only have four tastes, they are: salty, sour, bitter and sweet.

PYP CURRICULUM CORNER?To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe?   Anatole France At ISS we are visionary, ref lective, thinkers, inquirers, knowledgeable, communicators, balanced, principled, caring, open-minded and courageous. We have dared to dream, action, plan and believe that we can accomplish great things as an IB PYP school in the Asia Pacif ic region.

Part of our school ethos is to develop a growth mindset in our school. In order for us as a staff to continue our journey as lifelong learners we are constantly ref lecting on best practice, consolidating our understanding of inquiry and transdisciplinary learning. Our commitment to maintaining rigorous and high academic standards requires us to constantly review and ref ine the written curriculum (what we want students to know), ref lect on the taught curriculum (how best students learn) and modify the assessed curriculum (what students have learned).

This year we continue to bring alive this statement by Ignacio Estrada;  

?If a child can?t learn the way we teach maybe we should teach the way they learn.?

This is evident in the dif ferentiated learning experiences and the open ended assessment tasks designed to gauge student?s understanding of concepts, application of transdisciplinary skil ls, attitudes and student?s ability to take action applying their knowledge in school, at home and in the community.

Today colleges and employers are not interested in what people know but what people are doing with what they know. This is why teachers put a lot of effort and time into designing authentic learning experiences. We are in the business of teaching children how to think and not what to think, hence the inquiry and transdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning, which provides ongoing opportunities for students to test their theories and apply problem solving strategies.

Last year, our teachers were fortunate to participate in online professional development on Concept-based learning. This opportunity has added depth to our understanding and implementation of transdisciplinary learning, and rigour to our programmes. These new understandings have strengthened collaboration amongst both teachers and students resulting in authentic, engaging and challenging learning experiences and assessment tasks. It was also an opportunity for us to share resources that we have developed in our school. One of the workshop leaders requested information on how we timetabled our single subject teachers to co-teach with the homeroom teachers. He expressed how wonderful it must be to work in our school as teachers seemed to have a shared understanding of transdisciplinary learning which permeated in their responses. Indeed, we teachers do f ind co-teaching and collaboration through our units of inquiry to be an exciting and enriching experience for all involved. As life- long learners our commitment to learning is best portrayed in the words of Carol Dweck.

Rosi Uluiviti

PYP/Curriculum Coordinator                                      

The year 4 students have been inquiring all about ?Adaptation? in their UOI and working collaboratively with ICT for this inquiry topic. They have been researching and looking at dif ferent species and how they adapt to their environment.

With the Central Idea ?Living things need to adapt to survive?, the year 4 students have been busy designing their new species. They have be investigating, organizing and creating their desired species. This has been engaging and enjoyable as they were able to use a range of tools to help create their species.

INFORMATION COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY

Chloe Manaog, Amy Howlett, Vaniya Prasad, Maira Du, Lucia Italiano, Emerson Sims, Alex Davias, Connor Redding, Elsa Caniogo, Calvin Carter, Amelia Singh, Coen Banks, Jaslyn Haer, Tasalei Jensen, Daisy Wild, Qusai Jiwanji ,Oscar Kennedy-Foran, Archie Wyley, Tahlia Atterton, Khushi Patel, Leona Douglas, Toby Bower, Seira Kokuba, Isaac Mackenzie, Christine Gubon, Nora Duncan, Sijin Park, Alfred Arunga, Kelly Cadle, Mill icent MacKellar, Victoria Tagi, Saugat Bohora, Baylian Saberi, Faith Khelan, Maddison Kennedy, Angus Frost, Noa Becker, Telya Papavassiliou, Robyn Eastgate, Roviana Gina, Corbin Moussa, Nidia Singh, Tatsuto Setoya, Isla Ramsden, Clarissa Middleton, Maepeza Gina, Shanvi Naidu ,Pitiluca Matassa, Tara Marshall, Joshua Nili, Josateki Tagi, Denisha Kumar, Benjamin Mackenzie, Will iam Murcott, Tiburon Legaz-Clua, Zara Ludher, Jetagon Matassa, Maximill ian Carter, Til l iana Bohm, Adi Tui Vuniwaqa, Lenny Wyley, Samairah Koya, Yunis Mustafa, Jemma Westbury, Michael Asua, Camryn Jackson, Neriah Sun, Leamalie Jensen, Nicholas Heuss, Calvin Carter, Lucie Irrmann, Myah Stice, Aaliyah Chandra, Ludovico Tuccari, Yashan Patel, Isla Robertson, Aarav Sharma, Talei Cakaukeivuya, ChuChu Shao, Tiana Parshotam, Langitoutai Faka?osi, Dolly Karan, Helen Lou, Zac Nili, Asenaca Tagi, Lil l is Ekbladh, Inigo Chavez ,Nanami Nakai .