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In this TouchBase:

ANNUAL PYP EXHIBITION 2008

CHAMPIONS OF ENTERPRISE

FOBISSEA REFLECTIONS

CYCLONE NARGIS FUNDRAISING

The International School of Penang (Uplands)

www.uplands.org

ReligionThe Annual PYP Year 6 Exhibition 2008

Don’t forget, ‘The Uplander’ School

Yearbook isout soon!

On the 21st of May at 1:20pm in the Uplands School foyer, the PYP exhibition finally opened for the Yr6s to show what they have learnt during their time in the Primary school.

The red ribbon was finally cut by Primary Head Ali Nicholson and the crowd of excited parents walked eagerly into the exhibition area where nine groups were waiting nervously to be seen by what felt like evil parents!

I shook myself, took a deep breath and calmly walked over to my group’s area “The Dead”. My sister stopped at my display board and started to read my poster intently. I gulped as she read the information I had gathered. She looked so serious from a distance, but as she turned around I saw she had a huge goofy grin on her face, in that very mo-ment I knew she was pleased with my work. She knew the nights I had been up so late that I just couldn’t get up in the morning had all been worth it!

As more guests came to my poster I began to feel a lot less nervous than before as I recognised the same grins I had seen on my sister’s face.

Those two days I had presented my work to the whole school really paid off. I really think that the Year 2 really en-joyed our exhibition, especially when we were telling them about all the different religions. We gave each pupil who visited our group a stamp in their ‘Exhibition Passport’. They were so happy to get their stamp, their faces looked up to you beaming as they gave you a quick hug, then ran off to the next group!

The Exhibition has been a fantastic learning experience, one I will never forget.By Chloe Barnett, 6K

If you didn’t catch the magic of it all then you have missed out on one of the main events in the school calendar. After weeks of preparation and mind-blowing information packed visits, (to mosques, temples places of worship, etc.) starting way back in March, we were given a chance to prove our knowledge. Motivated by our mentors we kept going and finally pulled it off. Herds of eager parents flocked to the foyer at the start, hovering outside the entrance they listened to the opening ceremony.

As Mrs. Nicholson cut the ribbon the parents stampeded in. It was a boost of confidence to see the looks of glee on their faces as they hovered attentively over their child’s work. This year’s exhibition was a great success and we were all overjoyed at our achievements. All the best to next year’s Year 6s and I hope they have as much if not more fun presenting their work to the school’s community.

By Owen Roberts, 6K.

More inside...

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China Trip - 2008

Further to our notice in the last TB a parent meeting will be taking place this Tuesday 17th June - 7.00pm in the MPH. For more information please check - http://hi5tory.com/field_trips/china08/ ‘Road to Dawn’ screening The History Department is pleased to announce a screening of Goh Mai Loon’s movie, “Road To Dawn” on Monday 30th June 8.30am-11.00am in the MPH for the secondary school. The film fol-lows the story of Sun Yat Sen during his time in Penang planning the China Revolution. Students will recognise a number of locations used in the movie, as well as cameos from some familiar faces. The producer will be present for Q&A at the end of the movie.

Movie official web site: http://ent.sina.com.cn/f/m/yeming/index.shtmlMovie trailer: http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/bn/2007-05-25/123313156.html

Nicholas Klar, Secondary Teacher

While the Primary School was competing in the FOBISSEA Primary Games, the Year 9 students were involved in their own competition. This was a business competition with the aim of developing the student’s entrepreneurial skills.

For those of you who have seen the BBC program ‘Dragon’s Den’ the competition will sound familiar. In groups of 5 or 6, the students had to develop a realistic busi-ness plan to sell a newly designed piece of children’s play equipment. They then had to present the business plan to the group of potential ‘investors’, volunteers with business experience from the local community, who later acted as judges in deciding which group had the best plan.

For two days in real world surroundings at the Park Royal Hotel in Batu Feringgi, the students worked very impressively preparing their business plan and presentations. On the second day, they had the opportunity to seek advice from the volunteers act-ing as consultants and advisors.

On the final day the students were hard to recognize as they came dressed in their best business style clothes. All the groups presented their plans to the ‘investors’ before the best four groups were selected to deliver their presentations again in front of everyone, including the remaining students. The ‘potential investors’ asked some very searching questions before finally deciding that the winning team was the ‘Hooligans’ an all girl group; Nikki Tan, Yasmin Jayabalan, Nicole Tan, Sam Smith, Caren Ong and Taylor Christman, their slogan: ‘We know how to have more fun.’ (see middle pic below.)

It was evident from the high standard of the presentations how much time, thought and planning had gone into them. We are also very grateful to Mr. Johnny Bamford, Mr. Kay Ee, Ms. Melati Perderus, Ms. Shamsuria Yusoff and Ms. Eileen Yeo who were willing to give up their free time to provide advice to the students and act as judges.

Nigel Whittlestone. Secondary Teacher

CHAMPIONS OF ENTERPRISEA Year 9 entrepreneurs’ competition

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G R O U P 4 P R O J E C TY12 students successfully complete their Group 4 projectQuestion: Which component of the IB diploma helps to foster teamwork, perseverance and self-reflection, whilst having some fun too?Answer: The Group 4 project!

Last term in Science and Design Technology - DT, Year 12 students were asked to plan and carry out a project in groups based on the theme Batu Fer-inggi. The Group 4 project covers the sciences and DT and is therefore inter-disciplinary. There were about 20 groups tackling four different subject areas Biology, Chemistry, Physics and DT. Students undertook a wide range of research projects and reported back on their findings during Term 3. For example, some groups did comparative studies of seawater at Batu Feringgi, Teluk Bahang and Tanjung Bungah. Other locations where studies were conducted included Batu Feringgi beach, the main Batu Feringgi road, hawker stalls, the School, the hill nearby the School and at hotels in the locality. Comments from students’ self-evaluations were enlightening and highlight what a positive part of the Diploma Programme the Group 4 project can be. Completion of the Group 4 project is essential for a student to be able to be awarded their IB diploma.

Joanne Walton, IB Teacher

“We had to think of solutions to problems and issues on our own, so we used our initiative”

“I have gained an understanding of group dynamics; there must exist mutual understanding among the members working on any collaborative task. Without this, a group will lack the necessary motivation and cooperation to succeed”

“I felt more open-minded coming out of the project because I was surprised at how we evolved from a very simple topic, Batu Feringgi, into a focussed area that we all found interesting and actually wanted to solve”

“Scientific investigations of today involve teamwork which, like the Group 4 Project, is interdisciplinary. The underpinnings of teamwork are: communication & respect for each other.”

IB students, Year 12

This year, as usual the ESL students have been very busy practicing the skills necessary for them to function best either in their surroundings at home or school. The skills acquired in their mainstream classes as well as ESL classes are supposed to enrich their abilities to communicate bet-ter in their community.

Take for instance the Year 4 students learning about Ancient Civilisation in the current Unit of Inquiry, who have been practising the use of the Past Tense in their ESL class activities. One of the activities this ESL group did was playing a version of the game called “I went shopping”. The students and teacher sat in a circle. The teacher started by saying “Ms. Rokiah went to Gurney Plaza.” The next student repeated the same sentence “Ms. Rokiah went to Gurney Plaza,” and added her own sentence, “She saw many people.” The next student repeated the sentences from the beginning and added a new sentence of his/hers using past tense. The memory training got more and more challenging as the story progressed.

This game allowed the students to use their memory and make an attempt at creating a sentence of their own. The skill enables them to func-tion in their communication in class while they talk or write about the activities ancient people carried out in their lives as well as the students’ everyday reporting activities. Such games encourages them to link the skills gained in the mainstream class to the ESL class and vice-versa. That way the ESL students are supported with the significant skills to achieve good understanding of the central idea. The ESL students are not cut

away from the necessary skills that they’re supposed to acquire in class. It would be bizarre to run a separate unit in ESL, on say… The Four Seasons and practise all the skills in that area that are not likely able to contribute to their immediate academic needs. They won’t be able to make full use of the skills at home either because only part of the vocabulary will be applicable in this environment.There are ‘stand-alone’ activities that the ESL teacher would carry out in the ESL class. Stand Alone would cover lessons that are not con-nected to the unit of inquiry but are essential for the students to learn and/or do for fun. The PYP allows a wide range of exposure to the students, and the facilitators (class teachers and specialist teachers) meet regularly to plan the skills to be covered in class.

Uplands student Oliver Mueller expressed his opinion over the issue, “You can learn things that other people (who are na-tive or near native English speakers) learn in class.” Tina Kim, from Korea, said “I feel comfortable to use the words in class,” and Nico-lette Tonkens added “… we make fewer mistakes when we practise (during ESL class).”

Ms Rokiah Sulaiman.ESL Teacher.

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CENTRAL IDEA: Beliefs and Values shape how we view

each other and the world.

THE LINES OF INQUIRYClothing & the Arts, The Dead, Festivals, Food, Religious Leaders, Places of Worship, Similarities, Rules, Religious Stories.

WELCOME to the annual Uplands Primary Years Programme Exhibition, which is a celebration of what has been achieved from the ‘Who We Are’ unit, over the past 4 weeks. It reflects the process of I.B. Learning, (which is far more important than the final end ‘product’). You will see from the students’ journals, exactly how they have demonstrated the PYP attitudes and skills.

The Inquiry that groups have under-taken is certainly very relevant to the multi-faith and multi-cultural com-munity we all live in, here in Penang: It is hoped that through informed understanding, that religious/cultural respect and tolerance is increased. We hope that the children’s creative dis-plays will spark off questions and in-terests of your own.

Below, some prompting questions, included in the exhibition brochure. Parents were encouraged to pose these questions to the exhibitors during the show to promote meaningful discus-sion:

“Tell me about the process that led up to your Exhibition?”

“Why did you choose that line of Inquiry? How has your understanding changed since you started?”

“What skills do you think you have developed over the last few weeks? Which do you think will be most use-ful for Year 7?”

“What was challenging during the exhibition preparation? How did you overcome this?”

“What was your favourite moment from this Unit? Why?”

ReligionAnnual PYP Year 6 Exhibition 2008

Why is the PYP Y6 Exhibition so special?

The Exhibition marks the end of the students’ PYP experience, in the same way that the Diploma exams do for our Year 13 students. If you have an idea about the PYP, you will know that it is an inquiry-based, student-led, learning programme that we follow in our Primary Department.

The Exhibition is different from any other school exhibition you have been to before…

…most school exhibitions are teacher–led. This means that the teacher plans and organises them, the teacher de-cides what the topic will be, what information will be learned, what worksheets will be on display, what work will

be included – and excluded. It is likely that you will see many copies of the same worksheet / picture / writing co pleted by each student. Students are passive learners in the teacher’s arena. A PYP Exhibition is different. In this case the students decide on the topic (with guidance from the teachers). The students plan their own line of inquiry. They will consult with their mentor and plan what they are going to do, they plan what they will do for homework each night, they decide what will be included and how it will be displayed.

The students have made all these decisions themselves, as group members. They have learned a lot about the many belief systems followed in Penang while preparing their work. But they have learned a great deal more: about how to organise themselves, how to co-operate with others, how to plan their time, their strengths and weaknesses.

This knowledge will be very useful to them as they gradually turn into successful, motivated High School students and life-long learners in the years to come. ELIZABETH KING, PRIMARY TEACHER

We would like to acknowledge the following, for all their hard work, guidance, time and support over the

past few weeks:Group Mentor Volunteers * Peter Westall

Ms Ali Nicholson – PYP CoordinatorJeff Scully and the Maintenance Team.

Parents and Families of Year 6 Children.Joyce Yeoh & The I.T. Department

Renu Cadman * Rokiah Sulliman * Julliana Thea * Carol Marshall * Cyril Jagadasan

Charlotte Bernard * Senior Management TeamYr 6 Couldn’t have done it without you.

THANK YOU.

IN APPRECIATION….

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FOBISSEA ReflectionsAfter many months of planning, the final week of May saw the three days of the FOBISSEA Pri-mary Games in Penang. A team of 36 children and 2 reserves made up our home team, sup-ported by many of the staff. In addition, 16 Pri-mary children volunteered to take part in the Opening Ceremony.

The first day, Tuesday 27th started with a very cloudy sky, and indeed at 6:45 am there was lightning clearly visible in the sky beyond the Athletics Sta-dium at USM. By 7:30 the sky had lightened and the threat had passed. By 8 o’clock the visiting schools were arriving and it took the 20 minutes before the arrival of our Special Guest, Penang State EXCO: YB Puan Ong, for the schools to line up behind the columns of flags that represented the nations of the athletes. Uplands hosted 175 athletes from 38 countries, 25 visiting teachers and about 20 visiting parents.

For the Uplands team, every event was an ex-citing one as we had an individual or team entry in each. Tuesday’s ath-letics events took a lit-tle longer to complete than planned (as did all the sporting events!) but the cloudy day grew hot and sunny. Similarly, Wednes-day’s team games were played out on a dry day – too sunny for most people’s skin – and only Thursday’s Swimming Gala attracted the rain. In fact the rain was heavy and the wind was strong, but we were all undercover at PISA and our events were not postponed, although, true to form, they finished later than planned!

The final event for all the teams was the Gala Dinner, held at the Hotel Equatorial on Thursday evening. A child’s delight of clowns, magicians, a juggler, a disco, and prizes to be won, took place against a back drop of child-friendly food and ice cream. The competitors, who had run, jumped, thrown, kicked, hit and swum as hard as they possibly could, dug deep into their energy reserves to find that little bit more to dance and chase and volunteer to go up on the stage. By 10 pm it was not difficult to encourage the exhausted students up to bed or on to the bus and back home. Continued on opposite page...

The 2008 Primary FOBISSEA PRIMARY GAMES were a great success thanks to a great many people. Uplands School really got behind the games and made sure it was the best representa-tion of the school, the city and country. The visiting schools came with high hopes for victory and none were disappointed. Every participant in

these games earned med-als of various colours, acco-lades from coaches and parents and friendships. The Uplands athletes shined the brightest earning the most medals in the Games. All of the participants should be congratulated on

their performances.

I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all the staff, teaching and ancillary, of Uplands for their tre-mendous support throughout the preparation and during the games. I would also like to thank

all of the coaching staff for their time and expertise with the Primary team.

The CAS students were also a huge help in every capacity during the games, exuding enthusiasm and

great spirit of generosity throughout.

Parents that helped before the games, Jayne Corbett and Carol Ch’ng, and all of the parents of

PTA and Friends of FOBISSEA are to be congratulated on their

hard work and support during the games.

Thank you to everyone for a great Games! There remains to be seen if the

next FO-BISSEA g a m e s c a n c o m -

pare.

Merrill Ross

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Path of Cyclone Nargis approaching Myanmar

CYCLONE NARGIS HITS MYANMAR 1st MAY 2008;

UPLANDS RAISES RM5863 FOR DISASTER RELIEF 1 water pump, 10 family water kits, 10 insecticide-treated mos-quito nets, 60 wool blankets, and 500 sachets of oral re-hydra-tion salts – that is what your contribution can buy for those people in Myanmar effected by Cyclone Nargis. Y12 IB CAS stu-dents count the donations!

Continued from previous page... Obviously, such an event as this cannot take place without a great deal of teamwork. The Team that is the Uplands Community continued the Uplands tradition of “go-ing the extra mile”. There were many compliments passed to me over the three days of the Games: they included thanks for the way the schools were met on their arrival - and how they were helped to depart. Many people commented positively on the website - news had already gone around the world to interested persons within hours of events taking place. (Go to http://fobissea.uplands.org/) And then there was everything that happened in between... the maintenance staff that were at school by 5:30 am to load the truck, and were there at 7pm unloading it, catering staff and CAS students who were at School at 6am preparing the food and drinks. There were those who were present and working on the three days - particularly those who have no interest in sporting events but were there anyway: those who circled the field offering water and food, and who followed behind collecting the litter. And none of that could take place without a great deal of advance planning (in which a small group of Par-ent Supporters played a very significant part). At Uplands, we have built a tradition and a reputation of being a caring school that maintains high standards. Thank you all so

much who gave freely of their time, energies and support to continue our tradition and reputation.

Alexis Kerr, Games Organising Committee

T h a n k you to all involved in contributing images and words for TouchBase, Press Releases, etc; the lovely drawings and recollections here are by Games participants from Year 4. Thanks, also to Adrian Sparrow and his CAS team for photos. Special thanks to UPTA, in particular, Carol Ch’ng, Jayne Corbett, Janet Maurillo, Sue Watts, it was nice working with you all. To Diane Wah and Khazlin Robert, thank you for all the organi-sational effort and even serving the VIPs on the day. To Philips Wu and kitchen team, thanks for nice the sandwiches, all 400 of them, per day! Now all we have to do, is do it all over again in November... just bigger!

Bram Tan, Marketing & Events.

Between Cyclone Nargis and the Sichuan earthquake, the month of May has seen more than its fair share of human suffering. According to United Nations estimates, in Myanmar alone, there are 77,738 dead, 55,917 missing, and 1.6 to 2.5 million lives affected in the aftermath of unrelenting 165 km/h winds and a storm surge that swept away entire communities in an instant.

But without a doubt, the surge of generosity and support from the entire Uplands community was staggering. In just one week, Uplands students, parents and staff donated nearly RM6000 to the cyclone relief fund. Your money will go to UNICEF (the United Nations Children Fund) who are on the ground providing urgent aid to cyclone survivors across the badly hit Irrawaddy Delta.

In disasters such as this, it is easy to get caught up in the statis-tics and numerical magnitude of the situation. While invaluable in describing the scale of the crisis, they tend to dehumanise an >

TOUCHBASE - General Information

TouchBase is published every Friday fortnightly during the school year as a service to the Uplands community. A colour PDF version can be downloaded from the School website. Go to ‘Events/ News and click on ‘Publications’. It is produced by the School, and is meant only for internal circulation.TouchBase is distributed to each family by way of youngest enrolled child of each Uplands family.All information must be e-mailed (bram@uplands.org) to reach the School by 10am on the Monday prior to the following week’s publication.TouchBase encourages every member of the Uplands community to contribute to the publication. However, we reserve the right to edit or reject any article or information.For advertising enquiries, please contact the School.

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The International School of Penang (Uplands)

Jalan Sungai Satu, Batu Feringgi, 11100 Penang, Malaysia. Tel: 04 881 9777 Fax: 04 881 9778

www.uplands.org

Closing thought...

“The great gift of human imagination is that it has no limits or ending”

JIM ROHN, Motivational Speaker.

Continued from previous page...

essentially humanitarian crisis. The human magnitude of any di-saster cannot be so easily quantified. The families which lost their homes, crops, and livestock, and the children whose parents were lost in the rising waters should not be reduced exclusively to facts and figures.

Therefore, in no other place and at no other time is the old ad-age ‘every bit helps’ more prescient. Even a contribution of RM12 will pay for two wool blankets which will provide some measure of comfort for a pair of survivors. Money will be channelled towards rebuilding schools as well; as those children whose parents were wrested away from them should not have their futures taken away too.

Thank you to every person who contributed to the cyclone relief fund. Though vicarious by nature, these donations are a much need-ed help to the millions displaced by this disaster. Still, UNICEF is in need of another RM80 million over the next six months to meet the needs of the people in Myanmar.

Carla Oliver (Y12)

‘People + Suffering = Lets Help!’ So we collected any amount of donations that were given in the form of money and during these times where basic necessities are needed to be paid for, it really is money that has the best chance at sufficing the hunger of a concave stomach. The mornings I spent collecting and collaborating with fellow students, I saw many faces with good-hearted intent whilst popping my head in through their car doors with my collection tin. Almost all of my awkwardly phrased requests (some of them timidly came out as “Uh … Good morning!… Can you?… pointing to the do-nation can” were received with humble beams and donations.

What I am trying to express is that the past few weeks have com-pletely remoulded my opinion on compassion and how it works. Are we born with it? I now think we all are. All I know is I saw a lot of this compassion I speak of when I asked parents, students and teachers to help give to the people in Burma. Many of what I would refer to as the drive-by parents (due to the nature of how we were collect-ing donations) were smiling and happy to give, and the tins began filling and many more people were still giving. It was a startlingly good feeling.

In the end, I along with others witnessed RM5863 being donated by the Uplands community. Not in dramatic effect will I say this, but we have made a difference.

If you wish to contribute, information is available from the UNICEF Malaysia website, www.unicef.org/malaysia or try - www.hungersite.com

Tai Kai Sheng (Y12)

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