Dear Parents,

A reminder that there are no ASAs next week, but we do have an ASA assembly on Monday. Please come if you can. We are also getting ready for our K-5 Student-led Conferences, and if you'd like to see what they are like, I have inserted a video (not from ISD) of a nice example conference. I love the exchanges that they are having, and I am putting together a SLC blog post that I'll send out next week, to get you in the mood for the conferences!

MAP Test Reports: These will be sent home via you child's homeroom teachers on Monday. If you wish to see more information about these, please click HERE for the Parent Toolkit. 

K-5 Student-Led Conferences: We would like our students at ISD to be self-directed and responsible learners. To facilitate this we are looking at how we use goal-setting, ongoing reflection, and the sharing of portfolios showing academic growth at student-led conferences. This year, all Grade K-5 classes will have 40-minute student-led conferences. Parents in PreK 3 & 4 will have regular 20-minute parent/teacher conferences. SLC's allow parents to spend more time discussing work with their children, and they will be guided by their child through a portfolio of the year's work to date. There will be 4 conferences running in in parallel, and the teacher will be managing the time in the room. There is a flier attached to this posting for you to study, and there is an example of a conference in this video below (not from ISD).

I will be sending out more information and videos to K-5 parents next week:

Shady Lunch Request: We have the following requests regarding the ordering of lunches from the school caterer, Shady Shack:

- Please only order off the menu that Shady Shack posts on the web site

- They cannot make adaptations for individual dietary requirements

- Please don't send children with money to buy from the window, as Elementary children are not permitted to order their own lunches and snacks from Shady Shack in the school day 

Please click HERE for the next 2-week menu. There are now two choices for each day.

Attendance & Report Cards: Report cards will be sent home next week. I just want to mention that as with most international schools, we do have an attendance policy that also relates to report cards. It states that: 

Elementary School students must have at least 80% attendance for a trimester to earn a full report. Less than 80% attendance will gain a “narrative only” report. No reports will be given for a student attending less than 40% of a trimester’s classes.

This is because, as with MS and HS students, we need a certain level of attendance to calculate and ascertain grades for the report card. There will be a letter of explanation in those report cards concerned.

ASA Assembly: There will be an After School Activity Assembly at 3:45 Monday March 11 in the gym. Please come and see work from the following groups:

Field Day: During the day's activities, which run from 10:30 through 3:20 on 28 March, the children practice team songs, meet in the gym for an assembly, and head off for lots of fun in a rotational format around the field - more from Mr. Te Huki soon. Parents are welcome to come and watch.

ES Spirit Week 2013: This will take place on the week of 18th-22nd March, and there will be a different theme for each day. Mr Ish will be forwarding lots more details about themes next week. 

PD & WCM Date Changes: Please note that the WCM Final Day is now on Friday April 26, and the 1/2-Day PD is moved to Friday April 19. This is because we have to accommodate a visit from the IB team.

Pre-K 3 Pulley Play: Here are Ms. Marje's class and their buddy class, 1T,  experimenting with pulleys!:

ISD Earth Day 2013: An early heads-up, that on April 22, the Elementary School will be celebrating Earth Day! On that day, we will have a series of events in classrooms on the theme of reduce, reuse, recycle and sustainability. You will hear more on this through your class teachers. 

Pre-K 4 Field Trip: Here are some photos of Ms. Linda's class's most recent field trip. They went to visit Senegal Broderie and a sewing factory!! There are also a couple of nice Brice Coville pics (seems so long ago that Bruce was here...). Pre-K 4W pics of their trip are on Ms. Melinda's blog:

Upcoming Events: