From the Head of Secondary 23.05.2020
Online Learner Award
During recent weeks our students have been challenged in ways that we could not have foreseen and they have come through with flying colours. To acknowledge this we have initiated a new award the ‘Online Learner Award’. This award goes to those students who have shown determination, self-discipline and aptitude to not only continue with their learning but also overcome the obstacles that they undoubtedly faced. Read on to see the names of those students who have been nominated personally by their teachers.
Global Citizenship Award 2020
I would like to invite our community to nominate any student in any year group who you feel deserves the KIS Global Citizen Award 2020.
A global citizen understands that we are all connected, upholds the values of equality and actively contributes to the development of a better world.
Global Citizens:
- have an awareness of the wider world and a sense of their own role within it
- respect and value diversity
- are committed to social justice, equality and sustainability
- participate in the community at a range of levels, from local to global
- take responsibility for their actions
Global Citizenship involves:
- Enquiring, discussing, thinking critically, reflecting and collaborating
- Exploring the complexity of global issues and engaging with multiple perspectives
- Applying learning to real-life issues and contexts
- All ages and all areas of the curriculum
- The whole school community
Please email me margaretrenshaw@kis.edu.my if you would like to nominate a student who fulfils the above requirements as a Global Citizen. The announcement of the winner of this prestigious award will be made before the end of this academic year.
Laptops for School and Home Learning
We are all looking forward to the time when we will start to see students coming back into school and a lot of work is going on to ensure that when we have a clear directive from the Ministry for a start date, we will be ready. In Secondary, we have been having discussions about a blended learning approach for this term so that we can cater to all students, those in the classroom and those at home. This will partly depend upon students having the correct equipment and this means that those students who are in school during the permitted time will need to have a laptop computer with them. I will send out more information closer to the time but for now it would be good to consider how that could be managed within your family.
Currently students in Y10 and Y11 have had the option of using their own laptop in lessons that utilised technology this year. From August we will be formally extending our Bring Your Own Device programme to the new Year 10/11 students. For students starting the IGCSE courses in August 2020 this means that they will need to be equipped with a laptop computer brought from home for their lessons. The school uses Google classroom extensively and it works best on a Chrome browser. The software found on an Apple Mac is different and may lead to compatibility issues. The students will be typing and researching so a full PC laptop is recommended. We will be sending out further information about the BYOD device programme after half term but in the meantime if you have any questions do not hesitate to contact Ms Service, Head of Key Stage 4, at lservice@kis.edu.my.
Year 8 Parent/Teacher/Student Day
On Friday 5th June we are holding a virtual Year 8 Parent/Teacher/Student day. You may be aware that we had to cancel our planned Year 8 parents’ afternoon last term, and the event on the 5th June is intended to replace that. Mr Kelly has sent a letter out explaining how it will be managed. Students will make appointments for their parents with their teachers and at the scheduled time the teacher will start the meeting by inviting the student and parent through Google Meet. It is a first for Secondary and it will be interesting to see how it goes!
Plastic, plastic everywhere and not a bit to degrade!
Read on to see what 8S have been researching under the supervision of Mrs Davis as they investigated different kinds of plastics and came to some conclusions about how and why we should lessen the amount of plastic that we use.
Pledge to Save the Malayan Tiger
Also, in this newsletter, please watch the short video about how we can help to save the Malayan tiger. Many thanks to Hope Wu and Maxine Moore of the Secondary Eco Warriors for drawing our attention to this worthy cause.
Pledge here https://www.wwf.org.my/tiger_pledge_/
Margaret Renshaw
Deputy Principal/Head of Secondary
Plastic, plastic everywhere and not a bit to degrade!
On Monday 11th May, 8S geographers tested plastic. They had to find seven different types of plastic and investigate whether the plastic could float, stretch, bend, was it clear, easily scratched and waxy. The students were investigating the issues connected to recycling of plastic and discovered that the various properties of the different plastics are a problem. Here are some comments and pictures.
Charmaine believed that chemical reactions prevented different types of plastic being recycled. Leo had a similar opinion: Different plastics have different properties. If different types of plastics are mixed together to recycle, they might lose their property and usefulness. Jack thought flexible plastic is more useful which Shokhina agreed with but she said “the plastics might not be durable and will lose their qualities”.
Amber commented “… flexible plastic is easier to store and pack but non-flexible is stronger. Farah felt that flexible packaging uses less material than its rigid counterparts, leading to a lower overall packaging cost; it also creates less waste.
Ruth stated “in Malaysia, we have few people knowing about waste and how bad the environment is getting day by day and this leads to people just thinking the country is fine and make more waste”. Timothy and Liam both noted that education was key, with Timothy saying “educating people properly about different types of plastic and how to properly recycle them” and Liam proposing “a good education program, clearly colored different bins, money paid for correctly sorted items eg you never see tin cans lying around in Sabah because people can get a little bit of money if they collect and recycle them”.
Finally, Diego suggested that if we were consistent in the type of plastic that we used, we wouldn’t have to sort the plastic as much, and we could also prevent this by using less plastic and/or raising awareness about the different types of plastic.
Thank you to Mr Simon Christopher and the Love in a Bin initiative for sharing the activities with us. We will certainly be ready for World Ocean’s Day on 8th June.
Mrs Davis and 8S Students
