From the Head of Secondary 12.10.2019
CIS Pre-Accreditation Visit
This week, in preparation for our visit from the Council of International Schools I spoke to all the students in Secondary to give them some information about the meaning of accreditation and its importance. Dr. Eric Jabal and Mr John Todd will be coming into school from Tuesday to Friday next week and our students now know who they are and will be able to recognise them around school. Our Student Council will be having lunch with the visitors on Tuesday and the Year 12 and 13 students will do so on the following day in the common room. As well as meeting with various groups of staff, the Board, parents and students Dr Jabal and Mr Todd will be visiting classrooms looking at teaching and learning; they will also be visiting some of our extra-curricular activities, so we should expect that there will be a lot of interaction with our students.
Interim Reports
At the moment we are finalising the Interim Reports. These will be sent out next week to the parents of all of our Year 7 students and the parents of any new students from Years 8 to 10. The reports will give parents an idea of how their child has settled into school. If parents have any questions about their child’s learning, or about the Interim Report, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Think Pink Day 14th October
Monday is Think Pink Day. This is about raising awareness of breast cancer. All students have been encouraged to wear something pink on that day and to contribute, if they would like to, to a cash collection to be carried out by the student council.
It would be wonderful if all our students [and parents!] could join in.
Mrs M Renshaw
Head of Secondary
Deputy Principal
What’s been happening in 8K Geography?
Period 6 on a Friday afternoon can sometimes be a challenging lesson to keep the students engaged and focused on new learning.
Last Friday afternoon 8K were embarking on starting their learning into the second Adventurous landscape in the year 8 scheme of work, the dynamic and ever changing coast.
Through photos, video and 3D modelling with cake 8k found out about the erosive processes of hydraulic action, abrasion and attrition which lead to rocky cliffs changing and landform called wave cut notches and wave cut platforms developing at the base and in front of the eroding rocky cliffs.
The sugar rush which each student got as they ate the cake model at the end of their learning appeared to do the trick!
The whole class of students seemed to be have been inspired by this visual demonstration of
coastal processes occurring in cake and hopefully will produce some creative models, diagrams or poetry of their own for their chosen homework assignment.
Updates will follow on this later in November as the year 8 classes will be visiting TARP to monitor the coastal landscapes and processes of the islands of our KK coasts.
Rachel McNutt
Geography Teacher and Head of Humanities
High Quality Learning in Key Stage 3 Geography
In the “Academic Rigour” thread of the High Quality Learning policy at KIS, one section is titled “Students produce well-crafted, authentic work”. This means that students are presented with a task and respond appropriately using their own thinking and ideas. The work should be “authentic” which means that it should not be copied from someone else. It should be the student’s own work.
The 9S Geography class was presented with a homework in a Friday lesson as usual This homework was a little different. The students were given a choice of four tasks and had to select one to showcase their learning of plate tectonics. They could chose from making and annotating models, writing a poem or song, creating an annotated poster and making a movie. Furthermore, the students could work individually or in groups. Students made annotated models such as those produced by Tania Sotya or, as Tobias Lo did, wrote a poem.
Aimless Movement
Under our feet lie the foundations of earth,
Sliding and moving in a slow, calm dance,
Their movement, so aimless and prediction ‘dearth,
Yet, how well mankind has come to understand!
How far have we gone to finally see,
The footsteps in our home’s steady dance.
Under the name “collision”, a movement so bold,
Like rivals, the plates of our surface ram into each other,
In competitive struggle, they fight for victory extolled,
Not wanting to forced down, they fight like brothers,
Their will pushes them both upwards, and therefore
Erecting a mountain in their honour.
The name “destructive”, a name so perfect,
As to describe the embrace between two lovers,
Both plates drive in happily, yet in full retrospect,
One would be perfectly fine without the other,
Because hidden in the embrace is a war of pride,
And the victor, shooting hate upwards, pushes down her lover.
“Constructive”. A name quite ironic,
To represent the divorce of a young married couple,
The diverging ways of these plates tectonic,
Align perfectly with their separation so supple,
Yet, what is left in between? The child, torn at the seams?
Abandoned, hate shoots up like lava, and anger never to rappel.
“Conservative”. Like sworn enemies since birth,
They meet each other’s eyes and brush past,
To describe perfectly the sliding past of earth,
They nudge each other, one insults, leaving the other aghast,
The meeting breaks up, then erupting a fight,
The earth is shaken, it quakes of silence ‘dearth.
Ervin Tan and Lewis Lee made a film while Leya Abd Razak produced an annotated poster.
There is a further descriptor which states,” Where possible, work is shared with wider audiences” and I hope that is what 9S and I have done today!
Mrs Davis and 9S
A View into the Room
Ever wondered what’s on the walls inside the Secondary classrooms? Here’s your chance to find out.
Chapter 1: Business Studies
One of the misconceptions in Business is that a partnership only consists of two owners but in fact there can be lots.
I saw these kits in Daiso and thought it would be great to get students to make them in groups of 3 or 4 (simulating a partnership) and also to get some students to make them by themselves to simulate a sole trader ownership.
The students learnt a lot. Some groups had disagreements on how to make them and one student admitted she preferred working alone as no one got in her way! Mostly the partnership groups made their model up more quickly than the individuals and they also appreciated all the extra help and ideas. Everyone understood that a partnership can be more than just 2 people. Their models now sit on the wall as a visual reminder of the lessons learnt, plus I think they look really impressive!
Ms Corbishley
Business Teacher
