Volume 5 17/08/2020
Newsletter of International School Suva
Principal’s Report Head of Schools Report
Inside this issue:
ECH Article
Greetings, ISS parents and students, It is hard to believe we are nearly finished with Term 3. ISS is managing very well during this difficult Covid pandemic time, but that is because of great cooperation and help from students, parents and staff. Nothing is quite as easy, and sanitation and health are top priorities these days.
Space day in Yr 2
As always, student learning is always our central focus. As a reminder, our Strategic Plan calls for us to keep improving our teaching and learning efforts. Interestingly, the Covid crisis has caused us to learn many new skills that will give long-time benefits. I think everyone has done more with technology than before. We all know Google Classroom and Google Meets at new levels, and Zoom is now more than a catchy verb. We see that now that we are back in face-to-face sessions, the lessons learned while online are not lost!
From Challenge to Success
Of course, some other very important non-technology lessons have also been learned. I think we have all learned to tolerate inconvenience, to be patient, to think of others, and to wash hands often! The coming months will, no doubt, reveal whether this disease will recede or whether we will need to take more stringent measures yet. Some things have started to return to normal such as classes resuming. More than 30 students from abroad are back in Fiji in quarantine, hoping to join their classmates in the next two weeks. I hope we will see other forms of needed relief from Covid soon, but we must not let down our guard until we are sure everyone is safe. Some of our new health practices are probably here to stay. I hope we have learned that regular hand washing and disinfecting stops diseases. I think we will see that limiting our close contacts and being careful how we touch things might prevent sickness. I hope we also do not forget how to care about others in a crisis and to be flexible and gracious when things are difficult.
Year 4 article
MAP Letter Grade
Library
MYP Corner
School Counselor
Year 10 Personal Project
On our campus, we are getting closer to opening our new building and having the first dedicated auditorium. Behind the construction walls, our construction team is working daily to make some fantastic new spaces for learning. The building is focused on showcasing creativity and innovation. The auditorium will offer a new performance and presentation stage for our students. We expect to have new space for the arts and for design. We will also have some new science lab facilities that are long overdue. We are hoping to celebrate with a grand opening sometime early next year. I hope we will be allowed to make that a big event! In the meantime, we are benefitting daily from the Middle School expansion project which added needed classroom and meeting space.
Love Kitchen CAS Group
We just had a pilot of our new standardized exam, the MAP Test. In October we will have an official MAP exam and provide assessment feedback to parents from that. We think you will appreciate the kind of information you will get and that it will help you and teachers track with how each student is learning. When that time comes, you will be informed and we encourage students to a) get good sleep and breakfast before test time, b) relax and focus on the test questions with a clear mind, and c) take the test seriously. Good testing results accurately show us how to adapt our teaching so every child can learn more. Over time, they will also show students the progress they have made and what they can focus on in their studies.
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Finally, I want to thank all of you who went above and beyond to help our staff during the shut-down when some of them had reduced income. It was heartwarming to see parents coming to the school with food items to distribute to those in need. The recipients were grateful and genuinely touched. Thanks to our wonderful parent community for thinking of others while experiencing hardship yourselves. Best wishes, Steve Cathers
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