ISN NEWSLETTER August 23, 2019

Week 7 Dear parents, guardians and friends,

It has been a busy fortnight since our last Newsletter with more to come.

The AGM of the School Committee: This was held on Tuesday. In brief, the school’s

financial position is very solid and will allow the continued development of the

facilities, including the new four classroom block and the playground. The meeting also

made some amendments to the Constitution, the main thrust of which was to rename

the School Committee to School Board and to allow two year tenure for members of

the Board.

The new Board is Brian Kirsch, Bradley Robinson, Rodney Samuels, Shivam Naidu,

Suzanne Hopf, Maria McNair, Maryann Moss and Christina Spillane. Thank you to all of

these parents for their willingness to be such a crucial part of the school and to the

outgoing Board for their extraordinary work in this past year on so many crucial

aspects of the school. The new Board will meet on September 10 to elect a Chair and

to form sub-committees.

Fun Day: What a great day it was! Congratulations to all of those involved in running it

this year. This was my first Fun Day so I can’t compare, but the atmosphere was

fantastic and the setup and variety of stalls was great. In just a four hour period, after

all expenses were taken out, the day made $12,600, much of which will go to provide

the new playground.

This evening: We have two significant events occurring this afternoon. From 5pm to

6pm, there will be information sessions covering Managebac and Counselling services,

followed by sessions on each of the major IB programmes. For the PYP and MYP, these

are mainly aimed at parents new to the IB but please feel free to come along and find

out why the IB Programmes are the best in the world. The session for DP is aimed at

current MYP5 (or Year 11) students who are moving on to the DP next year.

After the information sessions, MYP5 students will present their Personal Projects,

something they have been working on individually for almost a year. This is a crucial

element of the MYP so everyone is invited to come along and see what this year’s

students have come up with.

Basketball: I would like to congratulate the U17 Basketball team for their fine efforts

in the Basketball Championships last week. The majority of the team were U14 and

U15 but they punched well above their weight and made the semi-finals, a truly

SCHOOL CONTACT

INFORMATION:

Landline: 7762960

Email info@isn.school.fj

Website

www.isn.school.fj

Facebook

ISN updates

(International School

Nadi)

UPCOMING EVENTS

Week 8

26 Aug - DP Mock Exams

begin

Week 9

3 Sep – DP Mock Exams

end / PYP Student Led

Conference (all day)

4 Sep – MYP 5 Mock Exams

begin

6 Sep – MYP 5 Mock Exams

end

Week 10

9 Sep – Public Holiday

Constitution Day

10 Sep – Literacy Day

Assembly

13 Sep – Last day of Term

wonderful effort made all the better by the mature and calm way in which they played and the sportsmanship

they showed both in victory and defeat. Well done. It augurs well for next year.

Lunchtime Careers Chats: Over the last two weeks, six fantastic volunteers have come to talk with our MYP4,

MYP5, DP1 and DP2 students about their careers, how they got to where they are now and the sorts of

possibilities there would be for our students to take on something similar. They have been inspiring and I want

to acknowledge and thank them for giving up their time to help: Vincent Maquet (Hotel Management), Dr

Sheree Macpherson (Osteopathy and Health Sciences), Shivam Naidu (Engineering), Debra Sadavu

(Entrepreneurship, Tourism and Hospitality), Dr Amanda Hill (Medicine) and Heidi Wilson (Environmental

Sciences). Thanks also to Warwick Kahl whose session couldn’t happen because of unforeseen circumstances.

There is nothing quite like hearing it from the perspective of someone who has been there. We are working

hard at having an expanded programme next year which we hope will also involve a Careers Expo.

Change of date: Our End of Year Concert and Awards Night, which was such a success last year, was scheduled

for December 2. Unfortunately, the Sheraton Ballroom is not available on that date so we have moved it to

December 3. In some ways, this is better as it gives us some extra time to make sure everything is right for the

night.

Erik Hoekstra

Principal

Weekly Updates

Literacy Week!!

We will have a Literacy Week Assembly in Week 10. The highlight of the assembly is a

book character parade. Please get costumes ready for your children. More information

on this as we draw nearer to the date.

ISN Basketball Team

Our ISN Team performed exceptionally well in the 2019 Fiji Secondary Schools Basketball Championships. Game Results were as follows: ISN 27 ISS 9 - Pool Game 1 ISN 24 QVS 22 - Pool Game 2 ISN 20 GHS 13 - Pool Game 3 ISN lost to the 2018 Under 17 champions Marist ISN 15 Yat Sen 23 – Semifinal (Friday) It was a great result for our boys especially since this was our first year of participation. Once again we thank

Isikeli Toutou, Jill Armstrong and Josh Tomasi for all their hard work and effort and to the team as well.

Information Evening

There will be an Information Evening held today (23/08/19) from 5pm – 7pm. The Program will run as per the

schedule below;

International School Nadi – Model United Nations

It is with great excitement that we are going to host our very first International School Nadi Model United Nations Conference at the beginning of 2020! The event will take place on the 17th and 18th of February at the Westin in Denarau. This is spear-headed by DP 1 students Tanisha Chadha and Talei Puamau with the assistance of Ms Hannah, Mr Parwez and Ms Frances. The theme of the conference is The Cause of Freedom, inspired by Anna Julia Cooper’s quote: “Above all, it requires a belief in what used to be called the free world: of its shared moral principles, broad interests, and long-term aspirations. We don’t have that, either. The axis of evil is back, not that it ever really went away. The cause of freedom awaits a resurrection.” The topics that will be discussed address ways in which the global community can work together to solve the issues at hand. We will have four different councils with the chairs being our very own students who have been training and have already conducted a workshop for local school students who will also participate. Currently we have Natabua High School, Votualevu College and Swami Vivekananda College and are hoping for the confirmation of a few more in the following months. We will also have our students participating in the conference. The goal of the conference is to encourage students to develop skills in research, communication, debate skills, leadership, diplomacy and international-mindedness. The Model United Nations (MUN) Programme has been a large part of the International School experience and we hope that this conference will be an annual legacy that we will be continued post 2020. Later in the year, the MUN team is hosting a Halloween Social so make sure to mark the date in your diaries as mentioned in the flyer below! More details will be sent through as we get closer to the date. We look forward to an amazing ISN MUN 2020!

Tanisha Chadha and Talei Puamau

MUN Fundraiser

Mark the date. More Details to come.

Our trip to the local

school was so much fun.

The students were very

kind and I felt so lucky.

-Tagici Sowane

Playing rugby with the

students of Nokonoko

District School was

tough but I really

enjoyed it.

-Patrick Spillane

PTA

UPDATES

2019 ISN FUN DAY PICS