ISN NEWSLETTER May 24, 2019

Week 7 Dear Parents, Guardians & Friends

ISN Winter Wonderland Ball: What an amazing night we had on May 11

at the ISN Ball. The venue, the decorations, the food, the auctions and

raffles, the entertainment were all just wonderful and a real testament to

the incredible parents who were behind its organisation. A big thank you

to them all and to the sponsors who contributed so generously in so

many ways. The funds raised were above the Committee’s target so

thanks also to the auctioneers. And finally, thank you to Arun Devi,

Venice Khan and Kyrie Goundar for their hard work on the night

processing the purchases.

The initial planning for a new set of classrooms to be built this year is

already under way, with tenders out and planning documents heading to

local council next week. A new playground for the younger students is

also in the pipeline, as well as a covered area away from the walkways for

students to have lunch in more comfort. All of this has been made

possible by the generosity of those who spent up at the Ball and of the

sponsors of the fantastic prizes.

Careers: A small group of people met this morning to start the process of

organising a Careers Expo for students at ISN and local schools. The plan

is for it to happen in early June, 2020, with universities from Fiji and

overseas invited to participate. The work involved is significant so the

decision was made to do it properly for next year rather than rush it

through for this year.

However, to help our students in their understanding of careers they

might be interested in, we decided to ask for your support to run a

careers mentoring program for ISN students in August. The plan is to have

a series of guest speakers at lunchtime forums over a fortnight from

August 12 to August 23, with speakers sharing their journeys from school

to their current occupations so that interested students can learn about

the planning and the work involved in being successful in a chosen career.

These forums would be held in a classroom or the library and would last

15 to 20 minutes. Students would sign up to attend beforehand.

SCHOOL CONTACT

INFORMATION:

Landline:

7762960

Email info@isn.school.fj

Website

www.isn.school.fj

UPCOMING EVENTS

27 May to 29 May: MYP Exams

29 May: DP exams finish

31 May, 1 June: National

Swimming Championships, Suva

4 June: DP Arts excursion

6, 7 June: MYP4 IH Excursion to

Suva

7 June: Team Maths Competition

9 – 12 June: GISS exchange

program visit

14 June: Last day for students;

Reports Distribution

8 July: Teacher Only Day

9 July: First day for students

I invite anyone who would be willing to be involved to send me an email (see below). We would love to have a

range of careers represented to give students a broad choice of people to listen to. If you are interested,

please let me know what career you would be talking about and some preferred dates for when you would be

able to come.

End of Term: As you can see from the Upcoming Events list, we have a busy end of term coming up. In the

middle of all of this, teachers will be preparing Semester Reports which will be sent home on the last day of

the term. Classes, including assessments and excursions, will continue right up the last day.

IB Workshops: Most of you will be aware that the school will have an IB Evaluation in 2020. The IB requires

staff to be involved in regular workshops, some very subject focussed, some more general and aimed at the

broad principles on which the IB is based. We have been trying to get some workshops organised for our staff

and the IB has finally provided us with dates for PYP, MYP and DP workshops. These will be held on the first

two days of Term 4, 30 September and 1 October. 30 September was already a Teacher Only Day so we will

need to make 1 October a Teacher Only Day also. To make up for this lost day, we intend to start Term 3 a day

earlier than planned. I realise this is late notice and I apologise for that. When it comes to workshops, we are

very much in the hands of the IB and those dates are the only ones which are possible. So the first day for

students in Term 3 will be July 9. We will understand if you have made travel arrangements based on the

dates we published last year.

Dates for 2020: To help you with your planning for next year, I have attached the planned term dates for 2020

to this Newsletter. I appreciate the irony of providing these dates, given the content of the previous

paragraph.

Best wishes,

Erik Hoekstra

Principal

(principal@isn.school.fj)

ISN Ball Photos

Please click on the links below to view the Photos from the Night of the ball.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmckvCeM (Scenic Fiji - Ino)

https://www.lavanadancer.com.au/proofing/international-school-ball-sofitel-2019 (Lavana B Dancer - Lavana)

DP Examinations Exams began this week for the DP students, running from Tuesday 21st May and continuing until Wednesday 29th May.

MYP Semester 1 Examination

All the best goes out to our MYP students who will sit for their semester examinations from next week Monday (27/05) to Wednesday (29/05). Parents please ensure that your child is in school by 7:50 am as exams start from 8 am. Extra time for examination will not be provided for students arriving to school late. If students are absent from school, permission to sit for examination on a later date will only be granted should a medical note be provided. Fiji School’s National Swimming Championships The Fiji Schools National Championships will be held in Suva from the 31st May – 1 June. Thirty-three students are representing ISN in Suva that weekend. We wish them all the best for next week. Managebac Session for Chinese Parents There will be an information session for Chinese secondary parents on Managebac next week. This will take

place on Friday 31st at 2.30pm in the IT lab. Junran Wang of DP1 will be leading this session to demonstrate

how secondary parents can use Managebac to view their child's progress.

PTA Meeting

The Next PTA Meeting will be held on Wednesday 29th May at 1pm in the School Conference Room.

Geo Board Craft ASA

We have had great afternoons of creating awesome art, exploring shapes, and developing our visual and fine motor skills through the use of wooden boards, nails and rubber bands. Anya Parker PYP 3- You can’t make a shape until you can get the rubber bands around the nails! Jaeily Kang PYP 3- I like geo board because I learn to create things. Jessie Singh PYP 3- I enjoy geo board craft because I can explore shapes and make my own things.

PYP 3 & 4 Camp at the Coral Coast

On the 9th of May we boarded the bus at about 9am ready to hit the road along the Coral Coast for 2 days and

1 night away from home at the Coral Coast Christian Camp. Students walked in on Thursday morning with big

smiles on their faces, all equipped and packed ready for an exciting learning experience outside the comforts

of their classroom and school. During camp we focused on our first unit about different cultures and

appreciating each other and our second unit of inquiry, from field to table. We visited a remote village in the

highlands of Namosi where students made connections with the Fijian culture and also donated 3 cartons of

books and a book shelf for Namarata Primary School. Our visit to Ranadi plantation helped students make

connections with how food comes from the farm to their tables. Students’ showed the trans-disciplinary skills,

attributes and attitudes during site visits; group tasks and even during meal times. The boat ride and river

tubing were the highlights of camp. The parent helpers and teachers were amazing with the students. We all

had great fun and learned a lot. We look forward to camp in 2020.

Ms Nate (PYP 3) & Ms Torika (PYP 4)

Student Reflections Kylie Patterson PYP 3- I only came to the school on the week for camp and I really enjoyed going to camp. I enjoyed the waterfall swim, roasting marshmallows, the dinner was yummy and camp was just fun fun fun! Lachlan McCann PYP 3- I liked camp because my friends came to camp too. Camp was really fun. I enjoyed it a lot especially river tubing, waterfall swimming and roasting marshmallows. I also liked the dinner. I wish it could have been longer but I had a really fun time. It was great! Rayn Khan- I liked camp because I got to sit with my friends on the bus and during eating times. I got to go river tubing which I have never done before. I was a risk-taker. I liked camp because we saw waterfalls on our boat ride to the village. I liked the food and it was very fun! I enjoyed going to the farm. Mieka Schoen PYP 3- I liked camp because I got to play a lot with my friend Ishi. I was very happy to give some books and a shelf for the village school. My best part of camp was the waterfall swim and river tubing. The food was very good. I learned a lot about the village and farms at camp. It was fun! Keishaa PYP 4- We went to the camp site, and then to the village visit and swim at the waterfall. We got back showered and dressed and went for dinner. At camp I showed caring because I helped Delina when she felt sick. Camp was so fun. Jessica PYP 4- On camp I was very happy, because I went with all of my best friends. I felt very cold at the waterfall, the water was freezing cold. Camp was fun because we roasted marshmallows at night.

ECH – Unit of Inquiry

ECH students are currently engaged in a unit on the

senses. Throughout this unit, they are discovering

what their five senses are and how they use each one.

During the unit the question arose, "Do animals have

senses too?" Humans use these senses in everything

they do Animals also use certain senses. Some are the

same as human senses and others differ. It varies from

animal to animal. For their deeper understanding we

made animal masks of their choice to connect the

body parts with senses and we will be observing the school cat to find the similarities and differences of sense

from humans.

Sofina Bibi – ECH Class Teacher

DIVERSITY CELEBRATION.

Our current MYP 3 students Federica Dressino, Lily hopf,

Mischa Lucas, Shanvi Naidu, Mikayla Kahl and Atalya Cavalevu

have initiated on an in school Service as action project to

increase awareness on Diversity. This also goes in line with

acknowledging World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue

and Development which was on the 21st of May. Students

working towards establishing an environment where they can

celebrate diversity.

MYP 3 students word towards the following activity for

the week. 20th May to the 24th May

• Provide diversity celebration tool kit

• Whole school mufti fundraiser of dressing up in rainbow colours on the 24th of May and

providing gold coin donation

• Bake Sale of rainbow themed goodies

• Rainbow hair dye

The earnings from these will then be donated by the students to the Lautoka Hub for Mental Health.

Students in the IBMYP do or participate in Service as Action as

• It benefits other people in the school, local and international community

• It helps students to learn about themselves

• It develops students interpersonal and leadership skills

• It allows students to discover new talent, skills and interest

• It helps students to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses

A meaningful service = interaction by building links with individuals or in the students communities. Assessing

needs of the communities and finding solutions to

problems.

Key Dates 2020

Term 1 (9 weeks) New Year’s Day Wednesday, 1 January

New teachers start Tuesday, 14 January

All teachers start Wednesday, 15 January

DP, Year 7 and students new to MYP start Monday, 20 January

Remaining students start Tuesday, 21 January

Term ends Friday, 20 March

Term 2 (10 weeks) Teachers Only Day Monday, 6 April

Students start Tuesday, 8 April

Good Friday Friday, 10 April

Easter Monday Monday, 13 April

Term ends Friday, 12 June

Term 3 (10 weeks) Teachers Only Day Monday, 6 July

Teachers Only Day Tuesday, 7 July

Students start Wednesday, 8 July

Constitution Day Monday, 7 September

Term ends Friday, 11 September

Term 4 (10 weeks) Teachers Only Day Monday, 28 September

Students start Tuesday, 29 September

Fiji Day Friday, 10 October

Prophet Mohammad’s birthday Monday, 29 October

Diwali Saturday, 14 November

Term ends for students Thursday, 3 December

Term ends for staff Friday, 4 December

Christmas Day Friday, 25 December

Boxing Day Saturday, 26 December