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Message from the Head of School

Dear IGBIS Parents and Guardians,

I neglected to mention the school Duathlon and the Kuala Lumpur International Schools Sports (KLISS) Swimming Carnival, both of which were hosted at IGBIS last week. A large proportion of our students of all ages took part in the Duathlon testing their endurance in the swim and run, many of the same students went on to compete in the KLISS Swimming Carnival. Congratulations to those who gained places at KLISS or added points to their House in the Duathlon. Thanks are extended to our all of our PE team, in particular Ms Spracklan and Mr Lovesy for organising and running the events.

Our school board have been busy this week with subcommittees for Facilities, Marketing and Finance-Budget all meeting during the week and planning for the months ahead. As mentioned in my newsletter two weeks back, the board have taken the bold move of freezing the school fees for next year. We do hope that this goes a long way to assist our families and to recognise their commitment to the school.  We have made amazing progress these last five years and we are at the tipping point of having another spurt in enrolment in the year ahead. Some of our classes are full and we are making decisions about which grade levels will have a third class open in 2019-20 and which we will cap. It is very important that all parents complete the re-enrolment survey this week so that we have a complete set of data on which to make decisions. We don’t want any of our current families to lose their place, so please do complete the survey by Sunday May 12th!

Yours sincerely

Mrs Anne Fowles
Head of School

News from Secondary School

Dear parents,

Grade 5 students took another step in their transition on Friday with their visit to the secondary school, as well as a chance to participate in a house competition at lunch time. They talked about their hopes and fears, toured the secondary hallways, and made connections with the current Grade 6 students. They will continue the process in a few weeks time with a second visit.

This week also saw a visit from a practitioner of Butoh (Japanese Theatre), who conducted a workshop for our Grade 11 Theatre students. This was a great experience for them and was very well received by the students.

On Friday we kicked off a series of fun house competitions, that will take us through to the end of the year. As we work our way through the exams in the month of May and draw closer to the end of the school year, I will be sharing more details with parents about the end of year events.

Also on Friday we hosted the last Kopitiam of the year; thank you to the large group of parents for coming out. Next week will see the beginning of the MYP exams as well as the PYP/MYP Arts Exhibition on Friday May 17th.

Michael Arcidiacono
Secondary School Principal

News from Elementary School

In the final year of the PYP programme our Grade 5 students are expected to show their understanding about all of the elements of the PYP. One of those elements is ‘Action’. The idea that students as a result of their learning take action for the betterment of themselves, others or the world near and far.

This year as a part of the IB PYP Exhibition our students really developed their understanding and actions around this PYP element. One student submitted a proposal to me for my consideration about implementing Zero Waste days in school. After some discussion with the Elementary Leadership team we decided that we would like to honour and trial this idea as we saw value in it.  

Next week on Wednesday 15th May we will have our first ‘Zero Waste Wednesday!’

The idea behind this is that we try and create zero waste in the day. So that means:

• No wrappers at snack time.
• No throw-away plastic in general.
• Try to not throw away anything.
• Remind people to only take what they will eat to minimise food waste.

“This is a way to promote how important it is to protect our environment.”

Ghazi, Grade 5

On Wednesday we would like students to bring their snacks in a plastic box or even wrapped in beeswax wrapping. We look forward to your support to help our environment and to support our students thoughtful action.

This week saw 3 teams (2 from Elementary and 1 from Secondary) from IGBIS take part in the ‘Novel Knockout’ reading competition at International School Kuala Lumpur. It was a huge learning curve for our teams as this was the first time they had experienced reading multiple books that they not only needed to read, but they had to understand and recall the stories in detail. Thank you to Ms. Chan for starting us on this journey and to Ms. Lisa who accompanied the teams on Tuesday.

Dates for Your Diaries

• 15th May: Zero Waste Day
• 17th – 27th May: PYP/MYP Art Exhibition Level 2 Art exhibition space
• 20th May: Public holiday
• 21st May: Music Academy concert #1
• 22nd May: Public holiday
• 30th May: Music Academy concert #2

Simon Millward
Elementary School Principal

Notice about Ramadan

Ramadan began on Monday and we have a number of staff and students fasting during school hours. During this time, out of respect to fasting students, we ask that any celebration at school, including birthdays, does not involve any type of food. This includes birthday cakes.

If you would still like to have a small celebration for your child’s birthday at school during Ramadan, here are just a selection of alternatives.

• Stickers: hand out stickers to students.
• Plants: hand out small plants to each student, or donate a larger plant to the class.
• Dance: have a 5-minute dance celebration.
• Play a game: charades, board games, musical chairs, etc. – the birthday child could choose a quick game that is easy to set up and pack away.
• Parents read a book: come and read a book to the class. Or send a favourite book in for the teacher to read to the class.
• Sing Happy Birthday.
• Have students sign a card for the birthday child.
• Bring in a t-shirt and fabric pens and have the class sign the t-shirt with birthday messages.

Novel Knockout

IGBIS participated in our first Novel Knockout competition on Tuesday at ISKL. Novel Knockout is a friendly competition for avid readers in Elementary School and Middle School, organised by the Kuala Lumpur Library Network. This is an opportunity for our students to get involved, read a diverse selection of books, and to have fun. We had three teams competing this year with two teams from elementary: IGBIS 1 (Nina F., Nina R., Chloe, and Rhys), IGBIS 2 (Kian, Kimaya, Aveesha, and Gibran) and one team from secondary (Zara, Hannah, TJ, and Nadia). Each student had eight books to read from different genres. They began in January and have read consistently over the last three months. Groups met regularly once a cycle and discussed books, wrote questions, and quizzed each other on the correct answers. There was fierce competition from the other schools and while we didn’t come home with a trophy this year, our students had a lot of fun and we read some awesome books together. Well done everyone, you did IGBIS proud.

Kerri Chan
Whole School Librarian

Viper Challenge

Six Grade 11 students joined the Viper Beach Challenge last Saturday in Port Dickson. The race was 5 km long with 12 obstacles, including one in the water. The students enjoyed the various challenges and worked really together in order to follow the rule of “leave no one behind”. Congratulations to all the students on completing the gruelling event and still being able to smile!

Nathalie Chotard
CAS Coordinator

“The perfect event before exams.”

Sofea

“Just what I needed to verify my physical abilities.”

Pei Hua

“A fun, collaborative challenge to push one to their limits.”

Lucas

“Challenging yourself at the gym isn’t as fun as challenging yourself at the beach.”

Patrick

“An enjoyable challenge to stimulate the senses.”

Gabriel

“Not your average beach holiday.”

Clarissa

Butoh Theatre Workshop

Our Grade 11 IB Theatre students took part this week in a three hour Butoh workshop with local theatre practitioner, Mr Lee Swee Keong. Butoh is a Japanese dance form developed in the 1960s.

Created by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno in 1959, this vocabulary of movement, which typically involves mischievous or grotesque imagery, was intended to question and subvert more traditional Japanese forms and mores. In 1995, Lee Swee Keong co-founded the dance company, which employs a fusion of Butoh, meditation and Zen philosophy to “gain a deeper understanding of the universe and shed light on the twin concepts of ‘existence’ and ’emptiness’.” Through the study of theatre, students become aware of their own personal and cultural perspectives developing an appreciation of the diversity of theatre practices, their processes and their modes of presentation. It enables students to discover and engage with different forms of theatre across time, place and culture and promotes international-mindedness.

Jamie Cant
Performing Arts Teacher

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