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Message From the Head of School

Mrs Anne Fowles, Head of School
anne.fowles@igbis.edu.my

Dear IGBIS Families,

I have received very good feedback about the Parent-Teacher-Student conferences that took place on Thursday this week. Thank you for continuing to support our programmes by distance. I realise that a Google Meet is quite different from coming to meet teachers in person and something is lost along the way, however unfortunately until the pandemic is over, we will continue to conduct most meetings by distance.

Our Board of Governors met this week at the IGB offices in Mid-Valley, with Mr Lister Hannah joining us via a Google Meet. The Board was impressed with all the preparations that the school had made to have our SOP in place and to communicate these with parents and students before the year began

I also attended a Board meeting for the Council of International Schools. After hearing from the other heads of schools in Chile, Indonesia, Australia and Africa as well as the Higher Education representatives from Spain, USA and UK, it made me realise just how lucky we are to be in Malaysia which is one of the safest countries at this time. Most of the other heads of schools still had students in online classes, we are very fortunate to have our students actively learning in school.

I enjoyed attending the elementary school assembly in the theatre. Hopefully, you were able to view it via live streaming. If not, lookout for the next assembly!

During this past week, there have been positive COVID cases in some condos and other buildings in and around Kuala Lumpur. If you are informed of a case in your own complex, please contact one of the principals or myself as soon as possible so that we can make decisions. It is even more helpful if you can share with us any documents given out by the building authorities or the MOH so we have a clear understanding of the circumstances. If we do not have clarity of the situation, we may ask for families living in the affected complex to stay at home for a day until the MOH releases a statement to residents.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.  We do need to do everything possible to keep our school and all of our students safe.

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From the Elementary School Principal

Simon Millward, Elementary School Principal
simon.millward@igbis.edu.my

Thank you for attending our virtual 3-way conferences on Thursday 8th October. As I moved around school talking with teachers, the general feeling was that these were valuable conversations that they were having with you and your children.

There was a hive of activity at the school as well as our Associate teachers (AT’s) were busy preparing for the grand opening of the new design lab. With the week of play happening next week resources were being prepared and beautification as well. The design lab now has a green screen on the wall outside and fabulous design on the opposite wall created by Ms Aga and Ms Liyana and blacklined and coloured by our AT’s.

Once again we had a very dynamic Elementary assembly. This week we were joined by two groups of Grade 9 PHE students who performed their skipping compositions. I think we were all wowed by these two groups and they certainly threw out the challenge to our Elementary students to develop their own skills and create their own compositions.

We also had some budding actors and actresses as the G5 Chinese students videoed a play about the Legend of the Moon Festival.

The Grade 4’s also shared their learning with us as they performed the ‘Waterbird’ composition with instruments.

Finally, we were tuning in to the week of play which will be happening this upcoming week by watching all about ‘Caine’s arcade’ which was the inspiration for the establishment of the ‘Imagination foundation’ which IGBIS is a Chapter of. Next week’s assembly will be a celebration of all the creativity, designs and engagements that happened during the week of play and we really look forward to seeing where the children’s thinking, making and improving takes them.

If you haven’t already managed to purchase one of our school masks they are now available in the school shop in adult and children sizes. As you can see from my smiling face (behind the mask) these look and feel great.

Dates for your diaries

• 26th – 30th October: School holiday

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From the Secondary School Principal

Sandy van Nooten, Secondary School Principal
sandy.vannooten@igbis.edu.my

We have just finished our 9th week of school. Amazing huh!

We are slowly but surely getting all our new teachers into Malaysia, through quarantine and into the classroom. Janet Powell started teaching her PHE classes in person today. Hector Vargas is in quarantine and should be with us on-site from week 11. Our final absent newbies (Mark and Allison Parratt) arrive in Malaysia early next week. I’m incredibly impressed with everyone’s resilience and creativity. I know that our whole community will be stronger than ever when we emerge from this crazy COVID year.

On Monday, I was invited to watch the Grade 10 music class play 4 fantastic rock songs. No rock band can play without an audience… So we had students from Visual Arts, Drama and some ES students enjoying the performance. I’m constantly blown away by our students’ talent, humility, focus, and poise. 

Also on Monday, Simon and I presented to our class parent volunteers. I look forward to working with this group of parents. We still have a few grades without a class parent. If you have a child in Grade 8, 10 or 11, please (pretty please) consider joining the team. You’ll have fun, I promise. If you are interested, please contact me: sandy.vannooten@igbis.edu.my.

In secondary, we ran virtual 3-way conferences on Wednesday evening and all day Thursday. Thank you to everyone who took part in this important event. I will be collecting feedback from teachers and parents so we can make our next conferences even better. Please fill out the form when you receive it (it is very short and sweet).

We are having our first StuCo hosted an assembly on Monday and next week, Jade (one of our Grade 12 students) is running a breast cancer awareness week to coincide with Pinktober. On Monday, everyone is invited to wear ‘Pink Tops’, on Wednesday, ‘Pink Bottoms’ and on Friday, it is ‘All Out Pink’. Please encourage your secondary student to take part. 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe.

Regards.

Here are some photos of the Grade 10 music class.

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4th Annual Week of Play

Aga Chojnacka, Primary Years Programme Coordinator
aga.chojnacka@igbis.edu.my

October 12th -16th EY and Elementary School Students will be involved in celebrating the WEEK of PLAY.

The event used to be celebrated as a Saturday morning in early October, with all the families and children playing together but due to our COVID-19 circumstances has now been turned into an internal school event that will engage the children throughout the whole week.

At IGBIS we understand that play is central to how children learn; the way they make sense of their world; the way they form and explore friendships; the way they shape and test intellectual, social, emotional, and ethical ideas. Much is known about the importance of play in children’s development. Yet very few schools have explored what it might mean to put play as a way children learn. What it means at IGBIS is: learners leading their own learning, experiencing choice and shared ownerships of their learning environments and how they learn/play best, making connections between life inside and outside the classroom, learners reflecting on their playful learning, cultivating a culture of playful learning for adults.

Throughout next week children will explore the following playful experiences:

• reading, listening to  and sharing stories of creativity and imagination
• drawing and designing in cardboard, fabric and other media
• coding and programming Beebots and Spheros
• working with green screen and virtual reality
• exploring a Flipgrid Virtual Playground full of interactive resources from NASA, MET gallery and many more to spark their interest and curiosity as young artists, scientists, engineers and makers
• making, designing and tinkering with cardboard and other materials to build arcade games, mazes and robots 

We cannot wait to start playing with our learners and we hope that parents will help us keep up the playful spirit at home too by making time for family play. Whether it is by reading favourite books together, dancing, playing board games or lego – think of a way your family can be more playful this week!

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Visual Arts

Rob Pendlebury & Ms Finnimore

Grade 7: Expressionist Printmaking

The Grade 7s have just completed their Expressionist Printmaking unit.

We began by looking at the German Expressionists. Our Key Concept was Change, so students reflected on a period of change in their life and considered how they could communicate their feelings through a visual language. Not surprisingly COVID featured heavily in their response. We are now using these prints to encourage good pandemic behaviours around the school

Grade 9 Contemporary Art Magazine

What Role Does Beauty Play in Art?

This was the question posed to Grade 9 Visual Art students. They were asked to take on the role of an investigative journalist for a contemporary art magazine for up and coming young artists. They have pondered these conceptual questions and produced some very interesting answers. Have a read and see what you think.

Sylvie Choong

Charlotte Webster

Julian Lee

Violet Pye

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Tee-off for a Good Cause

Scott Ngatai, PE Teacher/Activities Co-Ordinator
scott.ngatai@igbis.edu.my

Saturday the 3rd of October saw IGBIS sponsor the Valencia Charity Golf Tournament. 

36 golfers took part in a 9 hole event.

Included in the event were staff from IGBIS:

• Rob Pendlebury
• Lennon McDonald
• Lachlan Pye
• Dean Watters
• Scotty Ngatai

IGBIS sponsored the prizes for the 3 winning teams.

IGB umbrellas, Towels, Drink bottles, Coffee mugs, Diaries, Pens and Stationary were amongst the prizes.

• 1st Place: Dean Watters & Scotty Ngatai (Prizes were donated back and awarded to 2nd place)
• 2nd Place: Travis & Aleisha Van Dijk
• 3rd Place: Martyn Grange & Shane Everton
• 4th Place: Russel Dabbs & David

A total of RM1400 was raised for charity which went to the ZOLC refugee school.

A huge thanks to Russel and Rea for their hospitality and food at the clubhouse and to IGBIS for the prizes.