Chris Chadwick 's review of week 5

Susie Morgenstern 's visit with year 6

This week I have again visited all the campuses and observed the children establishing their routines, rhythms of Learning, learning their rules of the classroom  and common areas  and ‘hearing’ their hopes and dreams! There has been a great deal of purposeful learning opportunities for students and teachers  alike and already the classes are buzzing.

​Memorable experiences
Year 4 students demonstrated their commitment to creative learning through participation in their new Unit of study ‘Rugby World cup’. I watched them learning about the participating  countries capital cities and finding the locations on a map.
Then we had the visit of the Hong Kong rugby seven team. It was fantastic to see ; so many of our students having a wonderful learning experience with the team ; who spent the day with us visiting all year groups. Our thanks to Mr Kane Jury Head coach of the Sevens team and the boys of the team for making the sessions so interesting and so much fun. We are following up their visit by supporting their endeavours in the Olympic games 7’s qualifier in November.
It was also great that you ‘the parents’ then supported us with the follow up ‘memorable experience’ by sending in your youngsters dressed up for Rugby World cup day; wow it was amazing. Some students came dressed up in their country shirts and colours / sports T shirt/ country football shirts / PE shirts and some wore coloured/wigs and hair pieces all part of the celebration on both campuses for Rugby World cup dress up day. This ,’memorable experience ’ is a day to put under the microscope, a global sporting occasion. One which involved many of the nations of the world, bringing together different nationalities and cultures in the common pursuit of; solidarity, integrity, passion, discipline, participation, team work, sporting endeavour, fair play, hard work, and character development. A good time was had by all .

Teaching and Learning 
All Teachers have been involved over the last few weeks in the launch of our new professional learning collaboration sessions on Wednesday’s. This is part of our focus upon developing teaching and learning across the school. All the teachers will be sharing best practice and collaborating on curriculum and action projects across many curriculum and pastoral areas. I am personally very excited by the potential impact this level of professional collaboration will have upon student learning in the Primary and Secondary phases and on the Teachers professional development.
 
Whole International School Professional Development 
On Friday October 2. All the International Teachers were engaged in a professional development day .The day was spent focussing upon challenging students in their learning. Mr Ian Gilbert, author of “Why do we need teachers now we’ve got Google”, conducted the training sessions for our teachers, Ian’s sessions were very interesting, stimulating and gave us great food for thought.
​You can find photos of the day in the gallery
 
Student Council 
Form + Vice captain (Student voice)
Over the last few weeks our students have demonstrated aspects of their new ‘FIS learner profile’ in preparation for the Student Council elections.  All classes from Year 3-6 have representatives in the Student Council ; this gives the students a voice in the school and an opportunity to take action about areas which concern them. Students, who were interested in having a greater responsibility in this role,  presented their speeches to their class and subsequently a secret vote was taken and the incoming rep was elected / voted in . I believe that our students can offer a unique insight into the life of our school.  There is a clear need to engage in regular dialogue with the students ensuring that they reflect on areas of real significance. The aims of the Student Council are; The Council is a forum for students to demonstrate their Active Citizenship Leadership skills and responsibilities; and willingness to perform school community service. Reflects the culture of the school: everyone contributing. Students actively participate in decision making throughout the school. Students engage in meaningful discussions with their peers representing these views to Staff.
The Council is a representative body of children across all the Primary years with two representatives from each class (Form & Vice-Captain) Y2-Y6.From Y3-6 each class holds it’s own selection process for the representatives who hold the position for about six weeks. Children learn how to be active contributors to class, community and society.
There is no set agenda, representatives raise their class issues / concerns and opinions. The Head teacher may raise some points to discuss e.g Good things happening around our school; Not so good things.
Discussion points, actions are all recorded by the HT.  Some points are recorded in the Reps diary for referral back to class. The council provides feedback to school in assembly.The main points of the meeting are worked through in an assembly with the representatives contributing.Class representatives  feedback to their class and go through their Reps diary for referral. Election of Representatives; any student may stand for election for a 6 week ‘term’. Each student has to persuade their class that they are the best candidate[ Hustings]. The class selects / votes from list of nominees. Each class elects 1 Form Captain and 1 Vice-Captain.Y2 have ‘guest captains’ from over the whole class on a rotational basis giving every  child the chance to be involved. Results of Student Council; each elected member gets a wear captain’s badge ;They represent their class in lunchtime meeting with Head teacher/ and other reps.All Student Council reps will be involved in the Buddy programme to foster strong, personal relationships with new students ; to help create a caring, supportive environment where the children can develop ties with new classmates and their peers. This year all of these students were very well prepared and  demonstrated excellent communication skills of course this makes it a difficult choice for the classmates .  All of the students would have made positive contributions to the Student Council and all staff members were extremely proud of them to this first set of Student Council members.
House Captains
Students standing for House Captains positions were also given the opportunity to present to their credentials to their class mates for the honour of representing their houses.  These children support their houses throughout the year in collecting house points and looking at further ways to develop team work and cooperation throughout the year. 
Overall, the teachers and I were particularly impressed with the range of presentations this year for both positions.  Some students produced; PowerPoint presentations, speeches, raps, posters, give –away items, business cards, chants and even dressed up.  It was great to see such creativity and commitment.  Putting yourself forward in this way embodies parts of our learner profile of being a risk taker and all children who took part in either Student Council or House Captain elections have much to be proud of.
Well done and thank you for the hard work I know you all put into this.
Code of conduct
The CW Director Mr. Drains and I had a whole campus meeting to explain our Code of Conduct / school rules. It was conducted in both languages. We talked through our expectations of good behaviour in and around School and on the bus. Each student was given a copy of the Code of Conduct

French Storyteller and author 
Susie Morgenstern the famous children’s French author visited FIS on Monday 5th October. She conducted a storytelling session with Y6 and showed them her books. We will purchase a set of her novels for our library in CW.

French Speech Competition 
The French Speech Competition organised by AFLE, from Y3 to Y6, will take place in November.
We have just started presenting it to the students and Gaelle and her team have just put the information on weebly: