PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL

PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING

Simon Brooks, Principal

Welcome back to everyone in our AISM Community after a relaxing and rejuvenating school holiday!

As always, it has been a pleasure to see our learners returning to school this week with great enthusiasm and a zest for life.



It is perhaps an overused phrase, but something that I believe makes AISM truly unique is the outstanding holistic education that we offer!

One of the key character traits we aim to help our students develop at AISM is a Growth Mindset rather than a Fixed Mindset.

In her groundbreaking book, ‘Mindset’, Carol Dweck defines having a fixed mindset as the belief that intelligence is fixed and that whatever we do, we can’t really change that. In contrast, people with a growth mindset believe that we can get better at anything we do with hard work and application.

Research shows that in reality mindset is not an either/or thing. In other words, there is no such thing as a fixed mindset person, or a growth mindset person. In reality, we all have elements of fixed and growth mindset views with regard to different facets of our lives.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’m no good at Art. I’m really not an artistic person.” Or perhaps you have caught yourself thinking, “I’m not a Maths person.” Or perhaps, “I haven’t got a sporty bone in my body!”

All of these comments are fixed mindset comments. They betray an internal belief that our capabilities are fixed - that there is nothing we can do to improve certain aspects of our intelligence or performance.

Here at AISM we aim to do everything we can to cultivate a growth mindset outlook in all of our students. We want them to understand that they really can get better at everything they put their mind to! Of course it is true that some people seem to be bestowed with advantages in particular fields that give them a head start. Nonetheless, this does not change the fact that we can all embrace the opportunity to learn and to improve!

Before our students started back at school this week, I was delighted to run a professional learning workshop on Monday for all of our teaching staff on the topic of building a culture of thinking, which included a section on the importance of helping our students develop a growth mindset.

To illustrate this point, I challenged all of our colleagues to draw a horse.

Great hilarity ensued.



As you can see, it was a creation that left much to be desired. As it turns out, it seems that drawing a horse with no guidance or support is something of a challenge for many people!

After we had all shared our horses with one another, I then showed a short instructional video which taught us all how to draw a horse more effectively.

Things improved substantially.

Here was my second effort.  



I believe it to be a great improvement, and it was an improvement mirrored in the horses drawn by most of my colleagues as well.

The exercise illustrated a great point. As Dweck herself writes, ‘You don’t know what your abilities are until you make a full commitment to developing them’.

All it takes is a little instruction, a desire to improve and consistent hard work and effort, and we can all get better at everything we do!

Have a great Term 3 everyone!

PS - I thought you might like to see some of the horses created by other colleagues at school who shall of course remain nameless!

New Vircle eWallet App!



As part of our commitment to comply with the new Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) regulations on Limited Purpose E-Money Issuance, the school will be introducing the Vircle EWallet App.  We will launch the new Vircle ewallet in AISM on 14 August 2023.

In the weeks to come, we will be sending more information about this and walk you through the registration and transition process.

In the meantime if you have any initial questions, please do not hesitate to contact our friendly elearning@aism.edu.my 

PS - I thought you might like to see some of the horses created by other colleagues at school who shall of course remain nameless!
PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL
PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL
PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL