newsletter-term-1-issue-2-2023 - Australian International School Malaysia (AISM)

PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL

PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING

Simon Brooks, Principal

I do hope everybody in our community had a wonderful Week 3! Owing to Thaipusam Day on Monday, we’ve had just four days at school last week, but we’ve still managed to fit in five days’ worth of learning and activities, albeit in a shorter timespan.

Last week has seen our Junior School and Middle & Senior School parent information sessions taking place here at AISM. I’ve been delighted to see so many parents, guardians and community members on campus, getting a taste of what learning feels like for our students, and meeting some of the key teachers and staff members who work closely with their children.

If you missed out on these sessions, or still have some lingering questions to ask, do please feel free to contact our staff who I know will be delighted to help you however they can.

Visible Learning

Nobody visiting our school can fail to see the banner sign at the entrance to our Breezeway - ‘First Certified Visible Learning School In The World.’

Unsurprisingly, ‘What is Visible Learning?’ has been one of the frequently asked questions last week as we’ve welcomed families new and existing to our campus - an important question!

Visible Learning (VL) is just one of the things that makes our school unique. It is an approach to learning and teaching arising from the work of Professor John Hattie from the University of Melbourne.

In a nutshell, VL is simple to explain: it aims to make student learning as visible as possible. This means that all students are able to see very clearly how their efforts are contributing to their learning, and teachers are able to evaluate the impact of their teaching on student learning outcomes. VL makes visible what often remains invisible. It enables us to keep our students’ attention not just on what they learn, but how they learn it. It helps students lay the foundations for becoming lifelong learners.

As Visible Learning teachers, staff at AISM:

Use clear learning intentions and goals
Jointly construct challenging success criteria with their students
Use a range of learning strategies
Know when students are not progressing and help them identify how to remedy the situation
provide immediate and relevant feedback
Put thinking front and centre in the classroom
Actively model how to be a visible learner.

Students at AISM become Visible Learners who:

Know how to learn
Understand their progress
Make great use of feedback
Ask great questions and display curiosity
Think about their learning in many different ways to develop understanding
Love learning!

We look forward to another great year of developing highly effective Visible Learners here at AISM.

PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL

JUNIOR SCHOOL

Michelle Chaplin, Head of Junior School

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”

– Henry Ford

Last week has been an exceptional week in the Junior School. In beginning our year it is wonderful for teachers, students and parents to come together and begin the 2023 learning journey as partners. Our information sessions have been a huge success as were the coffee chats afterwards - my thanks to our Class Parent Reps for hosting our coffee chats!

Communication is the key and I know all our parents are now connected through Seesaw school email and the parent Whatsapp group - if you are not connected on any of these platforms please let the classroom teacher know and they will assist to make it happen.

Regular updates are also sent home through the newsletter and on the alternative week through the e-News - both are worth a read and will keep you abreast of the AISM current events and news.

Next week we are excited to begin our extra curricular program - CCAs!!

CCAs Important information

Monday

There is no sibling games or creche as per the CCA information - JS students (Y3 - Y5) doing a CCA will be collected from Gate A - no Gate C pick up

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Pick up will be at 3.10pm as normal - one lane only
Pick up will be at 4.20pm after CCAs at Gate A and Gate C - one lane only

Friday 3.20pm

Pick up Gate A and Gate C - double lane line up.

Please ensure your child knows their CCAs, what days they are on and how they are going home. Students who are doing a sports CCA must wear school uniform to school and change in the afternoon for their CCA.

At AISM we are proud of the programs we run to meet the passions and interests of our students. This week our famous “Barracudas” swimming squad started morning training. There are various levels to the swim squad catering to our talented and passionate swimmers - if you would like to know more about this excellent program contact Coach Ivan - ivany@aism.edu.my and get your child on their way to olympic gold!

Our Music Academy runs throughout the school providing private instrumental and voice lessons for students who are musically passionate and want to dive deeper into an instrument - we have students excitedly learning drums, wind instruments, guitar and many other options - perhaps this is just what your child wants or would love? For further information you can contact Mr Ervin at ervinrezzan@aism.edu.my

As always there is much to celebrate at AISM and many highlights each week - the smiles and laughter that erupts in classrooms, the joy and care from our teachers that inspires our students and the genuine friendships and acts of kindness we witness each day in the playground are the symptoms of the great learning environment that is AISM.

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”

– Ryunosuke Satoro, Japanese author.

Who We Want To Be, Not What.

Mr Tristan Johns, Year 5 Home Room Teacher

To begin 2023, Year 5 students have taken a deep dive into reflecting on who they are.

We have been discussing the difference between ‘What they want to be when they grow up’ and ‘who they want to be’.

This has given students a great opportunity to think about the character traits that they would like to embody as they enter their last year of Junior School and look forward to what their futures might hold.

Students were provided with the outline of sunglasses. They were asked to write a quote that best represented their approach to life and to demonstrate who they want to become through symbolism in the lenses. The results were displayed on the walls throughout the learning space and are a great representation of the character of Year 5 learners.

We have also been exploring methods of communication and how effective communication can make a difference. For this we created a design sprint. Students were placed in groups and designated one of their group members to be the illustrator. Their task was to recreate a masterpiece without seeing it, but by listening to the instructions of their classmates instead.

Through this challenge, learners gained a great insight into the benefits of effective communication and collaboration and saw first hand how difficult it can be to articulate thoughts clearly so that they are interpreted in the manner intended.

Finally, a focus for Year 5 this year is to notice and name acts of gratitude that they witness throughout the days and weeks at AISM. Students who notice others committing acts of kindness or demonstrating strong character can be recognised in the Year 5 homeroom. The intention of this project is to show that we are a kind and caring community and through the physical act of writing that kindness down we make their deeds visible. Our aim is to cover the room in gratitude notes by the end of the year. Let’s see how we go.

PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL

Week 3 ended in style with our MSS Honours Assembly and Leadership Induction Ceremony on Friday afternoon. This was a wonderful opportunity to come together to pay special tribute to students both past and present, celebrating the outstanding academic achievements of our 2022 HSC cohort, honouring our 2023 scholars, and inducting our new student leaders for 2023: Middle School Captains, House Captains, Prefects and Senior School Captains.

Congratulations to all of our award winners and student leaders!

These were the words I shared with our students:

‘Student leadership is absolutely at the heart of what we value here at AISM. When I look back over the many examples of outstanding student leadership from last year, I am struck by how much was accomplished - the Malaysia Schools Model United Nations conference, Thrift Fair, the Green Summit with Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia Dr Justin Lee, MSS students leading CCAs for JS students, and the list goes on.

It was Andrew Carnegie who wrote, “You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless they are willing to climb themselves”. These words really capture the essence of strong leadership - great leaders don’t compel others to follow, but they do empower and inspire others to take action.

So - to our student leaders - we look forward to honouring you here today - but I also encourage you to make 2023 the year of seizing the day as young leaders. Whatever great ideas you have, bring them to the leadership team for our consideration. Wherever possible, we’ll empower you to put your own unique stamp on AISM as the leaders of 2023.’

Microorganisms in Our Food

Ms Lahlitaa Supremaniam and Ms Anna Wood, MSS Science

During Week 2 our Year 6 Science students explored the diverse world of bread, investigating how microorganisms aid in the production of soft texture and flavours. Highlighted in this experience, our students took detailed observations using multiple senses and creating fundamental inferences to the nature and effect of yeast culture on the production of bread. Food, Fungi and Fibre all contribute to our understanding of how living cells grow, store and package nutrients. Next, we will be exploring how the features of living things survive in their environment and how they grow under differing physical conditions. Thus our budding new Scientists can unlock the key fundamentals of production systems and manufacturing so that we can all make wise decisions about the food that we eat.

Harry Potter and The Tri-Power of Literature: Reading, Writing, Storytelling.

Annabelle Au, Year 11 English student

I absent-mindedly stuffed my half-soggy, half-crispy cereal into my mouth. It was only the fifth day of my summer break yet my body had already acquired the skill to operate on auto-pilot - it may be moving, but my mind was still asleep. It was only until a loud thump on the dining table had I awakened to reality - either this or the dust specks that sprang off my brother’s Harry Potter collection, which he casually just dumped on the table, polluted my bowl of cereal that triggered my fight or flight response. Since my cereal had been left inedible, the only other option to fill my morning void was to inspect its offender.

I flicked open the pages of the first book of the series, and it opened my eyes to see an alternate universe; it opened my mind to fantasise about the endless possibilities of the universe; it opened my heart and its desire to consume more of this universe.

In middle school, I was taught that there are only a few reasons to write: to explain, persuade or entertain an audience, or to express oneself. As I grew older and continued to pursue my love of reading, I discovered that authors are not writing just for entertainment, explanation or expression. They write to empathise - both with themselves and with the world.

J.K. Rowling’s inspiration for writing such an absurd fantasy is actually not far from reality at all. She grew up in settings much like what you read in Harry Potter - a suburban area around Bristol, reminiscent of Privet Drive, and then later in the country near the Forest of Dean, which not only inspired the Forbidden Forest, but also gets a special cameo in The Deathly Hallows.

She had a somewhat turbulent childhood. Her mother suffered severe multiple sclerosis from which she later died. Her father frightened her, and they've had a crummy relationship since. These experiences inspired the loss of parents for Harry, Neville, and others. It fostered the idealistic figures like Dumbledore, Sirius, Hagrid, and Arthur Weasley.

Rowling suffered through divorce, poverty, and anxiety, which brought about severe depression. This gave rise to the evils of Voldemort and the dementors, the money woes of the Weasleys and the increasing darkness within Harry's world.

J.K. Rowling pulled inspiration from her own life, using her own demons to colour in the world. She used experiences and life around her to build a universe that enraptured ours.

Storytelling is magic, they can create other worlds, emotions, ideas and make the everyday seem incredible. And just like J.K. Rowling, using a Fantasy venue for the story allows writers and readers engage with crisis, pain, loss, and inequality - valid and challenging issues we are confronted with in the “real” world as a society and as individuals - without the intimately personal associations they would have in a realistic setting. By creating fictional parallels, the message underscoring your story becomes more accessible, and the reader experiences it without the distortion of their prejudices or cultural preconceptions.

J.K. Rowling’s success in storytelling does not come from her life experiences alone - she read to write her stories.

J.K. Rowling extracted inspiration from William Penn's More Fruits of Solitude and Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers to construct her stupefying introduction to her final book of the series. "I really enjoyed choosing those two quotations because one is pagan, of course, and one is from a Christian tradition", Rowling said. "I'd known it was going to be those two passages since 'Chamber' was published. I always knew [that] if I could use them at the beginning of book seven then I'd cued up the ending perfectly. If they were relevant, then I went where I needed to go. They just say it all to me, they really do."

We have heard it often that to write well, you need to be an avid reader. Reading helps writing. When you read a lot, the first and foremost impact it has on your writing is the generation of new ideas. There are an estimated 130 million books in the world. Just imagine how many ideas we have around us in the form of books. So, it is a simple calculation, the more books you read, the more ideas will come to you.

As our world is constantly changing, it has become essential to know what is trending. When you are a writer, you cannot stay behind the times. By reading regularly, you get to know about the latest trends in the world of writing. It helps you become aware of the things people like to read about, the topics that are popular among the masses, and the current situations grabbing people’s attention.

J.K. Rowling created an alternate universe for many young readers across the globe with the tip of her pen. She expressed the story of her life through a storytelling of a young boy, paving the way for her readers to illustrate their stories into words for more to read, and for more to continue the cycle.

The summer of 2019, I put down the final book of the Harry Potter series. Having experienced the life of the boy who lived through flipping pages, I opened my scruffy journal and wrote about mine.

10 Ways To Become A Better Writer

Amira Rose Melynna Amir Hamzah, Year 11 English Student

PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING JUNIOR SCHOOL MIDDLE & SENIOR SCHOOL WHOLE SCHOOL

Care Movement: Care for the World

Laurent Epetahui

THE BIG QUESTION:

“Where is your paper plate going today?”

Here at AISM we are focused on doing everything we can to Care for our World, and live this out every day through our Living Campus program. During the next couple of weeks we will be exploring the question of where our paper plates are going. I am sure that in only 2 months we will master every step of this challenge and our environment will be the biggest winner.

Step 1: Kitchen & Canteen