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.

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

Step 2: Transfer ORS Site

Step 3: Collecting Data: Materials from Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th January 2023, 2 black bins.

Step 4: Transfer into BioTransformer Unit

Step 5: Transformation in progress

Your paper plate will end up like this beautiful organic fertilizer. Better for mother Nature!

GO GREEN AND GO SUSTAINABLE