Secondary School Updates (01 Otober 2021)

Weekly update from Head of Secondary

Dear Parents,

Next week our Year 11 and 13 students complete their internal progress tests virtually, a reflection of our business-as-usual approach this year. Our academic team, led by Deputy Head Stephanie Miller and Assistant Head Gemma Archer, has put together a best-practice program of online examination invigilation, with considerable support from our team of Teaching Assistants.

We know that intensive practice of exam skills leads to enhanced performance in final examinations. We also know that feedback is one of the most powerful ways in which to improve student learning as it provides providing information that can be used to improve and enhance future performance.

I trust that our students will embrace this opportunity to practice, learn, and gain valuable suggestions for improvement from their expert teachers.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Newman

Head of Secondary

Key Dates

• Week beginning 4 October: Year 11 & Year 13 Internal Exam Week 

• Tuesday 5 October: Year 11 Parent’s Evening 

• Wednesday 13 October to Friday 15 October: International Festival

• Monday 18 October to Friday 22 October: Holiday

• Tuesday 26 October: Year 12 & 13 Parent’s Evening
• Tuesday 2 November: Year 7 Parent’s Evening
• Thursday 11 October: Year 11 Options Evening
• Tuesday 23 November: Year 9 Parents’ and Options Evening
• Tuesday 7 December: Year 10 Parents’ Evening
• Friday 17 December: Last Day of Term 1

International Week

This year BIS Hanoi will once again be celebrating our International Festival. 

During the International Festival students will experience lessons relating to the theme of connections. At BIS we are ‘global citizens learning together’ and making connections with others and the world is our focus. During the pandemic, the importance of human connection has become increasingly clear and so the International Festival is a fantastic opportunity for our community to celebrate our diversity as well as all the things that connect us. More specific information will be coming soon to students and parents 
 
One of our sessions is titled “Making connections to your future career pathway”, so we are looking for parents who would be willing to talk to students about their own career journey. Parents would be asked to record a 3 minute video covering the following points:

- What is your current role?
- Describe the journey you went through to get to where you are now
- Describe the most significant challenges you faced along the journey
- How did you overcome the challenges?
- What advice would you give to a young person who is just starting their career journey now? 

Please complete this form if you would be willing to help. Then we will send an email with more details. 

Please note that your contact details would remain confidential, and your video would not be used for any other purpose.

Pastoral Update

As we face so many different challenges nowadays, I often think how difficult it must be a teenager and start important IGCSE exam courses online. I am pleased to say that Year 10 have made a great start to their IGCSE courses and have showed excellent engagement in lessons. They have quickly adapted to the technical demands of online learning and are starting to understand and appreciate the increased workload that the IGCSE course brings. They have been well supported by their tutors who have focused on student well-being as a priority.

Morning registration is always engaging and the Year 10’s are currently piloting a scheme called ‘Freerice’. This scheme allows students to give something back to the community by entering a quiz and for every question the student answers correctly, ten grains of rice are donated to families in need around the world via the United Nation’s World Food Programme. A really positive action from our Year 10 students who have so far, donated over 5,000 grains of rice.

During their well-being lessons, Year 10 have been looking at their Mental Health and strategies to cope with virtual learning. During this time students that have required additional support have managed to speak to their tutors on a one-to-one basis for advice with their academics. During these lessons there is also time for some students to work independently developing good study skills for the future.

There have also been chances over the last couple of weeks to sign up to be part of the student council and very soon they will find out if they have been selected. I was also pleased to see a large number of students volunteer for the Duke of Edinburgh Award which is a fantastic course and one which will certainly help them develop important life skills. As a measure of the Year 10 success so far with virtual learning, I am pleased to share that Year 10 have received more praise points than any of the year groups above them.

Despite a slightly different start to the year, I was pleased to see that all our new students have settled in well. As a measure of their confidence, they attended an after school social event last week and had some fun finding out some of the interests they share with other students. We also discovered that students are so much smarter than the staff when it comes to online games! A great start to the two-year IGCSE programme. The Year 10’s have demonstrated fantastic adaptability, resilience and engagement so far and I hope these skills along with many others develop as they complete this journey. A huge well done Year 10 and please keep up the good work!

Rob Taylor

Head of Year 10

Virtual Learning Showcase

English | Science | Humanities | Art | Mathematics | PE | Theory of Knowledge | MFL | Vietnamese

Art

Spotlight on Art Week

We have thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Art this week in Secondary, particularly in our Key Stage 3 classes. We chose the theme ‘Sustainable Living’ for Art week because last week was an international celebration of ‘Global Goals Week’: a week of action, awareness and accountability for the Sustainable Development Goals. At BIS, we wanted to encourage our students to think about sustainability and how we can raise awareness as a school community through Art.

In Year 7, students used recyclable materials to create their own Art works. In Year 8, students looked at typography and how to raise awareness about ‘Sustainability’ by creating a poster. In Year 9 Art lessons this term, students have been learning about Architecture. Therefore, we challenged students to create a piece of Architecture based on an Artist and using only recyclable materials. They have until next week to complete their creations, so watch this space to see their amazing creations.

As well as celebrating Sustainability in Art lessons, Key Stage 3 students have also been using tutor time to create Artworks from recyclable materials. We are so impressed with the engagement and enthusiasm of students with this week. It is clear from these examples that they have put so much effort into their work and they have been receiving a lot of house points as a result. To bring Art week to a close, we had our Art week assembly on Friday. I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that took part in the assembly, especially the Year 12s and 13s who showed what excellent and confident communicators they are.

I look forward to sharing more exciting outcomes from Art week with you all next week.

Key Stage 3 Winners of the Art Certificate Competition

In Art, students that get a ‘1’ (exceeding) effort score for both homework and classwork in their termly reports, are awarded with a very special Effort Certificate. Key Stage 3 students were asked to create the design for this certificate and 3 students’ designs were chosen per year group. It was a very difficult decision for the Art department to choose only 3 designs as so many students submitted excellent work that showed so much effort and understanding. After a lot of discussion, the winners of the competition were:

• Year 7: Xi Yuan, Tae Hoo, Ha Yun
• Year 8: Minh Khue, Xuan Anh, Seoyul
• Year 9: Trung Duc, Ngoc Linh, Nhat Ha

Congratulations to these students who have been awarded 20 house points each. They can use these points and convert them into a prize of their choice.

Eibhlín Göppert

Head of Art

Humanities

Year 8 History

Over the last few weeks, our Year 8s have been studying the Aztecs. They have been examining what they believed and how they later responded to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. This week, they made infographic pages about the Aztec warriors. They were given a success criterion and instructed to produce the information in an engaging and informative way. They did a superb job and should be delighted with themselves!

Year 13 History

This week our students have been focusing on their exam skills in preparation for PCT4 week next week. As always, the students have been super engaged and have worked tirelessly in lessons. We have been discussing how best to analyse the questions that could be asked and have looked at model introductions, main body paragraphs and conclusions to consider how they can improve their own writing. Students then put this into practice by working in the breakout rooms to use their whiteboards to collaboratively plan a variety of IB past paper questions. We have been so impressed with their dedication to their learning and wish them the best with PCTs next week!

Geography

Our Year 11 Geographers have been busy preparing for their upcoming PCTs but enjoyed a welcome break in the form of their new topic of “Development”. They showed excellent collaboration skills in debating how we can define countries as “developed” or “developing”. Their word cloud of development indicators below demonstrates their excellent Geographical knowledge and understanding of this key concept. Good luck to all of you next week.

Shaun O’Callaghan

Humanities Leader

Theory of Knowledge (ToK)

Over the last week in ToK, students in Year 13 have been examining the dangers of both single and multiple perspectives on events. This encourages them to think critically when approaching contentious issues. This week we listened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s talk don't the dangers of single issues and how they lead to ‘single truths’ and stereotyping that can lead to dangerous assumptions. Students then examine different case studies to form different opinions about contentious issues.

Mathematics

In Maths, it is not only important to grasp tricky concepts, but also to develop familiarity and ease with those concepts by practicing. This week, Year 8 have been developing their procedural fluency of averages using the online quiz website Blooket. Blooket (and Kahoot) add a competitive aspect to lessons that really engages the pupils and gets them enthused about the Maths they’re practicing. Year 8 thoroughly enjoyed themselves – so much so that they asked to play again afterwards! - and greatly developed their understanding and fluency with averages and range in the meantime.

In this activity pupils have developed their thinking skills, to get them to reason quickly and clearly about each type of average. Some were also risk-takers, answering quickly to get the most points! They learnt the importance of ‘practice makes perfect’ in a fun and engaging way while we are learning online. It’s encouraging to see students’ enthusiasm despite learning in Virtual School. Keep it up Year 8!

English 

This week, Mrs Sands' Year 9 class looked at developing their understanding of the plot for 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'.

They creatively mapped out the story, using a variety of tools available to them.

Some even challenged themselves to consider where the themes and the historical context for the novella were present in the story itself, which they learnt about in the previous lessons. Mrs Sands shared some of their examples with the class, and they supported and praised each other for their hard work.

Additionally, this challenge enabled them to stretch themselves to consider more complex ideas about morality and the development of the characters throughout the novella, which we then discussed as a class.

Amy Sands

English Teacher

Physical Education

This week the students reviewed their fitness videos from last week and chose 2 exercises that they could improve on. They had to analyse the video of them doing the exercise by stating what they should be doing in order to perform the exercise correctly. They picked out something that they did well when performing it last time and something which they could improve on. They recorded themselves doing the two exercises again showing better form. The students have learned that proper form improves their performance, is more efficient and reduces the risk of injury.

Elaine Flavin

PE Teacher

MFL

When learning a language, it is important to immerse yourself in the language and culture. One way that we encourage our students to do this is through watching films in the language that they are studying. As part of our Year 9 topic of film and cinema, our MFL classes have been studying a French or Spanish film, whilst learning about the culture and history of the countries.

In Spanish, our classes have been watching ‘El Libro de la Vida’, which is a Spanish film all about the Mexican tradition of ‘El Dia de los Muertos’. They have been learning all about the traditions an customs of Mexico. Next week, they will be writing a film review all about this film!

In French, our students have been watching ‘Belle et Sebastien’, which is a French film about the friendship between a boy and a stray dog in the French Alps. The film is set on the French-Swiss border so we had a special guest, Ms Peters (History teacher), in our lesson this week who taught us all about the history of the time and what was happening in that area of France during WW11. Year 9 loved hearing about the events of this time and how they relate to the film they are studying – it made them excited to continue learning about this time period in their history lessons!

It has been brilliant to see how enthusiastic our Year 9 students have been and how much language and cultural knowledge they have gained from these film studies.

Science

This week Year 7 and 9 have been getting into the flow of science vocab with a musical twist. We have been trialing a new software package “flowcabulary” from Nearpod, a website with hundreds of educational hip-hop style videos and supplemental activities for students. It helps us to Introduce new concepts and strengthen student comprehension. Students watch the entertaining music videos that give key topic information, then discuss what they have learned from the clips and take part in numerous tasks to reinforce their science vocabulary and anchor the knowledge. It's been great to see the students bobbing along to the beats as they have participated in the sessions on static charge, electrical circuits, the human skeleton and cellular respiration.

Andrew Pearson

Science Teacher

Vietnamese

Year 9 has just completed the topic about Poetry of Middle Ages of Vietnam. They had a useful discussion that focused on the role of women in feudal system. Some students showed an understanding of Vietnamese society, history and culture such as Gia Khanh, Thai Anh, Ha Linh, Khanh Linh, Nguyen Anh, Minh Hung... They were very interested in Ho Xuan Huong's poems, such as Mời trầu, Banh Troi Nuoc. They discovered how the poet used polysemantic language to refer to the role of women in feudal society through images of floating cake. They understood more about the Custom of Betel Chewing and recognised the tone of the women in the poem that show aspiration of women in a society that favors men and despises women... Especialy they discovered how the poet used folklore (idiom) well in her poems.