Secondary School Updates (13 May 2022)

Secondary School Updates (13 May 2022) We have received some heartening feedback so far and some insightful areas for improvement as part of our international reaccreditation process this week.

Key Dates | Pastoral Update | Learning Showcase

Weekly update from Head of Secondary

Dear Parents,

From Monday, we welcomed the Council of International Schools (CIS) and the Western Academy of Schools and Colleges (WASC) to visit us virtually as part of our international reaccreditation. 

We have received some heartening feedback so far and some insightful areas for improvement. 

Here are some highlights from lesson visits and meetings: 

• CIS/WASC report evidence of learning and engagement are high in lessons 
• Support staff connected to the school and feel a sense of ownership and equality 
• Impressed with the level of collaboration between teaching staff 
• Enormous positivity from students, many of whom said they didn’t want to change anything about the school 
• Students love the teaching, the diversity of types of learning, the group work and global campus activities 
• Appreciation by students for the plethora of opportunities available to them 

The school will receive general feedback later this year and then embark on a deep and reflective "self-study" which will culminate in a visit from a team of evaluators in December 2023. We look forward to sharing more insights with you soon.

Chris Newman 

Head of Secondary 

Key Dates

• Tuesday 7 June: Year 10 Parents’ Evening 

• Tuesday 14 June: Year 12 Parents’ Evening 

• Friday 24 June: Final Day of the School Year 

Pastoral Update 

Student Successes 

I think I speak for all the staff at BIS when we say that effort is the one skill we want in all our students. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the excellent efforts of some of our Year 10 students in Term 2 (January to April). Given that this was a time when students were learning virtually, it is a fantastic achievement.

Can I also take this opportunity to express the importance of students attending school? Research shows that missing 10 percent of school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month, and that’s known as "chronic absence." On the positive side, when students improve their attendance rates, they improve their academic prospects and chances for graduating (Chang, Hedy, and Romero, Mariajose, 2008).

Since August 2021, we have had 35 (36%) Year 10 students with 100% attendance. Our actual attendance as a year group is 97.7%. This is a fantastic achievement, and I thank you for your support. 

10S Share board 

We have been working hard to assist our Year 10 students in developing and maintaining relationships as they begin in-person school. They were asked to post some interesting facts about themselves and share them on a noticeboard in their classroom.

This is 10S board about themselves: 

Upcoming PCTs  week commencing on 23rd May 

Year 10 students will go through their first in-person PCTs, which will take place in the auditorium. This is an opportunity for students to prepare themselves for exam procedures next year when they take the final IGCSE exams. As I have mentioned before, the PCTs are a great indicator of a student’s strengths and areas for improvement. A reminder that they are NOT specifically reported on, they are just one piece of evidence which helps a teacher with their end of term report grade. Please assist us at BIS in communicating this to your son or daughter, and please make sure they get enough sleep!

Wellbeing lessons 

In our well-being lessons, we cover a range of topics which help develop our students' life skills. In the next few weeks, we will be covering Relationships and Sex Education. This topic has been held back whilst we were "online learning", but it is a topic that is much better delivered in person. I will be writing to you soon to provide more details of the upcoming lessons. 

Regards,

Mr. Rob Taylor

Head of Year 10 

Learning Showcase

English | Mathematics

English 

Independent Inquiry Project time! 

This week, as part of their English Independent Inquiry Project, Year 8s visited the Library for a lesson by Ms. Hall on how to find and use quality research sources. As the school’s new teacher-librarian, Ms. Hall is beginning to work with all year levels at BIS to strengthen students’ research, critical thinking and citation skills. The English Independent Inquiry Project focuses on the culture and context of selected poems and novels and was designed to promote independent research and inquiry skills. Year 8s will practice these skills again with Ms. Hall in June when Key Stage 3 conduct research into an aspect of Spanish or French culture in MFL. Many thanks to Ms. Hall for supporting Year 8s with their independent inquiry projects. 

J Shepley Clarke 

Head of English 

The value of collaboration 

In English, as all in all subjects we are always looking for chances to take advantage of the opportunity to collaborate in the planning and delivery of our lessons. This can be in form of joining with other classes for activities, such as debates or projects, or across departments for cross-curricular projects. Throughout the year the teachers from the EAL department are able to work with teachers of different subjects, in order to help support students in need of assistance in accessing the learning as a result of their English levels. The EAL teachers also collaborate with teachers during the planning of their lessons, helping to advise on ways in which they can help ensure EAL learners have the best possible chance to access the learning, in their lesson.

Most recently, Mr Tchakov has been working with the English department to support the delivery of our English B lessons. This week he was team-teaching with Ms Price, working with her class to help improve the accuracy and of their grammar and sentence structure, when writing. Having two teachers present allows for extra support for students, and gives the teachers the opportunity to focus on the specific needs of individual students. 

Mr. S Hoare 

Assistant Head of English/ Secondary EAL      

Mathematics 

Some of our Year 7s and Year 8s mathematicians have been embarking on an engineering themed team challenge in their maths lessons this week. The challenge – to design and build a model of a new luxury skyscraper – requires students to develop and utilise skills that will be vital to their future success. This type of design and build challenge is typical of tasks found in engineering courses at university. Firstly, students must think creatively to produce design ideas that would satisfy the design specification. Then, they must work collaboratively to organize and analyse their designs, which will require good listening, reasoning and compromise. Once a final design has been selected, they will need to produce technical drawings (isometric drawings) to communicate their idea to others. Finally, the teams will then build a scale model of their chosen design. The mathematics of this project is mostly geometry related, with students needing to calculate volumes, surface areas and length scale factors. They will also need to be able to use isometric paper. In addition to this, students will be using their spatial reasoning skills and considering forces when creating and selecting their designs.