Elementary School Blog- Sept 13 - Elementary School Update 6th September

ISY Elementary Blog

Elementary School Blog- Sept 13

Sandy Sheppard, Elementary School Principal

September 13, 2019

Dear Parents,

It seemed that the rain this week purposely chose to come down at break and dismissal times. The rain never hampers our fun here at ISY though and in between the rain we had lots of creative fun outdoors this week (see pictures below).

The students were all excited to see some blue skies today, especially these boys from Kindergarten on their bikes.

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend.

Ms Sandy Sheppard

Creativity at ISY

Creativity happens in the classroom.

Creativity happens outdoors.

Creativity happens in specialist classes. The photos above show student’s incorporating PE, Art and Math into their French lessons.

New Equipment

Our new bikes are proving to be very popular.

Assembly

We started a new cycle of assemblies this year. KGB, 1M, 2W, 3F, 4T and 5T had their assembly today. The theme was compassion. We saw great presentations by 2W and KGB as well as some of the students in 3F who presented a skit on KELSO Choices. There was a special announcement by Mr Davis our Service Learning Coordinator in regards to the flood drive, see more information below.

Buddy Reading

All our classes enjoy buddy reading experiences. Here is 5V and 3L sharing a love of reading together.

Flood Drive

The Community in Action service learning group is having a flood drive, where materials including; bar soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, mosquito nets, and blankets are to be collected school-wide. The donations will be given to Mr. U Win, Ayeyarwaddy Foundation, and the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, and will be sent to relief camps (in every township), in the city of Mawlamyaing, Mon State, where the flood is most heavily impacted. According to Mr. U Win, the flood reached 12 feet, to the roofs of the inhabitants’ homes. More than 100 lives were lost in these heavy floods, and villagers are stripped of resources, so our aim is to collect the most required items (listed below) from grades Pre-K through 12th grade, and donate them.

We are planning to start collecting from Monday to Friday, on September 16th to the 20th. Here are the list of items required by each grade level: For elementary students, please donate any of these items: blankets, mosquito nets, toothbrush, toothpaste, bar soap, and English or Burmese books that are simple to read. Grades 6 to 8: toothbrush/toothpaste Grades 9 to 12: bar soap and English/Burmese books that are simple to read

The baskets will be placed outside the SAS gym, and will be labeled with each item. Please place your donation in the labeled basket.

*Food is not required, because Mr. U Win will use his own funds to purchase food for the affected villagers, when he arrives in Mawlamyaing.

MAP

Next week will be our last week of Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments for our Grade 6 to 9 students. Grades 1 to 5 have already completed their assessments. As we are preparing to analyze our data, I would like to take this opportunity to explain why and how MAP assessments are administered at ISY.

What are MAP assessments?

MAP assessments are online adaptive assessments that provide useful data in developing a fair and accurate assessment of student academic achievement and growth. MAP Growth uses a scale to measure what students know, regardless of their grade level. It also measures growth over time, allowing us to track our students throughout the school year and across multiple years.

Why do we do MAP testing?

The academic achievement and growth data obtained from MAP assessments forms one part of a student’s data profile. MAP assessment data is combined with data gathered by classroom teachers to ensure that we have a fair and accurate understanding of each student’s academic and learning needs. This understanding of student academic and learning needs then guides teacher planning and instructional practices in meeting the needs of individual students.

As well as providing important data that guides planning and instruction for individual students, MAP data also guides our continuous school improvement efforts. We can use school, grade and subject level MAP data to identify which academic areas we need to focus our improvement efforts on.

How do we do MAP testing?

Our processes around MAP testing at ISY are designed around the reasons why we have our students sit the tests and our commitment to fair and accurate assessment practices. For a summary of our MAP testing processes, please refer to this document.

Student MAP data is shared, along with other teacher collected student achievement data, with parents during parent conferences. However, if you would like to have access to your child(ren)’s assessment data prior to a conference, please email Mike Simpson, our Director of Curriculum and Learning at msimpson@isyedu.org and he will be happy to forward that information to you. Student MAP reports are also posted to Powerschool after conferences.

DATES TO REMEMBER

20th September – Early Dismissal (PreK/KG 11:30 – Grade 1-5 11:45)

20th September – Compassion Conference for teachers

3rd October – Elementary School Math Night

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