ISY Elementary Blog
The Power of Presuming Positive Intentions
Mike Simpson, Elementary School Principal
28 August 2019
On Monday, we will start the academic year. Not on campus but online. Over the summer, we had planned for both eventualities and everything in between.
It is a funny thing to be excited about something that no-one wanted to happen. Since it was announced that all schools were to be closed, after the initial disappointment, there has been a definite feeling among our teachers of wanting to get on with it and use what we put together over the summer. Almost like a sports team or an orchestra done with practicing and just wanting to play.
Like any good sports team or orchestra, our teachers will do everything they can to play the perfect game or perfect symphony. However, if these last six months have taught us anything, not many things seem to work out perfectly. But, more importantly, these last six months have taught us that we are stronger working together.
As families and teachers, we are constantly learning about our children and trying to come up with ways to encourage and develop in them the attributes, skills, and knowledge that will help them in the future. Our children are also learning about themselves and are developing their attributes, skills, and knowledge the best way that they know how. Our children want to be successful and so do we as their families and teachers.
In our compassionate community in a challenging time, we are all doing our best as children, families and teachers and we can therefore presume positive intentions in each other. Presuming positive intentions in others is the most important factor in developing and maintaining positive relationships. This is very important as positive relationships based on presuming that intentions of others are positive enable meaningful conversations about the development of our children.
In our compassionate community, children, parents and teachers are able to provide and receive feedback and advice from each other knowing that the feedback and advice is given with the positive intention of helping each other.
This year will continue to surprise and challenge all of us. As a school and as teachers, this year more than ever, we will rely on insights from you to help us meet the needs of your children. There will be organized opportunities throughout the year to provide those insights and this week’s listening conferences were the first of those opportunities. But please know that you are always free to share with us anything anytime that might help us help you and your children. This will be particularly important in this year like no other.
Compassionate Class Agreements
This week, every class worked together to develop a Compassionate Class Agreement. These agreements are made between teachers and students to ensure that every person’s culture, identity, perspective, and experience is valued and included in the classroom.
Previous Elementary School Posts
Elementary School Parent Blog – November 8th
Another busy week here in the Elementary School. Busy with professional development. with Linda Henke working with our early years teachers/teaching assistants on Reggio Emilia and coming up over the next few days we have Adaptive Schools training.
Elementary Blog, November 3, 2019
This coming week we have Linda Henke a Reggio Emilia Early Years expert in school all week working with our early years teams. We also have our school architect, Alan Higgs with us for three days.
ES Parent Email October 25th, 2019
This weeks news about the Literacy event, a Mangrove talk and prep for Halloween among some other great initiatives in the Elementary School.
Elementary Update – 10th October
Thank you to all the parents who helped some of our classes celebrate the Thadingyut Light Festival. This post has news of upcoming events after the holiday
ES October 4th 2019
Dear all, Another busy week here in the Elementary School. This week Grade 5 went on a field trip, we had a Math evening for parents and PreK parents organized a celebration for the upcoming special Thidingyut Celebration.
Elementary Update September 27
The teachers enjoyed the Compassion Conference on Friday. They were able to learn not only new ideas but be inspired by our keynote speaker, Wilma Derksen. I hope that many of you were also able to attend Wilma’s parent talk this week.
The International School Yangon
20 Shwe Taungyar Street
Bahan Township
Yangon, Myanmar
+95 (0) 9 880 441 040