ISY Elementary School Blog - October 2, 2020

ISY Elementary Blog

A proud and humble school

Mike Simpson, Elementary School Principal

2 October 2020

Next week, we have a committee from WASC working with us online. WASC stands for The Western Association of Schools and Colleges. It is an organization that works with many top international schools as part of their continuous improvement efforts.

We have spent the last two years involved in a very detailed self-study that focused on all parts of our school – from curriculum to traffic control, from ASAs to the business office. The WASC committee is working with us next week to help us to reflect on what we have studied and to confirm our action plan for the future. Students, families, staff, and faculty all played a role in our self-study. Our new ISY Learner Outcomes and Attributes is one product of our collaborative efforts as outlined below.

As I have prepared documents, schedules, and meetings in preparation for this online visit, I could not help but reflect on how we have evolved as a school since we adopted our compassionate Mission and Vision. I am not sure I have worked (or ever will work) in a school and for a community that lives its Mission and Vision as much as ISY does. This commitment to our Mission and Vision really shines through in our self-study.

As a community, we are positive and proud of what we do for our students and what they in turn are able to achieve. But we also know we can improve. It is this humility that will always enable us to keep improving for the sake of our students and the world which is crying out for compassionate global citizens, lifelong learners, and agents for positive change.

In keeping with our continuous improvement efforts, today you will receive an email with a link to our fortnightly survey in relation to online learning. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with feedback. You can also contact me directly at msimpson@isyedu.org.

Kind regards,

Mike

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO LEARNING: What should students learn for the 21st century?

This video is from Curriculum Redesign, an organization that inspired some of our self-study work around the ISY Learner Attributes. It is definitely worth a watch if you are interested in why we continue to develop an interdisciplinary approach to learning at ISY. A detailed explanation of Interdisciplinary Learning at ISY can be read here.

VIRTUAL RECESS WITH MS. PATTY!

Virtual Recess will be offered again this week from 1:00-1:30 PM. Students should use the All Grade Specialist Link to join on their assigned day. All activities will be student driven but will include fun and games.

Grade 5: Monday

Grade 4: Tuesday

Grade 3: Wednesday

Grade 2: Thursday

Grade 1: Friday

ONLINE LEARNING TIP: How was school today?

It can be difficult at the best of times to get our children to talk about their school day. But it is important to understand how they are experiencing learning online so we can support and motivate them. Each Friday for the next few weeks, we will post five different questions that might help your child open up about their experience online. Here are this week’s questions:

What was the best thing that happened today?
Did you help anyone today?
Did you say “thank you” to anyone?
What made you laugh?
Did you learn something you didn’t understand?

ISY LEARNER OUTCOMES & ATTRIBUTES

ISY purposefully waited until our Mission and Vision had taken root in our school before reviewing and confirming what we have termed the ISY Learner Outcomes. In line with our community’s understanding and awareness of the school’s Mission and Vision, we want every ISY student to develop into:

Compassionate Global Citizens
Lifelong Learners
Agents for Positive Change

You will recognize the language of the Mission and Vision in these ISY Learner Outcomes. It is important that there is direct alignment between ISY’s Mission, Vision, and Lifelong Learner Outcomes.

The review and confirmation of the ISY Learner Outcomes began back in November as part of our WASC Focus on Learning Accreditation Self-Study. We asked our ourselves these questions:

What does it mean to be educated?
What are the current and future learning needs of our students?

From that initial session and after a series of dialogues, we settled on the following attributes as being key to our students being able to fulfil their potential and realize ISY’s Vision for them :