IGBIS Newsletter, Issue 214.

Message from the Head of School

Happy New Year to all of our IGBIS community. I hope that you were able to spend time with your family and enjoy the break. Just as a new decade is underway, IGBIS is also looking to the future and the growth and development of our school. 

We welcomed close to 30 new students and their families this week. Our student ambassadors and members of the PVO were very supportive in meeting the children and parents and giving them a warm introduction to our school. The Parent Coffee on Wednesday continued with the welcome and was an excellent venue for our parent-teacher committees on Inclusion and the proposed Phoenix Foundation to share some features of their work to date. In future, we are looking at the Parent Volunteer Organisation developing into a fully-fledged Parent Teacher Association with an executive committee and other committees in various areas that support the school.

Our grade 10 students shared their MYP Personal Projects at exhibitions on Wednesday and Thursday this week. An incredible range of topics was chosen by the students and they exhibited their ability to research, analyse and act on their chosen area. I was particularly impressed by the students’ confidence in presenting their work and seeking feedback from their audiences.

There are only a few weeks until the Lunar New Year holiday, but with Service Day, Sports Days, Parent-Student-Teacher interviews,  and the Lunar New Year assemblies, there is much to keep us and you involved in your children’s education.

Mrs Anne Fowles, Head of School

From the Elementary School Principal

First of all, I would like to welcome the new families that have joined our IGB International School community this week. It is great to see happy smiling faces and having spoken with many students, it seems like the winter break is just what they needed. Whether they were here in Malaysia or travelling somewhere in the world, they had a good time, however, they were glad to be back, and that can only be positive.

This week you will have received your sons’ and daughters’ report cards and Seesaw journal. Please take the time to read through the comments, and if you have any further questions, please book a time to speak with the classroom or single subject teacher that wrote that report on Monday, the 20th of January, at our Parent-Teacher conferences. The link and the information were sent to your parent email.

On Thursday and Friday, IGBIS sent two teams to the AIMS Grade 5 Maths competition at Alice Smith School. I look forward to reporting back on how they did, next week.

Dates for your diaries:

• Thursday, 16th January: ES Sports Day
• Monday, 20th January: Parent-Teacher conferences (No school for students in FF – Gr4).
• Thursday, 23rd January: Lunar New Year assembly at 8.00 am and 2.00 pm
• Friday, 24th January- 2nd February: School holiday

Simon Millward, Elementary School Principal

From the Secondary School Principal

Dear Parents & Guardians,

It was a pleasure to welcome several new students to IGBIS and all students back for the second semester. It is always a great time to reconnect with each other and share experiences, as well as welcome new friends into our community. The second semester has begun with a bang, starting with a Student Council assembly, earlier this week, that outlined a large set of offerings for students to get involved and make an impact. We also celebrated the achievements of our Grade 10 students, as they showcased their Personal Projects during the Exhibition on Wednesday and Thursday. What I enjoyed this year was the creativity seen in several projects, resulting in some exciting products.

Impacting others will be in focus next week as well, as all MYP students head out for a day of Service on January 14th. Eight different trips will be taking place, which is very exciting to see! I will be looking forward to hearing about each unique experience. My thanks to Ms Chotard for her work on organizing the trips, including safety checks that were conducted over the holiday break. 

Semester One reports went home today and I hope are the subject of some in-depth conversations at home as students reflect on their achievement. This is a great opportunity for questioning to occur, digging into the feedback provided and discussing what improvements can be made for semester two. 

Sincerely yours,

Michael Arcidiacono, Secondary School Principal 

---

---

From the Admissions Desk

Great Start to Semester 2

I trust that you all had a relaxing winter break and that you got the chance to spend some time with families and friends. 

Wonderful to welcome all our new families this week and see the ‘buzz’ around the school as the students became acquainted with their new friends.

I would also like to thank the student ambassadors who helped us to greet the new families along with Ms Preethi Raghunath, Ms Chrissy Steinheart, Ms Suzanna Tan and  Mr Jason Tan for helping us to welcome the parents into the IGBIS community.

A plea from the Admissions team – if you have changed any of your contact details or there are medical conditions that we need to be updated about, please forward the information to admissions@igbis.edu.my
We also need to all parents to update their car stickers and to return the old ones (for security purposes) – your cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Wayne Demnar, Director of Admissions and Public Relations

Coach’s Corner

The IB Personal Project exhibitions are always a favourite school day for me. The students get to explore their passions independently in part by relying on support networks offered by technology. For us, that means using Google Forms for surveys, Google Docs for research, and among a variety of other software products, too many to list.

While I was walking around enjoying the presentations, playing the games they made, smelling the perfume they concocted, watching the videos they produced, and listening to music, I realized that many of the Grade 10 students chose to share links to surveys via a QR code. 

There was a problem, however. Students who scanned the code would open it only to find a “no permission granted” message displayed on the screen. The creator of the survey hadn’t put any permissions on it. Other students and teachers were able to respond to the survey with no problem. What’s going on here?

What was happening is that Google was automatically logging in the user with their private Google account. The behaviour is different depending on various settings. Google actually has a default account, and this can be different between browsers. Basically, you would want to check which account is currently active and switch to the account provided by the school over. How to do that exactly on a mobile device depends on many factors.

So hopefully, the above explanation gives you the insight you need to troubleshoot on your own if you get a “no permission granted” error for filling out a form. Alternatively, you can send an email to it.helpdesk@igbis.edu.my to report an issue, and we’ll be able to respond to you within a reasonable timeframe. To the students who completed the exhibition, keep on using those cool QR codes! The IT Team supports it!

Adam Morris, ICT Coordinator

Music Academy

Dear Parents,

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the students who demonstrated their growing skills and confidence in performance in the End of Semester 1 Music Academy Concerts on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons! Here is the link for the photo albums of the two concerts: https://sites.google.com/igbis.edu.my/music-academy-igbis/home/past-concerts

Semester 2 Registration school year 2019 – 2020

Each semester you are requested to complete an online registration form for your child’s inclusion in the IGBIS Instrumental Music Academy. The registration will be open from Tuesday, 3rd of December 2019 till the 24th of January 2020. Please go to the Music Academy link on the Parent Page to complete the registration or follow this link: https://sites.google.com/igbis.edu.my/music-academy-igbis/home/registration-form

Semester 2 lessons will commence on Tuesday, 4th of February, following the school holidays. 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me by email at hadewych.dujardin@igbis.edu.my

Kind regards,

Hadewych Dujardin, Music and Instrumental Programme Coordinator

World Scholar’s Cup 2019 Season Recap

The World Scholar’s Cup team at IGBIS led by Hong Yi (Grade 12) and begun in March of 2019 has made unbelievable progress over the last year. Qualifying at the Penang regional round and the Sydney Global round, scholars participated in the Tournament of Champions at Yale University last November. This article will highlight the extraordinary journey that members of the World Scholar’s Cup were able to participate in, in 2019.

The World Scholar’s Cup is an academic event, where students from over 82 countries around the world, discuss and learn beyond typical school subjects such as – Unsolved Mysteries, History, Social Studies, Arts & Music, Literature, and Science. 

It starts at the Regional Rounds and once they are qualified, they can progress to the Global Round, getting over 50 medals over these two rounds as a collective. Qualifying at the Global Rounds allows for scholars to progress to the Tournament of Champions at Yale University. Hong Bin Lim (G11), Benjamin Koh (G10), Denny Seo (G10), Phebi Lee (G11), Alyce Takahashi (G11), Charisse (G10), Hong Yi Lim (G12), Gabriel Dzulkifly (G12), Lucas Fravi (G12), Marvin Chong (G11) and Anam Milfer (G11) qualified for the Tournament of Champions, however, Gabriel Dzulkifly (G12), Phebi Lee (G11) and Alyce Takahashi (G11) did not compete in it.

Last November, Hong Bin Lim (G11), Benjamin Koh (G10), Denny Seo (G10), Charisse Chai (G10), Hong Yi Lim (G12), Lucas Fravi (G12), Marvin Chong (G11) and Anam Milfer (G11) participated in the “Tournament of Champions” at Yale University. At Yale University, scholars took tests, quizzes, wrote essays and debated about topics relating to the current world. Over the course of a week, scholars were competing with scholars from over 1800 scholars. Attending lectures by Yale professors and getting to ask them questions. Moreover, the scholars were able to participate at the scholar’s scavenge where they had the opportunity to have a scavenger hunt around the campus of Yale University and get to meet with real-life alpacas. 

Our Scholars made friends from all around the world and had the opportunity to visit many world-class universities such as MIT, Harvard and Yale, getting to talk with the students from these respective schools. They were able to experience the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become global citizens and learners. 

IGBIS students brought back a mixture of gold and silver medals. Amongst these students, there were two trophies and more than a hundred medals won this year. Charisse, Lucas and Hong Yi’s Team attained the 1st place trophy for writing. Coming up first out of the 800 competing teams and becoming the first-placed team around the globe, they were crowned the Champion Writers of the 2019 World Scholar’s Cup. IGBIS’ scholars were able to become ‘world-class learners’ and got amazing results on the largest stage that the World Scholar’s Cup can offer. 

On behalf of all scholars of IGBIS, I would like to especially thank Mrs Yee Peng Lee, Mrs Yeng Peng Lim and all other parents of the scholars for making everything possible and helping the students throughout the season. Thank you also to Hong Yi Lim, the club leader, for providing us with such a great opportunity.

With a new season coming up, the World Scholar’s Cup club will be preparing students for the season 2 activity where the aforementioned scholars will be training the new students to participate at the Kuala Lumpur regional round coming up soon. If interested, please sign up for the activity in the upcoming season.

Denny Seo, Publicity Director for WSC

PVO News

On Wednesday, 8th of January, the PVO Meeting/Welcome to New Parents Coffee was held. Mr Seki Ng, one of our newest school support staff team members, warmly MC’ed the event, which was attended by returning and new parents alike. Mrs Fowles and the principals introduced key staff members and parents, and there were updates from the proposed Phoenix Foundation, Inclusion Committee, Cafe Redesign/Relocation, along with a brief overview of the PVO and its aim for the future of becoming a PTA. The presentation is shared here and is also available for your viewing pleasure on the PVO website, found on parents’ Splash Page.

Parent workshops were also mentioned during the event and below is a full list of sessions available for parents this semester. Please click on the workshop title below to access the sign-up form and to find out more details about each workshop. All workshops have a start time of 8:00 or 8:15 am, except for Unleash your Creativity, which will take place after-school from 3:10-4:30 pm. 

It would be greatly appreciated if you would please register at your earliest convenience so that the presenters can prepare accordingly. 

January Parent Workshops

13 Telling Tales, Marking Moments

14 Language Pathways & new Lang and Lit courses (G9 and G10 parents)

21 Group 6 options – the Arts and electives (G9 and G10 parents)

22 Cyberbullying & Digital Drama 

Thursdays Unleash your Creativity through Drawing and Painting techniques

February Parent Workshops

3 Global Citizens

5, 14, 17, 25, 26 Community Music Band

6 Introduction to CAS (G9 and G10 parents)

7 Learner Agency – Voice, Choice, Ownership

11, 20, 27 Community Choir

12 Moving towards Zero Waste living

18 DP/CP/HSD Options Fair (G10 parents)

Thursdays Unleash your Creativity through Drawing and Painting techniques

March Parent Workshops

2 Community Choir

3 Extended Essay (G9, 10, 11 parents)

5, 6 Community Music Band

11 Literacy

Thursdays Unleash your Creativity through Drawing and Painting techniques

April Parent Workshops

1 What is the IB Philosophy and How Does This Impact My Child? (G9, 10, 11 parents)

20 Autism Awareness

Thursdays Unleash your Creativity through Drawing and Painting techniques

May Parent Workshops

Date TBD General Introduction of IGBIS Curriculum and IGBIS Life (Mandarin-speaking parents)

Thursdays Unleash your Creativity through Drawing and Painting techniques

June Parent Workshops

4 Unleash your Creativity through Drawing and Painting techniques

---

Friend of the Phoenix News

It is our immense pleasure to welcome our alumni as recipients of our newsletters. We are always interested in finding out about your whereabouts, so if you are a Friend of the Phoenix who is keen on sharing what you have been doing, whether informally or as a feature article in our newsletters, please contact julie.arcidiacono@igbis.edu.my. 

Who are the ‘Friends of the Phoenix’? Anyone who has ever been a part of the IGBIS community is a ‘Friend of the Phoenix’. That includes all of our former students, their parents, and former staff members, in addition to our school’s alumni. Please visit the website to add your contact information to our shared social and professional network at www.igbis.edu.my/friendsofthephoenix. There are countless reasons why one would reach out to a fellow ‘Friend of the Phoenix’ – to enquire about a university, about life in a specific country, for an employment connection… the possibilities are endless.

London Annual Dinner – 18 January 2020

IGB International School is pleased to invite all ‘Friends of the Phoenix’ to our annual event in London on Saturday, 18 January 2020, where Mrs Fowles will host a typical Malaysian dinner at Sage & Chilli restaurant, St Giles Hotel London. Please see the enclosed invitation for registration details and encourage others to attend as well. 

Julie Arcidiacono, Community Support and Services Coordinator

Flyers