FRIDAY NEWSLETTER from Secondary – March 17th 2017
Week 29-Wow, we are Busy!
Sometimes when I sit down to reflect on what is going on at BIS and what is coming up I am simply amazed at how busy we are! This past week we hosted two multi school basketball tournaments, arranged a Freedom Day program that was picked up by CNN, hosted a parent/teacher session on boundaries for children, held two Sausage Sizzles and actually held classes and continued with our rigorous learning program! The next week will be about the same pace!
Second Semester Conferences
Our second semester Parent/Student/Teacher conferences will be held on the 23rd of March. This will be a non teaching day. We will have a combination of conference types going on that day. Our 6-8 graders will be participating in student led conferences, the rest of the secondary will use the same Student/Parent/Teacher format that we followed in the first semester. It is very important that your student accompanies you for these conferences, this is the best way for us to work together to help them continue to grow and succeed with their learning. The second semester conferences are also a great time to speak with teachers about next year course selection. The online signup format that we used last semester will be used again. We have invited specific parents/students to sign up for conferences in order to help these students opportunities for growth within the second semester. Sign up information has been sent home and reminders will be coming. Thank you for your continued interest and support or your child’s learning here at BIS.
Here’s the link for the sign-up.
https://www.ptcfast.com/schools/Bali_Island_School
***This coming Monday, March 20th, the electronic signup will close at 3pm.
Freedom Day
March 14 was #myFREEDOMday. This was a day promoted by CNN designed to raise awareness about human slavery and trafficking.
It links in nicely to our study of the same topic in 9th grade and the 9th graders have been making a concerted effort to arrange a host of activities throughout the day to highlight its importance to our school community..
There was a march from the MPR to the big field with flags and chants of freedom in varying languages, a last man standing quiz and a secondary school photo of students holding placards and a mosaic created by the grade 9s. All of this wias recorded and later edited to show some of the highlights, which will be sent off to CNN. Taman Bacaan will also be joining us.
The highlights will be uploaded to the grade 9s students against slavery social media sites and shared with CNN. CNN have already uploaded some of our students videos on their webpages so their voices are being heard.
Please take a look at the BIS highlight on CNN and ask your students more about this day and what Freedom means to them.
IB Art Exhibition
On the 22nd of March we will be hosting our IB Art Exhibition for the year 2017. This event is the culmination of two years of hard work and the creative process. Our IB Visual Art students will be presenting their pieces as well as explaining their process and the relevance of their work. I have been truly amazed at the type of pieces our students are working on and the level of talent and creativity that they exhibit. This wonderful event will be held in our MPR at 4pm. I look forward to interacting with our students and their art work, I hope to see you there.
IB Diploma Course Selection
Our students have had meetings with our counselor, their teachers and the IB coordinator regarding all of the different course we offer and what their choices can do as they start to think about university. On March 10th our DP teachers presented to all of our year ten students about their specific courses and answer any questions in a whole class forum. Students came home with a full sheet of notes and ideas about all of the choices that lay ahead of them. Please speak with your student about the choices that they will soon be making. Here is a look again at the presentation that Mr. Hjelm put together.
***Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences are a fantastic time to speak about course selection for the coming year.
BSSA Swim Carnival
On Monday BIS will host the BSSA Swim carnival. This is a fantastic event that allows many of our swimmers from multiple grade levels to compete against other local schools. We have a tremendous field of swimmers this year and I am really looking forward to watching them push themselves and represent BIS. GO Dragons!
BSSA Basketball Finals
This past Wednesday and Thursday our Junior and Senior level students took part in the BSSA Finals for the basketball season. We had 5 teams reach the finals with our A senior Boys and B Senior Girls coming away with trophies! A big thank you to all of the hard work of our students and coaches, in particular to our student coaches. I would also like to thank Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Lennan for all of their work in organizing these events and the transportation issues that go with them. Way to go Dragons!
Thank you for your continued interest and support of BIS and our students.
Kind Regards,
Justin Walsh
secondaryschoolprincipal@
Secondary School Principal