FRIDAY NEWSLETTER from Secondary, 17th Nov 2017

Week 15-Community Involvement

As an IB School BIS values the time and energy our students dedicate towards service and community involvement.  As a close, welcoming, inclusive community BIS exemplifies the ideals of service and community engagement.  There are many small groups and activities that our students are a part of and take pride in.  From BAWA to Taman Baccan to Bali Life Foundation to Trash Hero Sanur our students are very passionate about connecting with the community they live in and finding ways to make a positive difference. This has been even more prevalent this year with the Mt. Agung relief efforts, thank you for your continued support in this endeavor.  This past week our students organized a basketball tournament with the proceeds going to The Bungaya Library. Please have your student either pass by the office or speak with their homeroom teacher to either learn more about the many community engagement projects we have or to bring forth another way for us to connect and give back to our surroundings.

 

BIS Reading Comprehension Challenge

Next week will wrap up our second session of the BIS Reading Comprehension Challenge. It has been a very close competition thus far, with only 3% points separating 1st from 4th. Our students reading comprehension has steadily increased each week, with a number of students hitting 100% accuracy on the reading questions. The final 3 weeks of the semester we will hold 3 one week competitions, where the winner of each week will receive the free dress day. The final week we will also incorporate the teachers to see how we stack up against our students! Please continue to encourage your children to read at home, ask them questions about what they are reading and engage in conversations around any current events.

 

BSSA Schedule and Procedures

This coming week will mark the start of the BSSA Volleyball schedule.  The schedule has round robin games on the 15th, 22nd, and 29th of November with finals on the 6th and 7th of December. The Senior Volleyball competition will be held here at BIS on the 7th of December.  For all away games students will check with their coach before leaving campus for attendance/safety purposes.  Coaches will then recheck their roster list once they have arrived at the site.  The coach will report any missing student to Mr. Sutherland so we can confirm the safety of all of our student athletes.

Regarding transport to away games, from the Parent Student Handbook: ‘Teams are managed/coached by BIS staff but the responsibility for transportation to away games is on the parents (no taxis, bemos, or Go-Jek).’ We highly recommend car pooling and, by checking the schedule, you will be able to plan well ahead if your child has an away game.

Thank you for your continued support of our students and their activities.  Go Dragons!

Bali Math Competition

This weekend BIS will host a Maths competition, where students use their math abilities to problem solve and compete in mathematical computations.  This weekend is the culmination of a great deal of hard work by some of our math students here at BIS.  This competition is also in preparation for the South East Asian Math Competition or SEAMC. I look forward to watching them take on some real life challenging problems and I am thankful that I am not competing against them!  Go Dragons!

Fine Arts Exhibition

Last evening we hosted our first installment of the Fine Arts Exhibition. This was an opportunity for our students to display their artistic talents to the whole community. We had fantastic musical performances, creative and thought provoking art displays and creative expressions within the drama productions. Thank you for your continued support of the Arts here at BIS, we have such talented young men and women and I am so glad that they had an opportunity to show off those talents to such an engaged audience. I also want to say a Big Thank You to Mr. Andrews, Ms. Green, Ms. Staroverova, and Dr. Shepherd for hard work and dedication in providing these opportunities to our students. I look forward to our next rotation to see more of our students artistic talents!

 

Semester Exams

Our Year One DP students are preparing to write their semester exams.  These will take place on the 28th through the 30th of November.  Students will be writing two exams per day with a long rest/study break built into the middle of the day.  Students are expected to be in school and ready for their exams at 7:45.  Our Seniors will be taking any semester tests within their classes. As the seniors are in the midst of their IAs and will be having the Mock Exams in Early February we felt that class time, instruction and the ability to work on assessments outweighed the benefits of another exam session. Below is a schedule for the exams for the Year One DP Students: