SECONDARY NEWSLETTER from Secondary, Friday April 6th 2018

Week 31-Welcome Back!

It was so fantastic to see all of our students return with bright, happy and relaxed faces on Monday.  The sign of a welcoming school community is the face of it’s returning children! Now that we are in the final term things will take on a new pace.  It is important for us to help our students to organize their time and prioritize their events, things will be coming fast and furious for the next weeks.

Career Week

Our grade 10 students have just finished their career week, where they get to go and experience some real world applications of the programs that they are thinking about focusing within their Diploma and University years. Our students are very fortunate to have this opportunity and I am glad that we have such willing participants within the community to help provide this experience to our students. Ms. Holley organizes the whole event and it is a tremendous amount of work and logistical details, a Huge Thank You to Ms. Holley for helping to provide this opportunity to our students.

IB Diploma Exams

We are coming quickly to our IB Exam period.  Students and teachers are busy revising and reviewing all of the material that they have covered for the past two years.  This can be a stressful time. We do everything that we can to help relieve some of this stress and the more prepared we are the less stress we feel.  I am including a link to the first chapter in a book that we have read as a faculty entitled, Make it Stick.  This book looks at the way we learn and retain information and it provides very concrete methods to help improve retention.  Please take a look at this excerpt with your student and think of ways that you can incorporate some of these study habits into your practice.

Make it Stick Link

ASA’s Begin This Coming Week

Our after school activities will begin this week.  Students have had the opportunity to sign up for activities within their homeroom this week.  Please ask your student what they have gotten involved in. There is still time to sign up and join, so please help your student find something that they are interested in, being involved helps with attention, learning and growth!

BSSA Althletics

This term we are participating in Athletics for our BSSA Conference.  We have had a large number of secondary students sign up, but there is always room for more.  It is a great way to stay active and be a part of the larger school community. Go Dragons!

IISSAC Swimming

At the end of this month we will be traveling for the IISSAC Swimming competition.  Coming off our BIS swim carnival our students are very excited to compete against other athletes off the island.  Mr. Lennan and Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Walsh have been putting in a great deal of work to get our swimmers ready for this competition. IISSAC Events are a great way to establish long term friendships with different students and when we travel it allows us to be ambassadors for BIS and Bali.

BIS School Fair

On April 12 we will host our annual school fair. Our PTFA does a tremendous job with this event. If you are interested in having a booth please check out their message on the Enews. This is always a highlight of the school year!

Grade 10 Personal Project Exhibition

Our grades 10s have finished their personal projects and are now completing the production phase of the project.  This is a time of celebration and we want to ensure that we have the largest audience possible for them.  We will be having the Personal Project Exhibition on April 12th-the same day as the School Fair. We have chosen this date as there will be many people already on campus and this will give our 10th graders a better opportunity to show off their learning to a larger audience.  The MPR will be open for visitors at 8:50 on Thursday morning, I look forward to engaging with the students and looking at their finished products.

Thank you for your continued interest and support of BIS and our students.

Kind Regards,

Justin Walsh

secondaryschoolprincipal@baliis.net

Secondary School Principal