Secondary Newsletter No. 26 – March 1st, 2019
Check out upcoming events at the BIS Events Calendar
Dear Parents,
We have had an enjoyable week with lots of arts and sports complementing some great learning in classes.
Nyepi – Next week we will break for the Nyepi break on Wednesday at 12pm with no school scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Please note that normal classes will run up until 11.25am on Wednesday when we will celebrate an Ogah-Ogah Parade which will commence at 11.30am at the covered courts. Parents are welcome to attend this.
ManageBac (MB) – I looked at our registered parents on MB this week and was surprised to see so many who are not checking or have never logged into MB. This program provides you with real-time access to your child’s academic progress in each subject. I have resent a ‘Welcome email’ today to everyone so you can access this. If you are already accessing, you can just ignore this message. If you have any problems following the instructions, please email Ibu Ayu at datacoordinator@baliis.net.
Religion classes – Please note that religion classes will not run on Tuesday, March 5 due to the G6-9 Arts Exhibition which begins at 4pm.
Applause for a Cause – Thank you to the many of you who supported this event. We were proud of our students and staff in putting together such a wonderful event to be enjoyed by our school community. A big thank you to Ms. Alborn for her tireless work in putting together such a well-organised and polished event which showcased some of the amazing talents of our students. Updates will be provided on the money raised and the planned impact it will have on the children in Lombok.
Parent Feedback Session on Grade 5-6 Transition
Monday 11 March 2019 at 8 am in the Library
Interested Grade 5, 6 & 7 Parents are invited to attend a feedback session at 8:00am on Monday 11 March to feedback and share ideas on Grade 5 – Grade 6 transition. We have already begun some initiatives to better prepare our Grade 5 students for next year. They will participate in a ‘Step Up Day’ in June where they will join Grade 6 for a day. To improve the transition process this year, we are taking feedback and suggestions from staff, parents and students so that we can consider all perspectives as we plan to support our Grade 5 students make the step into Secondary School in August.
Ross Ferris (Secondary Principal)
Check out the Counselor’s Corner Here
MYP Corner
#MyFreedomDay
March 14th 2019
‘Right now, there are 40 million people currently trapped in slavery – a chilling figure at the heart of our campaign and one we want to share far and wide’ (CNN). The CNN Freedom Project is a humanitarian news media campaign launched by CNN International to “end modern-day slavery” and relates to illegal practices, including human trafficking. Each year on March 14th CNN asks individuals, celebrities, politicians, organizations, students, cities and countries to participate in this day of action to prevent modern day slavery. Driving this year’s #MyFreedomDay campaign is one simple question: What makes you feel free? CNN is asking you to share your response via text, photo or video across social media using the #MyFreedomDay hashtag.
Your messages be uploaded alongside athletes, politicians and celebrities who have already lent their voices to the campaign.
Here is a glimpse into what this day looked like in 2018.
MyFreedomDay website and videos
What are we doing at BIS? 
In March 2017 our then Grade 9 students created an MYP Service as Action project in which they performed a drama production with the inclusion of protest art and songs.
This year our students are continuing where they left off. Our Individuals & Societies class have been working on a 10 week unit titled ‘Imperialism: Master and the Servant’ which mostly focused on the British Empire and their need for slaves in the New World. Students learned about the Transatlantic slave trade, slavery itself and finally abolitionists and their fight to free them. This has timed quite well to fit with #MyFreedomDay where we have now asked students to focus on modern day slavery.
We have 31 students working in groups ranging from 2-4. Each group will create their own idea of what freedom means to them (poem, song, role play, mural etc). They will each record their groups’ work showing no more than 1 minute which will be uploaded to CNN. In this same recording students are asked to come up with a campaign idea to help promote the end of modern day slavery globally.
We also aim to showcase this in our secondary assembly that the students will run. We will record a snippet of the assembly and send that too. The time of the assembly will be 7:45 am please feel free to attend. We also plan to have a white board in front of our library where anyone (including parents) can write down what freedom means to them.
Get involved with #MyFreedomDay! March 14th 2019
Record Setters 
The BIS Library helps facilitate our weekly “Kahoot” (Kahoot is an online quiz-taking application that makes it easy for educators to conduct these type of assessments with students interactively) reading comprehension activity, which aims to increase and enhance students’ critical thinking, reading comprehension and interpretation skills as well as good old fashioned exposure to current events and interesting topics. These “Kahoots” have been going on since August 2017, but this week there were a few firsts. Homeroom 9A won this round with an average score over 5 weeks of 91.85%, which is the highest we have ever had. They won 4 of the 5 rounds, never scored below an 86.54%, scored above 90% three times and beat their next closest competitor (grade 9B was 2nd place, grade 10 was in 3rd) by 11.95% which was also a record. All of this basically equates to the most successful “Kahoot” round in our short history. Congrats to 9A and their homeroom teachers. The entire BIS secondary averaged a 72.53%, which was higher than last round. Keep an eye out for next round’s competitive drama….
CAS Corner
Sasha Moore (Basketball)
Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
In this training, many of our teammates had to leave to watch a drama performance so this decreased the number of players for this training. However, our coach decided to teach us some passing drills for offence play during games. She taught us plays such as boomerang, as I, the point guard am supposed to bring the ball past the half line and dribble to the left or right side of the court. Then, passing it to one of the post players, they will pass it back and I will attempt a shot outside of the key. This play is very effective and not many players of the opposing team will notice this play if done properly. The next play that we learned was the curl. A curl is when either the 2 top players of the 2 post players individually curl around their partner up to the top to receive the ball from me and attempt to shoot a shot. This usually works but it has to happen quickly. This improved my skill in passing and relying on my teammates for passes and it also helps our team maintain possession of the ball. I worked collaboratively with my teammates by communicating with them effectively and knowing their positions to be able to look for an open pass throughout games. I noticed that sometimes I do not always look for my other teammates when I have the opportunity for a break-away ball (which is when one player has the opportunity to sprint to the shooting basket with no opponents prepared to defend). This meant that when I was in trouble, I had difficulties to look for a pass or even shoot because the opponent was already in their defence position. However, I overcame this issue and recognized the benefits of working collaboratively and how it helps me to move around to get open or take a shot.
