Secondary Newsletter 9 – September 27th 2019
Grade 10 & 12 Theatre Workshop
Dear Parents,
The start of the school year has come and gone and we are fast approaching the end of Term 1. I am enjoying reading your children’s reports and am sure these will give you a great insight into their achievements, approaches to learning and strategies for further improvement. These reports will be shared with you on Wednesday, October 2 leading into the 3-Way Conferences the following day. If you have not already done so, please ensure you make appointments to meet with your child’s teachers. Many teacher schedules have filled very quickly and there often isn’t any free space to slot in somebody without an appointment. Please contact Ibu Riana in the Secondary Office if you have any issues with this. There is some great learning happening in our classes at the moment and I have asked teachers to share some evidence from this week.
Ross Ferris – Secondary Principal
G6 Science Lesson
Grade 6 students have been working hard to complete lessons centered around lab safety to prepare them for completing scientific experiments in the future. In addition to good laboratory procedures, taking accurate and precise measurements, and recording data, part of these lessons were how to safely use the Bunsen burners. Students really enjoyed the lesson and did a fantastic job following instructions! This skill will serve them well as we continue performing experiments and labs for the rest of the school year.
Grade 9 Individuals and Societies
Grade 9 students have been working on a unit called Global Inequalities which looks at worldwide issues relating to poverty and the discrepancies within and between countries. Their latest task involved them investigating the correlation between poverty and education. They were asked to draw a political cartoon that they felt depicted this correlation. Here are some of the results:
Grade 10 and 12 Theatre Workshop
On Wednesday our Grade 10 and 12 Drama and Theatre Students had a unique opportunity to work with an acclaimed Physical Theatre performance artist, Mark Hill. Mark has worked worldwide for the last 25 years as a performer, practitioner, and director and his specialism is in the realm of physical theatre, notably Butoh, Kecak, the Suzuki method and Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints. He has performed with cutting edge theatre ensembles such as Zen Zen Zo, The Danger
Mark worked with our Grade 12 students on a challenging and enlightening Butoh masterclass – Butoh is an avant-garde movement based art form which arose in post-war Japan and was founded by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. The students rose to the challenge with immense courage and conviction. Mark said, “Working with the students at BIS was just fantastic – their courage, creativity, and conviction in their responses made the day fly by and I know they will go on to create wonderful work in the future. Thank you for making me feel so welcome”.
The Grade 10 and 12 students worked together exploring the theories of Anne Bogart and her Viewpoints methodology – a structural framework for creating abstract and physical theatre. The students, 
though new to working collaboratively as an ensemble, gelled brilliantly and created a special synergy in the workshop which they articulated wonderfully when they reflected on the work. One student said “I learned that sometimes in theatre you can be spontaneous and it’s okay to fail because your ensemble will always support you”, and another said “This workshop has changed me as a drama student in many different ways. The workshop made me realize that everything can be looked at from a different perspective. I realized that there are no wrong answers, just different ways of viewing things.”
The whole day was a rare and unique opportunity to work with a professional performer, and approach the creative process with a new 
perspective and will undoubtedly stay with them and their theatre understanding for many years to come.
Thank you for supporting the Arts!
Service as Action Corner
CAS Corner
by Lucie Regal
Coral Rehabilitation:
It may seem like we are only focusing on growing the coral reef of Les Village and providing vital habitats to all sorts of tropical fish however our action can benefit the economy of this village as it will attract tourist divers and future volunteers. In order to increase eco-tourism, we have discussed possible ways to improve the Sea Communities website by providing translations to different languages, a picture book on the different species and interviews with the local divers. This will bring communities together leading to further accomplishments on improving the coral reef.
Just like last year, we worked collaboratively with local divers on assisting them with coral planting. During our first dive of acclimatization, I saw a significant amount of growth since last year, from this I also saw that the spider structure that we had placed last year with the baby coral had flourished. This motivated me further into the rehabilitation program as it had shown that the fruits of our efforts had grown. We now know that these spider structures are the most efficient as they do not get carried away by the current and coral branches had extended from the previous baby coral. My engagement in this program not only helps that coral grow of Les Village but it also has a global impact especially here in Indonesia where it is a part of the Coral Triangle, doing this gives me hindsight of my actions so that I can reflect and change into a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Pak Gary gave us a presentation on the science behind coral rehabilitation which allowed me to understand the amount of effort and research that goes into it. We also discussed ways in which corals are grown in aquariums which gave us ideas about implementing one school in order to show everyone our efforts and possibly find new ways on how to speed up the process of coral growth.
On the third day, we were unable to dive because of the weather conditions, this was a good opportunity to talk with the two main divers Eka and Komang. Through this, we were able to further develop our ideas. Now we have narrowed down our aim to raise funds to allow Komang and two other divers to advance their diving level to rescue diver, and in the future to become dive masters so that they would be able to teach locals allowing this program to continue. We have also decided to help Sea Communities in building a new structure that will attract more tourists as it will be a tunnel and it is a perfect structure to allow corals to grow on. During this day lots of discussions and solutions were formed by the help of working collaboratively and staying committed to this global scale issue. In these 3 days, I was able to see the genuine passion of the divers that highlighted the pressing matter of increasing water temperatures, unsustainable fishing methods, and pollution, their passion echoed within me where I hope to continue coral rehabilitation in the future.