Secondary Newsletter 33 – April 17, 2020
Principal’s Message
Grade 6 & 7 French
Digital Resources
All a matter of perspective – Grade 12
Grade 6 & 7 Drama
Grade 10 Music Star
CAS Corner
STUCO Update
Grade 9 Introduction to the Personal Project
Dear Parents,
We are continuing to improve what we are offering in Secondary classes as new tools are discovered and new skills are being learned by both teachers and students far more rapidly than ever before. Our teachers continue to be courageous in trying out new things to improve learning experiences for our students. We are seeing the attributes of the IB Learner Profile being demonstrated by our community every day at this difficult time. We continue to encourage students to maintain some balance and spend time every day off their screens by exercising and doing something that they enjoy. I have also been encouraging students to ensure they are accessing daylight and not sitting in dark rooms for long periods of time. Thank you to our parents for your support, I am very proud of what our teachers and students are achieving and we will all continue to get better as we move forward.
La classe de français des grades 6 et 7
In France, it is a tradition to celebrate April 1st by sticking a paper fish on someone’s back without them noticing. We also like to play tricks on each other.
Le poème du poisson d’avril – April’s Fool poem
Je vois
Un poisson noir
Qui mange une poire
Ah bon! Ah bon!
Je vois
Un poisson orange
Qui boit de jus d’orange
Ah bon! Ah bon!
Je vois
Un poisson jeune
Qui mange du jambon
Ah bon! Ah bon!
Je vois
Un poisson rouge
Qui boit du vin rouge
Ah bon! Ah bon!
Je vois
Un poisson beige
Qui mange de la neige
Ah non! Ah non!
Poisson d’avril!
Poème de Carl-Dominik Von Harrach
Les affiches du 1er avril – Posters to celebrate the 1st of April
L’affiche de Maulin
L’affiche de Sophie
New (and temporary) digital resources available for all BIS community members
Companies and vendors continue to offer high quality (and usually expensive) online and digital products for schools who are in the midst of distance learning. You can check out the BIS Library website and the left-hand side navigation bar for a comprehensive list, though I would like to highlight some of the more recent additions. This applies to parents as much as it does to students.
ABDO Books – Legit high quality collection of thousands of ebooks. Have many of the same nonfiction paper books the Library owns and tha are top sellers across the world. Also features fiction. There is a primary/elementary collection as well as a secondary/middle and high school collection. Login information is on the site. Multiple languages offered. Available until June 30 2020.
Science Reference Center – Contains full text for hundreds of science magazines, journals, encyclopedias, reference books and a vast collection of images relating to the all scientific disciplines. Login information on the website (do not use the Google sign-in option). Once in, choose “Science Reference Center” Available until May 31 2020.
Rosetta Stone – The world’s top language learning software. Can take lessons in over 20 languages including Bahasa. Login information on the website (do not use the Google sign-in option). You will have to register, but it is free. You must also choose a language when login in, but you can choose a new language each time you enter the database. Available until May 13 2020.
Gale Health and Wellness database – Subscription based database available for free until June 30, 2020. Automatically updated with the latest daily content from News Articles, Academic Journals, Reference, Magazines, Videos & Audio and the Coronavirus topic page features a link at the top of the homepage. Oft-used database in higher education. Password available on the website.
School Library Journal free comics/graphic novels – 19 quality comic books/graphic novels for middle/high school readers. No login required.
BIS Library ebook and audiobook collection – Curated collection of ebooks and audiobooks. Tens of thousands in total. Some of the top players in the industry such as Audible and Follett. All free with login information (where applicable) on the site.
PebbleGo – One of the most popular younger Primary databases in the world. Login information on the website. Available until May 31 2020.
All a matter of perspective – Grade 12s
The Grade 12 students have now completed all their coursework and are effectively finished with their Secondary Education journey. It has been a journey with an unsatisfying and incomplete ending. For the record, this is the first time in the history of the IBDP exams that they have been cancelled, clearly highlighting the severity of the situation we currently find ourselves in.
This has been a great opportunity to turn a negative into a positive as the cancellation of the Grade 12 DP exams has provided the students with more time to effectively plan for life after Secondary School and potentially life in a new country. The BIS Staff has put together a new timetable just for the Grade 12 students to try to provide them both with life skills for university and also to maintain a good emotional, social and physical balance.
Throughout the week the Grade 12s have stayed fit and mindful with yoga and HIIT sessions [well some just watched while eating pancakes in bed…], worked on their graduation preparation, took part in a University of Washington college preparation on-line course, participated in a ‘how to cook pancakes’ class, picked up a few tips about languages not offered in our school and gained valuable advice from past alumni.
The dedication of the teachers, especially those who do not teach the Grade 12s, to step up, try something new and help support the 12s has been magnificent. The dedication of the vast majority of the 12s to join in all the classes in these trying times has been fantastic. The fact that together, we have been able to overcome this hurdle and turn it into a valuable learning experience is again what sets our students and staff apart from other schools.
Last week students watched a professional performance of ‘Dead Good’ by the modern mask theatre company Vamos. They then reviewed the show via Flipgrid and created their own wacky, eccentric theatre critic characters! This week the Grade 6/7 Drama students have been looking at a variety of ways of creating their own theatre masks – balloons, paper mache and cardboard options!
Depending on what they had access to at home, the students then created their own theatre masks which will be used as a starting point to create a character from, costume and perform in!
Watch some of their time lapse videos HERE and HERE
Grade 10 Music Star
Thanks Pablo!
CAS Corner by Tristan Moies-Delval
EOTC reflection – Day 2
Today we started our activities,
The first day of English began slowly as we introduced ourselves and tried to understand the level of English that the locals were already at. We began by getting to know each other, this was done through describing where we came from, our hobbies and obviously our names. From this simple exercise, we could already create expectations for how comfortable the locals were with speaking English. Followed by this we split into our two groups and began the exercises.
We moved onto exercises such as a sheet that consisted of different objects (such as cars, motorbikes, boats, types of food, etc.) We read the questions in Indonesian and then they responded in English. The sheet also had a connection exercise where you would have to connect the Indonesian word to the English word (e.g mobile connected to car) I was slightly nervous at first because some of the objects listed weren’t everyday things you would see so I doubted whether they would understand. However, this turned out to be the complete opposite, they worked as a group and knew with little hesitation, what was being asked of them. We then moved onto exercises where they would have to complete sentences and we changed vocabulary towards temple terms. This is because temples play a major part in tourism, and the locals wanted to be able to attract visitors by understanding temple terms in English. This also was not too challenging for them as they had experiences with the vocabulary surrounding temples. We used the whiteboards to create half-finished sentences related to temples which they then had to fill in.
The next half of the lesson was more directed as us, the students. We learned traditional offerings but found it to be very challenging and we required a lot of help in order to finish it. I personally struggled a lot as I had never experienced anything like this before, however, the locals raced through each offering with no problem, probably because they have been doing it every day but it was still impressive.
I found that the first day was crucial as it would affect the coming lessons. By having a positive start and being able to talk and joke around with the locals we were no longer shy which made it more comfortable to do things such as point out mistakes without needing to be too worried that we were negatively criticizing them. I was also thankful for some of our own group members which spoke Indonesian as this would have been a lot harder to accomplish with the language barrier. Overall it was a productive lesson for both groups and I look forward to gaining experience as well as sharing my personal knowledge for them.
Followed by this we visited the local school. We had prepared different English speaking exercises in the weeks leading up to camp and were prepared. The teaching began quickly, our two groups were split up, my group worked with the Grade 4 while the other worked with Grade 5. I was curious to see how the teaching would go as it’s a very different environment in comparison to BIS. The students were excited and enjoyed the exercises, particularly the word search exercise. The terminology was based on body parts as that was what they were currently learning in school. Followed by this we did physical exercises. Both activities required similar skills as in the morning, communication and collaboration and both were completely new experiences for me.
BIS STUCO has been working with Dyatmika and SLK student council to host a charity event called Meraih Asa. However, unfortunately we have decided to postpone this event to the next academic year due to the unforeseen event of COVID-19. The United Schools of Bali team have devoted a great deal of effort into this project, but due to the situation we are all currently facing, having an event involving late group gathering would not be wise, nor would it be permitted. We are still selling merchandise from the initial event as it has already been ordered and the profits from these sales will be donated to Bali Children Project. If you’re interested please contact maryatantra21@baliis.net or ybilen21@baliis.net. Your support is much appreciated.
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The United Schools of Bali team have since then diverted their focus onto the current situation of COVID-19 and are making an effort to help the situation.
Currently doctors are bravely battling against the rapidly growing numbers of COVID19 infections in our country. Unfortunately, hospitals and puskesmas across the country have been struggling to meet the sudden increasing need for medical equipment necessary for medics to perform their jobs. As a community, we understand the role we have in helping to combat this pandemic and hence, we’ve created a fundraiser to help provide frontliners with the adequate protective equipment.
Please click the link to donate, any amount is deeply appreciated.
LINK : https://kitabisa.com/campaign/demipandemi
Please check our instagram account @unitedschoolsofbali as well for further information.
Thank you
Malikha Aryatantra & Yasemin Bilen – STUCO
Grade 9 Introduction to the Personal Project
This will happen next Thursday at 1:30 pm. If students and parents could be ready for the presentation that would be great. Parents please be on the same computer with your son/daughter if possible. More information to come. Just put the date and time in your calendar.
See you then!
Michele McLay – MYP coordinator