From the Primary Principal

Dear Parents,

October Break is nearly at our doorstep. Thank you for helping us to make such a positive start this quarter. So many of you have been able to join us for important events including orientation, open house, conferences, the read-a-thon and the primary shares. Your thoughts and your children’s ideas have helped us to consider new initiatives such as extended supervision at the end of the day, recyclable lunch-boxes and visiting authors from the Ubud Writers & Readers’ Festival. Many of you have also been able to attend PTFA meetings, and a variety of other parent information sessions such as the Introduction to the PYP and Getting Going with Google. On behalf of all the teachers and assistants I would like to thank you for this ongoing support.

Kelso’s Choices: I’m pleased to report that the primary students have made an excellent start to the school year in terms of their behaviour management. Classroom rules and routines are now well established and adhered to, and generally speaking, students are moving around the campus thoughtfully, and using outdoor equipment and facilities considerately. It’s great to see how children have been encouraged to eat snacks and lunch in a more relaxing environment over the past few weeks.

Currently, Grade 1 is being introduced to Kelso’s Choices. This is a simple tool which assists children in making good choices when confronted with problems. Over the course of the year we hope that Grade 1 will help us introduce these strategies to the rest of the school community.

Differentiated Instruction: As a professional learning community we are continuing to develop our understanding of how to engage and challenge all our students with their different interests, learning styles and level of readiness. Our student services department is currently providing professional development on co-teaching strategies, and we look forward to learning from the BIS teachers who have recently enrolled in a Harvard Online Course on differentiated instruction.

Structured, purposeful inquiry that engages students actively in their own learning is at the heart of differentiated teaching and learning in a PYP school. We want our children to learn how to learn, and opportunities for student-led inquiry help to equip our children with a powerful strategy for life-long learning. Inquiry at school can be:

• Exploring, wondering and questioning
• Experimenting and playing with possibilities
• Making connections between previous learning and current learning
• Making predictions and acting purposefully to see what happens
• Collecting data and reporting findings
• Clarifying existing ideas and reappraising perceptions of events
• Making and testing theories
• Researching and seeking information
• Solving problems in a variety of ways

What does inquiry look like at home?

Warm regards,
Alan