Feeling Grim Grab a Prim!

'Feeling GRIM? Grab a PRIM!'

Our Learning Support PRIM manuals are now housed in the following locations:

1) Grade 1: Keesha's room

2) ES office

3) Learning Support office S301

4) ELAC office/supply room

This handy manual is color-coded to assist teachers in developing a comprehensive list of strategies to be tried and documented for struggling students in the class.

Any questions - come see Rose or Aimee in S301.

Wednesday 2 December, Tankyuu PD time

Dear Elementary School faculty,

Wednesday this week has been dedicated for your Tankyuu-Professional-Learning-goal. Please, find the best venue and the group of colleagues who will best support you in exploring and preparing for your professional inquiry.

On 16th of December, we will all get together to share our learning and actions up to that date.

In the meanwhile, please let Kim, Trevor or Heikki know if there is anything we can do to further support your Tankyuu.

Weekly Update, Monday, 30 November

Dear colleagues,

We are anxiously waiting for the feedback on the draft ES Action Plan. Please, take the time to read the plan, make comments and most importantly provide suggestions in the Google document by Thursday. We hope that you can see plenty of exciting professional learning opportunities in the plan. It would be amazing to be able to manage successfully, and enjoy many of them. Otherwise, this week will be pretty a straightforward, yet another great week of learning.

Supervision:                                                                Link to Master schedule

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:40
Week	Cafeteria Tables	Playground	Playground	Healthy lunch guide in the cafeteria line
11/30/2015	Kyle	Satsuki	Jeff	Karin

Coordinator's Meetings

Link to ES Team Planning Meeting Schedule

PYP Collab will follow the regular schedule.

Literacy Meetings will focus on overview planning for writing units #3.

Wednesday PD and Faculty meeting time                    

Link to Wednesday PD Schedule

• 2-hour block: 探究 (Tankyuu) Self-Directed Professional Learning Projects including Tankyuu Faculty Reflection

Around the school this week:

• Abeno Teachers, Principals and District Leader will be on campus again on Thursday the 3rd of December. Please, make them feel welcome to your classes. It is a great opportunity for us to share our excellent teaching practice with Japanese educators.

Future Dates

Saturday 5 December, Faculty Winter Party

Tuesday-Friday 8-11 December, Matt Glover: internationally recognized expert in teaching children to write will be visiting ES.

UPDATED -Assembly Program, Friday 27 November

Time 8:45 - 9:15
Venue: Main Theatre
Hosts: Vincent and Helen (Gr 5)

1. Welcome
2. KB Dance
3. High School Student Announcement
4. First Grade Sharing of Learning
5. Principal's remarks
6. Go Noodle
7. Art Contest Winners
8. Birthday video

Faculty Meeting Notes: Growth Mindset and the Draft ES Action Plan

Below you can find information and links to the past two faculty meetings

Growth Mindset:
Parent Coffee presentation
Cheat Sheet for Parents in Support of Changing Language
Mindset test

Draft ES Action Plan for 2016 - 2017
Please find the slide show here.
Please find the draft plan here.

Feedback for the Action Plan
Please use the Google Document for communicating feedback. It is important that we all promote open communication, transparency, and honesty when sharing thoughts upon the draft plan.

In order to receive actionable feedback, it will be incredibly helpful and important to receive feedback and/or questions like the following:
- Pacing and volume (too much, too few, too slow, too fast) and with suggestions what to focus on and how to pace it.
- Clarifying questions (Where can further information be found? Links? How will the process go ahead, What is...,
- Prioritizing: E.g. I think it would be important to try to focus on ... first, because...,
- Reactions: Great! This is really important, because... Stop! This doesn't seem so important because....
Worries and Concerns
- This may be challenging because...
- How a decision on ... will be made?
- This sounds scary because...
- Will this mean that...

Weekly Update, Tuesday 24 November

Dear colleagues,

Welcome back from the perfectly timed 3-day-weekend. We hope that everyone had a chance to relax and rest before the last four weeks of the term. Very likely the remaining weeks will just fly by as the ones we have already left behind. This week will bring another post regarding healthy lunch promotion. Additionally, we will establish a temporary cafeteria line duty until the end of the term, so stay tuned on blogger. 

Have an enjoyable week!

Supervision:                                                                Link to Master schedule

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:25
Week	Cafeteria Tables	Playground	Playground	Healthy lunch guide in the cafeteria line
11/23/2015*	Kaho	Emi	Kim	Yoshiko

Coordinator's Meetings Link to ES Team Planning Meeting Schedule

PYP Collab will follow the regular schedule. Homeroom teachers will continue working on UOI#3 planning. For units linked with specialists, check the POI-SST Linked Unit doc.

Literacy Meetings will focus on overview planning for writing units #3.

Wednesday PD and Faculty meeting time                    Link to Wednesday PD Schedule

• 14:40-15:30 Sharing Learning Word work (Follow on from Sept 23 and Oct 21)
• 15:35-16:30 Introduction to the Elementary School Draft Action Plan 2016-17

Other Events in the Elementary School:

• Thursday: Abeno Teachers school visit has been cancelled. Next visit will be on the 3rd of December.
• Friday: ES Assembly 8:45-9:30
• Saturday: Assistant, LSAs and Substitute teachers PYP training

Around the school this week:

Monday is the holiday

Thursday and Friday:  Secondary school conferences

Bake sales on the 4th floor for Thai kids fundraiser

Future Dates

Tues. Dec. 8 - Fri. Dec. 11 -Matt Glover: internationally recognized expert in teaching children to write will be visiting ES for 4 days. Kim will be coming around with a schedule.

Important Lunch Time Information and Action in Grades 1-5

Dear colleagues,
There seems to be a need to have a conversation about the healthy and balanced lunch particularly in Grades 1 -5 classrooms. Furthermore, it is important that we all take an action to support students with their lunch choices. We all know how nutrition has an impact on student alertness, ability to stay focused and stamina. Parents and faculty are noticing a trend of poor choices arising during lunch time including rice-only-meals, no-salad-meals, overuse of desserts, additional purchases of cookies, salty nori, sugary drinks etc. The direct consequence is that student learning is negatively influenced.
Please, address this in the classrooms as soon as possible by designing learning experiences focusing on the importance of healthy and balanced nutrition. To apply the learning, we need to provide a step-by-step scaffolding and guidance on how to make it happen. Please, discuss with your grade level partner as well as vertically what steps you would like to take. Thank you for your flexibility and cooperation in this important matter.

Our current recommendations include the following:
Packed lunch:
Students are expected to bring a balanced and healthy lunch from home. Furthermore, please encourage students to have a discussions at home with their parents about the different healthy packed lunch to ensure that students will actually eat their lunch at school. During lunch time, students with packed lunch are not allowed to purchase cookies, sugary drinks or other sugary items. Fruit can be purchased as an addition to the packed lunch.
Hot lunch:
Students are expected to choose a balanced combination of carbs, meat/vegetarian option, salad and dessert as informed in the menu. During lunch time, students are not allowed to purchase cookies, sugary drinks or other sugary items. Additional fruit can be purchased after the students have finished their lunch.
Supervision
The kitchen staff is monitoring and reminding the students about their choices at lunch time. Additionally, we will establish the cafeteria line supervision duty for the next few weeks; four weeks before Christmas and two weeks after. The duty is for 10 minutes and this time, the focus is on guiding students making healthy choices in the cafeteria. We will start on Tuesday, and the duty rota can be found here.
Addressing the healthy lunch matter at the whole school level
Finally, Jon will be working with the Cezars Kitchen, some faculty members and a group of parents to ensure that our students continue to have access to, and utilize the healthy and balanced lunch every day.

Friday Fruit Cup - reminder

Please come by the Elementary School Office on Friday 20 November, from 8:15 onwards to collect a cup of fruit salad to give you a healthy boost for the day and the long weekend ahead. Even if you are not a big fan of fruit, come by to say good morning to those colleagues you rarely see during the busy days.

Weekly update, Monday 16 November

Dear colleagues,

The sad and shocking news from Paris provided a negative end to the otherwise productive, successful and busy past week. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families in France. The past week, as mentioned above, was a success at CA. Both visiting teams were impressed with the students and faculty, and of course with the learning in the classrooms. The oral feedback the leadership team received was already very helpful, and we will certainly share it and include to our planning of the future of the ES. Big thank you to all the staff for your flexibility and taking the time to share your experiences and thoughts with the visiting team. Another important acknowledgment goes to Trevor and Stephen for the organization and preparation of the visit. Trevor can think clearly again and deserves recognition and congratulations for leading and successfully completing the PYP evaluation process.

Weekly reading suggestion:

Afraid of Looking Dumb

Supervision:                                                                    

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55
Week	Cafeteria Tables	Playground	Playground
11/16/2015	Karin	Aimee	Kasumi

   Link to Master schedule

Evaluation Visit Follow-up from Trevor

Thank you, everyone for your support during the visit. At the Exit Meeting, the visitors really remarked on the amount of effort and commitment we have towards our students and our community. They also noted there is a high degree of alignment between our self-study and their findings during the visit. ie. Our self-study had identified most of our needs as a school and our Action Plan noted the next steps we needed to take. The Evaluation Report is now in the hands of the IB Asia Pacific office to be reviewed and we hope to the have report returned to us before the holiday. Once we get the report, we will need to review the recommendations to adjust our action plan, as well as look at the commendations to celebrate our outstanding achievements.

Coordinator's Meetings Link to ES Team Planning Meeting Schedule

PYP Collab will follow the regular schedule. Homeroom teachers will work on UOI#3 planning. For units linked with specialists, check the POI-SST Linked Unit doc.

Literacy Meetings as scheduled.

ESOL Department

There will be an ESOL collaboration meeting on Monday.

The ESOL Full Department meeting will be Wednesday morning at 8:00 S301

Reading/Writing Workshop Orientation

3:45 (S201) new teachers to workshop meet to reflect on conferring and mini-lessons

Parent Coffee Morning

8:30-9:30 in the ELAC MPR

Topic: How to support your child at home in general (Growth MIndset)  and particularly in literacy and how do we support all students at school.

PD and Faculty meeting time                    

 Link to Wednesday PD Schedule

Wednesday

14:40-15:30 What are the conditions that foster creativity?

• focus on Learning Principles and Practices
• venue tba

15:35-16:30 Growth Mindset

• Synapsis of the Parent Workshop on Growth Mindset

Friday

Please come and enjoy a Fruit Cup for Breakfast at ES office 8:15.

Future Dates

23 November, No school

27 November, ES Assembly 8:45-9:30

28 November, Assistant, LSAs and Substitute teachers PYP training

Next ES Assembly, Friday 27 November

Invitation for announcements and performances in the next ES Assembly on Friday the 27th of November at 8:45-09:30.

We are looking for the following:
- MCs (Leadership Club? or other students who can step into the role)
- Sharing of student learning: (Students sharing their inquiry processes, questions, reflections etc. Also could be video or Photos?)
- Birthday video: - confirmed, Yoshiko-san 10 minutes
- KB dance - confirmed 10-15 minutes
- Musical, art, dramatic or dance, exhibition/performances (teacher or student initiated)
- Message from the Principal - confirmed 3 minutes
- Smart Start - Any new, or all time favorites repeated
- Any announcements (from faculty or students):

Please, let Heikki or Yuko-san know, who would like to perform and we will organize a small audition if needed, and a practice session before the assembly.

Weekly Update, Monday 9 November

Dear colleagues,

Welcome back to another wonderful week of learning in the Elementary School!

This week we are welcoming visitors who are at CA to offer professional feedback to guide us in our journey of on-going improvement how to best serve the needs of our students within the framework of the IB PYP. I am sure that they will feel welcome and appreciated for the professional opportunity to support CA. As an IB world school, we are fortunate to be part of such a global educational cohort promoting inquiry-based learning, international education and holistic education of children. Please check the visit schedule often enough to know how the visit progresses and fits into our daily schedule of learning.

Professional Reads

Heikki found an article synthesizing Effective Learning Environment.

Supervision:                                                                 Master schedule

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55
Week	Cafeteria Tables	Playground	Playground
11/9/2015	Brent	Rose	Kaoru

Evaluation Visit

Link to the  visiting schedule

Thank you for your support in preparing for the visit. Throughout the visit, Paul and Rachel will be collecting evidence on various practices and they may require some further documentation. Please be prepared in case we need to provide additional evidence such as writing samples showing process, other samples of student work, etc.

Coordinator's Meetings

Link to ES Team Planning Meeting Schedule

PYP Collab with Trevor will be cancelled Monday to Wednesday. Thursday will follow the regular schedule.

Literacy Meetings with Kim as scheduled.

Wednesday PD and Faculty meeting time

14:40-15:55 探究 (Tankyu) Self-Directed Professional Learning Projects  

16:00-16:30 Evaluation Feedback from Visiting Team (location??)

Future Dates

17 November, visitors from Abeno

20 November, Fruit Cup for Breakfast at ES office 8:15

23 November, No school

27 November, ES Assembly 8:45-9:30

28 November, Assistant, LSAs and Substitute teachers PYP training