Weekly Update, Monday 11 December 2017

Dear colleagues,

Happy Holiday Season and welcome to the last week before the winter break! Again, we would like to thank you all for the tremendous work on the report cards. We acknowledge and appreciate your flexibility and patience when working with the new report card. It has been great to read all the comments, strengths and next steps of your wonderful students. We are excited to see how the parents and students will receive them. It is very fortunate to have motivated and happy children in our classes every day, and they are very lucky to have such a committed and professional faculty as their learning partners.

This week will present some class parties and festive thoughts and emotions. Whether you celebrate Christmas,  Hanukkah, Yule, New Year, Saint Nicholas Day, St. Lucia, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, Omisoka, etc., it doesn’t really matter. The holiday spirit is what counts, so let’s keep it up this week.

Also, we will join the Town Hall meeting with the whole faculty and finish the week with the wonderful finale, our holiday assembly in the Black Box Theater. Parents are welcome, but please remind them that there will be no space for seating. They have to observe and enjoy the assembly in the doorway. On Friday, school finishes at 11:30 for students, teachers, and assistants.

Enjoy the week!

Kim, Trevor, and Heikki

Supervision:                                          Links to: Supervision Schedule 17-18    Supervision Protocol

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55
Duty	Cafeteria Tables	Playground / Gym	Playground / Atrium	Cafeteria line	Indoor recess ELAC Gym
Dec 4	Emi	Derrick	Celia		Maiko, Kaight

This week's schedule:        

Day	Morning	Afternoon - After School
Mon 11th Day 3
Tue 12th Day 1		13:30-14:30 Student Support Team Mtg 14:30-16:00 ES Leadership Planning Mtg
Wed 13th Day 2	8:00 EAL Dept Meeting	14:40-16:30 All Faculty Town Hall Meeting and final Secret Santa Gift
Thu 14th Day 3		12:30-16:30 Scheduling Committee Meeting -Heikki, Trevor, Kaight, Kaoru
Fri 15th Day 1	9:00 ES Holiday Assembly in the BBT 11:30 Dismissal	Happy Holidays! ES Report Cards open online

Winter Holiday Assembly

*Last call for assembly items!

The final assembly of 2017 is on Friday, Dec 15th. If any of your students or your class wants to present at the assembly, please let Kim or Trevor know by the of Monday, Dec 11th.

Professional Learning:

How to apply for PD

Wednesday Professional Learning:

Future Dates:

Monday, Jan 8th - ES Day 2 First day back to school

Monday-Wednesday Feb 26-28 Pia Hansen Bridges Math Workshop

Faculty Meeting, 5 December 2017

Dear colleagues,

Please find the slides from the faculty meeting here.

Weekly Update, Monday 4 December 2017

Dear colleagues,

Thank you to everyone who helped to organize the faculty winter party. The atmosphere, decorations, karaoke, dancing, and food brought us participants to the right holiday mood already. What a wonderful party!

Thank you also for the hard work for completing the comments for the report cards. Kim, Trevor, and Heikki are currently busy proofreading and providing feedback on the comments. As soon as you have received the feedback and made all the changes, please enter the revised comments to the PowerTeacher by Monday the 11th of December the latest. Please, notice that Kim, Trevor, and Heikki will add ^ symbol in front of each strength and next step after proofreading. It is important that you will also copy and paste the comments in that form to the PowerTeacher so that the Power School can generate bullet points in a consistent manner.

This week we will have the last faculty morning meeting of the year 2017 on Tuesday at 7:50 in the ELAC MPR. Please, find the agenda below. On Wednesday, we will host Principal’s coffee morning about the new report card for parents.

We hope you all have an enjoyable week!

Supervision:                                          Links to: Supervision Schedule 17-18    Supervision Protocol

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55
Duty	Cafeteria Tables	Playground / Gym	Playground / Atrium	Cafeteria line	Indoor recess ELAC Gym
Dec 4	Angela	Jay	Yoshiko		Maiko, Kaight

Tuesday Faculty Meeting Agenda
- Looking beyond the winter break (what is going on when we come back in January 2018)
- Classroom safety - fire extinguishers
- Highlights of the Parent Coffee mornings
- Shout Outs

This week's schedule:        

Day	Morning	Afternoon - After School
Mon 4th Day 2		*last day to sign up for CA Secret Santa exchange ELAC Team Meeting 15:40 - 16:15 (ELAC Faculty Lounge)
Tue 5th Day 3	7:50 - 8:25 ES Faculty Meeting	13:30-14:30 Student Support Team Mtg 14:30-16:00 ES Leadership Planning Mtg
Wed 6th Day 1	8:40 Principal Coffee for parents: The New ES Report Card	14:40-15:10 UOI Leaders meeting 15:10-16:00 UOI Planning Session all teachers 16:05-16:30 Refreshments - End of term
Thu 7 Day 2		MS Concert
Fri 8th Day 3

Winter Holiday Assembly

*Call for assembly items

The final assembly of 2017 is on Friday, Dec 15th. If any of your students or your class wants to present at the assembly, please let Kim or Trevor know by this Friday, Dec 8th.

Also, we are still looking for a volunteer to organize a short teacher performance. Risk Takers ?!?

Professional Learning:

How to apply for PD

Wednesday Professional Learning:

Future Dates:

Wednesday, Dec 13 All Faculty Town Hall Meeting and final Secret Santa Gift

Friday, Dec 15

• 9:00 ES Holiday Assembly
• 11:30 Dismissal

Monday, Jan 8th - ES Day 2 First day back to school

What do we call it? The class party?

Dear colleagues,
As an international and inclusive school, we would like to be mindful of what we call our seasonal parties with our students to avoid any misunderstandings. The interpretation of, e.g., the word Christmas varies based on how people celebrate the time of the year, and often their personal histories and backgrounds. In some cases, it has a very little religious connotation and is seen as a more of a generalized term for the season. However, in some cases, people will connect Christmas strongly with the religious time of the year and may have either a very important personal connection to it, or may experience Christmas celebration as an exclusive or mono-cultural lense to view the time of the year.

Therefore, please guide your students, parents, and colleagues to name those open and inclusive parties celebrated in your classroom or otherwise in the school contexts, either as winter party, class party, holiday party, and/or end of term/year party, etc.

Thank you for your support and understanding

Wednesday Reminder

Dear colleagues,

Just to remind you all that tomorrow the first hour is dedicated time for report cards and the second hour is reserved for Teachers Teaching Teachers. Please, sign-up for the second-hour session if you haven't done so yet.

Weekly Update, Monday 27 November 2017

Dear colleagues,

We have three weeks to go before the winter holiday and few more days before we land in the month of December! As we are running out of school weeks and days in 2017, and everyone is busy with their report card writing and reading, we hope that the Faculty Holiday Party will be a welcomed and timely opportunity to celebrate the school year so far. However, before the party, there are a few notable highlights this week, including Math Parent Coffee and Teachers teaching Teachers session on Wednesday. Also, please read the emergency manual regarding intruder/lockdown procedures as we will be practicing our preparedness on Thursday morning. We are looking forward to reading your comments on the report cards as the deadline is approaching this Friday. Below you can see who will be reading your report cards and providing feedback as needed. Thank you all in advance for the thought and effort that goes into the process. Finally, the holiday assembly will be held in the Black Box Theater on the last Friday morning (15 Dec) again this year. Kim and Trevor will be the MCs for the assembly so please contact them regarding the program.

We hope you all have an enjoyable week!

Report Card Feedback

PreK/KA: Kim

KB: Kim

Gr 1: Gr 1T, Gr 1N: Kim (Gr 1 Japanese)

Gr 1 M: Heikki

Gr 2: Heikki

Gr 3: Trevor

Gr 4: Heikki

Gr 5 Trevor

Supervision:                                          Links to: Supervision Schedule 17-18    Supervision Protocol

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55
Duty	Cafeteria Tables	Playground / Gym	Playground / Atrium	Cafeteria line	Indoor recess ELAC Gym
Nov 27	Jess	Hesty	Kim		Maiko, Kaight

This week's schedule:        

Day	Morning	Afternoon - After School
Mon 27th Day 2	Coffee for families new to CA
Tue 28th Day 3		13:30-14:30 Student Support Team Mtg 14:30-16:00 ES Leadership Planning Mtg
Wed 29th Day 1	8:40 Math Peek into Learning	14:40-15:40 Report Card Writing 15:45-16:30 Teachers Teaching Teachers
Thu 30 Day 2	8:40 Intruder/Lockdown Drill
Fri 1st Day 3	Reports Comments due to Kim, Heikki and Trevor on a Google Doc
Sat 2nd		CA Faculty Holiday Party in the CA Cafeteria at 6:30

Professional Learning:

How to apply for PD

Wednesday Professional Learning:

Registration open!  LINK Jan 27-28 HKIS Literacy Institute

Future Dates:

Thursday, Dec 7 ES Principal Coffee for parents: The New ES Report Card

Friday, Dec 8 Report Card: Progress Indicators Input into the system due

Tuesday, Dec 12 Report Card: Uploaded to the system

Wednesday, Dec 13 All Faculty Town Hall Meeting

Friday, Dec 15 ES Holiday Assembly