Spring Break Celebration tomorrow Friday at lunch time!

Dear colleagues,

To celebrate the end of the long winter stretch, please join for lunch tomorrow Friday at 12:25 - 13:10.

On offer we have

Vegetarian Indian curry (gluten-free)

Thai Chicken Curry

Quinoa vegetables

Coconut Creme Brulee as well as the company of our wonderful colleagues.

I would like to take the opportunity to say thank you and congratulate you for your hard work, the successful designing of student learning, and the smooth organization of the second scheduling pilot.

 I wish you all a wonderful Spring Break and I am looking forward to connecting with you all again in April!

Heikki

Thank you!

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for displaying the expertise, professionalism, and service mindedness to the parent community. Many happy, informed, inspired parents left the building tonight.

Thank you for your hard work in preparing the presentations, engaging activities, and fun for the parents.

Kim, Trevor, and Heikki

Thank you!

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for your thoughtful preparation, graceful presentations, and all the hard work for ensuring a successful Back To School Night. We saw happy, confirmed and excited parents talking about learning at CA during the break and after the long night.

Grade 5 parents mingling after mooing, quacking, roaring, and neighing in the auditorium.

Well done and Good luck for the day 2

Dear colleagues,

Congratulations for the very successful first day of school year 17-18! All the students look excited and happy to be back at school, meet their new teachers and of course their classmates.

If you haven't done so, please check the following link to the CA Facebook page including messages and short videos about Orientation Day and First Day of School created by the CATV.

CAinspires on facebook

Good luck for the day 2 and the listening conferences!

Welcome New Faculty!

The new faculty is in the building.

Graduating Class March, 1 June at 3 pm

Dear ES teachers,

On Thursday 1 June, the senior class will be back in school for a transition and graduation rehearsal day.  

At the end of that day, from about 3pm, the graduating class will march around the school, covering all of the corridors of ES, MS, HS and ELAC areas.  They will be wearing graduating caps and music will be playing.

We would be very happy if you and your students would like the corridors and make lots of noise, cheering for them when they come past, much like for an APAC opening ceremony.  If your class has time to make a banner to congratulate the class of 2017, that would be great, but please don't feel obliged.  The main thing would be to make lots of noise and cheer for them as they go past.

We will let you know by early next week roughly what time you can expect the class of 2017 to process past your area of the school.

The grade 12 students will really appreciate your support and good wishes.

Liz Durkin

Some positive notifications from graduate students

November 2016

Graduate school students at the Hyogo University of Teacher Education visited CA classroom and here are their answers to questions Yoshiko-san asked them afterward.

Q1. What did you find most interesting?

• CA has its own curriculum
• Math 6 task. Students predicted the height of the school building. When they were informed of the actual figure, they discussed why the difference occurred. I felt that they are learning things in a really good way.
• It was easy to see what was regarded important in class.  Since the thinking process is considered most important, I could see that their behavior (having to sit at the desk throughout the class, having to calculate on their own) were considered not so important. I think that is exactly why they can focus on the thinking process.
• Compared to regular Japanese schools, CA seemed to focus on problem solving. The way teachers give tasks and directions seemed to highly motivate the students. Teachers and students seemed to enjoy casual, friendly communication and yet teachers appeared to be well respected by the students.
• Teaching method (IB), roles of school counselors, and how lessons were conducted & what was being taught
• Class observation, guidance lesson by the ES counselor, and Q&A with the students
• How CA’s teaching philosophy differs from regular (Japanese) schools was interesting, but what was wonderful was how CA students were so lively and independent thinkers.
• The school system, how students were learning, how the classes were taught... everything I saw was interesting.
• Everything I saw was interesting; facilities, education system, classes, children…
• In Math 6 classroom, posters on the wall didn’t show math formulas but rather they showed thinking/learning processes. It was very interesting to see how getting a correct answer and/or providing knowledge wasn’t deemed important compared to how to approach problems.
• Giving students longer vacation and less homework seemed to elicit students’ interests in a variety of fields. Japanese kids are too busy with after-school activities (including cram school).  Giving kids free time will expand their dreams.

Q2. What do you think is the biggest difference between Japanese schools and Canadian Academy?

• ES students and SS students study in the same building on the same campus. It creates interactions between children of different age groups.
• There didn’t seem to be too many (strict) rules. I find it quite unique and interesting that an ES teacher came to pick up his/her students with coffee in one hand and popcorn in the other. It left a big impression on me.
• Layout of the classroom and other rooms
• How class is taught. In Japan the focus is always on “right or wrong” but at CA, the focus is on the thinking process and the reason behind the right or wrong answers. Even middle school students have a HR teacher.
• Freedom, independence, active learning. Children seemed to be enjoying learning and I found it impressive.
• What it means to “think.” The education method at CA, where students are thinking in a way that the word “think” truly means, is so different from that at Japanese schools, where they seem to have concluded that memorizing means thinking.
• Each child seemed to be responsible for his/her own studying,
• Teaching at CA is up to the teachers, which allows them to be driven by their passion. At Japanese schools, teachers can’t focus on the thinking process as much no matter how much he/she wanted to, due to the curriculum guideline.  Often times they get transferred, which makes it difficult for teachers to spend enough time with the same children.
• Lots of artistic and unique paintings were displayed on the wall. In some classes students were painting/drawing with music in the background. These put me under the impression that teachers had more freedom to create their own lessons. The big difference is, the school environment at CA seemed to be allowing teachers to teach class in a way he/she wanted.

Q3. What did you find unimportant or uninteresting?

• Everything was interesting. If anything, I wish I had more time to observe classes.
• Everything was so different compared to Japanese schools that I was blown away, but I hope to learn from what I saw today, even if it’s only one point.

Q4. Do you have any comments/ideas you’d like to share with us?

• It was interesting to see the students having various projects including Thai Kids Fundraiser. Thank you so much for having us today.
• Everything I saw today is quite useful. Thank you so much.
• Children at CA appeared to be quite expressive. They seemed to be learning the importance of word and perspective-taking, which left me a big impression.
• I would love to learn more about the materials used at CA or CA’s approach to creating curriculum. It will be great if such information is available to Japanese schools. Thank you for everything today. I learned so much.
• Thank you for the valuable learning opportunity.
• I wish I could learn a bit more about how exactly to evaluate students’ essays and how to utilize the results for the future learning . Thank you for the precious learning opportunity. (I am quite interested in Konosuke’s future. I would like to know how CA graduates turn out and what Japanese education fails to provide students by comparing CA graduates to regular high school graduates students in Japan.)
• Thank you for the valuable experience.
• It was great to hear about various things. I observed while comparing everything to how they are at Japanese schools. It was great that I could talk to the teacher in math class. I enjoyed talking with the students too.
• Do CA students have any interactions with Japanese public school students? Do you think CA students feel a gap between what they are used to and the social norms in Japanese society?  

Happy Fall Break!

Dear colleagues,

We would like to wish you all a wonderful fall break. Thank you all for making the first quarter a successful start of the school year 16-17. Also, it is worth recognizing the effort in using firm and kind language when working with the children, focusing on nudging rather than pushing, carefully considering how the brain works and learns, and of course creating those stack of texts and mentor kits.

It is going to be November very soon when we are back after the break. November will bring along many events including Food and Fun Fair, a parent evening on Learning Mathematics, Parent Coffee Mornings with Kim about Literacy and with Heikki about Personalizing Learning. We will have an ES assembly on the 22nd of November.

All faculty can finish the day at 1 pm today. Enjoy your break!

Welcome to the Elementary School New Teachers!

Please find the slide show for today here.

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

Thank you

Dear colleagues,

Thank you all for the professional, engaging and inspiring presentations during the Back to School Night! The aim of the night is to build a positive partnership with parents, inform about our educational values and practices as well as engage parents with their child's learning. We believe that the goal was met incredibly well and that the presentations provided the parents a clear and reassuring picture of their children's life at school.

Again, thank you for your preparation and hard work!

Thank you!

Thank you for setting up such a warm welcome to both the new and returning families. It was evident to the parents that they are bringing children to a school filled with caring and well-prepared teachers and assistants. We saw many happy and excited students and parents today. Well done everyone!