Thoughts from the Chatsworth Primary Hallway

A look into Year 4...

For the next weeks, I will focus on each year level in my blog for you to enjoy a snapshot into their school life.  Year 4 has three extraordinary teachers; Mr Ben Drury, Ms Alison Crosby and Ms Carla Heard.  As their classrooms are across the Primary Office hallway, I am constantly seeing the year four students engaged in motivating and exciting learning.  The Year 4s are ending their "How we express ourselves" unit with an Arts Extravaganza.  With the help of our music teacher, Mr. Allan Marcelo and visual arts teacher Ms. Louise Johns, the students have been busy in many aspects of the arts that include music, poetry, theatre, painting, sculpture, dance and song.  Developing an appreciation of the arts is an important part of the PYP curriculum.  The Arts Extravaganza was a fine display of all the curriculum areas and the attributes of the learner profile coming together as the students work towards displaying their art form in a particular way.

Some of the students are tuning into the next Year 4  "Sharing the planet" unit of inquiry that takes a deeper look at sustainability. Students had the opportunity for the first time to Skype with marine biologist and explorer Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop. The students had fantastic questions and gained a lot from his expertise.

Enjoy these snaps!

Mario Gauci
Head of Primary

From the PYP Coordinator

The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme has five fundamental curriculum aspects to it. These are called the five essential elements. These are the essential building blocks of the programme.

The first is Knowledge. This is of course the actual content of the programme, what is it that we are looking to teach in our school through the units of inquiry? What is it that we want students to know about?

Next is Concepts. The PYP isn’t a topic curriculum, it is concept driven. The PYP curriculum is structured around important concepts that drive the inquiry going on in our classrooms.

Third is Skills. This can be expressed in the question, “what do we want students to be able to do?” These are trans-disciplinary skills that support the search for understanding.

Fourth is Attitudes. “What do we want students to feel, value and demonstrate?” The PYP isn’t just about developing the academics, it also strives to develop the child as person.

Last is Action. The PYP tries to encourage students to look beyond the classroom and to develop the desire to take independent action based on what they have been inquiring about in school.

We will look at each of these in turn in more detail through later posts.

Alex Inman
PYP Coordinator

Week 21 of Primary Weekly Correspondence

Here is the following correspondence from Primary Office this week;

Primary Correspondence

• February Lunch Menu 2015

• Thank you for signing up again this term for CCAs using our online system. As always, we value the feedback we have received and will continue to enhance and improve the online signups. We appreciate your patience and understanding through this process.
  
  
  Please note, the CCA signups are now officially closed and we will not be making any more changes to the registrations. However, if you need to speak to us regarding your child's CCA or registration, we are always available via email at lhebert@chatsworth.com.sg and rnewberry@chatsworth.com.sg respectively.

• Parent Cafe 2nd February 2015(5D) The Learner Profile and House System

• Please take a few minutes to complete this survey for us - Parent Survey. It helps us to understand how you feel about the school and assists us in areas of strength and areas needing particular attention.
  
  

Malissa Rahman

Primary Admin

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Thoughts from the Chatsworth Primary Hallway

"Each language is a unique expression of human creativity."

-- K. David Harrison

A few years ago I was fortunate to meet Mr. K. David Harrison while I was working for the IB Asia Pacific office. David is a linguist, author and activist for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages and affiliated with the National Geographic Society. He co-starred in Ironbound Films' Emmy-nominated 2008 documentary film The Linguists and served as director of research for the non-profit Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. I have followed David's movements throughout the world as he traces endangered languages. My hope is that he reaches the last speakers in time to record and keep some of these languages alive.  The loss of local languages means the loss of cultural systems and diverse intellectual wealth (Hale 1992).  Thus, I have learned from David's work the importance of keeping our mother tongue languages, our local languages alive for future generations.

As an IB school, all teachers at Chatsworth are language teachers.  We either teach a language or teach through a language, all the while demonstrating the need to communicate through language. We appreciate the diversity of language and the importance of using and developing mother tongue languages.  The hallways and classrooms at Chatsworth are filled with the sounds of English, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Spanish, Mandarin and many other languages that allow students to make sense of concepts they are learning.  This week we are celebrating the Chatsworth Language Festival where languages are celebrated in one form or another.  Thank you to all who have organized and participated in these activities, modeling to our students the incredible diversity of language.

Enjoy this week's photos:

Mario Gauci

Head of Primary

From the PYP Coordinator

Around the school and in all the classrooms you will see a set of words describing personality attributes. They are the same words in all the classrooms and together they represent what is called the IB learner profile. This represents the profile of an International Baccalaureate graduating student. It is a common set of values, developed in all three IB programmes (PYP, MYP, DP), that transcend international boundaries and help develop internationally minded people.

“The IB learner profile represents 10 attributes valued by IB World Schools. We believe these attributes, and others like them, can help individuals and groups become responsible members of local, national and global communities.” 
International Baccalaureate 2015

The attributes that make up the learner profile are Inquirer, Knowledgeable, Thinker, Communicator, Principled, Open- Minded, Caring, Risk-Takers, Balanced, Reflective.

We don't have lessons that are specifically designed to teach the learner profile, rather exploiting learning opportunities built into the units of inquiry where it makes sense to do so, avoiding artificial or forced connections. It may even be as simple as using or modelling the attributes around the school. An easy example would be commending a child for being caring when looking after a new student, or for a quiet child being a risk-taker when speaking during a whole school assembly.

We will be having a Parent Cafe on the 2nd February at 9.00am on the theme of the learner profile, so come along for more information.

It isn’t the responsibility of just the students, we ask that all members of the school community model the learner profile attributes….do you?

Alex Inman
PYP Coordinator

Week 20 of Primary Weekly Correspondence

Here is the following correspondence from Primary Office this week;

Primary Correspondence

Please take a few minutes to complete this survey for us - Parent Survey. It helps us to understand how you feel about the school and assists us in areas of strength and areas needing particular attention.

We enjoy seeing children playing after school with their friends before they go home. Please note that the playground/astro turf  is not supervised by teachers from 3.30pm onwards. In the interest of safety, all primary children playing on the playground/astro turf at this time will require your supervision.

CCA update:

From after school today, the CCA Online System will start to generate emails to confirm the students choices. The system can take up to 48h to email the entire community (separate emails for siblings). Please email me at lhebert@chatsworth.com.sg or Mr. Newberry at rnewberry@chatsworth.com.sg  if you have not receive any confirmation by Monday morning.

Due to lack of registration, Ultimate Frisbee CCA on Fridays after school will be cancelled.

ECA update:

All ECAs will start from next week onwards. Please directly contact the providers for any further questions.

Due to lack of registration, Little Mandarin and Jump Rope ECAs will be cancelled.

All CCAs/ECAs details are located on the Activities and Clubs board in block 3.

Chatsworth Calendar 2015-2016
New Year School Photo Sale
Orchard Campus School Fair 2015
Future of IGCSE at Chatsworth Secondary
Parent Cafe 2nd February 2015(5D) The Learner Profile and House System

Malissa Rahman

Primary Admin

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Thoughts from the Chatsworth Primary Hallway

If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow. - 

John Dewey 

A warm welcome to all of the new students and their parents to the Chatsworth International School. I also welcome our new Year 1 teacher, MsTamara Serong.

Returning to Chatsworth after ten days of recruiting teachers for the 2015-2016 school year, I was greeted with smiling children, teachers and parents! What a great way to start my second semester off.  Lots of excitement is in the air especially when friends meet after a vacation break, catching up on news and events.  Everyone has a story to tell and how wonderful it is to hear those stories. We met some great teachers in Melbourne and Bangkok, and choosing the very best to join our already strong staff was tricky.  We not only selected the best teachers, but selected those who would compliment our Chatsworth community. I think you will be pleased.

Your feedback is crucial to us because we use this feedback to improve our processes at Chatsworth. Some of the changes since August 2014 have been because of your feedback. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey for us - Parent Survey - It helps us to understand how you feel about the school and assists us in areas of strength and areas needing particular attention. Thanks!

Enjoy the pictures of happy students and teachers!

Mario Gauci

Head of Primary

From the PYP Coordinator

Students living and studying abroad have a very special and often unique opportunity. To be able to interact and form friendships with children from different cultures and backgrounds, sometimes very different from their own and to be able to understand which values are important to them. As the International Baccalaureate puts it in their mission statement, "that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” The students have a wonderful opportunity to look at, experience and see the world from a perspective outside of their home countries boundaries. 

One of the most important beliefs and values of the Primary Years Programme is that of international mindedness. The International Baccalaureate is after all an organization which develops international educational programmes for students in an international context. It is very hard to actually define what international mindedness actually is, but here at Chatsworth we hope to be able to instil a set of values and understanding that develops internationalism and international mindedness though the skills and the attitudes developed in our units of inquiry and through the attributes of the IB learner profile which you will see around the school. And of course developing those lifelong friendships and relationships with students from all around the world.

Alex Inman
PYP Coordinator

Week 19 of Primary Weekly Correspondence

Here is the following correspondence from Primary Office this week;

Primary Correspondence

• Please be informed that on Friday of our Language Festival Week, the 23rd, to showcase the diversity of languages we celebrate at Chatsworth, students are encouraged to come to school wearing plain white tee-shirts that will be used for writing on and their PE shorts. Students will be writing friendly messages in their mother tongues on their friends'' tee-shirts.

  
  

  Thank you very much for providing the white tee-shirt to be used in the activity.
  
  

Language Festival Week 19 - 23 January 2015

Language Festival Week Schedule

• Please take a few minutes to complete this survey for us  - Parent Survey 

• About Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs):
  We wish to remind you that last Wednesday, on the 14th at 7pm, we closed the Session 2 Online CCAs registration form. Students Confirmation emails will be sent to parents by Friday 23rd January at the latest.
  
  
  About External Curricular Activities (ECAs):
  Please note your have until Tuesday 20th January to register your child-ren in our ECAs. All registrations are done directly with our Providers. All information can be found on our website here.
  
  
  All Session 2 CCAs and ECAs will start on Monday 26th January and end on Friday 13th march 2015.
  
  
  For any further queries, please email me at lhebert@chatsworth.com.sg or Mr. Newberry at rnewberry@chatsworth.com.sg
  
  

• Netball Trials and Training year 5 and 6  starts Tuesdays 3.30 - 4.30pm  

• Year 6 - IBMYP Information Sessions Year 2014-15 (coffee mornings)

Malissa Rahman

Primary Admin

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From the PYP Coordinator

A warm welcome to all our new parents who have joined the school for the start of semester 2 - welcome to Chatsworth! (And welcome back all our existing parents of course!) Our primary school uses the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP). This is a very widely used educational programme around the world in many international schools. It's the first of three programmes from the IB, the others being the Middle Years Programme and then for the final two years of school the Diploma Programme which has world-wide recognition by universities as a high quality qualification for entry into degree programmes. Here at Chatsworth we use all three programmes so you can have the continuity of a high quality IB education.  

You can find some more information on the IB website

The PYP is an inquiry based programme, so if your family background is from a national state school then this will differ somewhat. We put much more emphasis on your child thinking, investigating, questioning and developing as a whole person. We aim to give them a much more international outlook and bringing into the classroom their prior knowledge and experiences, building on this in the units of inquiry they will be inquiring into.

In this blog you will be able to read in more detail about the aspects and components of the Primary Years Programme to gain more of an understanding of Chatsworth and the PYP and how it may differ from your previous educational experiences. Please also have a look at our Parent Cafe calendar here - a series of informal meetings where we will give talks about our school programme and you can have a chance to ask any questions you may have. Look forward to seeing you there!

Alex Inman

Week 18 of Primary Weekly Correspondence

Here is the following correspondence from Primary Office this week;

Primary Correspondence 

• Our next House Day is Friday January 16. We encourage all students to wear their house t-shirts on this day. The JYP event will be Human Rock Paper Scissors. The EYP event will be Simon Says (due to being rained out last month). We look forward to another great House Day!

• Parent Cafes 2014 - 2015

Primary Office(Malissa Rahman)
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