Stonehill Blogs

Recently two members of the PYP SSS Department, Ms. Kassandra Rieck (LS) and Ms. Madhavi Sindhe (EAL) attended a course online taught by Dr. Virginia Rojas, a world-renowned expert in language acquisition on the changing demography of international schools and its impact on teaching and learning with EAL students. read more about it here.

My experience at a two-day NEASC Visitor Training Workshop (Part 1) held at the International School of Hyderabad, facilitated by Darlene Fisher, the International Accreditation Leader (IAL) at NEASC.

Over the course of two inspiring days on the 8th and 9th of September, educators from diverse backgrounds gathered at Panyaden International School in Chiang Mai for the "Advancing Service Learning: From Ideas to Action" workshop led by the renowned Cathryn Berger Kaye, an international education consultant offering award-winning expertise in Service Learning and engaging teaching methods. 

A video blog on my experience at the Apple Education Leadership Summit Workshop held in New Delhi in August 2023.

Reflection on  the interactive MYP interdisciplinary learning and teaching online workshop.

The IBEN workshop- IB conducts this training for selected candidates to become IBEN workshop leaders.

Mental health concerns have been around for centuries but they are becoming more prevalent as general awareness of these needs spread and schools begin to train their staff on how to identify and support students needing help.

So what do we look out for?

Stonehill prides itself on not only being an IB school in name, but also in whole-heartedly subscribing to the IB philosophy of teaching. The IB identifies six ‘Approaches to Teaching’ that should be visible in all IB classrooms from P1 to D2. They are as follows....

Are you a high school student getting ready to take the SAT? Preparing for this important exam can be pretty intimidating, but there are steps you can take to make sure that you are as ready as possible. 

The future of education could see the integration of AI in many areas, such as personalised learning, automated grading, and intelligent tutoring systems. AI has the potential to transform education by making it more efficient, effective, and accessible to students worldwide.

While students and parents are usually the ones being given suggestions and advice on how to stay motivated, seize the year, create SMART goals, etc., here are five simple yet effective teaching tips to ensure our students love school. 

‘Literacy’ is no longer limited to reading and writing in a particular language. Our children communicate via digital tools and need to become digital citizens with a high level of competence in new literacies. They live in a multilingual world of social media posts, images and reels, and to be ‘literate’ in such a world requires education to help them safely and effectively interpret the linguistic and visual signs that they are exposed to.

While the preparation to get admitted to the best universities and first choice universities have begun for most of the students and families, it is still not too late for students who have not started the process.  

Here’s a guide to choosing the right subjects and the right curriculum.

The IB curriculum model for the MYP treats the ‘Arts’ as a subject group equivalent in value to all others. In order to adhere to this philosophical approach, we ensure that all students from Grade 6-8 receive as many hours of instruction in the arts as any other subject. Students in Grade 6-8 rotate through trimesters of Visual Art, Drama and Music each year so that they are exposed to as wide a range of artistic endeavours as possible.

If learning and physical school attendance become increasingly flexible for students, what happens to practical subjects like the arts and PE? How do teachers set up collaborative activities on campus if students don’t need to be there? Can you successfully learn a foreign language without regular human interaction?

There are multiple approaches to helping students develop an awareness of and commitment to social change. To start, it is important to recognise the importance of traditional ‘service’ activities in the local community.

While parents go through college websites taking notes on college and courses, counsellors and students around the world are busy sifting through resources to find the best-fit colleges. Starting early, planning well and keeping options open to fulfil your academic and life goals is crucial when preparing to study abroad.

With countless new ideas in education battling for attention and the evidence base flimsy, contested, and often politically biased in all areas, we need to rely on a clear vision of what it takes to lead an educational community in the twenty-first century.

Today, boarding schools are friendly and warm, with modern facilities for both studying and living.
The learning never stops in a boarding school environment. Lessons go beyond the walls of the classroom to include social skills and life skills like independence, self-confidence, acceptance of differences and more. 

Transitions are never easy - physically, mentally, and emotionally, not for adults and most definitely, not for young children. This is precisely why schools, at this time, need to focus on the mental health of their students.