The Tiger, 14th October, 2022
Head of School Message
Dear Stonehill Community,
Namaste!
It gives me great pleasure to wish our Stonehill community wonderful Diwali celebrations. The Diwali break is from 24th - 31st October. Tuesday, 1st November is also a holiday due to Karnataka Rajyotsava.
We will resume classes on the 2nd of November.
Mr. Jitu Virwani, Founder, Stonehill International School, and his wife, Lina Virwani, are hosting their Diwali Party at Stonehill, this Saturday, at 7 pm.
The Invitation is strictly for parents, staff, and faculty. I look forward to seeing you there. It will be a lovely evening of celebration.
Our wonderful PTA organised a Pinktober fundraiser in support of the global Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. The Stonehill community came together and showed they cared in various shades of pink!
As we get ready to pause for our Diwali break, I’d like to remind our community that the focus and heart of what we strive for at Stonehill is to fulfil and live our mission as we are indeed a mission driven school. Our mission can be seen throughout our School which is, “to provide stimulating, engaging academics integrated with enhanced opportunities for technological innovation, sports, and the arts.”
What makes Stonehill such a unique international school, is the nurturing environment we offer in which our students feel safe in a positive, supportive learning environment where their ideas are valued and respected. This is the “Stonehill Way”!
As a reminder, if you have any non-academic related questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us at parent.support@stonehill.in. We will respond to your queries and in a timely manner.
I look forward to seeing you all at the upcoming Diwali events here on campus.
Best wishes,
Dr. Brian Brumsickle
Head of School
Whole School News
PTA Diwali Mela 2022
The PTA warmly invites you all to the annual Diwali Mela on the 21st of October 2022. It will be a festive day of celebrations with cultural performances from the entire Stonehill community. There will be various stalls ranging from food, jewellery, clothing, artefacts to handmade accessories!
We hope to see you all there!
Reminder - Leaving Students Notice
Dear Parents,
To continue providing the best educational programmes, we need to have a good idea of class sizes throughout the academic year. To help achieve this, we request families who may leave during this semester, to notify the Admissions Department by email at: admissions@stonehill.in
This notification should be initiated two months prior to the last date of attendance of the student. If the notification is less than two months prior to the last date of attendance, US$ 300 will be withheld from the refundable security deposit as a late notice fee, in accordance with our Fee Policy.
The last day of the first semester is 31st January 2023.
We thank you for your support.
Admissions and Business Offices
Primary School
The Learner in the PYP
The PYP summarises the learner as having voice, choice and ownership, meaning they have the necessary agency to ensure the relationship between the learner and teacher is a partnership and not a hierarchy.
This self-efficacy brings a greater strength to the learning community. In turn the community supports agency and fosters self-efficacy.
Learner Conferences - 20th October
Please remember to sign-up for a conference regarding your child’s learning over the quarter. This is a time where you discuss your child’s attainment of the goals set during Hopes and Dreams. Nijika sent the sign-up link on Monday, 10th October. Please contact her should you need support.
A time of giving and receiving - and a whole lot of sweet food
Diwali is quickly approaching. It is a wonderful celebration of good over evil and one of the festivals of light along with Hanukkah and Christmas. It is a time of thinking about others, buying and receiving gifts and a time to spend with loved ones.
It is also a time where we eat a lot of sweet food which as we know spikes immediate energy in our bodies but the side effects are damning . It's literally a lack of energy as it has been burned up. This crash can cause serious problems, especially with young children. Basically, no brain space for learning. Please make sure all snacks that are sent to school are healthy with little or no sugar, to ensure children have a constant supply of energy for learning. Thank you
LOST and FOUND
Our cupboard is nearly full of clothing, hats and water bottles. Mostly they are unnamed. PLEASE put your child’s name on their clothes, water bottles and hats. The contents of the cupboard will be shared with all the grades before the Diwali break. Children may reclaim their belongings at this time. Remaining items will be donated during the break.
Have a wonderful week,
Karen Crooke
Primary School Principal
Primary News
Author’s Chair
Learning to Read
P1 and P2
This year, we have a lively, enthusiastic and curious minded group of learners who are extremely excited about being at school. Within four weeks into the new academic year, they had begun to settle in well. We are now at the stage where our young learners have formed trusting relationships with their teachers and stronger connections with both their teachers and peers. They have established a personal sense of belonging at school and in their classrooms. You will often hear them proudly say “This is my school or this is my class” so as to say that this is my space where I can be me. We have seen their natural strengths in inquiry and exploration flow and grow each day.
This became apparent as we progressed through the first Unit of Inquiry where we unpacked key elements that encouraged them to develop a strong sense of belonging in their new learning environment. Having a space and a variety of resources they could call their own as well as a learning community to engage with. They were naturally excited to engage in social play with each other, taking opportunities to practise some of our Learner Profile attributes of being Caring, Communicators and Principled - making the right choices. All of which lead to growing the skills they need to move from individual to collaborative play. Here are some pictures showing our youngest learners growing their friendships.
The P1 and P2 Team
PYP Coordinator
The four dimensions of PYP assessment
The word ASSESS comes from the Latin word ASSIDERE, which means to sit beside. Literally, to assess means to “sit beside the learner”. The quote from Maria Montessori sums it up well, ‘We should be prepared to serve the children as a servant, to observe carefully as a scientist and to love and care as a saint.’
At Stonehill we believe that:
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Assessment is an ongoing process of gathering, analysing, reflecting and acting on evidence of student learning to inform teaching.
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Both learners and teachers are continually asking themselves the questions “Am I making progress? How do I know?” They gather evidence of learning to answer these questions.
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Assessment involves teachers and learners collaborating to monitor, document, measure, report and adjust learning.
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Learners actively engage in assessing and reflecting on their learning, acting on feedback from peers and teachers to look forward to the next steps in learning.
Analysing learning
Teachers at Stonehill use multiple data points to evaluate student progress. The PYP supports collaborative analysis of data undertaken for individual learners, student cohorts and across the school to identify patterns and trends in student learning. The outcome of this analysis informs and guides decisions about learning and teaching. It is necessary to have a shared understanding of what quality and success looks like for diverse learners before, during and after learning. The photos show Stonehill PYP teachers participating in professional discussions while analysing students' writing samples.
PYP assessment has four dimensions; monitoring, documenting, measuring and reporting on learning. Although the four dimensions of assessment are not weighted the same, each dimension has its own importance and value. The PYP chooses to put emphasis on monitoring and documenting learning as these dimensions are critical in providing actionable feedback for the learner.
Monitoring learning
Monitoring learning aims to check the progress of learning against personal learning goals and success criteria. It is an ongoing daily process through a variety of strategies; observation, questioning, reflection, discussing learning with peers and teachers, and well-considered feedback to feed forward for next steps in learning.
Documenting learning
Documenting learning is the compilation of the evidence of learning. Documentation can be physical or digital and can be displayed or recorded in a variety of media forms. Documentation of learning is shared with others to make learning visible and apparent. One of the ways we document learning at Stonehill is through the Toddle platform.
Measuring learning
Measuring learning aims to capture what a student has learned at a particular point in time. Not all learning can, or needs to be, measured. Some examples of the measurement tools at Stonehill are MAP and WIDA assessments which are used in combination with Stonehill’s own ongoing assessments to provide data to support a larger picture of student achievement and progress.
Reporting on learning
Reporting on learning informs the learner and the learning community by reflecting on the question “How well are we doing?” It describes the progress and achievement of the students’ learning, identifies areas for growth and the next steps.
Zita Joyce
PYP Coordinator
PYP Counsellor
Helpful Hints to Teach Kids to be Upstanders
In the U.S., Anti-Bullying Month is observed annually in October. However, any time of the year is a good time to address bullying. As a parent, there will be times your children might mention that they or someone else “is getting bullied”. What do you do then? Also, do you have to wait for them to face a situation before you initiate a conversation about bullying? Absolutely not!
Here are some ways to teach your kids to be upstanders, and not bystanders:
Teach them to use the right terminology
The word ‘bullying’ is often used loosely by kids. It’s important children are able to tell when someone has been rude, mean, or has in fact bullied them/someone else. When someone is rude, they are inadvertently saying or doing something that hurts someone else. Being mean involves purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone once/twice. Bullying is intentionally, aggressive behaviour, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power.
Encourage them to be upstanders and includers
Our kids need to know that they could and should speak up even if they are not the victim but someone else is.
It’s okay to say ‘No’ or ‘Stop’ on behalf of someone who is unable to stand up for themselves.Teach your child what they could say and do to a child being bullied. Also, encourage them to be includers when it comes to games and play.
Teach them to speak up
Let your kids know that it’s okay to say ‘No’ or ‘Stop’ when they feel unsafe or uncomfortable. They need to know that their voice matters. Act out what it might look like to speak up if exposed to bullying so your child has the vocabulary and the courage to say something if they encounter bullying.
Let them know they’re not tattling when they report bullying
Often kids don’t report bullying because they think they will lose friends or might be labelled as a tattle-tale/tiddle-tat. Encourage them to solve “small problems”/conflicts using Kelso’s choices. But make sure they know that bullying is a “big problem” and must be reported to a trusted adult immediately.
Ensure they have and know members of their safety network
Children need to know they should talk to a trusted adult if they/someone else is being bullied. Their safety network at school would include their teachers, principal, and the school counsellor.
You could write to me if you need more support in this area: neeti.sarkar@stonehill.in
Neeti Sarkar
PYP Counsellor
Secondary School
Grading: What it looks like in the MYP and DP
As we approach the first interim reports for the year, it’s useful at this time to go over how typical assessment practices work in the MYP and DP. This may help you ask pertinent questions during Parent-Teacher Conferences in November.
Grades are not an ‘average’ of all tasks to date - it’s more student-friendly than that
In many schools, the results from all assessment tasks will be included in an ‘average’ grade at the end of the term or semester. That’s not how MYP or DP work. Instead, the students complete a number of assessments throughout the year in each subject, each of which are graded using MYP Criteria (out of 8) or a DP Grading Scale (out of 7). Ideally, the students would improve their scores throughout the year although some students’ scores do start to drop as the units become more difficult.
When a teacher writes a report for a student, we ask them to look at the ‘level of achievement that the student is consistently achieving now’. This means that if a student struggled at the beginning of the year but is doing well now, they will be rewarded with a grade based on their most recent scores. Nobody is punished by earlier poor assessment tasks dragging down an ‘average’ score.
This approach to grading is easier in subjects in which there are regular assessments. It’s more difficult in subjects that are based on long-term projects such as Arts or Design. Very often, there will be only one or two scores to base judgments on in these subjects for a semester, as each task often takes a month to complete.
So, the scores you are seeing on your child’s report card are the scores that they are consistently achieving in the most recent tasks. Not all scores on ManageBac count.
To calculate MYP or DP grades, teachers must use MYP criteria or DP grading rubrics. Very often, however, teachers will also run quicker formative assessments using other grading methods (tests out of 100, written feedback only, etc). You may see some of these pop up on ManageBac. They are designed as quick progress checks, comments on rough drafts of bigger projects, etc, and shouldn’t play a major role in decisions about grades during report writing.
Missed Work Hurts Grades
Teachers are usually as flexible as possible when students miss deadlines or tests, especially if there are genuine reasons given. However, at times, particularly when we see patterns of behaviour, scores of 0 have to be awarded for missed work. This will bring down a student’s score for that subject. In such cases, the final grade for a student is not necessarily a reflection of their ability - it’s more a consequence of their attitude. The reason we do this is out of fairness to all of the students who are making the required effort to meet the deadlines set.
Subjectivity, Accuracy and Patterns
Ultimately, there are so many variables that impact a grade that a student receives (in every assessment system, not just the IB) that complete accuracy is an unrealistic aim in education. Instead, you should be looking for broad patterns of achievement. Rather than focusing on individual task scores, look at what scores your child is receiving in general - 7’s and 8’s? 5’s and 6’s? As the year progresses, the pattern should become clearer on ManageBac with more assessment data.
If you still don’t have access to ManageBac as a parent, please contact us so that we can resend your log-in details. We don’t expect parents to check every assignment that their child submits; however, it is good to log-in once every few weeks to get a broad overview of how things are going.
Joe Lumsden
Deputy HoS & Secondary School Principal
Secondary News
The English Language and Literature students have been building connections with their peers while being engaged in various tasks, developing subject-specific and creative skills.
The M3 students explored works by the American street photographer Vivian Maier, considering her choice of subjects, composition and colour, building skills in analysing visual texts. The students were asked to click pictures around the campus using some of Maier’s techniques. They wrote a creative piece to accompany these photos to express the ideas in the photos.
This was a good opportunity for the students to build analytical skills as well as fluency in writing. They enjoyed exercising their creativity while working with their classmates.
In another effort to develop written fluency, the M3 students have been experimenting with writing different genres, including Flash Fiction. In one exercise, the students were given a “fifty word story challenge”, based on a prompt provided by the teacher. After some initial protest (“but how is it possible to write a story in fifty words!?”) the students wrote responses based on the prompt “add pickles and tomatoes”. They enjoyed completing this challenge.
The M5 students have been working on a delightful activity called “This Just In!” as part of their current unit on satire, “Is it a Joke or an Insult?”. After studying multiple examples of satire, including Jonathan Swift’s, “A Modest Proposal”, the students created and presented original news broadcasts on current issues, in a satirical manner. Through this activity, they learnt more about the techniques of satire and how satire can act as a powerful vehicle to communicate a message. The presentations were highly amusing!
Over the last few weeks, the M4 students engaged in the unit, “How does Poetry Portray Our Identities?”. The students have been reading poems that portray themes of coming of age as well as honing their skills in poetry analysis. As a Service Learning Project, the students interviewed members of our support staff, asking questions which linked to the themes of the poems they studied. Following the interviews, the students were tasked with writing original poems based on the experiences of the interviewees, which will be publicly displayed to “introduce” these community members to the student population. We are hoping that the students will be able to see links between the poems they have read and real human experiences, as well as learn more about our Stonehill community.
Under the Stone is back!
The students have relaunched Under the Stone, a news magazine by and for the students.The first edition will be released on the 1st of November.
In the meantime, please have a look at the group’s Instagram page for more information on the writers, their roles and their plans for this endeavour.
Kailash Mani
HoD - Language & Literature, MYP & DP English A & PSD
Secondary Student Support Services
What is Learning Support? Learning Support is about removing barriers. It is the resources, strategies and practices that provide physical, social, emotional and intellectual support. The Learning Support department at Stonehill facilitates the inclusion process by providing both push-in and pull-out support for our students with additional learning needs.
They support students that may or may not have specific learning disorders such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, attention deficit disorder, autism and many others. They also provide support to students who may need just a little extra help here and there with various subjects. The Learning Support department intends to enable all pupils to have an equal opportunity for success at School by addressing barriers to and promoting engagement in teaching and learning.
Our Learning Support teachers in MYP include Ms. Shuba Thomas and Ms. Vandana Choudhari. In the Diploma Programme, our students work with Mr. Jeremy Jensen. Together, they provide assistance to students with a wide range of needs in the classroom. This may include working with small groups of students in Maths, Science or English to more intensive one-to-one support for students who might require support beyond the mainstream classroom.
Our Learning Support Team also offers support with time management, organisational skills, goal setting, exam preparation, student wellbeing and much more to ensure our students are ready for their classes and can achieve their goals. They are also able to provide accommodations for students with appropriate documentation that may need special arrangements in exams.
Our students are not defined by labels. The main goal and purpose of our Learning Support team is to provide access to the curriculum and mainstream classes for all students regardless of their abilities. We want to see that all students can come to school happy, knowing that we are here to provide the support they need to reach their full potential and be successful in the classroom.
If you would like more information on our services, please contact: amanda.dayal@stonehill.in
Amanda Dayal
Whole School Head of Student Support Services
Boarding News
It is so incredibly pleasing when an idea pays off. It is even more pleasing when the idea has come from a student. Samyak, D1 boarder, thought of starting an initiative called ‘Stonehill United’. Samyak had written a proposal for Stonehill boarders to work collaboratively with the Stonehill Government School students on weekends.
This initiative allows students of the Stonehill Government School to experience and enjoy the facilities at our School. Furthermore, it is a great learning opportunity for students from both schools as they explore and learn more about culture and community spirit. Thank you, Samyak and to all the students who signed up for starting this excellent initiative.
Weekend Activities
The Macramé Club meets every Friday evening and the students have learnt very quickly and are taking their creative skills to the next level.
Learning to swim is an essential life skill, potentially life-saving and a fun way to stay fit. Swim lessons for M1 and M2 have begun. It’s a joy to see our boarders enjoying the badminton and basketball training every evening.
Contact Details
To ensure we have the correct information on the School database, please let us know of any changes to your contact details such as mobile numbers, email addresses and
guardian information. Formal changes should be notified in writing to the following email addresses: admissions@stonehill.in and headofboarding@stonehill.in. We are unable to action requests through phone calls.
Upcoming School/Boarding events this week:
- Saturday,15th October-Intra Boarding Basketball Tournament
- Thursday,20th October-Boarders Talent Show
- Friday,21st October-PTA Diwali Mela
Enjoy your weekend and best wishes for Diwali!
Glen Johnson
Head of Boarding
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