The Tiger, 25th November, 2022
Head of School Message
Greetings!
Today is Professional Development day for our faculty.
Training on our professional days are carefully designed understanding the needs of our students in both the Primary and Secondary schools.
We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate and learn during our professional training days.
In our Primary School, our faculty will focus on continued discussions and training on mindfulness, student assessments, team planning, and design thinking using our makerspace lab. Secondary faculty will be reviewing the needs of our students with Student Support Services and working in divisional teams discussing student internal assessments, extended essays, and divisional planning.
Please take note that our PTA will be holding a Winter Coffee Morning on Friday, 2nd December. Depending on the weather, it will be held in either the Primary playground or in the Secondary Hall.
With warm regards,
Dr.Brian Brumsickle
Head of School
Whole School News
Congratulations Aditya!
Aditya, D1, took part in the Bangalore District Cycling Championship 2022 and won the silver medal! Aditya is selected for the state championships. Congratulations and we wish him the very best!
Congratulations Jaiveer!
Jaiveer, M3, participated in the Equestrian Premier League, held at Embassy International Riding School (EIRS), Bangalore, and placed second in the overall best rider, under 14, category. Congratulations Jaiveer!
Primary School
Assessment in the Primary School leads to Reporting to Parents
I have written a number of articles on assessment for the Tiger, the gathering of information on your child’s learning. My intent for this particular article is to show you in a graphic our schedule for Reporting to Parents. We report to Parents five times in an academic year.
The Three conferences are - Hopes and Dreams, The Learner Conference and a Learner-Led Conference.
New Parents have an additional Settling in Conference in around week five.
Primary News
Visual Arts With P5 Learners
In Visual Arts, our P5 learners are working within the transdisciplinary theme, “Where we are in Place and Time”, with the central idea, “Exploration leads to discoveries and develops new understanding”. We are focusing on what exploration looks like in art, and how artists explore different spaces and materials to gain inspiration.
Sharing the Planet
The P7 students are inquiring into peace and conflict resolution through a central idea, conservation questions human dependence on resources.
Eat To Live, or Live to Eat?
P7 & P8 Learning Support (LS)
Choices students make about what they eat are influenced by their culture and the context in which they live, and might send messages about who they are. Currently, the LS P7 & P8 students are finding out where their food comes from and how it is produced. By exploring how food is eaten and enjoyed around the world, they can take action to raise awareness about how they can take small steps to help tackle world hunger.
By investigating the contents of lunch boxes around the world, and analysing the layers in the Food Pyramid, students were able to determine the foods that provide the best nutrition. During this unit, students will reflect on being balanced learners by inquiring if the well-being of both their brains and their bodies depend on making balanced choices.
So far, we have completed a podcast detailing our findings. We hope you enjoy listening to our insights on healthy and balanced eating.
Our podcasts can be accessed via the display board outside the PYP Learning Support Room. Come visit us!
PYP Counsellor
Helpful Hints For Parents to Help Children Feel Safe
Establish routines
Children are creatures of habit and when they know what to expect, they tend to feel safe. Try following routines as much as possible. There will be those odd days when birthdays and sleep overs happen, and it’s okay to be thrown off a schedule for a bit but make sure to get back to routines your child is familiar with. Predictability helps children feel safe.
Spend time with your child
Being available for your child and having your child know that you want to spend time with them, is a true game changer if you notice your child getting angsty and worried. Of course, they will be spending a huge amount of time at school and you don’t want them to wriggle their way out of that. Therefore, spend enough time with them so they are prepared to let go when it’s time to leave for school, a field trip, etc.
Show them affection
We all have our own preferred love language; the way in which we feel most loved. Does your child feel most loved when you spend time with them doing something they enjoy, when you validate their feelings and praise them, when you shower them with cuddles and hugs, when you surprise them with little treats from time to time, or when you help them out with something? Speak love to your child in the way they best understand it.
Set and hold boundaries
Children, as we know, push boundaries all the time. They will see how far they can go in getting their way with you. Will they be able to throw a tantrum and tire you out? Will you give up and give in? This is when you need to be consistent with your expectations of them. Being consistent shows your child that you care for them.
Have fun together
Be silly together! Share light moments and laughs. Take on fun activities with no particular agenda. Enjoy being in your child’s company and allow them the delight of being in yours.
Neeti Sarkar
PYP Counsellor
Secondary School
This week we have been running our first week of D2 Mock Exams for our students. It’s been an intensive schedule for the D2s, as we have plenty of exam papers to get through, yet we don’t want to lose too many instructional days in the academic year. Seeing the exam hall set up for our students, however, often leaves me wondering.
With all the developments in technology and excitement about what education could be in the 21st century, is it really credible that students still sit in a large room at individual desks writing answers in pen on a paper-based exam with a strict time-limit and an inflexible mark scheme? Has nothing changed???
Unfortunately, the answer to this last question is ‘not much’.
Exams still serve as possibly the fairest, most reliable, efficient filter for selecting students to be rewarded with grades and university placements. They are easy to grade, standardisable, fairly quick and simple to run, and relatively consistent from year to year. It would take a lot of courage for any high-stakes educational system to give up these benefits.
The IB does at least take a fairly progressive attitude towards exams and many of the exam papers are quite creative in how they assess students’ competencies. The English students need to write a response to a previously unseen text (so no opportunities for memorisation), The Language exams include tasks for all four communication skills. The Economics and Business students respond to and use case studies.The History students have to analyse sources during exams and the Maths and Science students have to use their knowledge and skills to tackle questions that seem unfamiliar at first. This is a great deal more ‘progressive’ than the multiple choice content-based exams that traditional schools gave students, but it’s still a long way away from a more ‘real-world’ authentic form of assessment.
Despite these more innovative exam questions and papers, there are still huge chunks of the exam papers in all subjects that can be practised regularly in preparation for the exams, as we see the same kinds of questions come up every year. This is why schools still spend many weeks in every D2, having students complete practice exams; it's still the best way to prepare for the full exam session in May. This is what our D2 students have started doing this week.
The IB has already moved to an eAssessment approach in M5, utilising available technology to run some really innovative exams. They are also piloting allowing students to use computers for some exam papers in D2 this year; however, I think we are still some years away from the wholescale roll-out of such an approach. The D2 exam results determine where many students will go to university, and the IB is going to need to be very courageous when introducing computer-based exams to all DP students around the world.
For now, our best approach is to take a balanced approach between providing students with exciting opportunities to engage in authentic, creative assessment tasks during the school year, while also devoting enough time to exam practice and preparation so that we maximise our students’ academic potential in these fairly archaic assessment practices.
Joe Lumsden
Secondary School Principal
Secondary News
DP Economics
The D1 students visited AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company, facilitated by a parent who is the General Manager, India Operations. The students went on a production and a utility tour. On the production tour, they saw the hygiene conditions under which the medicines were packaged.
The students observed the quality control and lean management techniques adopted in pharmaceutical firms. After the tour, they were given an interactive classroom session on MNC operations in India, costing/pricing, R&D and government interactions. At the end of the tour, some students developed an interest to pursue a career in the pharma industry.
DP Humanities
MOSAIC 2022
The DP Humanities students hosted MOSAIC 2022, an inter school Humanities Fair and Competition that brought together aspiring students interested in Business, Economics, History, Geography, and Psychology from across the country. The MOSAIC team created a challenging and fun environment where students innovated, created and competed.
M1 Individuals and Societies
The M1 students started the academic year with the unit on Global Citizens. Discussions on various global issues created an active and engaging classroom. The students demonstrated critical and creative thinking skills while sharing ideas on burning issues like fast fashion, refugee crisis, conflict, and terrorism. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was thoroughly reviewed by looking at concrete cases of Human Rights violation. Furthermore, the class looked at Sustainable Development Goals and came up with ideas to resolve problems. The students showcased their learning with posters, cartoon strips, infographics and presentations.
M2 Individuals and SocietiesÂ
The M2 students started the unit on Globalisation. They explored the causes of Globalisation and studied its opportunities and challenges. They also studied how Globalisation affected languages, sports, the gaming industry, wildlife, agriculture and farming.
To further analyse how Globalisation is influenced by sustainability, sciences and profitability, the students had an integrated (I&S and Sciences) field trip to two farms next to our school. They interviewed local farmers on permaculture and organic farming methods. To interview the farmers, the students brainstormed and prepared inquiry based questions.
The students also investigated extinct languages, the impacts of online gaming using varied visible thinking routines and source evaluation tools including socratic seminars. To understand the role of transnational corporations, the students took part in a Decision making activity through real-life business scenarios, considering perspectives and ethical practices.
MYP Visual Arts
M2A and M3A completed a trimester of visual art and the students took great pride in setting up a display of their artwork. These are entirely student driven projects in terms of what they selected and how they wanted to display their work.
The M2 students’ visual art journey was through the exploration of figures, animals , buildings, fantasy and storytelling. They worked with drawing and painting, terra cotta clay as well as plaster of paris. The work includes both 2D and 3D forms. The highlight was to design and make masks out of plaster of paris.
Boarding News
It was another action packed weekend at our Boarding. Looking at the calendar, I sometimes wonder how we fit it all in!
On the 12th of November, Stonehill hosted the BAASC High School Boys’ Football and Middle School Basketball Tournaments. It was great to see so many of our boarding students compete in a series of football and basketball matches against schools like Canadian International School, Trio World Academy, Bangalore International School and Legacy School.
Congratulations to our football team for winning the tournament. After a tense game, the basketball team came second. Well done everyone!
Our boarders enjoy an outing every month and last weekend the M1-D2 boarders had a fantastic time at Orion Mall.
The Stonehill United Group organised team building activities such as a human caterpillar track, wooden ski race, cup stacking and more, for twenty-four Government school students on our campus. Samyak, D1, says ‘The students of the Stonehill Government School genuinely are a pleasure to be with, and my team and I are thrilled to meet them”. At the end of the session the students donated various stationery supplies.
A group of boarders and staff did a clean-up drive along the Hesaraghatta Lake area. An excellent initiative by the students and Ms. Shelley. As Sethulakshmi, said, “throughout the experience, I felt immense gratitude for being there to make a difference. The distinction between the before and after pictures were exhilarating. I believe that small changes can lead to significant results over time.”
Congratulations to one of our boarders, Jaiveer, M3, who came second (under 14 category) in the Equestrian Premier League held at Embassy International Riding School. A fantastic achievement and we are so proud of you!
Sixteen boarding students are representing Stonehill at the British International School, Phuket for the Soccer 7s football tournament this weekend. We wish them the best of luck!
The boarders are looking forward to the upcoming 25th-27th long weekend. The Boarding staff have planned an excursion to Mysore for the M1-M5 students. You can get some of the action on our twitter @Boarding SIS.
Up-to-date contact information
In a world of ever-changing mobile numbers and email addresses, it is vital that we have up-to-date information should we need to contact you urgently. If you have changed your address, phone number or email address and haven’t updated us, please email admissions@stonehill.in as soon as possible.
Have a wonderful week ahead!
Glen Johnson
Head of Boarding
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