The Tiger, 4th March, 2022

Last week, we started forming middle school teams for swimming, track and field, and five aside football.  It's great to see the students get out for after school activities again. 

I would really like to take this opportunity to emphasize the benefits sports play for our female athletes. Typically, we expect sports to be attractive for boys but this same expectation should not be lost on our girls.  I have coached both boys and girls on both the middle school and high school levels and can honestly say that the personal growth and satisfaction of playing on a sports team is greater from girls.  Not that the boys don't appreciate playing sports, but in my thirty plus years of coaching both abroad and in my time here at Stonehill I have seen this impact to be true.  So, let's have that conversation with our girls as well as our boys and get them out participating in swimming, track and field, and football.

Today is the first day of our After School Activities Programme scheduled to take place every Tuesday and Thursday.  The Primary will be exploring various activities of their own initiatives while remaining in their play bubbles to provide an extra level of safety.  Our Secondary has over twenty offerings, varying from technology, sports, and the arts.

John Bertken

Whole School Sports and Activities Coordinator

I have two suggestions for IB students today, and they both go hand in hand. My first suggestion is to learn how to love to learn. To be passionate about learning is what will make you the person you will be. It's what will prepare you for further studies and your future job. It’s incredibly hard to get accepted into your dream university, it’s hard to find a job, and it's even harder to find a job you are passionate about. So, try learning as much as you can, and especially try to love learning the things that you actually struggle with. 

To give you an example, I often find myself sitting at my desk sorting through numbers, it’s not my favourite thing to do, I actually find it quite hard. But knowing that I can learn how to do it makes me feel empowered, independent and gratified. 

My second suggestion is to be the best risk taker you can be. It is so important to stand out from the crowd today, to speak aloud and to speak about what your heart truly believes in. 

Good luck to everyone! 

Extended absences

If your child is going to be out of school for more than two days, please write to your child’s homeroom teacher and Karen (primaryprincipal@stonehill.in). We are not expecting you to ask permission for an extended absence but we are responsible for your child’s education - engagement = learning. We will try to keep this engagement going during this time.

Early Release

Any child leaving early, including 3.00 p.m on an ASA day, MUST come to the office to collect an early release pass from Nijika.  All children will be collected from the Primary office by their parent, driver or nanny.

Whilst we are on campus…

Please make sure your child is attending the campus as much as possible. We can do so much more in person and your child is learning so much more by being with their teachers and their friends.

What exactly are these tests and why are we doing them?

Families familiar with the US education system will know all about the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), which is still the main standardised test used during university applications for the United States. The PSAT is the Preliminary SAT and it is designed to give students an idea of their strengths and weaknesses before they take the real SAT, usually in D1. PSAT results can also be used to apply for National Merit Scholarships for US universities if the scores are high enough.

These tests are divided into two main sections: (1) Evidence-based reading and writing, and (2) Maths. Questions are multiple-choice and students get scores out of 1600 (SAT) or 1520 (PSAT). A score of around 1400 will place a student in the top 5% of global test-takers and will open up doors to the top universities.

Even if a student is not only applying to the US, getting a good score in a PSAT or SAT can be helpful when applying to universities in Europe, the UK or East Asia. It is also fairly clear that strong scores in these tests (or the MAP tests that we do twice a year) correlate well with IB Diploma scores, so students can get a better idea of likely performance in the DP.

At Stonehill, we need to make sure we find the right balance between our inquiry-based, creative, collaborative approach to teaching and learning, and helping students succeed in these standardised tests. We will never ‘teach to the test’, however, success in these tests depends on high levels of literacy and numeracy competence. This is where the overlap between an IB education and standardised test requirements takes place. All IB programmes are very language-intensive (particularly with writing expectations) and students develop strong literacy skills in all subjects; this should translate well to strong performance in the reading and writing sections of the (P)SAT. IB Maths expectations, particularly in Extended and Higher Level courses, are more difficult than SAT Maths, so students who are doing well in IB Maths should be fine in the Mathematics sections of the tests as well.

Ms. Praseeja will be using the individual PSAT scores to discuss future subject choices with our M3, M4 and M5 students so that we can maximise their academic potential based on available evidence. We will also be able to see how our students in general performed on each topic in the tests so that we can make adjustments to our curriculum if a clear pattern emerges in any section.

Joe Lumsden

Secondary School Principal

The M3 art class completed their Visual Arts trimester. The students did a practice curatorial exercise. They selected artworks from their own collection of work and  looked at ways to present their artwork for a mini art show.

Here's an excerpt from a creative written response to the above painting by Theo:

The moon was covered by looming grey clouds that creeped into the sky during the middle of the day. The clouds took over everything that was worth looking at, it covered the sun that made the sea sparkle, it took away the bright colours lining the trees. The fishermen at sea suffered from the darkness the clouds bathed them in. The waves shone a dirty green barely illuminated by the lighting leaking from the covered moon. Waves and clouds moving simultaneously in the wind, big rolling clouds, dark crashing waves that lapped at the worn out wooden planks of the boat. They floated the night away waiting for the morning so they could sell the fish, bringing the earnings back to their families which they so desperately longed to see. 

Here's Theo's art work inspired by the painting: 

Ranmali Hapugalle

MYP & DP Visual Arts Teacher

Sunav Thapa, one of our D1 boarding students participated a the virtual MUN competition hosted by Canadian International School, Bangalore on the 25th and 26th of February. Sunav was judged the best delegate for the Economic and Social Committee among five other participating schools. Well done!