The Tiger, May 12th 2023
Head of School Message
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Tiger. As we wind down our academic year these next few weeks, paying close attention to events and important dates will be important for our students and parent community.
This week, we have had excitement on our campus with our Primary School activities.
Our Primary School students presented their research and findings at the PE Showcases and displayed their artwork at the Art Exhibition. They delivered articulate and wonderful presentations. A big thank you to our parents who came in to support our learners.
End-of-the-year assessments continue to be of focus for the MYP with their E-assessments and the IB exams continue for our DP students.
Congratulations to our D2 students who will be graduating on the 20th of May. This will be our 12th batch of graduating students. I look forward to the ceremony. Congratulations to our students, parents and faculty.
Dr.Brian Brumsickle
Head of School
Whole School News
Primary School
May is a tough month in Primary School. There is still one unit of inquiry to finish along with the related literacy and mathematics expectations - and they’re not done until the last day of school.
Children are tired - they are literally wearing out - or running out of puff! The end of the year is so close but learning needs to be accomplished. Please help us by ensuring your child exercises, eats healthily and gets at least eight hours of sleep per night.
We will continue to provide differentiated instruction that keeps them motivated. We will continue to hold them to the expectations we set on day one of the school year. We will nurture and support them emotionally and socially all the way through to the end of the academic year.
We’re in this together - thank you for your support.
The Art Exhibition
If you came to enjoy our Art Exhibition this week you were rewarded with a treat. Work from every child in the Primary School was on display. To add to this, the varying opportunities our learners have every week was on display. Alexandra and Akshaya did a wonderful job of putting it together - thank you both.
PE Showcases
The PE Showcases also happened this week. Parents came in to watch and participate in a PE lesson. I watched some very exciting games and experiences take place along with some parents who had just as much fun as their children! Thank you for being great sports!
Leaving teachers
Every year we say goodbye to teachers who are moving on to new locales and/or new adventures. This year is no different. We wish them well and look forward to hearing their news.
Goodbye to Adriaan, Carmen, Bibina, Monica and Akshaya. Thank you for everything you have done for us. Thank you for bringing light, love and great learning to our school. We will miss you!
Some dates to remember…
22nd - 26th May
Swimming Spectaculars!
Please come to your child’s swimming lesson during this week. You can watch the lesson and respond to the progress they have made over the year.
2nd June
End of Semester 2 Reports available to Parents
8th June
Last day of school for students
Traditionally an early finish - more information when we have it.
Have a lovely fortnight,
Karen Crooke
Primary School Principal
PYP Counsellor
Helpful Hints For Embedding Social and Emotional Learning in Everyday Life
Practise active listening
We all lead such busy lives but one of the most important things children really want is for their parents to see them and listen to them. Yes, the narration of the dream they had last night seems like it may never end. But when they see you using your whole body to listen, children not just feel seen, heard, and loved, but they are also able to practise active listening themselves.
Encourage self-expression
Bring out the paints and the play doh, the craft material or get onto the sandpit with your children. Jam together and make some music, perhaps even write a song together. This can serve as a safe outlet for your child’s thoughts and emotions. It helps them build self-confidence and even develop problem solving skills. Practising mindfulness daily is another way to help your child process their thoughts and feelings effectively.
Nurture positive relationships
The summer vacation is a great time to get together with friends and family where kids too have opportunities to socialise and build relationships with others. Some parents might prefer to have their children take up a hobby or activity (art, sport, music, etc) that may also help children develop a growth mindset, make and maintain friendships, work through conflict, etc.
Make time for connection
Spending quality time as a family can help your child feel more connected to you. This can be achieved through family cookouts in the backyard, game nights, and a host of other not-so-difficult-to-put-together activities. When children feel connected to their parents, they are more likely to trust them, open up to them, and take feedback well.
Model positive social behaviours
Want your kids to be more kind, caring, and empathetic? Lead by example and show your children how you manage your emotions effectively. Let them see you communicate your needs clearly and respectfully. Show empathy if you want them to demonstrate empathy too. Children are more likely to internalise these behaviours when they see their parents exhibiting them.
Neeti Sarkar
PYP Counsellor
Primary News
P6: Sharing the Planet
Central Idea: Human interaction with natural resources causes changes on Earth.
Lines of inquiry:
- Ways people use natural resources
- Environmental changes impact life on Earth
- Human response to the Earth’s changes
Key Concepts: Change, Causation, Responsibility
The P6 students are learning about how, ‘Human interaction with natural resources causes changes on Earth’. This goes beyond the commonly talked about (but, also important) deforestation, animal extinction, and plastic pollution.
We launched this unit with a visit to the roofs of Stonehill. Mr. Praveen took us on a tour of Stonehill’s solar panels and helped us understand how Stonehill is powered. Stonehill gets power from three sources; BESCOM, Solar, and Diesel. How do these differ? What effects do they have on the environment? What’s our role in all of this?
It was time for a reality check. The thought-provoking videos by Prince Ea (Dear Future Generations: Sorry and His Epic Message Will Make You Want to Save the World helped us brainstorm the issues deeper. Global warming, is at the centre of it all.
What are the causes it? What are the effects? How can we prevent it? What should we promote to fix it?
The students went on a Gallery Walk throughout the P6 Rooms and tried to answer these questions. Images of oil-covered birds, smoke-spewing factories, stranded polar bears, creative composting, and solar-powered houses were among the many. The scale of Global Warming started to broaden.
Deeper discussions ensued. A great video about Global Climate Change, from Brainpop helped spread the topic out for us a little more. We made a giant mind map around ‘Global Warming’ and students chose what they wanted to inquire into. They are researching articles, books, and videos, and will later be conducting interviews. We need to understand how humans are not only the problem but can also be the solution.
Students will deliver powerful speeches that lend purpose to our Persuasive Writing transdisciplinary genre, while spreading awareness by helping others take action. Greta’s speech acted as a spring-board for inspiration and the possibilities to come.
Earth Shakers were also inspirational. We are reading a book titled, What a Wonderful World. We read about a new Earth Shaker everyday and think about what action we can take.
What action can you take?
PE - P6-P8
In the PYP, we believe that physical education empowers students to understand and appreciate the value of being physically active and it motivates them to make healthy life choices. Our units and PE activities help the learners to organise themselves, take decisions and become more self-dependent. Units on adventure challenges, striking, and fielding games promote positivity, collaboration, and responsibility.
We invited parents to be part of our PE lessons this week to give them an insight into their child's PE classes. It was wonderful to see a good turn out.
Swimming
Summer is a great time of the year for swimming lessons. The students feel more comfortable in the water and can efficiently adapt to various swimming techniques. The students are currently learning challenging age-appropriate techniques.
Another significant part of the swimming lessons is differentiation. The lessons are designed considering each student's age, capacity, and confidence levels. The PYP students are learning basic swimming skills, freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly techniques.
Transdisciplinary Learning in Physical Education - Physics, Foxes and Rabbits
Transdisciplinary learning, an approach that integrates subjects and disciplines, is a key component of the PYP curriculum. It allows students to make connections and apply their learning in real-world contexts. This was evident in recent collaborations with P5, which focused on understanding forces and mechanics, and in P3, which explored the relationship between living things and the environment.
To dive into our inquiry of forces, the students were challenged to compete in a game of Tug o' War. Intuitively, the students knew that the team with more students would exert more force, So we carefully created even teams. After a few matches, variables were changed - one team needed to take off their shoes and compete in their socks, then barefooted, and finally, sitting. The students soon concluded that footwear, which created the most friction, allowed them to transfer their pulling force most efficiently.
Secondary School
Teaching the IB Way
As we move towards the end of the year, I thought it might be useful to write a quick reminder about what it means to have your children in an IB school. What does it look like in a classroom? What do the teachers do differently? Why is the IB approach so popular around the world?
Based on inquiry. A strong emphasis is placed on students finding their own information and constructing their own understandings.
This is why you will see students having choices in their research projects, completing major tasks like the Personal Project in M5 and the Extended Essay in D2, and being encouraged to develop research skills in all classes. Obviously there are subjects and units in which all students are required to learn the same content (DP Sciences, DP Humanities classes) and this will sometimes result in more teacher-direct learning; however, this is the exception rather than the rule in IB classrooms.
Focused on conceptual understanding and development of skills. Concepts are explored in order to both deepen disciplinary understanding and to help students make connections and transfer learning to new contexts.
Unit questions are concept-based and the students explore concepts and big ideas rather than specific facts and information. Understanding rather than memorisation is the aim, and you will often see students facing ‘unseen’ questions in final assessments in order to assess their understanding. This can be scary for students; however, we are aiming to develop ‘life-long learners’ rather than students who can just memorise some facts for a test.
Developed in local and global contexts. Teaching uses real-life contexts and examples, and students are encouraged to process new information by connecting it to their own experiences and to the world around them.
All IB units are connected to global contexts and teachers try to link learning experiences to real-life contexts wherever possible. We want our students to develop a deep understanding of how the world works and why things are the way they are. When teachers are able to help students see how the learning in the classroom connects with what they see in the world, magic happens.
Designed to remove barriers to learning. Teaching is inclusive and values diversity. It affirms students’ identities and aims to create learning opportunities that enable every student to develop and pursue appropriate personal goals.
As the units of work are inquiry-based and focus on key concepts, teachers are able to include all students in the learning process. Students in more traditional schools can fall behind and find it impossible to understand what’s going on in a content-heavy, fact-based course. IB units are structured to ensure full participation from all the students despite the different levels of ability and language competence. This is not easy work for teachers, but everybody would agree that it’s a more inclusive approach to teaching and learning.
Focused on effective teamwork and collaboration. This includes promoting teamwork and collaboration between students but also refers to the collaborative relationship between teachers and students.
IB students are expected to engage with the world and take on leadership positions in their futures. None of that is possible unless they have good interpersonal skills. As most IB schools benefit from a diverse student body, the opportunities for students to develop intercultural communication skills are clear to everybody. There are still times for independent study; however, whenever possible we like to see our students and teachers collaborating on their projects.
Informed by assessment. Assessment plays a crucial role in supporting, as well as measuring and learning. This approach also recognises the crucial role of providing students with effective feedback.
Finally, for those of you who are always shocked at the huge amount of assessment data on ManageBac in some classes, you should know that generating frequent formative assessment data is key to helping teachers help students. Teachers run assessment tasks in order to figure out how to support students in the best way possible rather than to generate percentages or grades at the end of the year. Assessment data can either clarify areas of weakness for individual students, or occasionally help a teacher understand that whole classes are struggling with particular concepts and units.
Joe Lumsden
Deputy Head of School & Secondary School Principal
Secondary News
Secondary Design
Our M1 students have been pushing the boundaries of technology and creativity with their recent projects. They have been utilising Micro:bit chips and various sensors such as temperature, accelerometer, compass, and sound to develop real-world solutions. All of this has been made possible through the use of the Python programming language.
What sets this project apart is the efficient application of the Design Thinking framework, which has helped our students reach optimal solutions to their problems. By incorporating empathy, creativity, and critical thinking, our students have developed innovative and effective solutions that could potentially impact the world.
But that's not all! Our M1 students are simultaneously developing their skills in the art of Stop Motion movies. They are learning to apply camera angles, manage lighting, edit the movie, and incorporate sound effects. This project provides a wonderful opportunity for our students to develop their creative skills while exploring the limitless possibilities of digital media.
M2 - Empathy, Design Thinking, and Woodworking: A Perfect Combination!
Our M2 students have kicked off their woodworking unit in the most empathetic way possible. For this unit, they have been tasked with building toys for our little P2 students. To ensure that they are creating toys that will truly meet the needs of our P2 students, they paid a visit to their classroom to get first-hand information.
During their visit, our M2 students explored the classroom and took notes on the needs and preferences of our P2 students. Armed with this information, they applied the Design Thinking framework to generate ideas for the perfect toys. The Design Thinking approach allowed them to empathise with the needs of the P2 students, generate creative ideas, research materials, and ensure safety while making the toys.
Our P2 students were thrilled to visit the woodworking classroom to see the progress of the toys being made especially for them! This connection between the different age groups provided a truly authentic learning experience that cannot be found in textbooks! Our M2 students learned the importance of empathy, understanding, and creative problem-solving, while our P2 students received toys made just for them!
Our M3 students have been exploring their skills in CAD and graphic design, while showing a deep sense of empathy for people with disabilities and special needs. Through their projects, they have been considering the unique challenges faced by people in the real world and coming up with creative solutions to help them. Each idea has been well thought out and unique, reflecting the compassion and creativity of our students.
Our M3 students have now turned their attention to a new project that brings the Stonehill community together through WoodArt. In this unit, our students are collaborating to develop wooden art pieces that reflect the aura of the space they choose within the school. Each design is carefully crafted to showcase the beauty of the space, while also creating a sense of community and connection.
This project is an excellent example of how empathy, collaboration, and creativity can come together to create something truly beautiful and inspiring. They are working together, sharing their ideas, and learning from each other to create stunning works of art.
The M4 Digital design students have been working with Javascript. They have now started working on their website as per their client requirements. Each student has a unique idea to share. As they create their website they are very excited to add different features and make it more user friendly and interactive. The learners are maintaining their journals to log their ongoing process.
They won first place in Techradiance at IIT Hyderabad where they developed a smart pill dispenser controlled by IoT for elderly people
They got an honourable mention in the Creative marathon competition organised by Full Sail University Florida
They won first place in the Senior Category at Stonehill Hackathon 2023. They developed the Nature Surfer, a product that assists the farmer to check air quality, moisture, and pH levels in the soil, and shares these details as a GSM message on Blynk IoT app.
The Nature Surfer
The Stonehill Hackathon 2023
The Hackathon is an event where individuals or teams come together to collaboratively work on a project, often with a focus on developing software or technology.The Hackathons help students develop a wide range of skills, including innovation, time management, problem solving, and technical and presentation skills.
The Stonehill Hackathon 2023 was organised on the 29th of April. It was a 24 hour coding event where the themes were shared with the students in advance. For the event we had two categories, Junior (M1 to M3) and Senior (M4 to D2). The participating schools across India included Indus International School, Oberoi International, Mumbai, Bangalore International, The International School Bangalore and Strawberry Fields High School, Chandigarh.
The students were extremely innovative and came up with brilliant products and designs like the automated beverage machine, a wellness website, smart doctor, a fundraiser website, Nature Surfer, a farm assistant, and even an electricity generating shoe! The winning teams from Junior and Senior categories are:
Secondary Science
The M1 Science students have completed their first Interdisciplinary Unit (IDU). The students were challenged to investigate how both Maths and Science work together to create knowledge. Each student chose and developed their own research questions which allowed them to answer the following Statement of Enquiry, ‘time is a system of organising as seen in patterns in the physical world around us’.
M4 Chemistry
All biotic and abiotic factors on this Earth would have had the taste of acids and bases at some point or the other. The M4 students were inquiring into the ‘Efficacy of reactions can be determined by the conditions on the systems’. As a part of their elaborate study of chemical reactions, they were exploring substances that were acids and bases using different indicators. Chemistry with drama is always interesting and the learners were fascinated by the dramatic changes in colours as different indicators were added.
In the Middle Years Programme, learners ‘learn how to learn’ through ATLs (approaches to learning). These skills are built throughout the programme, in the process of learning. As a part of learning collaborative skills, the learners were thrown a challenge to stack up paper cups with just two materials- a rubber band and twine. They were asked not to touch the cups with their hands and everyone in the team of four must be involved to reach the end result. It was a treat to watch the students trying to figure out how to succeed. After trials and almost giving up, one team sat down to brainstorm their ideas and found a way out.
M5 Chemistry
The students were busy clearing up doubts and revisiting concepts as they geared up for their final assessments.
M3 Science
The M3 Science classes for the unit on Puberty and Reproduction had learners interact more than ever and had their undivided attention and participation during discussions on sexually transmitted diseases and contraceptives. Poster making to show the changes during puberty was fun. Now they have moved on to the final unit in Physics which is electricity and inquiring into ‘Energy systems that do not negatively impact the environment allow us to imagine a hopeful future’.
Swarnalatha Ravoori
MYP & DP Chemistry
M4 Physics - Making a Periscope
M4 Physics students participated in the construction of a periscope as part of their classroom learning on the behaviour of light. They were instructed to create a periscope model that complies with the rules of reflection.
In submarines, periscopes are frequently employed to aid in sighting adversaries underwater. This is due to the fact that periscopes assist you to avoid the opposition knowing you are monitoring them. Additionally, cameras frequently break under water due to pressure, and they emit infrared radiation that can alert the enemy. You can use periscopes to observe the adversary even when submerged.
D1 Chemistry
Full fledged classes and activities have kept our D1 students busier than ever in this last term. The TOK exhibition, farewell to D2s, CAS activities, EE, IA and the list can go on. In Chemistry along with uncovering the syllabus, learners were also introduced to Internal Assessment, a twelve page investigatory report of a research question of their choice. They are currently working on mock IAs with the guidance of the teacher.
Swarnalatha Ravoori
MYP & DP Chemistry
The D1 students are studying 'Energy Production (Topic-8)' in their Physics class. The students were required to participate in a conference named Energy Symposium as part of their assessment. At the Energy Symposium, the students were assigned groups where they were given a specific source of energy to research and debate.
The symposium was held to encourage critical thinking and informed discussions about energy sources that can contribute to a sustainable future. Each group presented their findings and arguments on why their assigned energy source was the best option for a sustainable future.
Boarding News
Our boarding staff have been working tirelessly to provide our students with endless opportunities for growth and enjoyment. The weekend kicked off with a dance workshop on Saturday, where our boarders had the chance to learn and explore various dance styles - from the upbeat rhythms of Jazz to the expressive fluidity of contemporary dance, groovy Hip Hop and vibrant Bollywood moves.
Our students not only had a blast moving to the music but also learnt about the history and cultural significance behind each dance form. It was a fun-filled experience that allowed our boarders to show their creativity and foster a sense of unity through the universal language of dance.
On the 1st of May, the M1-M4 students had a thrilling experience at the canoeing activity for the very first time. The canoeing activity not only offered our students an opportunity for physical exercise but also fostered teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills.
To make the long weekend even more special, our students were treated to a delicious pizza feast courtesy of Dominos, followed by ice cream for dessert. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Chef Arjun and his team for collaborating with the boarding representatives to plan such a delightful menu.
Academically, we are entering a crucial time of the year for our senior students as they face the challenges of year-end fatigue. The upcoming weeks will test their focus, strength, and hard work as they strive to finish the year strong. It has been truly inspiring to witness our boarders taking full advantage of the study hour every evening, demonstrating their commitment and determination. We wish them all the best of luck in their upcoming exams, and we have full faith in their abilities to excel.
As we reflect on the events of the past weekend, we also want to take a moment to express our gratitude to the graduating boarders and their families. Your presence and contributions to our community have made a lasting impact, and we are truly grateful for the time you have spent with us. We wish you all the brightest of futures as you embark on new journeys and continue to make a positive difference in the world.
Have a fantastic week ahead!
Glen Johnson
Head of Boarding
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