Head of School Message
Saying Goodbye - It matters
Although Graduation seems like a long time ago, this is the first Tiger article I’ve written since the event on May 18th at the Hilton Hotel. This was a wonderful evening at a great venue with approximately four hundred and fifty people. Our graduating students seemed to thoroughly enjoy the occasion and everything went as planned. This was a huge relief as these events can be incredibly stressful for schools to set up.
There was no such thing as a High School Graduation when I was growing up in the UK (I’m not sure if there is now). Grade 12 courses finished in April, we took a few weeks off for exam revision, came in to take our A-levels in May, and then walked out of the school gate never to even consider returning for a visit. The school experience itself was pleasant enough, but there was no need for the kind of connection or memory-building events that students in international schools rely on.
My assumption is that there was less meaning attached to leaving school in the UK at that time than there is for our students now. Most 18-year-old students ‘graduating’ from a school would most probably stay in the area and keep in touch with the same friends. Parents would also be staying in the area. School was free, parents didn’t struggle financially to support their child’s education. Nobody needed to overcome language barriers, engage in community service activities, deal with subjects like the Theory of Knowledge, or write an Extended Essay. Nobody had been forced to move to a new country and make new friends quickly in order to survive in the social battleground of adolescence.
Yet, all of these things have happened to students in every Stonehill graduating class. While we all recognise that our students are fortunate to study at a school like ours, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. I’m sure many parents have had sleepless nights worrying about their children fitting in, finding new friends, or being able to cope with the demands of the IB. It must be particularly frightening for parents whose children don’t speak English when they start at Stonehill or any other international school. A successful Graduation, therefore, comes as a huge relief for parents and students who have been on an emotional roller-coaster for many years as they have needed to adapt to new circumstances and challenges along the way.
Added to all this is the increased pressure on students to succeed these days. Not everybody needed to be a university graduate in previous generations, as jobs were more easily available for those with fewer years of education. That’s no longer the case. Young people today are in an ever-intensifying global competition for limited places at universities, and it’s no surprise that the levels of stress and anxiety we are seeing in schools seem to be constantly increasing.
All of this means that graduation ceremonies at international schools are vital community events that signify the completion of a challenging stage of life (for both students and parents) and a transition to an exciting future. Many of these students will leave the country soon and never see each other again, so it’s important to say goodbye appropriately. That means recognising the efforts that everybody has made (everybody has their own story to tell of the struggles they’ve faced) to reach this point, to say thank you to the people who have supported them along the way, and to offer our young people a little guidance for the future as they leave our community.
May 18th was such an occasion and I am confident that our students and parents left the event feeling valued, recognised and supported by a school that prides itself on caring and being a home for everyone.
Joe Lumsden
Head of School
Whole School News
Alumni Spotlight
It was wonderful to see our beloved alumni, Tayyibah and Venkat (Class of 2020), and Kshama (Class of 2023) at the 2024 Graduation Ceremony.
Our alumni are excelling in their respective fields, a testament to the strong foundation laid by Stonehill. Venkat graduated from Richard Ivy Business School from Western University Canada and is currently running a start-up. Tayyibah has completed a B.Sc in Journalism from Northwestern University, Qatar. She is now pursuing a Master's degree in Intercultural Communication. Kshama is currently a freshman at Trinity College, Dublin, studying Business Management.
Tayyibah and Kshama shared their experiences and insights with the M5 students in school, guiding them on building strong profiles for college applications. We're proud of their achievements and the positive impact they continue to make!
PTA News
The Teacher Appreciation lunch on the 6th of June marks the end of all the events hosted by the PTA for this academic year.
We would like to thank this community for its support and participation throughout the year. Wishing you a restful summer with friends and family.
For those of you who will be leaving Bangalore, we wish you all the very best with your move.
Sasha Singh
PTA President
Primary School
A Heartfelt Thank You to the Stonehill Community!
As I reflect on my first year as Primary Principal at Stonehill, I am filled with gratitude and joy. This past year has been an incredible journey, and I want to take a moment to thank each member of staff, each student, and every parent, for your unwavering support and warmth.
To our supportive parents, thank you for entrusting us with your children's education and for being our valued partners in your child’s learning journey. Your involvement and encouragement play a crucial role in our success, and I am grateful for the trust and support you have shown me, the Primary teaching team, and our school. Thank you to the PTA for all of your hard work supporting the school and charities.
On a personal note, my family has found a wonderful home here. My wife has fallen in love with India, and my daughter adores being a part of the Stonehill family. It warms my heart to see them so happy and settled in this fabulous community.
As we look forward to the years to come, I am excited about the future and the many opportunities that lie ahead for your child and for us as a community. Together, in solidarity, we will continue to create an environment where every child can achieve their full potential and make cherished memories along the way.
Thank you once again for an amazing year. Here’s to many more!
With my very best wishes.
Peter Spratling
Primary School Principal
PYP Coordinator
Thank You!
As I prepare to say goodbye after four incredible years at Stonehill, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has been part of this amazing journey. To our wonderful students, your endless curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, and joy have been a constant source of inspiration.
To our dedicated parents, your support and partnership have been crucial in fostering a nurturing and thriving community. To my exceptional colleagues, your kindness, commitment, and open-mindedness have created a vibrant and innovative learning environment. Thank you all for making these past four years so memorable and rewarding.
Primary News
Glimpses of Performing Arts in Action
The P1-P5 Performing Arts classes have been diving into captivating dancing, singing and acting adventures that included storytelling and mime presentations this term. They were full of excitement, observations, demonstrations, peer assessments and reflections on how to develop their talents and skills best. The explorations involved lots of hesitations but with open-mindedness and creativity in their thinking, the discoveries of what the learners can do as performers proved its worth! They can do it if they try!
The P1 and P2 students learned that “talking” and “moving” are the most important parts of retelling a story that was integrated in their last unit, Where We Are in Place in Time. They naturally became aware of the importance of safety while respecting each other’s space as they moved their bodies. They instinctively coordinated their dialogues with their body movements when they retold the story, ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ in the class.
The P3 students took a plunge into the core of creating music. The trip around the Primary department of the school started their investigations of where “sounds” can be heard, how we can produce the same sound and how we use them to make music. They found out and recognised that the different sounds they heard were patterns, they’re repetitive and they are called rhythm. They focused on using their hands, legs, and feet to produce sounds, develop rhythm and play music. They hope to put together their own sound patterns in the future to make their own music.
Secondary School
As the year comes to a close, nostalgia has set in. Each day began with excitement and anticipation, with so much to look forward to. Sometimes the day would start with a yoga or a strength training session, followed by a music or a talent hunt in the MYP courtyard, university visits, drone-making sessions, and so much more.
This academic year has been truly remarkable, filled with outstanding achievements in academics and extracurricular activities. Our students have shown incredible dedication and talent, making us all proud. As we reflect on the year's highlights, we want to celebrate the impressive accomplishments of some of our students.
I’d like to highlight a student, Akhilesh, who created a a website for his assessment. This innovative project showcases how Technology can enhance learning beyond traditional classroom settings. You can view his impressive work here.
Fourteen of our M1-M4 Science students participated in the 2023-2024 National Astronomy Challenge Olympiad. This engaging competition, designed for students in Grades 4 to 9, was held in January 2024 in a proctored environment, allowing participants four months of preparation. We are proud to announce that Akhilesh secured 5th place nationally. Additionally, both Akhilesh and Aarik received honourable mentions and gold medals for their outstanding achievements.
Additionally, we celebrate the remarkable accomplishment of Sethulakshmi, a D2 student, who has been awarded the prestigious Gold Award of The Duke of Edinburgh International Awards. This renowned programme encourages young people to challenge themselves, acquire new skills, volunteer in their communities, and embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Achieving the Gold Award highlights Sethulakshmi's resilience, leadership, and commitment to making a positive impact.
Secondary News
Physical and Health Education (PHE)
At Stonehill, the aim of the PHE programme is to provide students with learning experiences and opportunities that develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to lead a balanced and healthy lifestyle. Our experienced, supportive and dedicated PHE team, combined with our fantastic facilities and resources, and the wide variety of sports and physical activities offered, helps us to achieve this aim. PHE at Stonehill is a highly rewarding and valued subject which promotes well-being and important skills such as communication, collaboration, and respecting the ideas of others.
The MYP students have been participating in a wide range of activities during the final two units of the school year, ‘Striking & Fielding’ and ‘Net Games’.
Striking & Fielding activities
Striking and Fielding consists of activities in which one team is striking (attacking), whilst the other team works as a fielding group to defend, and limit the score of the opponents. Activities such as Softball, Cricket and Kickball are examples that our classes participated in during the unit.
They developed physical skills such as batting, bowling, catching, pitching, throwing and running. These games are excellent for developing collaboration and collective problem solving, as teams adjust their strategies, such as batting line-ups, fielding positions, and plans, to counter the threats of opposition players, according to the different scenarios that unfold during games.
Throughout the unit, the students are also provided opportunities, through focused assessments and tasks, to develop their understanding and application of the rules, which allows them to experience ‘officiating’ a game independently.
Whilst there are elements of all of the learning outcomes mentioned above in this unit, with students in M1 and M2, we have a greater focus on developing core game skills and understanding of rules, whilst students in M3 to M5 move towards applying strategies within the games.
Net Games
The final unit of the year was Net Games which finished last week. This consists of activities such as Badminton, Volleyball, Table Tennis and Tennis. Again, with students in M1 and M2, we aim to develop core skills such as serving, returning and smashing, as well as students’ coordination and footwork, so they are better able to respond to game situations successfully. We also want them to have a sound understanding of the rules of the various net games. The students in older grades are expected to apply strategies such as positioning, movement around a court, and working as an individual and in a doubles partnership (in Badminton & Table Tennis specifically), or in a team (in Volleyball). We also integrate a range of different competition styles and formats such as knockout, groupings, ladder and round robins into this unit.
Swimming
Swimming has continued as normal with some classes from M1, M2 and M4 participating in the last rotation. Mr. Chaitanya teaches a swimming curriculum that includes water polo, life-saving and water survival skills developing stroke technique, speed and endurance. These additional elements have all formed parts of various assessments for different grades.
House Volleyball
The Net Games unit mentioned above culminated with a house Volleyball competition for the M4-D1 students on the 20th of May. The tournament was played as semi-finals and then a final and 3rd V/S 4th game, with a best-of-three format. All games were very competitive and played at a high skill level in a sporting spirit.
Below are the final standings for the tournament:
1st place - Chawla
2nd place - Nehru
3rd place - Bachendri
4th place - Gandhi
Volleyball was the last inter-house competition of the year. The final scores for this year’s inter-house competitions are as follows:
We can look back on the year in PHE and recognise the breadth of the curriculum, and acknowledge the hard work and successes of our students and teachers. Whilst our scope and objectives in PHE are wide-ranging, we want to foster, in all of our students, the ability and desire to lead physically healthy and active lives beyond their school years. PHE should be fun, and a subject that our students look forward to. We want our them to engage in purposeful learning activities individually, and also in collaboration with others, and to equip them with the abilities, and positive associations, to do this independently.
John Browne
Head of Department for Secondary PHE
Secondary Student Support Services
The process of learning starts from being aware of something to getting knowledge about it and then applying that knowledge to convert it into hands-on skills, and finally, acquiring mastery in it.
Building new skills or learning new things can generally seem like a straightforward process. When we start something new, for the most part we are not good at it. After we put consistent effort and practise we get better at it. Our knowledge and skills go through a few levels of awareness and ability. Let me explain this learning process by using the four stage model of competence.
Throughout the academic year, we all have gone through this process several times and have accomplished many skills and acquired mastery in it. Well done everyone for all your accomplishments in the 2023-’24 academic year.
In the Counselling Department, we have also accomplished mastery in a lot of skills and tasks, along with our students. Apart from supporting students in individual counselling sessions, we have accomplished thirteen Personal Social Development (PSD) lessons for all classes from M1 to M5. In our DP programme, we have accomplished nine PSD lessons along with 2 cooking sessions. The D2 students had cooking sessions as a part of the transition to university. We were able to provide five parenting workshops for our parent community. The topics included Understanding the Teenage Brain based on Dr Fransis Jensen's book, the other topics were helping teenagers cope with vaping, gaming and device addiction. We invited guest speakers to talk to our parents about gender education and Pranic Yoga. Along with our facility member, Nena, we were also able to run a parent's book club and we discussed two books during the second term. The two books were Thrivers by Michele Borba and Five Love Languages of Teenagers by Dr Gary Chapman.
Boarding News
As we near the end of another academic year, it's time to reflect on the remarkable achievements and experiences of this semester. We can reminisce about the many great memories and exciting events we've experienced: from the Christmas and Annual Boarding dinners, to the Inter-house football, basketball, and badminton tournaments, as well as weekend activities and the wellness programme.
It has been a delight to watch our boarding students develop in so many ways. They have continued to demonstrate perseverance, resilience and kindness in their lives. Many of them have commented on how they feel they have grown academically as well as emotionally and socially. Boarding staff have watched new friendships form and students take the opportunity to try something new.
It has been wonderful to see the inclusion of many new community outreach initiatives this year, with Stonehill United, Puttenahalli Lake Clean-up, Eldercare, Furry Friends, and Global Citizenship clubs. These initiatives not only demonstrated our commitment to making a positive impact beyond our campus but also fostered a sense of responsibility and empathy among our students.
Eldercare Club
Furry Friends Club
Puttenahalli Lake Clean-up
The Graduation Ceremony at the Hilton Hotel on the 18th of May was truly memorable. Saying farewell is never easy. For many of our boarders, whether they have been with us for one year, two years, or three years, this marks the end of their journey at Stonehill. Our sixteen boarding graduates are now embarking on new adventures in life. We wish them all the best of luck and every success.
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