AIAN will be a widely respected school providing a model US based educational program with an internationally minded community. September 9th 2011 Dear Community, The fourth week of the school year is coming to an end. The academic pattern has stabilized and soon some students will be receiving progress reports . These reports are useful in that they advise parents and students that the present grade for a particular subject is 75% or less. These reports represent an early wake up call for everyone concerned. They indicate there may be an academic concern that requires focus by the school, the student and the parents for improvement. Please look out for these reports which go home through the students. You will be invited to make appointments with the teacher concerned. You may also call the school Office on 86869999. We highly encourage parents to make these appointments with teachers to help improve the grades in the subjects with 75% or less. The Calendar of Events has been placed on the Website. You may access this by clicking on the horizontal menu bar ¡°News and Calendar¡± and then ¡°Calendar of Events (2011-2012)¡±. Naturally, we hope to maintain the calendars integrity. We will only make changes if absolutely necessary. Should a change be necessary we will inform you through the Eagle Eyes Newsflash. Other items for you attention are, SCHOOL LIBRARY UPDATES The school is continuing to upgrade the library services we offer. Over the summer the school invested in a new software control system from a US based company called Follet. Follet have been in the education business for more than 135 years with bookstores in more than 800 locations. They remain the industry's premier wholesale book distributor. More than half of America 's K-12 school districts rely on Follett Software because of its innovative management of educational content and library materials, textbooks, assets, data and other critical resources. Follett's Destiny? software program is an automated system for library management. Now everyone in school, students, parents and teachers can search the AIAN library catalog from school or home. To search the catalog you need to go to the AIAN website, www.aian.org.cn Click the Library tab, and then the Library Catalog tab. From there you can search by typing in a title of a book, an author's name, keywords or a subject that you wish to browse. However, if you wish to use other services and resources, you need to use a Username and Password . Next week the students of grades 4 through 12 will receive from the library a note that looks like the sample below.
As you can see this note provides each student with their own username and password. If parents want their own account in the Library or you wish to change your child's username or password, please speak with the librarian. From your own account you will be able to see what books you have already checked out, reserve a book and use Destiny Quest and WebPath. The information below is mostly taken for the Follet website. Please take time to read it so that you can appreciate the capabilities and possibilities it provides our students with. Destiny Quest is a K-12 student-friendly search interface included with the Destiny Library Manager package. This is a comprehensive, award-winning K-12 library automation solution. Destiny Quest is designed to appeal to student's interest in the internet and digital interface technology. Destiny Quest engages students in a visually appealing and highly graphic online searching experience, leveraging Destiny's proven K-12 research strategies to help them easily locate and identify appropriate resources. Students can apply the web-savvy skills they already know and expand the skills they need to thrive as 21st century learners. With Destiny Quest, students can see the top 10 books and new arrival titles highlighted on the Destiny Quest homepage, search the library collection, browse the scrolling carousel of bookshelves, view book covers, and link to title details from any computer with an Internet connection. Students become more active learners using Destiny Quest's engaging interface, which invites them to explore and dig deeper through ¡°You May Also Like¡± automatic suggestions. They can refine their search results by author, subject, series and more, and find the best titles for their interests or reading levels and save their favorites for easy retrieval with the easy drag and drop functionality of ¡®My List'. Younger students or non-English speakers can easily find materials using a picture-based icon search option. The Destiny Quest Book Club . MyQuest expands collaboration and communication beyond the classroom while encouraging discussion about books. Similar to social networking sites, MyQuest requires login and password, and lets students invite or remove friends at their school. They can share what they're reading with friends, recommend titles to other, let friends see their Have Read, Now Reading and Want to Read ¡°shelves.¡± Users can add a comment to the last comment made, send messages to other individual friends and read threads between two friends. All communications are exclusively between ¡°friends¡±; there are no public ¡°walls¡± or display areas. WebPath Express is an educational search tool that provides today's K-12 kids with a safe, fun and familiar search tool that integrates trustworthy, relevant websites into your library catalog while filtering out questionable content. Through WebPath Express, all sites that your children access are educator-reviewed and verified for factual accuracy, currency, authority, educational value, coverage and objectivity. Content is differentiated by grade level, encouraging information literacy by supporting each student's self-directed research. SCHOOL BASED WEBSITES In line with the library information about Follet websites for students, we want you to also be aware some teachers are now using their own educational websites to help our students with school work. Please see the Middle School section for the specific sites. All parents are invited to visit these sites. MIDDLE SCHOOL SPECIFIC INFORMATION (from Ms. Higley) The Middle School Teachers want to ensure they have constant communication with our parents and students. The teachers want our students to build the following qualities of: organization, time management, communication, information literacy, reflection, building and thinking and making connections. Math Grades 6, 7, 8 and Social Studies Grades 6, 7 Be sure to check out Mr. Jenkins website : http://mrjackjenkins.wordpress.com/ Science Grades 6, 7, 8 Be sure to check out Ms. Higley's websites: Have your student show you our Science class Wiki and tell you the latest about our School Gardens : http://higleyscience7.wikispaces.com/ http://higley8science2011-2012.wikispaces.com/ 6 th Grade: We have been working on SI Units of Measurement and Scientific Language. We will be moving into our Weather and Water Unit next week. 7 th Grade & 8 th Grades: We are working on our school gardens integrating all areas of science and using the garden in class investigations and experiments. We are beginning our Garden Unit Projects and will soon be giving School Garden Tours! Come check our School Gardens out! Scientists of the Month for August Grade 6: Georgia Sutjiadi ¨C NSES Standard A: International Units of Measurement Genius! Grade 7: Moe Sakamoto - NSES Standard A: Scientific Method Mobile Extraordinaire! Grade 8: Jerry Bean - NSES Standard U, A, C, D: Garden Go-Getter! Not afraid to get down and dirty to help our 8 th grade Salad and Pizza Garden . Also, doing a great job with getting all tasks done! Core Values: Last Month Our Core Value was Responsibility. Students made advertisements, acrostics and commercials for this Value. The students did an excellent job and soon these posters will be visible around the school. We will continue our study or ¡°The 7 Highly Effective Habits of Teens¡± by Sean Covey. Core Value Kids of the Month: Elena Shortes and Christine Lin for their wiliness to be brave and make a creative script demonstrating responsibility, acting it out and making a commercial. Parents: Students should have brought home the following forms for you to sign and to review: • Progress Reports (please sign and return on Tuesday (Sept. 13, 2011) • ASA forms due Sept. 7, 2011 • Internet/Media use and permission forms due Sept. 9, 2011 • Technology use forms due Sept. 9, 2011 • Optional Field Trip Forms due Sept. 7, 2011 AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES (ASA) Mr. Carpinisan and Mr. Carroll have worked with the faculty to complete the ASA choices for the first quarter. Most parents have returned the choice slips sent home earlier in the week. Thank you for this. Students need to pay for the activities that require payment in the business office. The activities start on Tuesday, September12. During the first semester new teachers will not be participating in the Tuesday and Thursday ASA's. They are engaged in a Professional Development course regarding English Language Learners in mainstream classrooms. This is being led by Mr. John Tucker, who received specialized training in this area over the summer. The school will run late buses for activities that finish at 5.00 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The late bus will make drop offs in Beilun (drop off area to be confirmed) and Ningbo at Metro. Only Middle and High School Students will be allowed to ride this bus. Elementary School students will not be involved in activities that finish at 5.00 p.m. There will not be late buses on Thursday or Friday. Thus, the buses will run as follows,
Parents please ensure your children are aware of the travel arrangements to go home after activities. Naturally, there will be an adjustment period in this regard as the ASA program comes on line. If parents need to make changes in busing arrangements at any time the school requires at last 24 hours notice to do this. Only students who normally ride the bus may use the bus service. BAKE SALE The parents are organizing a bake sale on Wednesday, September 21 from 11.00 a.m. until 1.30 p.m. for the students. All proceeds raised will be donated to the PTA. kindly ensure that your child has some money to enjoy this event. Please see the attached flyer. SCHOOL WEBSITE AND INTERNET PUBLISHING OF STUDENT PHOTOS AND WORK We are still trying to collect some return slips for this particular notice. Please return the slip by Tuesday? We would like to continue including photos of children working and playing on our school website. With this in mind and as part of the school moving towards having a ¡°model US based educational program¡± for security reasons we wish to confirm with you that we can use photos that include your child/ren. Please know that we will not post individual photos of a student with their name or photos of groups of students with their names. Should we need to use full names we will specifically contact the parents concerned for your permission. Of course, we would like to publish the best works of our students too. When we do this we will only use the first name of a student. Thus, single photos, group photos, videos and student work may be included on teacher blogs, on the school home page, and other links on our web page. We wish to have your permission to post your child's photo and work. We have attached a waiver form in this regard. We will also send home a hard copy of the waiver form on Monday (along with the ASA choice from). Please complete this and return it to the homeroom teacher. COUNSELORS CORNER
Planning for college and university does not happen in a few months. Preparation for college and university starts as soon as the student begins high school. With this in mind, stronger structures are now in place this school year to help our students have a competitive edge when applying to the college or university of their choice. We begin with students gaining a deeper understanding of themselves as persons and as students. With that information, we assist students in selecting a course and consequently possibly a career that is a good fit for their interests, values and skills. Work started on this in the first two weeks of school with the 11 th and 12 th graders answering questionnaires that give the student and myself as their College Counselor, an insight on their own values, skills, and interests. A lot of time also needs to be spent researching targeted colleges. Students are guided through the research process to identify information that is vital in making their choice and pursuing their applications. The 11 th and 12 th grade students have had computer lab time for research regarding their selected colleges, and we will continue to do this for the rest of the first semester. The whole process of college preparation needs the involvement of the parents. Structures for dialogue with parents and their child, facilitated by the College Counselor, are built in over the year to discuss progress in terms of applications. We intend to have the first meetings with parents at the end of the first quarter. Close coordination with Matt Buckmaster, who is teaching the 9 th and 10 th grade Business English, helps to ensure these grades are working on similar goals early in their high school life. AP and SAT Coordinating AIAN offers both AP and SAT testing to our students, to ensure that they will be able to be competitive and have an edge in their college applications. Setting up AP and SAT procedures for the students is underway now. I will make announcements and provide more information about this as necessary. Guidance Counseling It is not easy to be in a new school, and for some of our students, it is not just a new school, but a new culture and country. With this in mind I have already had several group sessions with new students from the elementary, middle and high school. The goal was to get them together to understand that they are not alone in feeling the transition issues. We covered strategies that help ease them into the new school and environment. It was also a way for them to reach out and make new friends. Grade 1 to Grade 5 will visit the guidance office for an introduction to the guidance services. Some grades have already dropped in for quick group dynamics sessions so that I could get to know the students. At the same time, it was a way for them to get to know who the Counselor is, what the Counselor does, and how the Counselor is available to help them. The objective was also to build an initial rapport so that students at all levels are comfortable seeking help if the time comes that they need it. Middle and High school Guidance orientations will be held in the coming week. I look forward to getting to know each and every student in our school to be able to best meet their individual needs. INTERNATIONAL COASTAL CLEAN UP On Saturday, September 17th, 2011 millions of people will flood the beaches for an International Coastal Cleanup (ICC). The Middle and High School students will be taking an optional field trip at a nearby beach to participate in this International event! Parents and families of middle and high school students are welcome to attend. The purpose of ICC, which was initiated by Ocean Conservancy (OC), engages people to remove trash and debris from the world's beaches and waterways, identify the sources of debris, and change behavioral patterns that contribute to pollution. There will be a pick-up at Metro at 8 a.m. on September 17th and we will depart for the beach at 9 a.m. from the school. We will participate in a beach clean-up do some activities and then have a picnic before departing back to AIAN. We will return to AIAN at 12 p.m. and a bus will arrive to Metro at 1pm. Permission slips will go out on Monday and will be due back to Ms. Higley (Middle School) or Ms. Ross (High School) on Wednesday (Sept. 7, 2011). Please pack a lunch because we will have a picnic at the beach after the event. We hope that you will come out and join us to help our beaches and bring awareness to this environmental issue! For more information: http://www.oceanconservancy.org/our-work/marine-debris/international-coastal-cleanup-11.html Thank you. Regards, Mark Bretherton , Head of School. |
