MS eNews – Friday, October 3, 2014
Updated MS Calendar of upcoming events for the next four weeks:
Tuesday, October 7
- Early Dismissal at 1:00pm
Friday-Saturday, October 10-11
- MS Bangkok International Choral Festival
- MS KS 3 Strings Festival
Saturday, October 11
- BISAC U11-17 Cross-Country at ISB
- BISAC U13 Tennis Singles, Boys at BPS, Girls at HIS
Monday-Friday, October 20-24
- October Break – No School
Friday, October 31
- MS Halloween Social at 3:00pm
- U17 Try Outs (Basketball, Rugby, Swim, Tennis, Touch)
Saturday, November 1
- BISAC U11A Boys Basketball at ISB
- BISAC U13 Basketball, Boys at RIS, Girls at SHB
- BISAC U13 Tennis, Boys at BPS, Girls at HIS
- BISAC U15 Basketball, Boys at ISB, Girls at ASB
- BISAC U17 Football, Boys and Girls at TCIS
- BISAC U17 Volleyball, Boys at NIST, Girls at ICS
Sunday, November 2
- BISAC U11B&C Basketball at NIST
- BISAC U11A Girls Basketball at SHB
- BISAC U15 Rugby at NIST
- BISAC U15 Touch Invitational at ISB
Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences
Thank you to all for a successful two days of conversations about student learning and progress. The turn out was great with 441 of 489 students in the MS having an appointment scheduled!
Early Dismissal on Tuesday, October 7
Students will be dismissed at 1:00pm on Tuesday, October 7th. School buses will leave at 1:15pm. Early Dismissal Days provide a common time for staff in all three divisions to meet, collaborate, and further their professional development.
Information About Your Child’s School Photo
All students had their picture taken recently for our annual MS Yearbook. The school photographer will be delivering the proofs to the MS Office on Friday, October 10th. On Monday, October 13th, students will receive their photo proofs in their Humanities class to bring home along with information on costs and how to order prints. All orders are due back at the MS Office by end of school day on Friday, October 17th. Ordered prints will be delivered to the MS Office and distributed to students to bring home on Wednesday, December 3rd.
1st Annual Middle School Bangkok International Choral Festival
Dear Parents,
All MS choir students will be participating in the 1st Annual Middle School Bangkok International Choral Festival all day on Friday, October 10th, under the direction of Guest Conductor Dr. Rollo Dilworth from Temple University in the United States. Please click here for the poster.
The Choral Festival will be held on Friday-Saturday, October 10th and 11th. All students in our Middle School Choir Program will be participating in the festival and welcoming singers from;
- International School of Kuala Lumpur
- New International School Thailand
- Bangkok Patana School
- St. Andrews International School (Bangkok)
- Bromsgrove International School (Bangkok)
Dr. Dilworth is a leading Choral Music Educator who specializes in the adolescent years of vocal development and who is a much sought after clinician for choral music festivals and conferences around the world. I had the pleasure of working with him at the American Choral Director’s Conference three years ago and learned a great deal from him. We are very fortunate to be welcoming him to our school and to have him work with our singers.
Students have been working on music to prepare for this festival since school began and are very excited to work with singers from other international schools and with our guest conductor to present a beautiful concert on Saturday, October 11th at 2:00pm in the Chevron. The concert is free and open to the public; arrive early to make sure you get a seat!
Kind Regards,
Coleen
Coleen Mann
Director of Middle School Choirs
International School Bangkok
coleenp@isb.ac.th
Repeat Announcement: Announcing the MS Principal Forum!
Do you have a question or idea involving the Middle School that you would like addressed by the principal? The MS Principal Forum is your vehicle. It addresses subjects of wide interest to parents and presents them to the principal for consideration. Our goals include sharing information and ideas, improving mutual understanding and working together with the principal and his administration group.
From now until October 7th, we are accepting questions and ideas. Please submit any issue directly to a forum team member (see below) or to the forum’s email at mscoord@isb.ac.th. Please include your contact information when you submit to us, so we can clarify any questions we might have. However, we will not reveal your personal information to the administration!
The forum team will then meet to review and discuss all issues. The MS Coordinators will present those to the principal for his responses. The principal will report out to the MS Community in an open meeting in early November. The date will be announced via MS eNews.
Grade 6 Team Members
Shiney Aravindakshan: girishiney@yahoo.com
Ginger Duval: ginduval@gmail.com
Grade 7 Team Members
Rie Atagi: rieatagi@hotmail.com
Jill Edison: jilledison@yahoo.ca
Rosalina Hernandez: rosalina@entouch.net
Maria Van Zant: mvanzant@hotmail.com
Grade 8 Team Members:
Henrietta Bullinger: hbullinger@gmail.com
Chintana (Aor) Blumenthal: aor.chintana@yahoo.com
Hyemin Lee: hyeminlim@gmail.com
Nisha Westerman and Andrea Puck
MS PTA Coordinators
Repeat Announcement: Connected MS Parents – Tech Info Sessions
Answer your questions about school recourses, connectivity, communication, laptops, parent controls, etc.
Time: 2:30 – 3:30pm
Dates: Wed, Sep 24th and Wed, Oct 8th
Place: Main Library – Greene Room
Please bring your child’s school laptop along with you to the session
Repeat Announcement: MS Athletics Opportunities – Where to Find Information
ISB has numerous athletics opportunities taking place, such as community activities, MS sports league, Intramurals, and even international school competitions called BISAC. We understand that although it is great to offer so many opportunities to our students, it can also be quite confusing and even overwhelming at times to know where to go to find information.
Please click the links below for more information on the following:
- An overview of all ISB Arts, Activities, Athletics, and Community Activities and to see who is in charge.
- Community Activities. These are not school teams, but as it says, it’s community activities. This is run by ISB’s Community Activities Office; not the Athletics office.
- ISB Athletics. ISB school teams compete in IASAS (Varsity teams only) and BISAC. BISAC, which stands for the Bangkok International School Athletic Conference, is for teams from Under 11 to Varsity. I, Kerry Dyke, am the athletic director for the BISAC teams of U11, U13, and U15. If you click BISAC this will take you to our ISB Athletics page and tell you all about it. You can see more details about our age policy, the weekly results from all the BISAC games, a calendar showing all the upcoming games, events, and even tryouts. You can see an overview for all the sports played at each age level throughout the year. Finally, you can even see who the BISAC schools are and find a map to their location. I strongly encourage you to save this site if you have a child playing on a school team. To see coaches and practice times click here.
We also have Intramurals and MS Sports league. There is no website for either and kids find out about it thought assemblies and postings in the daily email bulletin. MS Sports League runs on Thursdays from 2:10 – 3:10 and we follow the main sport of that BISAC season. Season 1: Basketball, Season 2: Soccer, and Season 3: Volleyball. There are no cuts and all MS students are welcome. It is organized and students are placed on teams, games are real and results are recorded. However, the focus is fun and participation. Intramurals is more informal. A teacher may want to sponsor an activity for a few weeks and whoever wants to join on that day can play. However, this is dependent on teachers volunteering, as a result, the offerings and times vary.
Where else can parents and students find all of this information?
In addition to the school website links, we often announce big events at assemblies in front of all students. Information is also provided daily in the Good Morning ISBMS email bulletin (please check daily) from Mr. Tague and posters are put up in the athletics area.
Thank you and we hope to see you out at the games.
Sincerely,
Kerry Dyke
MS Athletics/BISAC Director
Repeat Announcement: Applications to Boarding or Summer Programs
If your child is considering an application to a boarding or summer school, please click here to access a form that explains the procedures in our middle school to support this process. Please review both pages of the form with your student. This form also serves as a cover sheet for each application the student submits.
For example, if the student submits three boarding school applications, three separate copies of the form must be completed. Most applications will require references or evaluations from teachers. Students must give teachers at least two weeks to complete an evaluation or reference and should first approach their teachers in person with the request. Students are also responsible for following up with teachers to ensure that deadlines have been met and all evaluations and letters are delivered to the counseling office on time. Please see your school counselor if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you!