by Graeme SCOTT
graemes@isb.ac.th
Dear Parents,
Research tells us that we all perform better when we are deeply engaged with what we are learning. We know student learning needs to be relevant, balanced, challenging and aligned to clear goals. And once in a while, it is good to offer our students a special day of learning where they get to decide, within reason, what they learn. A day built around student choice, passion and curiosity.
On December 1st we will have our second Passion Day, which is a day of learning built around student interests. Before the October break, we surveyed our G4-12 students about what they would like to learn if they could decide, and we found that they had some fascinating ideas. We also surveyed our own teachers about what they could offer students for a day of non-traditional learning and they provided equally interesting suggestions. By combining the student interest data with the teacher suggestions we built the registration for Passion Day which included over 100 options. Now that just about all students have registered, we have 75 activities being offered which include (but are not limited to) stock market investing, coding, fishing, pet care, fashion, audio engineering and a vast range of sporting and food related experiences.
It has been a huge task allocating 1,436 students (grades 4-12) to activities but we have around 98% of them aligned to one of their three choices. We have now emailed all of these students to inform them of their allocation – please remind your child to check their emails. If your child is participating in an off-campus activity, you will soon receive a permission slip to review and complete.
Children in PreK-3 will also experience a very different day of fun and learning but this will be more self-contained and located in our Elementary School. However, the premise of this day is also built around choice.
Students from grades 4-12 will next hear from the leaders of their activity and will receive more specific instructions about meeting times and locations and anything they need to bring with them.
After the event, we hope that our students will have made some new friends, experienced some new learning and who knows, maybe discovered a new passion. We are all looking forward to it.
Graeme Scott
Deputy Head of School for Learning
