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Parent Survey on MS Virtual School

In the past 2 weeks, we have made significant changes to the middle school virtual school program. We shifted to a “live” school schedule, using Zoom to connect students and teachers. We adjusted our schedule to keep rotations consistent with only Day 1 and Day 2 schedules. And we built breaks into the schedule for students to stretch, nourish, and take a break from the screens. 

Behind the scenes we’ve asked teachers to focus on connections, balance, and learning with their students. And EVERYONE has become more technically adept, accustomed to the expectations, and more used to being home.

Many parents have shared feedback about these changes, but we wanted to collect more formal data from parents about how they think it’s going. We have informally collected feedback from teachers and students, as well. We will survey them next week.

Please complete the linked survey about how your middle school child is faring with Virtual School. We appreciate your feedback as we continue to look for what’s going well and what we can still do to improve.

MS Student-Led Conferences 

by Dennis Harter, MS Principal
dennish@isb.ac.th

Next week, in each course, teachers will be spend some time working with students through a process that guides students to reflect on their learning to date. Students will consider how online learning has impacted this and will reflect on pieces of work that demonstrate their understanding.

Part of the reflection process will guide students to setting goals for their learning in the remainder of the school year.

The end goal of this will be for students to be able to engage in a Student-Led Conference with parents in the following week.  Student-led conferences are commonly used in middle schools around the world to engage students in their learning and to help shift “ownership” of that learning from the teacher to the student. 

Research supports the positive impact of student-led conferences as students “reflect on their own words on how far they’ve come, where they still need to learn, and what they’re proud of.”

Perhaps this quote from “4 Ways Student-Led Conferences Can Impact Your School,” sums it up best: 

“When students are included in the conversation, they understand they need to be actively involved in their own academic and social progress.”

More communication will be forthcoming about the process, but we wanted to let you know that in the coming week, we would be preparing with students.

Repeat Announcement: Help us capture these unique times 

Around the world we are seeing unique times and we are all doing our best to adapt to the new situation. We would like to celebrate some of the unique work environments or fun home situations that MS students and families have created in this time of virtual school and home stay.

Please send any photos (mail to: dennish@isb.ac.th) that you would be happy for us to share on our middle school instagram page. In order to share a photo, we need parent permission, so please send photos from parent email accounts – which would indicate you are giving permission for us to use the photo.

We’d love to see our students at work, at play, with pets, or creatively passing the time with family.

Repeat Announcement: Update on ISB Summer School 2020 

MS Arts and Crafts (1 week) June 15 – 19 for students entering Grade 6 – 9 in August.

MS Badminton and Table Tennis (1 week) June 15 – 19 for students entering Grade 6 – 9 in August.

MS Instrumental Music Summer Camp – (1 week) June 15 – 19 for students entering Grade 7 – 9 in August.

MS Math Enrichment – Fun with Math! (1 week) June 15 – 19 for students entering Grade 6 – 9 in August.

ISB Panther Swim Camp; Experience the “Panther Way” (1 week) June 15 – 19 for students entering Grade 2 – 12 in August.