Happy New Year to our ISB Elementary School families! We hope that your vacation has been restful and enjoyable. Also, a fond welcome to the new families who are joining our elementary school and ISB community.
Unfortunately, our new semester will not begin on campus as we hoped. The good news is that everyone at ISB is very familiar with Virtual School and we continue to update our procedures in the spirit of ongoing improvement. Detailed plans are in place to support our students’ ongoing learning and development!
Part of maintaining a healthy, active, and balanced life will be managing time on screens for students. Given that school will require a significant amount of screen time during Virtual School, we hope that families find ways to encourage other use of time outside of school “hours” during this period. Physical activity, time outside of the house, playing board games, and reading books can all help provide balance for children (and ourselves).
We also recommend setting up a clear workspace at home so that students can focus their attention on school work, but then also separate from it when disconnecting.
Finally and most importantly, Virtual School relies on students’ own engagement during Zoom classes to make the most of this learning time. Keeping them on-screen and actively participating during class, having a designated workspace, and avoiding distractions like phones and/or multi-tasking that might take their attention away from class time can all help ensure we maximize this learning time until we are all back in classrooms on campus.
Our strong home-school partnership is essential to student success at all times, and this is especially true during virtual school where students are engaged in Zoom sessions and learning tasks from home. We invite you to ask questions and seek clarification at any time as we work to support you while you support your child(ren)’s learning.
On behalf of all of us in the ES, our best wishes go out to everyone in our community who have been directly impacted by COVID these past few weeks; we wish you and/or your loved ones a speedy recovery.
Your partner in education,
Michael Allen, Ed.D.
michaela@isb.ac.th