Newsletter, November 21st, 2019.

Hello CCS Community,

It continues to be a busy time at CCS. In the Primary programme, we hosted a very successful student council initiated Dodgeball Tournament with the winning team playing the teachers. Don’t worry, the students held their own but our teaching team did come out victorious. We also had a very well attended Year 5V assembly about Newtons Laws of Motion many house points awards and SWLE recognition certificates, were also, presented. Thank you to those who attended our parent workshops last week. In case you missed them, please find the presentations below.

Whole School Child Protection Workshop

Primary Assessment Workshop

We appreciate your support and partnership! Parental engagement is a key element in student learning. As a school, we have been collaboratively redeveloping our definition of High-Quality Learning at CCS which has been documented in policy. This is one element which the Council of International Schools highlights as a driver for school improvement.

The purpose of this policy is to make explicit the school’s beliefs about the characteristics of high-quality learning and the role of students, teachers, and parents. Foundational to this policy is the belief that quality learning is student-led and individualised. The teacher’s role is to facilitate the learning process by implementing effective student-centred teaching practices at all times. Furthermore, learning occurs in a dynamic community in which students value what they are learning and seek to make a difference. This policy supports all community members in order to provide high-quality learning experiences, resulting in high levels of individual achievement.

High-Quality Learning at CCS is:

An engaging process in which learners connect to prior learning, transferable concepts, and local and global contexts.
Based on inquiry with learners demonstrating curiosity, exercising choice, setting goals, and taking responsibility as life-long learners.
Focused on the community with learners collaborating and applying to learn in a supportive, positive environment.
Respectful of learners’ unique needs, interests, and individual process; students are supported to learn from failure as much as success.
A balance of academic, personal, social, and emotional development.
A process that fosters the desire to learn more through practice, reflection, and feedback.

The policy goes on to describe when High Quality Learning occurs and what you would see students and teachers doing in our learning environments. Parents contribute as well! At CCS, High Quality Learning occurs when parents:

Actively engage in their child’s learning process.
Connect and collaborate with others to further support their child’s learning and wellbeing.
Act as role models for learning, respect, engagement, and balance.
Provide a compassionate home environment which celebrates and promotes individuals’ culture and language.

We look forward to continuing to partner with you as we move policy into practice and continue to embed High Quality Learning throughout our community experience.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Enjoy your week ,

Ben Voborsky

Primary School Principal

Year 5V dancing and singing “Newton Law Song”

Year 3 PPKn Gotong royong value in daily life.

Year 2S dancing and singing “Yamko Rambe Yamko”

Takeaways from the Creating Cultures of Thinking Team

The team: Miss Beth, Miss Yanti, Mrs Thakran, Miss Wade, Miss Truchi and Mr V, are halfway through the online course by Harvard University, on a quest to develop a culture of thinking in the classroom so that it supports students’ development as thinkers and learners capable of deep understanding. Through an examination of the eight cultural forces: expectations, language, modelling, time, opportunities, routines, interactions, and environment, we have been using these eight forces as the levers of transformation. A recent takeaway that was well received in our classrooms was the introduction of growth mindsets. We need to recognise that we are all a mix of growth and fixed mindsets and we always will be. If we want to develop more of a growth mindset, we need to know what our fixed mindset is thinking and to be aware of this struggle. It is not all about praise so that students feel good about trying. The praise we provide must directly and specifically link to the learning achieved and to academic goals. When a student’s efforts are not productive, instead of praising them for trying hard, we would be better to step in and offer specific and constructive feedback and orchestrate the gradual release of responsibility for them to become more self-sufficient learners. In 5V we have been developing our mindfulness through an online app: Smiling Mind. Alongside this, we also have started using the Visual Thinking Routine, “What makes you say that?” with sentence starters that assist students to show deeper thinking in their responses to maths tasks (See photo). Giving structure to the types of responses needed has improved the number of students who freely respond, the quality of work, the vocabulary the learners use, as well as attentiveness and focus throughout the lesson.

Attached are some ideas to develop the language of thinking and a growth mindset at home.

PDF – 9 Apps for Parents

Mr Vercoe

SMA Negeri 7 Denpasar visiting our campus.

CCS welcomed students and teachers from SMA Negeri 7 Denpasar, our partner school last Wednesday. CCS students worked collaboratively with students from SMA Negeri 7 Denpasar participating in cultural activities, such as cooking Sumatran food called empek-empek in the Cantina and learning and performing traditional dances from Bali and Sumatra. They also played a mixed volleyball match with players from CCS and SMA Negeri 7 Denpasar.

Ms Kellie Savage.

16+ BSSA Senior Friendly Volleyball Tournament

Well done to all 16+ BSSA volleyball players for their efforts in the Senior Friendly Volleyball Tournament at CCS on Thursday! It was a great night played in excellent spirit, coupled with some impressive performances. You can all go into your Finals tournament with confidence!

Thank you to the PE staff (and Ms.Urban) for coaching, refereeing and organising the tournament; students and staff that came out to support; and all the students that helped scorekeep across the large number of games.

A special well done to our girls teams who came in overall 1st and 2nd places in the girls competition. See the pictures below for the final results.’

Mr Steve.

2nd Annual Community Assist Basketball Tournament

By: Khya Sumarto & Anastasia Feklistova

The Community Assist Basketball Tournament is now one of the most known events that CCS hosts. The idea for this event started out last year and current Year 13 students Kayla, Nour and Leland took on the planning of it as a CAS project. After an incredibly successful event, this became a perfect example of a CAS project future students can relate to. A reminder of what a CAS project is, it is a collaborative, well-considered series of sequential CAS experiences, engaging students in one or more of the CAS strands of creativity, activity, and service. It is a mandatory assignment for students in the DP, which is vital to a student’s success in passing the CAS programme. As this is now an annual event, it is a great CAS opportunity for students interested in the aspect of event organisation, marketing and management.

This year, multiple Year 12 students took on the event as their own CAS project, with the mentoring by the original Year 13 students, the event was yet another success. Even if some students are not interested in this being their CAS project, it can still be a great, one day experience since there are a lot of opportunities to volunteer on the day of the event.

We interviewed Noa, a Year 12 student participating in her first year of IB and CAS. This is what she had to say about the event and her project; “My project was organising the Second Annual Indosole x CCS x PNNY Basketball Tournament. This biggest challenge I faced during this project was getting in contact with the businesses and trying to persuade them to sponsor our event. This project was about raising awareness about the devastating plastic problem in Bali and addressing the effects of the Lombok earthquakes. Our goal was to raise over 100 million rupiah (IDR) and donate all the proceedings made via ticket sales and raffles to Pulau Plastik (a plastic awareness campaign by Kopernik) and The Shelter Project. Overall I think this event was really successful, we raised a lot of money and had a great turnout throughout the day. The atmosphere was fantastic and everybody had a great time volunteering for a great cause.” We asked Noa for any tips or suggestions she could make to anybody wanting to get involved next year: “If you’re getting involved next year I would definitely suggest making sure you follow any deadlines your mentor gives you so you don’t fall behind as this project is very time-consuming and strenuous if not kept up to date. However, the outcome is very rewarding and I encourage everybody to be a part of this great project”.

As the Community Assist event will be coming back next year, we highly encourage current Year 12 students to step up next year and take on the same roles of mentors to ensure a smooth transition into next year’s success. Additionally, it is important to remember to write all the needed reflections, whether this is a CAS project or an experience, as reflection are just as vital to passing the CAS programme.

Birthdays

Nov 21 – Joep, Year 7CC

Nick, Year 7CC

Nov 22 – Gemma, Year 12HB

Nov 23 – Veronika, Year 7SG

Nov 24 – Willow, Year 6S

Aliyah, Year 7CC

Nov 25 – Anouchka, Year 9MM

Azel, Year 13SB

Nov 26 – Aurelle, Year 11AM

Forthcoming Events

22 November – FoCCS Bake Sale, Year 6