Sunday, October 25, 2015

House Day 2015

We had glorious weather for our second Seisen K-12 House Day on Tuesday 20th October.  The House Captains did a wonderful job of organising indoor and outdoor events for their teams.  All 48 teams spent half the day at school competing in fun activities to earn house points for their team. They designed house mascots (winners to be announced soon!); played Charades and Pictionary and competed against other houses in some competitive races in the Gym.  At Kinuta Park, teams worked together to get to know each other and build team spirit from K-12.  The day finished with a paper crane making competition where each house had 30 minutes to  make as many coloured paper cranes as possible.  Stand by for the House Points results to be announced soon...



Wednesday, October 14, 2015

New Units of Inquiry

All grades (1-6) are inquiring into How The World Works over the next five to six weeks.  During these units students will be developing their scientific inquiry skills and knowledge and will investigate how society uses scientific principles and understandings. Below are the learning outcomes for each of these units.  You can take your own copy of these documents from the SOLO Taxonomy display board next to the Cafeteria.  You can also access all the learning outcomes for the first semester (for all subject areas) by visiting our PYP curriculum page on Seisen's official website here.  Click on the images below to enlarge.
Grade 1: 
Sound and Light can be produced by different sources and can be changed
Grade 2:
Changes in the earth's physical features can impact the way people live their lives
Grade 3:
People apply their knowledge of forces and energy to create practical applications
Grade 4:
Scientific processes can be used to investigate how forms of energy are stored and transformed

Grade 5:
People use their knowledge of properties of matter to suit specific needs
Grade 6:
The design of buildings and structures is dependent upon environmental factors, human ingenuity and available materials

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Grade 1 PYP Coffee Morning

Most of our grade one students came from our own Kindergarten where they had spent three years and relationships between students, teachers and parents were strong.  We wanted to continue to build on these relationships so decided that we would dedicate our first PYP Coffee Morning to grade 1 parents.  The objective of the informal meeting was for parents to get a glimpse or a snapshot of what learning looks like in grade 1, to talk about the learning process together and to explore some electronic resources that can be used at home to help support student learning.

We started off by asking parents to reflect on what they thought there should be more or less emphasis on in a grade 1 classroom.  As the session progressed, we asked that parents reflected on their initial thoughts.
What do you think there should be more / less emphasis on in a grade 1 classroom?
Parents discussing their beliefs on what should be emphasised in a grade 1 classroom

Next we watched a short video of a typical day in Grade 1 to see how learning was organised.


After this we listened to Naomi from 1B talk about the learning process and how we start by gathering one idea and many ideas, before connecting these ideas and going further (see the post on the SOLO Taxonomy).  We looked together at the learning outcomes for the next unit.  



After we had discussed the different resources we use with students, we then gave parents an opportunity to explore the electronic resources that can support learning at home.  These included Mathletics, Tumblebooks and Brainpop Junior.  You can find our school's login details for these sites in your daughter's agenda books. 

Finally, we finished by reflecting on the decreased / increased emphasis chart parents had used at the beginning of the session.  We displayed our own view (and that of the PYP) and discussed our philosophy of learning.  We would like to thank all the parents who took time to join us this morning and look forward to continuing to build relationships with all parents over the coming year. 

Our own and the PYP's opinion on what there should be more / less emphasis on in a grade 1 classroom




Monday, October 5, 2015

Introducing the New ES House Captains!

We had a huge number of grade six students apply for the House Captain posts this year.  As part of their PYP unit of inquiry on role models the girls were asked to create a presentation outlining how they display the attributes of a positive role model for Seisen Elementary Students.  Also taken into account was the girls' demonstration of our learner profile attributes during the recent grade six trip to Fuji Children's World and Hakone. The decision was a really difficult one to make as there were so many great presentations and such strong potential leaders.  Congratulations to the successful students below, we're looking forward to working with you closely over the year.  Stay tuned for news of our first house event, the House Picnic on Friday 16th October...
Ontake: Neema, Victoria and Jillian
Chokai: Seoyoon, Ayame and Riana
Asama: Mize, Emily and Nana
Iwaki: Ashlynn, Vannessa and Mia 

Japan Council of International Schools' Conference on Child Protection


Great to be part of the JCIS Conference on Children Protection (September 26-27) in Nagoya. Two days of great insights, guidelines and procedures shared by Lois Engelbrecht PhD, an internationally recognised, experienced expert in the field of child protection and well-being. Fantastic sharing of ideas and resources by over 50 educators from school's across Japan; counsellors, nurses and administrators. The conference explored areas such as children's rights, strategies and curricula to equip children to recognise and advocate for their rights and safety, school structures to support student safety and well-being. The conference was attended by Seisen's Administration team who look forward to continuing to build on and develop this work in the coming year.

JCIS Conference on Child Protection, Nagoya