Week Twenty Five - February 18th 2022

Secondary School

Whole School Newsletter

PYP Newsletter

Newsletter Archive

Secondary Curriculum Information

Dear Parents & Guardians

Last week I wrote about the amazing work being carried out by our CP students in preparation for their future careers. We were delighted to receive further cause for celebration over the weekend. Om Nambier, one of our Grade 11 CP students won a prestigious culinary competition conducted by Glion/Les Roche. The win means that Om has secured a place in a summer school culinary workshop in Marbella, Spain in August. Well done Om!

Also, this week Ms Sandy (MYP Coordinator) ran a ConnectEd session for parents on Unpacking the MYP. Thank you for those parents who managed to attend. (Should you have missed it, the session will be repeated in coming weeks.)

An aspect of the MYP that can be quite foreign to those used to other curricula, is assessment. One of the main differences is that MYP assessment is criteria referenced, not norm referenced. This means that each student is assessed against a set of criteria in each subject rather than against their peers. Students are given a minimum of two opportunities throughout the year to demonstrate each of the four criteria in all of their subjects. Teachers also allow for demonstration of the assessment criteria through formative tasks. Together these provide a profile of the student’s ability against each criterion.

Teachers analyze these results against level band descriptors to decide on a result for each criterion out of a total of 8. The results for each criterion are added together to provide a result out of 32 (4 x 8 = 32), which is then converted to a Grade out of 7 using the IBO published grade descriptors. This ensures that assessment is rigorous, fair, valid and reliable.

This system can be quite cumbersome to understand. Therefore, please see an example below from Individuals & Societies.

Om Nambier celebrating his recent culinary success!

Click to expand

5 + 6 + 5 + 2 = 18

Grade 4

What these results tell us is that this student is very solid with knowledge, understanding, investigating and communicating. However, needs support with being able to think critically.

Last week, reports were made available to parents. We are hopeful that you have discussed your child’s results with them at this stage. Hopefully the above explanation, and the accompanying explanation attached to the reports, will assist in gaining deeper understanding on how assessment is carried out at GIS.

However, as stated previously, assessment in the MYP is different to other systems. Therefore, should you still have questions regarding the process, please do not hesitate to contact Ms Sandy and she will be more than happy to assist.

I take this opportunity to wish you a safe week ahead. Please be mindful that next Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday is mid-term break. Therefore, school will resume on Thursday Feb 24^th. Due to the short week, there will also be no newsletter.

Regards & stay safe

Amanda Murphy

Head of Secondary

Upcoming Dates

Feb 18th Last day of term

Feb 24th New term begins

Feb 28th - March 4th GIS LitFest

Mar 4th Subject Fair (for Grade 10 students)

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January 12th - Keeping a Big School Small

January 26th - DP/CP Pathways

While we work to make this available via YouTube, please access this session recording by logging in with your child's gemselearning credentials.

Subject Fair - Newsletter.pdf

Our Student Voice

The Link Magazine is a secondary online school magazine where our students talk about their interests through weekly articles. This includes world news, GIS events and many more thought provoking concepts. Make sure to check out our Website and Instagram!

@gis_elt

@gis__thelink

GIS SPORTS & HEALTH MONTH IS COMING!

The Sports Committee is very pleased to announce the upcoming Sport & Health Month which will take place during March. This event is in collaboration with the House Committee, which means that there will be many opportunities for students to win house points! Sports & Health Month will be packed with fun activities, some of which will even let you work collaboratively with other students as a team. You can check the Sports & Health Month Calendar and make sure to sign up for the team events, inter-house basketball and dodgeball tournaments, by filling out the google forms linked below before the 25th of February.

Inter-house tournament sign-ups:

Basketball: Link to the form

Dodgeball: Link to the form

60km Challenge: Link to Sign-Up

Take a look at this presentation for more detailed information regarding Sports & Health Month and the respective activities. We wish you a good day and an enjoyable break!

Cigdem Kavcar

Head of Sports Committee

This week, the amazing Student ELT launched the Secondary Student Hub to the MYP students during Advisory. This is an ongoing collaborative project between the Student ELT, Inclusion Team & Grade Leaders.

The Secondary Student Hub will be the students access point for the new social groups and peer mentoring, as well as signing up for the already established peer tutoring programme.

Students will also be able to find links to ECAs, student voice initiative, counsellor referral forms, mindset matters and homeroom information. We are really proud of the work that the Student ELT have put in to this so far and look forward to seeing their expansion of the site.

THE PERSONAL PROJECT

In the Personal Project Grade 10 students have the opportunity to showcase the skills they developed throughout the MYP. They have to choose something they want to learn about and decide on a product to create. Our Grade 10 students have now completed their products and what they have done is seriously impressive! We hope to be able to host an exhibition later on in the year to share their wonderful work with the whole community, but I would like to give you a sneak preview of some of their work over coming weeks.

Ms Sandy

Tariebi created a website to help athletes to train effectively.

https://tariebio.wixsite.com/motokinect

Pre-order Food Through Slices

Students are encouraged to bring a packed lunch to school - particularly while COVID-19 restrictions are in place - as it ensures that they are able to eat and drink as required throughout the school day.

If you wish to make use of the Slices catering service, please note that:

Food deliveries will not be permitted from external restaurants/catering services.
Food orders must be ordered through Slices in advance by completing this GOOGLE FORM.

Orders for following weeks must be placed by 10am each Friday.
Orders must be placed in advance for the full week (Monday to Thursday).
Same-day orders/deliveries will not be possible.

Food orders will be delivered to the students' classroom.
Students will not be permitted to visit the canteen in order to purchase water or snacks throughout the day.

Please consider an appropriate quantity and variety of foods to sustain your child for the duration of the school day.
Students are encouraged to bring sufficient water with them to school to sustain them throughout the day.

From the Classroom (and beyond)

Please find results, scorers, action photos, match reports, Sports News and much more on our Jaguar Sports website

You can also read reviews of the latest GIS sporting action via the GIS PHE site, curtesy of our Head of Sports Committee, Cigdem Kavcar

Ayse Ece Ozgoren from Grade 11 competed in the Dubai Youth Fencing Championships on the 12th of February. She came away with a bronze medal in the U17 individuals category - congratulations Ayse!

Stars of the Week!

Branislav Lukic, Larisa Tarvendizadech, Sebasitian Merila, Lana Hiranandani, Olivia Spierling, Mazin Bayoumi, Elisavet Tsoumani, Suzan Himeida, Vasiliki Chrysochoou, Fredrika Klintell, Aadit Chandrani, Moez El-Dandarawy, Shiv Sood, Justo Pedevilla, Latifa Almheiri, Sanjna Tanna, Sarah Ayyash, Anshi Marwani, Alice Funari & Sia Dhamecha

Individuals and Societies

This week, Mr Zulk’s I&S classes 10A and 10D participated in a World Scholar’s inspired debate. The motion of the debate was ‘Rich countries have a duty to help poor countries’. This was in line with criterion C and D formative assessments for their economics unit. Students produced a short evaluation essay based on the statement for the motion in which they also developed a deeper understanding of key concepts such as GDP, GDP per capita, foreign aid and factors of production. They were then assigned either an affirmative or negative team for their debate.

Grade 10 students displayed their excellent communication skills and were encouraged to think critically for both their essay and debate. Both classes engaged in a world class debate and demonstrated excellent public speaking skills. Well done Grade 10, carry on being great IB learners!

Mathematics

Our grade 6 students were rounding numbers: not only to a certain number of decimal places, but also to significant figures, a new concept learned in MYP that is used throughout until their final DP exam. Students completed differentiated activities, mainly on paper, but some students had the opportunity to access an online activity to reinforce their skills on rounding to 3 significant figures.

Grade 7 students received feedback and feedforward on their Criterion A summative assessment and some discussed and completed their test corrections in groups. All students practiced how to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions and mixed numbers, where after some students attempted more challenging questions on order of operations with fractions. Although we have moved on to conversions between fractions, percentages and decimal numbers, students have enough resources available on their weekly objectives document to continue practicing this challenging topic at home.

Lexonic

Over the past few weeks, a number of grade 6 students were exposed to Lexonik Advance, a program to improve literacy - developing their vocabulary, academic language, comprehension skills, spelling and confidence.