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The SPC came together for Halloween, putting the spirit into Spirit Week. With candy for all students and teachers, competitions galore and some great parties, it may have been our biggest effort yet!

Over 270 students participated in the Primary School's Trick-or-Treat Carnival, where class parents decorate their doors for prizes. The students journeyed through the Johannesgatan building, completing a Halloween challenge at each door in exchange for a stamp on their card. Once they had a full stamp card, families were invited to come to the auditorium to pick up their candy bag, take pictures at the photo booth, and craft while enjoying spooky snacks!

The Middle School Halloween Committee (in conjunction with students), threw a party at the OPG with games, a disco, a fortune teller and a whole Halloween spread including KFC, cakes and candy!

Competition winners

Parents’ Doorways: Parents from EY, 3V & 5C

Students’ Jokes: Hamad Almohaidib, Luke Kelly & Gabriel Smolkin

Teachers’ Costumes: Mr Snell, Ms. Gernandt, The SLT, ‘Museum’ by the Art teachers, ‘Electricity’ by Ms March/Ms. Logan & The 3 Musketeers!

The SPC Buddy Boat is where new families get to make friends and try Swedish fika, while sailing the archipelago and experiencing Stockholm's stunning scenery in the autumn sunshine. This year, over 60 parents signed up - and we even got a glimpse of royalty, as the King's Boat and the royal Norwegian and Danish yachts were on the water to celebrate the King of Sweden’s 50th anniversary of his coronation. 

We started the event with some 'Buddy Boat Bingo', where parents had to meet 9 people who fulfilled different criteria. Congratulations to Mari Lavender, Amy Gervich and Nicoletta Batini who won prizes for completing their bingo cards first! It paved the way for a lot of chatting and making connections with parents. Of course, everyone on board was a winner - of the Nobel prize in chocolate form! - as they disembarked from this floating fika with friends.

The SPC ran an 'Acts of Kindness' campaign for Valentine's Day in Primary - and the students wowed us with their efforts!

From baked treats for the teachers to doing chores at home, from reading to other classes to cards for the catering staff, from looking after pets to offering 'smiles' around the building, there were beautiful gestures from children of all ages! In fact, so many beautiful gestures, we couldn't pick just one winner! So, the SPC is awarding prizes to all classes - this will be 1 book/grade level donated to the library in their name, as one final Act of Kindness. 

Thank you to Primary students, parents and teachers for helping make Valentine’s Day a meaningful day and showing the spirit of kindness at SIS.

When school declared a 'snow day' on the 21st November, there was only one question to ask the SIS Parent Community: Do you wanna build a snowman? The answer was a resounding 'YES' with pictures of snowy landscapes, red cheeked children and variations of Frosty pouring in!

We had tall ones, family ones and even a 'bench' snowman! There were also some lovely shots of the school playground, transformed into a winter wonderland; and a number of families took the chance to get the sleds out! For some students, this was their first experience building a snowman, and we feel privileged to share those memories. 

What a way to mark the occasion of the winter season - thank you SIS families!

Monday 7th November was Swedish Teacher's Day - and also the first day back at school after autumn break. We wanted to make sure it was a sweet return and so the our parent community baked, bought or contributed to fika for all the staff across all 4 locations!

From those who baked or bought their treats, there was a wealth of yumminess from brigadeiros to stroopwafels, from carrot cakes to cupcakes, from brownies to cheesecake, accompanied by lovely messages of appreciation.

For those who donated to the SPC board, we did not let you down! Cardamom buns, red velvet croissants, key lime pies, s'mores brownies and three enormous cakes (raspberry & white chocolate, salted caramel and devil's chocolate) with a big 'Thank you, SIS staff' on each of them!

Thanks to them - and thanks to our wonderful parent community. Together, we make everything possible.

On Friday 16th September, the SPC hosted our first 'Chillax in the Annexe' for middle schoolers. Over 60 students signed up to hang out with friends, eat pizza and play games. There were Xboxes and Nintendos set up, as well as a variety of board games, which the students seemed to enjoy just as much! It was heartwarming to see how much fun they had - and how well they behaved!

'Chillax in the Annexe' was launched in 2021 as part of the YANA (You Are Not Alone) initiative for students. We felt it vital to have a safe space for old and new students to be together and have fun (under parental supervision, of course!)

Many many thanks to Christian, Demetra, Diana, Farrah, Henrik, Inga, Tamara, Kevin, Monica, Marianne and Rekha for volunteering - we could not have done it without you! And of course special thanks to Avanti, the VP for middle school, who led and organised our first Chillax of the school year!

It was great to be able to finally meet in person for our general meetings after two long pandemic years!

We were delighted to meet old parents and new and share our exciting plans for the year ahead, including our new structure. As well as president Marianne Lauridsen, we now have 3 Vice-Presidents to reflect the differing needs of the school ages: David Salinas for Primary School, Avanti Bammanhalli for Middle School and Tamara Tomasetto for Upper School.  This was a wonderful opportunity for them to introduce themselves and exchange ideas with the wider SPC.

2022-23 is the year to rebuild our community after Covid, both from top-level events involving the whole school to grassroots events led by parents on Classlist. Whether it's International Day, where the entire school community comes together to celebrate its diversity; learning how to curl with the trustees or a museum visit to Uppsala, it's all happening here with the SPC!

On 25th March, over 150 parents got together to celebrate 70 years of community building with the SPC!

The fun started at 8pm in Skyddsrummet, overlooking the water - and didn't end until 2am. There was a live band and DJ, great friends and canapés - everything we needed to celebrate after two hard pandemic-ridden years. The evening also served as a fund raiser to ensure all our students also had spring parties: their parents finally had 'Permission to Dance' and now, so could their children!

A huge thank you to Carlsberg and Pernod Ricard for ensuring the drinks flowed all night. As well as great beer and mixers, bartenders poured 'house-themed' cocktails that helped us stay on the dance floor:

A Breath of Fresh AIR: Absolut Citron, Lychee, Lemon, Ginger & Elderflower
WATER: The Surf Wave Malibu, Cucumber Bitters & Elderflower Soda
EARTH: Cocoa Martini Absolut Vodka, Kahlua, Scrappy’s Chocolate Bitters & Espresso
FIRE: Fiery Mule Absolut Lime, Lime & Ginger Beer 

Thank you to everyone who came and made the evening so special - we love the SIS Parent Community!

Photos courtesy of Neha Glader

The SPC celebrated love of community this Valentine's Day! All teachers were asked for 3 'wishes' for their classroom outside of the common supply list. The wishes were posted up and parents either purchased the items or contributed money so that the SPC could do so.

Every teacher received at least one gift from their list, with some classes pooling their efforts for big items such as a 2nd hand stationery bike and ear defenders for every child in the class! We even had some gifts outside of the list, which were gratefully received such as musical instruments. Check the teacher rocking out to her guitar!

All the gifts were wrapped and delivered to the teachers on Valentine's Day, along with chocolates for every staff lounge. All the recipients were hugely grateful and touched by the effort made, with this message being a typical response:

Too Kind! Much appreciated and will be very utilized!!!! This has been such a lovely initiative; thank you thank you!

Over Valentine's week, the SPC has put up 'SIS Appreciation Trees', where students and staff can write all the things they love about the school. From the initial response, we can say there are a lot of things! A huge thank you to the amazing SIS parents for making the children's classrooms that bit more special; and sharing the love this Valentine's Day.

On 1st February, the SPC celebrated the year of the Tiger! We decorated the school and provided every student with a fortune cookie. During the evening, we were joined online by 60 students, parents and staff members to watch a presentation (see left) by SIS Chinese students on the Chinese New Year festival. We followed it up with an online bingo game hosted by SIS parent Cheryl Abramson. 

The lucky winners were: Yao Ge, The Oslers, Oliver Grace, Lucas Abramson, Sandra Loureiro & Ellen Larsson, who have all won vouchers to spend at Urban Deli. 

Congratulations and happy new year!

We know our parent community is talented and we couldn't have been more delighted to find out we had a budding sommelier in our midst! This gave the Parent Reps of grades 6 & 8 the chance to organise an evening of fine wine and nibbles at the OPG.

Other parent initiatives included a day out at the iconic Opera House in Stockholm. Parents got to chat over a light lunch and then be moved by fantastically talented singers, giving us a taste of Swedish carols. The last song 'I'll be Home for Christmas' definitely brought a few tears for some of us who have been waiting a long time to see our loved ones.

There was also a very special julbord - Christmas lunch - at Norra Latin, with the most amazing seasonal displays and a spread of food that had us drooling, especially the desserts!

The SPC Halloween event was bigger and better than ever! Compared to our usual 100 tickets for just primary students, we were able to entertain almost 300 students across all the SIS locations and still meet all fire codes and school regulations.  We were thrilled to help build community across all our locations.

For Grades EY3-G2, we had a Halloween movie night on 28th October, whilst G3-5 enjoyed our famous carnival, playing games to win their candy. In the Annexe, we had a Halloween-themed Chillax with a choice of 2 movies and spooky songs, whilst students at the OPG enjoyed a 'Halloween Hangout' with themed mocktails and snacks. There were candy bags for all and costume contests a-plenty, including a staff one where the children got to choose the winners!

All-in-all, it was a wonderful celebration for our children. Thank you to all those parent volunteers who made it all possible with their help, kindness and food donations!

All pictures have been published with parental consent. If you have any issues, please contact spc@intsch.se.

On 3rd September, the SPC launched 'Chillax in the Annexe', an after-school hangout for Grades 6-9, as part of our wider YANA initiative. 

The event was fully booked and the students had a great time: chatting, playing table football and hide-and-seek and eating copious amounts of pizza. There was even some dancing from the 8th graders! 

The students gave us so much positive feedback and clearly loved being at the school with no teachers there! Our favorite quote:

 'I'm glad not everybody from our class came because we got to hang out with kids from other classes, which we wouldn't usually have done'. 

That's what the You Are Not Alone project is all about - and we're so glad it was a success. 

Watch out for the next event on the 1st October!

All pictures have been published with parental consent. If you have any issues, please contact spc@intsch.se.