EDUCATION WITH DISTINCTION
EDITION 24 / 10 APRIL 2021
ALL THE NEWS...
From the Director's Chair
Big Decisions
Do you recognise the names Joe Simpson and Simon Yates? I doubt there is a mountain climber in the world who does not. Their story inspires and frightens in equal measure and poses a moral dilemma that is talked about to this day.
Simpson and Yates are two mountain climbers who, in 1985, set out to climb the mountain Siula Grande in the Andes via a route that had never before been climbed.
They summited the mountain successfully, but on the descent, at night, Joe Simpson fell down a crevasse and his right leg was badly broken. With so much climbing still to be done and with the temperature rapidly dropping, Simpson thought he was likely to die. He expected Yates to leave him as it seemed virtually impossible to get a crippled man down such a treacherous mountain in such conditions. To even try would put the lives of both men in danger.
Yates made the decision to stay.
He devised a plan for how he might get the pair down the mountain. In basic terms, he would lower Simpson, who was by now a dead weight, down the mountain 300 feet at a time. It was a Herculean feat. Both men were stretched to the limits of their endurance but against the odds they started to make good progress.
Just as Yates started to believe it might just be possible to get down safely, he felt a sharp tug on the rope and was nearly pulled off the mountain. The rope never went slack. He had no idea what had happened but found himself being pulled relentlessly downwards.
Meanwhile, three hundred feet below him, Simpson had gone over the edge of a cliff and was dangling helplessly in mid-air. He tried in vain to climb back up the rope but to no avail. He hung in the air, knowing that nothing could be done, just waiting to die.
It was pitch black, they were alone, and in a worsening mountain storm. Yates was faced with the most desperate moral dilemma. What should he do? What could he do?
He cut the rope.
You can find a dramatization of the event here.
I wouldn’t dream of making any kind of judgement on that decision, but what I can say is that the decision split the climbing community in half. Yates was vilified by many; one newspaper even suggested that Yates had “tried and sentenced his best friend to death”. Many other sympathised with his decision and said they would do the same under similar circumstances.
Yates’ descent from there on was reasonably straightforward. Simpson went through three days of hell but, remarkably, survived. Interestingly, he was one of the people who supported Yates’ decision.
He says that what got him down the mountain and back to safety was the fact that he and his companion kept making decisions. Sometimes those decisions were wrong, sometimes they were right, but the fact that they kept making them was the key. They were both decisive in their actions and did not allow themselves to be paralysed by inner turmoil and self-doubt.
Hopefully, none of us will ever have to make a decision like the one faced by Simon Yates. We do, however, all have big decisions, sometimes life-changing decisions to make. If we can learn anything from such an extreme incident it is that we should be decisive; to control events and not let events control us. As the saying goes, you define the moment or you let the moment define you.
Let us hope none of us are ever faced with the sort of extreme dilemma that Simon Yates had that day, but you may wish to ponder…what decision would YOU have made?
One to talk about around the family dining table during the break, perhaps.
Enjoy the holiday!
Julian Thomas
Director
From the Deputy Director Wellbeing
IMPORTANT COVID-19 UPDATE - PLEASE READ:
There have been zero cases of Covid-19 at ISM this week.
Please note that ISM will again ask all students to return to school on Monday 19th April with a negative Covid-19 test. Saliva tests will be accepted for the younger students.
Please see the communication from Mr Thomas here.
Mrs Lindsay Mackenzie-Wright - Deputy Director - Wellbeing
School Health Coordinators:
healthcoordinators@ismonaco.comDeputy Director (Wellbeing):
lindsay.wright@ismonaco.comFrom the Health Coordinators
COVID-related symptoms to stay home for and alert the school for an absence are:
- Cough, difficulty breathing, rapid breathing rate
- Temperature of 38 degrees Celsius or over
- Loss of sense of smell and/or taste
- Diarrhea
If a PCR test has been ordered for your child, the child needs to stay home until the result has been received. Once you have the result, please forward it to the School Health Coordinators and await further instructions from them on when to come back to school.
When a parent has a positive PCR result for COVID19:- Inform the school via email: - healthcoordinators@ismonaco.com - lindsay.wright@ismonaco.com- The whole household is to remain home in quarantine/isolation- Each member of the household is to be PCR tested as soon as possible- Report results of PCR tests to the above addresses- Await instructions from the health coordinators
Click below for all the news & information from your child's section of the school.
From the Early Years
Dear Parents,
I hope this finds you well and that that you are looking forward to Spring Break.
As we come to the end of this 2nd term, I must say a big thank you to all our boys and girls for all their achievements and efforts. I am feeling happy and satisfied with your children’s results, and I must congratulate their positive attitudes to their learning as well as their respectful and caring interactions with one another and their teachers. Of course, we can always do better, as we strive for excellence, and I look forward to a great final 3rd term. This is when all the knowledge and skills come together, when children really come into their own and excel…..and you know for sure that they are ready to continue their learning journey and move up to the next year group. Usually, we would have some wonderful showcases for you to witness and be part of, like our Portfolio Open Days, Sports’ Days, End of Year shows, Art Exhibition etc. but these are difficult times as we continue to adapt to the pandemic protocols as best we can. Our priority is to keep well and safe, so for the moment ‘Seesaw’ is strongly recommended as teachers are uploading work and videos to share with you, on a secure online platform.
Today we ended this 2nd term on a positive note, celebrating ‘Book Day’ and welcoming Korky Paul online to the Early Years! His books are popular in our classrooms, especially the ‘Winnie the Witch’ series. Our children loving reading them and are carried away into a fantasy world by his illustrations! In preparation for his online sessions, children made ‘Winnie the Witch’ magic wands and had great fun listening about Winnie the Witch who loves her big black cat, Wilbur.
Children were enthralled by his storytelling and had the chance to find the secret to drawing a spectacular ‘Winnie’ as well as ‘Winniekins’! Thank you to Miss Jenny, together with Anne and Miss Henrietta, for organizing this great event!
Here is Korky Paul in action: Photo 1 / Photo 2
We had lots of activities on offer as well:
Here are the winners of our ‘Favourite Book’ competition:
Here are our winners of our ‘Fun reading places' competition:
In another competition, children had to guess who was behind the book cover. I wonder who these teachers could be!!??
Children had to guess the number of books stacked in the tower competition...and the winner was Arctic, who guessed correctly 128 books.
Student Tracking
Tracking children's progress, whether individual children or different groups of children, is an important part of effective practice. Reflecting on how children are progressing across all areas of learning ensures that each child's needs are being met. It involves assessment, analysis and then taking action. In our Wednesday afternoon meetings, we discuss and use this knowledge to improve practice, review the progress of our students, helping us to identify students in need of additional or different instruction, and hopefully with interventions these students will achieve better results. For example, an intervention may involve a set of steps to help students improve at things they struggle with in perhaps reading or maths. Student tracking also helps us identify those students needing more challenge and unlock potential.
We use various forms of assessment of reading, phonics and phonological awareness, looking at reading accuracy, fluency and comprehension.
To get into our Accelerated Reading Programme, children need to take a Star Reading test that gives a reading age. AR monitors independent reading with termly goal setting. It allows children to take ownership of their reading. Our wide variety of literature on offer in our learning hub is highly motivational for our students. We also have the equivalent in French - ‘Rally Lecture’.
CEM testing done in the Early Years (Classes 1-3) helps us to uncover students' baseline capabilities in reading, spelling, maths, and mental arithmetic and helps us support and challenge every child based on his or her individual needs.
But what does tracking look like? It is not just about numbers and statistics. With young children, it may involve observations, taking photos or videos, or listening to their conversations and noting down what they say. It may involve questions and answer sessions. It might involve a little quiz or an end of unit test. It may involve observing groupwork, presentations, playing a game, work in exercise books or in portfolios of work. With our older students it may involve taking a standardized test.
From all this information we hope to compile a little dashboard for each child which will give an overview of where a child is in his or her learning.
Our Teddy Bears went home for Spring Break with well deserving students, and we congratulate our ‘Stars of the Week!’
House Points
The total house points across all the houses for this term is a grand total 6357 ! This means that teachers have awarded 6357 house points for good work, good manners, for kind and helpful gestures towards others and for trying hard and putting in great effort! This is a fantastic achievement, and it is so good to see the children responding so positively to our new house point system. House point charts are up on the wall in every classroom, and receiving house points is so reinforcing!!
Many congratulations to the winning house for this term who achieved 1674 house points. The winners are our red team - GRIMALDI!
They all received a little prize today and enjoyed a celebratory photo on the playground. The house point charts now start again, ready to see who the champions will be next term. Good luck, everyone!
Teddy Bears Picnic in Class 1B
Class 1B had their long-awaited Teddy Bears picnic, following on from our Learning Unit entitled ‘Toys, old and new’. We turned the classroom into a picnic area, and everyone invited their teddy along for some fun and games, teddy cakes and cookies, which was a little reward for all the good learning that has gone on this term!
If you are going away on holiday and mixing with others, please ensure that you respect all the guidelines wherever you may be, as we need to continue being responsible, working together to fight the pandemic, on our return to school.
I end by thanking all our families for their continuing trust and support, and I thank the Early Years team for their hard work, passion and dedication.
Wishing everyone a lovely Spring break!
Be safe!
I will see you back in the Early Years on Monday 19th April!
Best regards,
Mrs Ragi and the Early Years team
From Primary
Outstanding Achievement Awards
As we come to the end of this second term of the school year, we are celebrating the students’ many achievements across the Primary School. At the end of every term we have an Outstanding Achievement Awards Assembly. The purpose of this assembly is to recognise the achievements of those children who have made excellent progress over the course of the past term.
Teachers nominate one student from each class for the following subjects: English, French, Mathematics, Science, History/Geography, Art, Music and P.E.*
In addition to these awards, there is also a Headteacher’s Award that is presented to the child in each class who has made the greatest all-round progress.
You can access the full list of award winners by clicking here. The following students were the winners of the Headteacher’s Award:
4A – Isaac
4B – Thomas
4C – Edoardo
5A – Georgia
5B – Diane
5C – Naoise
6A – Sasha
6B – Sara
6C – Mohammad
We are all extremely proud of these students’ achievements and we are sure you will join us in congratulating them for their hard work and attainment.
Thank You
We would like to thank the Primary School PTA representatives for providing the students with a small treat and fun activity prior to the Easter break. All Primary School students received a goodie bag containing chocolate eggs and an Easter Bunny “Piggy Bank” that they decorated in class.
Next term we will be working with the PTA to arrange a revised Book Week. The provisional date for this is Thursday 24th and Friday 25th June.
Happy Holidays
On behalf of the Primary School team, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a relaxing and enjoyable break. We look forward to welcoming back all the students on Monday 19th April for the final term of the school year.
Best Wishes,
Chris Benson
*As we have been unable to teach normal P.E. lessons this term, no awards have been presented for this subject.
From Secondary
CLICK HERE FOR VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION FROM SECONDARY REGARDING:
YEAR 11 GRADE BOOSTER ASSESSMENTS
YEAR 11 WORK EXPERIENCE
WELL DONE TO YEAR 9 STUDENTS
LOWER SECONDARY AR
YEARS 10-12 - INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY TALKS
UNIVERSITY NEWS
From the Director of Studies
Systems & Structures
'Systems and Structures' should provide a scaffolding within a school to enable students to flourish. We must be careful that the scaffolding is neither too rigid nor too flexible, otherwise the school which we are trying to maintain and support is at risk of crumbling.
Let's take our system of Distance Learning as a good example. This exists with the sole purpose to provide opportunities for those students who, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, are unable to attend school safely. As an institution that has been awarded the "Monaco Safe" certification for our protocols surrounding COVID-19, only in the most extreme circumstances is it necessary for students to be out of school to protect their health or that of a family member. It could be argued that as the system exists, it should be used in more cases than just for COVID related absence, but does this create too much flexibility within the system, preventing it from supporting the structure of the school? At ISM, we firmly believe that the best place for students to learn is in the classroom, but we also recognise the futility in wasting valuable learning time for students if it is genuinely unsafe for them to be in school. The right amount of flexibility here allows us to provide a valued learning opportunity without risking the system compromising what we are trying to achieve.
Part of my new role as Director of Studies is to ensure that the 'Systems and Structures' in place at ISM are not too rigid and not too flexible, with just the right balance to enable our students to flourish. I am very much looking forward to working across the whole school to find this balance and ensure that our 'Systems and Structures' are consistent as our students transition from Early Years to Primary and into Secondary.
DID YOU KNOW...
PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE WILL BE NO SCHOOL BUS ALL DAY FROM MONDAY 19th TO FRIDAY 23rd APRIL DUE TO MONEGASQUE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.
HOT OFF THE PRESS
Meet Jean Claude MICHEL - our Finance & Administration Director
Hi everyone, I'm the Finance & Administration Director and this is my second year at ISM.
To introduce myself to you, I am French and I have a MBA in Finance & Administration, with a strong finance background of more than 20 years, mainly in Monaco but also in other countries such as Italy and Russia. My main strengths are my strong knowledge of finance, social and fiscal aspects in Monaco and also my international experience, speaking 4 different languages. Regarding hobbies, I like sports in general (especially golf and tennis), I love card games and I'm a big fan of music.
Joining ISM was an obvious choice for me! Education is a priority in my personal life, and ISM brings together the main values with which I identify, especially integrity and respect, in an international environment
Since last February/March 2020, we have all been facing a very strange, difficult and stressful period and I'm really trying, with the help of all my team, to have the safest, cleanest, and best adapted school to welcome your children.
Finance is a big part of my daily life, and with the support of the Finance Committee, the Board of Trustees and Julian Thomas, I'm working hard to bring ISM to the same level of excellence we are looking for in education.
I have already met some of you and I'm always delighted to hear from you. Communication is crucial between us, and we are and will always be fully transparent with you about ISM. Please don't hesitate to contact me regarding any finance or administrative issue.
I would like to wish all of you a lovely spring break.
ISM Plants A Seed - the journey begins!
Bravo to all students and staff who have planted their ISM seeds! Out of 12 different varieties of flower seeds, everyone has been given a packet containing one variety, so we look forward to seeing a range of sprouting plants and colors soon! Here are some highlights of photos shared this week...
School subscription to Press Reader
We would like to remind all parents that you have free access to thousands of popular online magazines and newspapers from anywhere in the world through our school subscription to Press Reader. To access these, go to the ISM intranet and log in with username ismhub and password i@hub. Choose 'Upper School' and click on the PressReader link.
Escape Game at Oceanographic Museum
This week, our first groups of students attended the Escape Game at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. Both groups beat the teachers, escaping in under 30 minutes! Well done!
No-uniform day in the Primary School
All through the week of Monday 29th March - Friday 2nd April, the Primary School students made an extra special effort to complete a variety of chores to help out at home. At the end of the week parents kindly donated 5€, which entitled the Primary students to come to school in their own choice of clothes. We had some very colourful classrooms on Friday 2nd April, and all money will go towards buying new toys and games for the Primary playgrounds!
Water studies in Year 7 Geography class
Our Year 7 Geography students have been learning about the importance of rivers, and they have researched water saving products to educate other students.
Why do ISM teachers love working in Monaco?
Watch our latest video "Why do ISM teachers love working in Monaco?", featuring a few of the many reasons why ISM teachers love working in Monaco and exploring its picturesque surroundings! Whether it be for the adventure, multiculturalism, potential, internationalism, learning opportunities, or challenge, our teachers and staff agree that there are unlimited possibilities to explore, discover, and grow.
ISM Video Tour.mp4In case you might not have seen it yet, our ISM virtual video tour is now viewable above. As in-person school visits are not possible at the moment due to the current health situation, this video gives an overview of the school, highlighting our state-of-the-art facilities and exceptional location in Monaco.
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