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WEEK 1 WAS A GREAT SUCCESS!
Written by Mr. Alex Nenes
The first week of school is getting to an end and it will remain in our memories as the great return of our students, parents and the whole community to SWA. After the very successful Parents Orientation on Friday, August 5th, it was time for the students to take the floor and get started to the 22-23 Academic year.
The first day started with students having their temperature check upon their arrival in order to assure health and safety protocols were followed. After the screening students were welcomed by the faculty and members of the SWA Business Team, who were readily available to sort out any first day issues and address all questions. After the arrival and welcome in the Arts Building all students joined their homeroom teachers for the first Homeroom activities of the year.
The second activity of the day was the MSHS Orientation Assembly in which the students received updates regarding several aspects of the MSHS programmes at SWA such as discipline, welcome to new students, faculty and administration, calendar and other relevant information. After the first part of the assembly all students and faculty headed to their houses HQs for the first House meeting of the year and the first house challenge: a scavenger hunt. The house meeting also served for each House to select their Executive Members
After the House meeting was over all students headed back to the Trini Dewi Theatre for the second and final part of the assembly. All students attended lessons after lunch.
It was a great start for the year. In the following days the students had their first week lessons and were able to enjoy the beauty of SWA campus. We hope that the first day/first week has set the tone for a very positive and productive year to the SWA Community.
MSHS LUNCH AND DISMISSAL PROCEDURES
Written By Mr. Alex Nenes
Dear students and parents, kindly note the following regarding MSHS lunch and dismissal procedures:
In order to better serve the students and provide them a better experience during lunch and dismissal, we set a few procedures in place so it optimize the dismissal and provide students a safer, more comfortable and convenient time during both, lunch and dismissal.
LUNCH:
The MSHS buildings have plenty of space and appropriate areas for the students to have their snacks and lunch which are located in the Gajah Mada Building Piazza as well as the Sports Centre. Students attending lessons in the Zheng He building have the option of have their meals in the Piazza. We recommend that students who bring their snack and lunch from home to favour these areas to avoid crowding the Arts Lobby, Bamboo Court and Lotus Lounge. Students who order food from the canteen are encouraged to eat in the food court by the canteen.
Dismissal:
Grades 6, 7, 8 and 9 students should head to the Arts Lobby at the end of the day for their pick up while students in Grades 10, 11 and 12 should go to the pick up point outside the GM Building (in front of the MSHS Admin area). Note: Students with siblings in EYES will be picked up in the Arts Building lobby or basement. Students in Grades 6,7,8,9 who have older siblings in Grades 10, 11, 12 will accompany their siblings in the GM pick up point.
This will provide a faster pick up process as well as reduce the long lines of vehicles outside the premises. Your understanding and support are highly appreciated.
IB MYP Updates
Written by Mr. Haoken
We find "Fostering ongoing learner and teacher collaboration in the programme(s)" (IBO, 2021) as the most valuable activity that has the potential for greatest impact. It is very important to develop a culture of learning where teachers are open minded to understand and respective other's ideas and opinions. The teacher collaboration helps in designing a curriculum that caters to the diverse learning needs of all the learners. Collaboration helps to share the best teaching practices and promote the objectives and goals of the programme. Our teachers collaboratively worked on the ATL documents during our first week of induction:
Created customised lists of ATL skill indicators
Identified skill strategies for each skill indicator
Created a vertical map of skill strategies taught across the programme
We believe this has the potential for great impact as professional development for teachers which leads to improvements in pedagogy has a direct impact on student experiences in the classroom. Additionally, there are many benefits of fostering a collaborative culture for students, including the promotion of interdisciplinary learning, increased understanding of diverse perspectives and the development of skills aligned with Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills like critical thinking, communication and self management. For these reasons, we consider learner and teacher collaboration to have the potential for the greatest impact.
IB Diploma Updates
Written by Ms. Andrea
Welcome DP students.
Grade 11 students begun the year broadening their understanding of the Diploma Programme and the scope of each subject. Teachers prepared well tailored lessons engaging students in the content and giving them agency and understanding on the demands of each subject.
Grade 12 returned to their final lap of the programme reenergized from the well deserved break and ready to wrap up their Extended Essays and Internal Assessments while preparing for their final examinations.
Our faculty team has prepared a supportive environment to help students to thrive during their journey in the Diploma Programme and build skills that will prepare them to excel in life.
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
Written By Mr. Kevin
Welcome to the New Academic Year in the English Department!
Classes have begun, students and teachers are engaging, learning is taking root, and we are off and running in the English Department. And with that, we have some important great news to share with you.
Our IB results have come in for both English Language and Literature and English B (Language Acquisition) in the Diploma Programme, and we are very pleased with our results. In fact, our learners performed historically well in these demanding assessments. Specific results will be shared soon by our DP Coordinator.
Term 1 Focus
MYP grades 6-10 classes are setting the foundation for our vertical media literacy units. Specific grades will focus on particular aspects of media literacy, but all will be focused on analysing and employing techniques for audience persuasion in a variety of digital platforms.
Meanwhile, DP Language and Literature classes will have the following emphases:
DP 1: Learning about and applying different literary criticism lenses to both fiction and non-fiction works before jumping into our prescribed works, including the novel Americanah.
DP 2: Students are heavily into preparing for their first IB assessment task, the Individual Oral.
Grade 9 students getting off on the right foot.
MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
Written By Mr. Emerson
MYP Mathematics Command Terms
As students sit on any Mathematics examination, it is imperative for them to know the command terms used in the examination questions. These command terms guide students on how to answer each question.
In IB, command terms show the level of difficulty of the question. It also indicates the Mathematics assessment objectives.
Command terms evaluate the level of competency of a student. For example, a student can calculate an algebraic equation but may not be able to apply algebraic equations in real-life situations. Hence in this example, the student is just competent in algebraic equations but not an expert.
Image by Gary Goodwin.
SCIENCE/DESIGN DEPARTMENT
Written By Mr. Rajesh
Digital Design & Computer Science
The study of Computer Science plays a significant role in each and every field of life. They help us in several ways. For example, they find applications in medicine, industrial process, aviation industry, making bills in various big shops & malls, creating presentation slides in application software for making notes & delivering lectures in colleges, universities and a lot more. In short, not only in just one, but the Computer plays an all-rounded role in the field of education of students.
Grade 12 - Computer Science
After having learned the core topics of the IBDP Computer Science in Grade 11, the students now being part of Grade 12 would be focusing on more advanced concepts including data structure, binary trees, linked list, stacks, queues. We started the session with a quick revision of the content covered in DP1 Computer Science classes to refresh our memories. We also referred to the subject guide to take an overview of the topics that we are going to cover in Term-1 of the current academic year.
Besides this, the students will also be working on their Internal Assessment which requires them to develop a computer based solution for a real client. The IA comprises five different criterions, A-E, and they are now working on Criterion B (Design & Record of Task).
Grade 12 Students cracking the java code on two dimensional array.
Grade 11 - Computer Science
Having realised that studying computer science will be helpful in developing problem-solving, critical thinking and complex analytical skills, six students from the current DP1 opted to study this subject with an objective to develop skills that are especially useful for specialists working with complex algorithms and big data to create instructions and understand design patterns. While all other students are the returning ones who studied Computer Science in Grades 9 and 10, we welcomed James who has joined us this year.
The students were introduced to the Computer Science course objectives. They were apprised of the syllabus content, written assessment, internal assessment, extended essay and links to TOK. During the first few meetings, students download all necessary software and applications that are going to be used during the course of their studies. This includes Java Netbeans, Java Development Kit (JDK), and MYSQL database.
Grade 11 Computer Science Students - Installing Java Netbeans and JDK
Grade 9 - Digital Design
As a part of the first unit for digital design, we started exploring the real world context of the number systems. While most of the text books just talk about what different number systems are and how they are represented, we took our discussion to the next level and explored the reasons why computers are designed to just process Binary (0 and 1) data. Grade 9 students worked in groups to research why the computer's main numeral system is based on the positional system in base 2 (binary numeral system), which has two binary digits, 0 and 1. This unit will help them further explore the significance of hexadecimal number systems and how they are used for various purposes such as MAC address of the digital devices, colour coding, error coding, etc.
Grade 9 Digital Design Students discussing Number Systems and the ways to convert from one form to another.
Grade 7 - Digital Design
We started the digital design class in the new academic year with ice-breaking sessions, all students were required to introduce themselves to the rest of the class. The funniest part was the need for each one of them to reveal one of their secrets which was unknown to anyone else in the class. It turned out to be a good way for the students to know more about one another.
The first unit for this term for the digital design course is based on operating systems. The students did a thorough research on different operating systems that we use and their unique characteristics. Students demonstrated a good level of collaborative skills and worked collectively on Google Jamboard to share their learning.
Link to the Jamboard (SWA Google Account): Link
Grade 7 Students exploring types and functions of Operating Systems
ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS AND SOCIETY (ESS)
Written By Ms. Michelle
Environmental systems and society (ESS) course requires a systems approach to environmental understanding and problem solving, and promotes holistic thinking about environmental issues. It is crucial to understand the environmental issues of the 21st century and develop solutions from a personal to a global scale.
During the first lesson, the Grade 11 ESS class discussed how humans' environmental value systems (EVS) or perspectives are shaped by religious and cultural contexts. The students also explored policies from different countries which reflect the EVS of the government. Here is a sneak peek into the class activity.
I&S DEPARTMENT
Written By Ms. Renu Singh
In the new academic year, the students of Grade 10 have demonstrated great entrepreneurial skills which will contribute to their understanding of the business objectives and their importance. Students started the year with a new chapter based in business planning, in which they learn about different objectives and what it aims to achieve. It was a great start to the class looking forward to a very positive and productive year ahead.
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
Written By Mr. Alex Nenes
The I&S/IGCSE subject Global Perspectives started this week and the students had a great first lesson. They went over the course requirements, the plan for the year and had their very first activity, which provided them the opportunity to work collaboratively and learn more about team work.
On the first day the Grade 10 class all students produced their essential agreements. It was a fun and productive time for the students while they were discussing what were the important things they were going to agree as a commitment for the class during the academic year.
The first unit of the year will explore two main themes: Law and Justice and Water Scarcity, which will provide students the opportunity to engage in investigations, research and class discussions that will create great awareness on these two very important current topics and it will contribute for their growth and development as responsible global citizens.
CHINESE DEPARTMENT
Written By Ms. Yuan
This year, students from G6-G11 will continue to work on their vocabulary, sentence pattern and essay writing through listening, reading, speaking and writing. Some useful tools have been shared with student to improve their Chinese learning:
quizlet
flipgrid
little fox
INDONESIAN DEPARTMENT
Written By Ms. Yulia
Welcome to the new academic year 2022 - 2023. Indonesian Department has always excited to welcome the new academic year which falls on August, because it is time to celebrate the most important event for Indonesia, Independence Day. Independence day is a very important day for every citizen to celebrate the forming of our nation and remember the people that made it possible to be where we are today. As part of the celebration activity in the school, grade 8 Indonesian Language and Literature class is creating Pledge of Allegiance as one of the prior knowledge activity for our new topic about News and Ads, Poster, Slogan. The students expressed their love to their nation by writing a powerful and meaningful pledge and put it in a poster creatively .
Students show their language skills in creating a pledge to be placed on the poster and are expected to create the same atmosphere for the readers when they read it. This is what students will learn in this term, which will also explore contexts related to globalisation and sustainability. Attached here are several posters of from Kimberley, William, Reynaldo, Nadhira, Jasmine, and Nathan who are enthusiastic in sharing their pledge of allegiance to the beloved Indonesian nation.
MUSIC DEPARTMENT
Written By Mr. Freddy
We are very excited to start the beginning of our MYP Music this academic year and we started with a very busy week with the music students. In the very first assembly of the year, we had new family members, Grade 6 that greet us with a cheerful kolintang ensemble as the opening performance. They presented a famous Betawi song entitled "Ondel Ondel" and it impressed all their seniors. Sophia from Grade 6 also performed solo singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The closing performance was done by Timbre students, started with a solo piano performance by Matthew P, continued by a trio from Woojun, Ben, and Joshua, and closed by a duet from Gabe and Stanis. This week almost all MYP Music students are busy preparing some performances for the coming Indonesia Independence Day Celebration and Mid Autumn Festival. There will be a choir and ensemble based on the theme of the events and through those projects, students learned to develop their collaborative skills and creativity. All the projects will be assessed as their summative of this term by the 4 criteria of MYP Music: Knowledge and Understanding, Skills Development, Creative Thinking, and Responding. Every step of the preparation process will be recorded by the students in their process journal with reflection to develop their evaluation skills.
Photos: by Mr. Ken/Ms. Hanny
INFOBYTE #02 - August 17th , 2022SINARMAS WORLD ACADEMY
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