MS HS NEWS

MSHS

Written by Mr. Alex Nenes

Dear SWA Community! After an extensive preparation, our students will start their semester exams this week. The semester examination session has already started for DP 2 students, who are practising for their finals and we hope all our students will do well in their semester exams. It is great to see the students back to regular routines, which include competitions, extra curricular activities, and sitting to write their papers for their subjects. I wish good luck to all SWA MSHS students in their exams and hope all can perform well.

Another great news in MSHS is the next step in the SWA BEST Pathways includes the subject choices for Grades 8 and 10 students, who are having an exciting time with the induction process, which includes orientation sessions for parents and students, mandatory meetings with the UGC Counsellor, Mr. Stan and the guidance and support of the coordinators. The first orientation session for Grade 8 students took place online last week. On Friday the 25th Grade 5 students and parents will meet the MSHS Leadership Team to introduce G5 students into Middle School. This process is followed by the “One Day in Middle School” experience, which will take place after the semester exams. This activity consists of G5 students joining Grade 6 and following their timetable for one full day. Later in December, Grade 10 students and their parents will have their info sessions and the opportunity to give one more step in their BEST Pathways.

MYP UPDATE

Written by Mr. Haoken

Dear MYP Parents & Guardians,

Our MYP Programme embraces key elements of the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) as well as external assessments of CAIE. Together with our BEST Pathways, SWA's Grade 6 to 10 programme combines age-appropriate approaches, a focus on ATL skills development, and academic rigour, ensuring that our students are prepared for success.

Please see the notices and reminders for the coming weeks of Term 2:

1. MYP Semester 1 Examinations will take place as follows:

• Grades 6 - 8: November 23 - 29, 2022 from 7:20 - 12:15 (exam leave dismissal)

• Grade 9: November 23 - 29, 2018 from 7:20 - 12:30 (exam leave dismissal)

• Grade 10: November 23rd - December 1st, 2022 from 7:20 AM - 3:30 PM

Revision in all classes took place the week before each examination session began and no summative assessments were allowed during this period devoted to revision. All G6 – 9 examinations are summative of material in both Terms 1 and 2 in all subjects while Grade 10 exams are 'full mock exams' summative over all of Grade 9 and 10. Exam leave forms were distributed the week before revision week and required students to have satisfactory academic performance, attendance and service as action and personal project progress in order to qualify. MYP Semester 1 Assessment Timetables were emailed to parents on 14 November 2022.

While approaches to revision will vary depending on the subject, in general below are a few recommendations:

• Students should plan their revision periods over longer periods of time, ensuring all subjects have received a suitable amount of revision time

• Shorter but more frequent revision sessions are preferable to longer less frequent revision sessions

• Spaced Learning theory indicates that before information or knowledge can move from short term working memory to long term memory it must be encountered on a minimum of three separate occasions 'spaced' or separated in time

• Active retrieval is a more powerful revision practice than passive revision, involving reviewing notes, watching explanatory videos, or reading textbooks. Active retrieval involves testing, answering questions, and being required to actively 'find' the information or apply it

• Students should obtain adequate sleep to perform their best. Sleep deprivation decreases performance and also students' ability to think clearly about their own performance. This means sleep deprived students not only perform poorly on assessments but do not realise the drop in their performance during the assessment

2. Interdisciplinary Unit Update

One of the key features of the MYP is its emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching and learning. MYP 1 - 5 will be starting their IDUs at the beginning of Term3, Below are the unit titles by grade level

• Grade 6 "Utopias"

• Grade 7 "My Green School/ Sustainable School"

• Grade 8 "Financial Planning - Money Math"

• Grade 9 "Adventures in Cartography"

• Grade 10 "Raising awareness regarding global issues linked to the use of antibiotics through the production of accessible video clips"

3. The Grade 10 personal project provides an opportunity for students to undertake an independent and age-appropriate exploration into an area of personal interest. Through the process of inquiry, action, and reflection, students are encouraged to demonstrate and strengthen their approaches to learning (ATL) skills. Grade 10 students completed their Objective A - Planning during August and September 2022 and progressed into their Objective B - Applying Skills. By February 1st, 2023, Students should be able to complete three elements:

1. Product or outcome—evidence of tangible or intangible results: what the student was aiming to achieve or create

2. Process journal—ideas, criteria, developments, challenges, plans, research, possible solutions, and progress reports

3. PP report—an account of the project and its impact, on a structure that follows the assessment criteria. The report includes a bibliography and evidence from the process journal that documents students’ development and achievements.

4. Please check Managebac regularly and contact us if you are having any trouble logging into the website.

DP UPDATE

Written by Ms. Andrea, Mr. Rajesh and Mr. Kevin

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

Written by Katherine Mitchell

All grades have been revising for their upcoming exams. Grade 9, below, are shown doing a carousel exercise - each groups have a few minutes to look at, and discuss 1 poster advertisement - write information about it; such as the target audience, purpose, and message and then move on to the next advertisement. Each group can read previous group's comments.

I&S DEPARTMENT
Written by Ms. Renu Singh

Economics students in grade 9 are studying how to explore their understanding of market failure, which occurs when a market outcome does not optimise the net benefits of an economic activity. Due to the nature of environmental resources, the market frequently fails to deal with them. These posters were created in response to a market failure they believed to exist in their immediate area.

GRADE 9 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES AND THINKING SKILLS

Written by Ms. Aleksandra Strahinic

Critical Thinkers Think Critically

Grade 9 students were engaged in a variety of activities that supported their skills development. They learned to search for information, identify information and trends, think about causes and consequences, question reliability of information, and they learned to plan, organise and present. Students worked on developing their capacity to investigate the issues independently and collaboratively.

The outcomes of the engagement were discussions about a variety of topics such as perseverance, work, and life balance, procrastination, prioritising, importance of positive thinking, decision making, systems of reasoning, and further involvement in the debate "Are there extra-terrestrial life forms?", presentations about integrity, natural phenomena, production of a podcast/ video, chain story tasks, etc.

KOREAN DEPARTMENT

Written by Lee CY(李 忠燁)

G6 Korean students had a presentation based on their exploration of the creation of Hangeul on October 9th, Hangeul Day. Students who lived abroad did not know much about Hangeul. By this chance, G6 Korean students understood accurately about Hangeul through this research presentation.

Hunminjeongeum, the right sound to teach the people.

It is the only character in the world where the creation date, creator, and basic principle of creation are known. Why did King Sejong the Great create Hunminjeongeum?

In the 10th year of King Sejong's reign, King Sejong, seeing an appeal that a man named Kim Hwa of Jinju had murdered his father, said, "The killing of his father happened out of the stupidity of the people who did not know loyalty and filial piety." He sighs, and selects filial sons, loyal subjects, and virtuous women of Joseon and China and has them compile the Samgang Haengsildo, which left their traces in writing and pictures.

However, King Sejong, who found out that the people did not realize the deep meaning of loyalty and filial piety just by looking at the pictures, made up his mind to create letters that the people could easily learn.

As a result of Sejong's efforts for 10 years with the scholars of Jiphyeonjeon, 17 consonants were modeled after the shape of the phonetic organ that produces memory, mieum, and siot. A collection of 11 letters made after the harmony of nature, that is, the sky, the land, and people. Hunminjeongeum was created with a total of 28 characters, and finally, Hunminjeongeum was promulgated on September 10 of the lunar calendar in 1446.

"I just want to make it easy for everyone to learn and feel comfortable by making twenty-eight characters because the foolish people can't express what they think."

King Sejong created a character out of pity for the foolish people who could not express their injustice. He worked day and night for more than 10 years to create Hangeul, but even his eyes became dark. Hunminjeongeum contains the love for the people of King Sejong the Great, who thought of the people before himself.

INDONESIAN DEPARTMENT

Written by Ms. Junita

This term, G6 ILL students were learning about creating a short dialogue or conversation. It is one the skill that helps the student gaining more self-confidence, expressing imaginative ideas, enhancing cooperation, and using language more confidently.

At the end, they were assigned to create a short conversation in a group. While working in group, they should be able to decide the topic, characters, setting, and the type of language.

CHINESE DEPARTMENT

Written by Charles

Chinese characters are beautiful, but they take a long time to learn, especially if you want to be able to write by hand. The faster you start thinking of characters as writing rather than drawing the better. You should learn proper stroke order from the start. If you do, you will quickly internalise the rules and you will be able to read and write characters smoothly and with good results.

Stroke order matters, because if you internalise the wrong principles, your writing will be harder to read. Imagine if someone invented their own cursive writing in English and joined together the strokes of the letters in completely new ways! Moreover, digital handwriting input requires correct stroke order. Most input systems aren’t based on pattern recognition performed on the final result, but include information such as stroke order and direction to help pinpoint the right characters. If you mess up the stroke order, you will find that the software fails to identify the right character for you, or at least that you need to write very carefully to get it right. Stroke order for Chinese characters matters; learn it!

MUSIC
Written by Mr. Freddy

October had been a very busy week for our Music students for they were not only preparing for their Halloween project performances but also for our school SWA15 Anniversary that was held on Saturday, 5 November 2022. All the Grade 7 until Grade 10 students collaborated with our Grade 3 and 5 ES students to sing a song entitled Sing for Our World as the opening performance at the Amphitheatre. The performance was conducted by Mr. Freddy accompanied by Ms. Nathania and Maxi from Grade 8 as the soloists. It was a challenging song and we were so worried that we wouldn’t be able to master the song in that very limited time. We decided to have some extra time rehearsals after school so we could memorize the song, and the final performance was good with positive feedback from the audience.

We also had a beautiful new arrangement of SWA The Journey song presented by the Strings Club in a new setting as part of the opening ceremony. Both violin parts were arranged by Mr. Freddy and played by Andrew, Adhisya, Alana, and Chae Ah on Violin 2 while Carlos, Kate, and Ms. Nathania on Violin 1. Below are the videos during the practice session and the performance day.

After the opening ceremony, while all the games running, the Music students were performing their musical skills and talents in various styles and different formats, as a soloist and as a group. We have several sections of performance, started by the Strings club who performed a list of beautiful songs from Asia. One of the songs they performed was featuring the whole Grade 6 students as a collaboration between Strings and the Hulusi ensemble. After the Strings session, it continued with solo Piano performances in different genres and categories by our SWA young talented pianists, energetic dance performances by ES and MSHS Dance club, and singing performances in various formats. One of our ES student’s parents, dr. Ricky Hutapea, was also joining the performance, playing the saxophone to accompany Ms. Nathania’s singing performance. Unfortunately, after the lunch break, it was raining so hard and we couldn’t continue some performances that we had prepared for the closing ceremony. But we will keep it for another coming event soon. Throughout all the hectic preparations, our students not only developed their music and performing arts skills but also practiced their self-management and time-management skills with perseverance.

VIRTUAL ARTS
Written by Mr. Alan

In this mid November the upper visual art students focusing on the Visual Arts semester one examination. Grade 9 and Grade 10 IGCSE Mock examination, Both classes have to do a total of 8 hours examination that are splitted into 1, 2, 3 sessions, and this week they are doing a total of 6 hours and followed by next weeks the third session of 2 hours, they will be assessed on the criterion A, B, C & D. This week Students having their examination online, they all understood the examination regulation, task description and the specific criterion to be assessed and lastly a combined classes examination.

Grade 9 Visual Art online semester one examination during art lesson period.

Combined Classes of Grade 9 and Grade 10 online semester one examination

MYP SERVICE AS ACTION

Written by Ms. Elma

Grade 6 to Grade 8 students have completed the Investigating and Planning stages of their Service as Action projects. Some have started their fundraising activities. This week we are featuring Happy Helpers’ self-designed tie dye shirts, but watch this space, many more will be highlighted in the coming weeks!

SA PROJECT: G8 HAPPY HELPERS

Hello, this is Happy Helpers and we are an SA group by Mutiara, Nadhira, and Jasmine from Grade 8. Our SA group aims to help a school called SMPN 2 Wanassalam. Our SDG topic that we chose was Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. We aim to raise money by selling tie dye clothing and donating the profits to the school. They are in need of chairs and tables and we are determined to help them. Not only that, but at the same time, we will be posting and raising about our SDG topic on our social media ( @peacejusticeloverz ). Recently in the SWA 15 event, we sold out our tie dye clothing. We will soon go to the SMPN 2 Wanassalam and donate the money.

If you are interested in buying or donating please contact DM us.

Instagram: @peacejusticeloverz

WA: 0812 8351 5550

Link to Pre-Order Form

DP CAS

CAS PROJECT: BIO2C SESSIONS

Bio2C members composed of G7, G9, and G11 students conducted a practical experiment they had planned themselves for their mini-mock scientific journal article project. As part of the Bio2C Scientific Education framework, Bio2C members will be introduced to scientific writing, scientific analysis, and wet lab skills to build a sound scientific character before exploring this year’s theme of immunology.

During this session, Bio2C members learnt a lot about the challenges of experiment planning, as they realised their plan was not clear and detailed enough to ensure a smooth experiment. They also had fun making colourful elephant toothpaste! Moreover, they had a lot of fun and learnt a lot about experiment planning, and how to stay safe in the lab.

In the next meeting, our members will be further exploring experiments that they are interested in, and are looking forward to collecting data like a real professional scientist. Here are a few pictures that we took during our latest session!

Avni and Annie working on their elephant toothpaste soap experiment

Zachary adding live yeast into a conical flask containing dyed distilled water at 40˚C

CAS PROJECT: SAVE

Hi everyone, SAVE is finally back and running!! S.A.V.E is a student-led CAS group, that aims to directly help and raise awareness against animal cruelty and animal abandonment issues in Indonesia. The problems we aim to mitigate include the abandonment of grown pets; the difficulty for stray animals to find a home; providing proper care/aid for rescued/adopted pets. We plan to do this by hosting events aimed at raising awareness, conducting several fundraisers, and doing volunteer work. Last week we partook in SWA’s 15th anniversary in which we had a fundraiser. At the end of the day, we managed to gain a decent amount of profit by selling our wonderful custom-designed books and stickers. 100% of our proceeds raised during this event will be given to our partner NGO, Rainbow Sanctuary. We hope to see you all soon at our next event and we welcome you all to join us!!

For future updates, check out our Instagram page: @save.swa

Please check out our merch and if you are interested in buying, you can fill out this google form link.

CAS PROJECT: COMICLUB

ComiClub presents originally-designed Official Merchandise! (PREORDERS ONLY).

For only 250k, students and teachers can have their very own hand-stitched ComiClub hoodies. All profits will go to SDN Rawa Buntu 02’ with the goal of educating local children.

We are happy to have had multiple ComiClients (from in and outside of school) who are interested in getting ahold of one– perhaps two– limited edition hoodies. After ComiConducting a survey, the ComiCouncil has found through their extensive research that: 100% (give or take 0%) of the ComiCustomers are satisfied with our ComiComfortable ComiClothing.

ComiComments:

Shivam: "raawr" Officially ComiConverted

Crystal: "my mom said the ComiClub hoodies were cute 👍"

Le Dio: "uhh it's very, comfortable.”

Kyle: “where’s my hoodie Ben” * hasn't received his yet, but shows enthusiasm to get ahold of his preorder as fast as possible.

Mr. Charles: ”I really like the design 😃”

Alongside the hoodie, we will also be selling stickers at school originally designed and illustrated by our prodigious ComiComrades/members. (ComiComing Soon). Other than that, ComiClub is still ComiContinuing its weekly after-school ComiClasses, where members of the ComiCommunity have the opportunity to express their ComiCreativity through illustrations and storytelling, while learning new fundamentals of drawing taught by the enthusiastic executives. Preorder here!

CAS PROJECT: THE PAD PROJECT

Sinarmas World Academy is the only and first campus in Indonesia to host The Pad Project’s ambassador program! The Ambassador Program is designed to unite a community of passionate individuals from around the world who are ready to break the stigma surrounding menstruation and turn their passion for equity into action. The Ambassador Program fosters a way for new and life-long menstrual equity advocates to come together to learn about period poverty, develop leadership skills, and create new friendships. Our goal is to inspire students to create lasting, positive change both locally and globally through whatever medium they choose. Historically, Ambassadors have run educational panels with nonprofit partners, conducted product drives for local shelters, advocated for period-positive policies before state legislatures, hosted documentary film screenings in their communities, and much more! We look forward to working alongside the ambassadors from Sinarmas World Academy to make a positive impact!

CAS PROJECT: ADVANCED PROJECT

During our soft opening on Oct 26, we taught members about body-casting– a technique where you can mold a part of your body to create a plaster sculpture out of it. AP members got to do finger-casting hands on and keep their own creations. AP also sold a number of body-casting kits during the SWA15 event with step-by-step instructions to follow along at home. In the future, we have more crafts related activities prepared and it's never too late to join >:)