INDEX

Message from the ISD leadership

Dear parents and students,

As we approach Spring Break, we look back at an eventful first half term of 2022.  

All Units are in full progress and we see wonderful learning activities taking place. The lower years are working on the Transport Unit and have set up an airport in the workshop area. Other groups are exploring nature through the eyes of an artist. Some groups visited the TU to build structures that can stand different weather conditions. 

PYP 6 finished their Unit about role models with a “Greatest Role Model TV show”. 

PYP 7 had taster days online with Secondary teachers and got a feel of what it’s like to move to a Secondary school.  

At Secondary we launched the Community Project in MYP 3 and the Personal Project in MYP 4, students are now meeting with their supervisors and making action plans for their proposals. Some great proposals have come up and we look forward to the exhibition of the end products in the coming months.  

In the past two weeks we have also had our admissions events. In addition to the online taster-lessons and the virtual Open day on the website we were excited to be able to offer live tours of the school on Wednesday 23 February for prospective students. Thanks to the great effort of all staff and the student council reps this was a successful event with a lovely positive vibe. It was wonderful to have new students and parents live in the building.  Despite successful online events such as the Assessment information evening and the Big Mo interactive theater evening we look forward to being able to open up more after the February break. Having learned from this experience we will still on occasions use online methods. For example, the parent teachers student meetings at Secondary will have a slot for live and online.  

After the holidays most Covid regulations will be relieved which hopefully allows us to go back to ‘old normal’ and provide opportunities for meetings and events to be in school with visitors and trips. Of course, basic hygienic measures and common caution will be reiterated.  

We kick off after the Spring break with a visit from Ewoyn Crisfield, from Crisfield Consultancy, who has been working with the school on strengthening the language learning at ISD. This is a whole school development plan and Ewoyn will be visiting and speaking at Primary and Secondary. The EAL coordinators of Primary and Secondary are both collaborating on setting up a solid programme. Input from parents will also be sought. More information about this will follow. 

On behalf of the whole ISD team we would like to wish everybody a lovely Spring break and look forward to welcoming you back in March.   

Sander Raaphorst and Minke Veeneklaas

Lunar New Year celebrations at ISD primary

PYP6 Students compete in The Greatest Role Model Show 

By Mark Shillitoe and Sara Moroney 

What do Albert Einstein, Hedy Lamarr, TommyInnit, Elon Musk and Enid Blyton have in common? They are some of the role models of our PYP6 students. Miraculously, these people and many more came from past and present to compete against each other for the title of the Greatest Role Model. There were four rounds of contestants, each began with the contestants introducing and highlighting their achievements, followed by challenging questions designed for each to prove his/her worthiness. After a hidden vote,  

The student audience had the final say, choosing the winner of The Greatest Role Model!  

To make these role models come alive, students researched, practiced public speaking and created realistic costumes, everyone looked the part and did an amazing job, performing in role and responding to challenging questions. Students’ performance on this summative assessment exemplified the unit’s central idea: the choice of role models reflects the characteristics that individuals and societies value. 

We rounded off our exciting day with some bubbles, courtesy of Max Verstappen, who brought some from his recent Grand Prix victory! 

PYP 6: Cleaning Space Junk - TU Delft visit

Contribution by Ms Miros Silva - Ordaz

The last six weeks PYP 6A has been learning about :
How technology can help to support the wellbeing of life in space?

We have been practising our Creative thinking skills to solve a design challenge proposed by professor Nathan Eskue. He works at the Faculty of Aerospace at TU Delft and invited the students to think about possible solutions for space junk.

The students did a wonderful job generating novel ideas and considering new perspectives to solve this global problem.

They used the “Your Turn” design cycle from the “Science Education Research Hub” from TU Delft brainstorming to consider multiple alternatives and generate new ideas and creating original designs by practising flexible thinking.
 
On February 21st, Nathan came to visit our class and they shared with him the prototype of their designs which involved laser, magnets, nets and blower machines to help to tackle the space junk.



 

EcoTeam: Two Golden stars for ISD

By Miros Silva-Ordaz

The WeCycle organization awarded the International School of Delft with two golden stars for recycling between 100 and 250 electronics.
Congratulations to the school community for helping to keep our environment more eco-friendly.

PYP6 Collaboration with TU Industrial Design Master's Students  

By Sara Moroney and Mark Shillitoe 

PYP6 students went to the TU Delft Industrial design students for two morning sessions to provide children’s perspectives under the theme of emotions and mental well-being. During the design sessions, students were divided into small groups to participate in a group interview and complete tasks to provide their perspective on different themes related to emotions. After reflecting on the students’ feedback, the Masters students planned for the next session. 

In the second session, Master's students used the PYP6’s perspective to work with students collaboratively to co-design a useful instrument for the following uses: 

• A tool that helps children be in a position of authority 
• A tool to improve dinner table conversation 
• A tool that helps students form and benefit from diverse groups  
• A tool that helps introverts and extroverts cope with sadness together 
• A tool to measure how children recognize positive emotions 

ISD PYP6’s and the TU Delft students enjoyed sharing perspectives and found the collaboration successful.  

PYP 5: Media and advertising

In PYP5, our unit of inquiry focused on media and advertising techniques. Students inquired into the main persuasive strategies used by advertisers – specifically ethos, kairos, logos, and pathos. The class used the techniques they had learned to design adverts for the school gym bag. For the summative assessment, the students applied all that they had learned during the unit to create an advert for a product of their choice.  

Some of the students went above and beyond for their summative assessment. They created well designed advertisements and took the initiative to make a positive impact in their community. They asked to host a sale for the products advertised and proposed that all the proceeds raised would be donated to help rehabilitate animals at a wildlife hospital in Delft and to purchase more books for the school library. The sale was very fun, and the students were able to raise a generous amount for both causes. Great job, PYP5!   

21 February International Mother Language Day

One of our MYP 2 students wrote a short piece on International Mother Language day. 

Kindness Week at ISD Secondary

Contribution by Ms LaForge

Our first annual KINDNESS WEEK has been a wonderful success! Our students and staff came to school with a smile and were dressed in the daily colours. Teachers handed out Happy Grams whenever they saw a student doing an act of kindness or sharing a kind message. The Bingo sheet encouraging random acts of kindness was a big success and we are curious to see how many prizes are handed out in our whole school assembly on Friday the 25th.

The students in MYP1, 2 and 3 have painted happiness stones in our English classes and we are looking forward to seeing where they are hidden and who might find them. We've created the Instagram hashtag #isdkindnessweek, check it out to see some photos from the past week. 

Please keep the kindness going during the February holidays! Have a safe and relaxing vacation.

Wishing tree and cherry blossom - kindness in English class

Music – All hands together now
Contribution by Ms Federica Grassulo

Open Day at ISD Secondary

After a virtual Open Day in 2021, we are very happy to be able to have a LIVE Open Day this year. On Wednesday 23 February, we opened the doors for prospective families to get an impression about our school. There were two time slots during which students followed a designated route through our school. All subjects prepared little activities for the students. 
The event was a great succes, thanks to all the effort from our teachers and staff members. There was a lovely atmosphere in the building and we hope we can welcome lots of new families in the new school year.

For families, who are abroad, we launched, a Virtual Open Day school video on our website. All in all, a great success!

Languages: Love around the world

By Ms Patricia Brugman
On Valentine's Day all languages (Spanish, French and Dutch ) collaborated and spent time in class to go over the meaning of ‘love’. What is love, how to define it, what types of loves are there and what or who do you love? We made posters with mind maps referring to these questions in Spanish, watched the children's news (Jeugdjournaal) and saw how Dutch children spend their Valentine's day giving each other anonymous gifts and listened to love songs in all languages. We had a great day!

MYP 4: Integrated sciences - dissecting hearts

Contribution by Ms Liza Dippenaar
MYP 4 has started with a Biology unit for Integrated Science. During this unit we looked at cells, organs and the systems within the body. To end of the unit and consolidate their learning, all MYP 4’s were given the option to dissect a lamb heart and kidney. This gave the students a chance to see the structures of the heart in a specimen that is very similar to the human heart and apply what they learned in class to observe these structures and how they are adapted for their function. The students exemplified the IB learner profile of risk-takers, thinkers and inquirers and the students were very proud of the work they did during this lab procedure.

Service and Action: Singing for the elderly

Contribution by Ms Mirjam de Bruin
On 21 February, students from MYP 1 plus the school choir headed off to the nearby elderly home to give their first ever performance. The performance was part of a Service and Action activity and all students gave an excellent show. There was a song with a dance, a violin / piano duo and a canon song from the school choir. Unfortunately, it was a bit cold so not all of the residents came out to watch the performance, but the ones who did, thoroughly enjoyed it and they asked us to come back another time.