Copy
View this email in your browser
The ISD Parent Update is send out to the ISD Community once a month. The Parent Update contains a collection of stories from the various classes and departments within the school. Enjoy the read!

INDEX - MAY ISSUE


We have created an Index for you to have an overview of the content and to make it easier to go to a specific article. Please be aware that the Index only works if you open the Parent Update in your browser or on the computer.

General ISD Primary ISD Secondary
FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS!
Facebook
Instagram

IMPORTANT DATES JUNE
 

2 June: ISD Secondary - coffee morning
16 June: ISD primary staff study day - no school for students 
22 June: ISD secondary staff study day - no school for students

ISD: Message from the whole school leadership 

Dear parents,
 
Spring is in the air, the vaccine rollout is going well and the Covid situation in the Netherlands is luckily improving. 
 
Re-registering for next year
As we are planning for next year and we have waitlists for some of our classes, please remember to re-register for next academic year to ensure your place at our school. An email with a link to re-register will be sent out today.
 
Nationaal Programma Onderwijs – ‘National Program Education’
Now the dust is coming to the ground, we have started identifying the effects of the extraordinary circumstances for the learning and development of our students. These effects are both academically as well as social-emotionally. While gathering the data of these effects we are developing an action plan for support and wellbeing of our students. 
 
The Dutch government has acknowledged possible effects due to the Covid situation. Under the name “Nationaal Programma Onderwijs” (NPO) it has made budgets available for such an action plan. Of course, the school will reach out to you while the action plan is progressing.
 
As one of the first steps for ISD secondary, plans for a variety of social activities for the final weeks of school this year are well underway. This is important for the wellbeing of our students and for strengthening our wonderful ISD community.
 
Collaboration with True Colors
ISD Primary is going to work more intensively with True Colors childcare from next school year. We are going to align the PYP curriculum of the 3-year olds in the childcare with our youngest Early Years children. This is going to be a unique collaboration between the two organisations and we are really excited to start planning and organising for next school year. More information about this will follow in Primary communication.
 
ISD Secondary – back to 'normal'
Last week the government has lifted most of the restrictions for secondary schools and advised to fully reopen. 
 
Although we, at ISD Secondary, were already privileged to have all our classes in school every day, we can now take another step towards the “all clear” and return to our regular timetable and program as of next week. The Primary protocols will still be in place with no changes at the moment. 
 
With safety for all as our key priority, and in line with the request of the student council, from 7 June onwards, the students will circulate throughout the building to their classrooms as per the original timetable. They no longer need to keep the 1.5m requirement amongst themselves in the school building.
 
However, the 1.5m rule between students and staff will continue, and everyone must continue to wear a face mask and regularly wash their hands.
To allow for a safe and controlled return to normal, it is important that students and staff use a self-test twice a week. The self-test is a way to quickly see if someone is infected with the virus. 
 
Starting on Friday this week, we will be offering free self-tests to our students and staff. Please note that self-testing is always voluntary! We are seeking your ongoing support, also in encouraging your child to use the self-test, and thus keeping the community safe. 
 
As part of the preparations for this next step, we will inform the students this week and seek your advice and opinions during a coffee morning for parents on Wednesday morning 2 June at 9:30. Please join, an email with invite will follow!
 
On behalf of our colleagues, we wish you a sunny and healthy Spring.
 
 
Sander Raaphorst and Jaap Mos

Join our ISD Community pages!


Hello ISD parents and staff, 
 
Being far away from family is one of the difficult things of living abroad. Luckily, the ISD community is a strong one and can at times feel as your family away from home. Unfortunately, during this last year of Covid, it has become more difficult to connect and to organise activities.
 
Next to our already existing ISD social media accounts, we have now created two new ISD community pages / groups. With these, we would like to create and stimulate an interactive and supportive ISD community. To do this, we will start posting different activities each week for you and your family to participate in. Whether it’s sharing a recipe from your culture or posting pics of a scavenger hunt around Delft, we are looking forward to share stories and learning more about each other!
 
So please join our ISD community Instagram and Facebook pages to join in on these events. We have made the pages private to help everyone feel more comfortable.  Our pages are:
 
Instagram ISD community account:  https://www.instagram.com/isdcommunity
Facebook community group page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1119742751869528/
 
And are you following our regular ISD pages?
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/isdnetherlands
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/internationalschooldelft

Hope to see you there!

Tamara Eskue
 

Summer camps at X TU Delft
 

Still unsure about a holiday destination for this summer? TU Delft’s sport facility X has come up with something nice for your child(ren). In collaboration with Vinea Zomerkampen, a Dutch travel organization with the widest range of summer camps for children between 7 and 19 years old, X TU Delft is organizing four different summer camps this year with the aim of giving children an unforgettable holiday. For the TU Delft Day camps, children between 10-15 years old, can choose from summer camps in the fields of sports, technology, fashion and dance. You can find more info on each day camp here.
 
As ISD is a partner of the TU Delft, ISD families will receive a discount of € 20 * You can use the discount code TU2021 to claim your discount.
 
* Conditions for discount code: the discount cannot be combined with other discount codes and is not applicable for bookings already made. The discount applies as long as there are still places available in these four summer camps.

ISD Primary: Book Week: 'Apart but Together'

From the 10th to the 12th of May ISD primary held Book Week. The theme for the week was 'Apart but Together', recognising the way that we have all had to keep apart - from our family and from our friends - but celebrating the ways we are connected. The classes read lovely stories such as 'The Invisible String' and did lots of activities based around books and keeping in touch.
 
One of the best things that PYP 4 experienced, and I'm sure it was the same for other classes, was watching videos of Grandparents reading stories. The children loved to hear and see their own grandparents, and to listen to stories in English as well as other languages. Thank you to all the families who organised and sent story videos to the teachers.
 
As well as this, the children wrote postcards to friends or family around the world. On Wednesday everyone dressed up as their favourite book character - even the teachers! 
 
We had a competition to design a book cover, with the book title being 'Apart but Together'. So many children (and some teachers) drew thoughtful and imaginative designs. The winners were Penny from PYP 4 and Sofia from PYP 5A. 
 

ISD primary: Traffic lessons

Contribution by Ms Heidi Heskens
 
Children are vulnerable in traffic. They are playful, impulsive and can behave in an unpredictable way - e.g. they may suddenly cross the road without looking. It takes many years for children to fully understand the dangers in traffic and gain experience. Still, Dutch children need to learn fast, as by the age of 12 they are expected to be able to cycle to school independently - whether it's a short ride through the busy traffic of a city, or a 15-km ride along rural roads.
 
To prepare our international students for the Dutch independent lifestyle, ISD primary has been working together with SCHOOL op SEEF to enhance the student’s traffic awareness. Delft is a very busy and vibrant city with lots of different traffic participants (pedestrians, bikes, trams, cars, busses) and traffic situations. Therefore, we feel it is very important to offer our students traffic lessons, starting from a young age. 
 
SCHOOL op SEEF is a Dutch organisation that helps primary school children to behave safely and responsibly in traffic. The program contains all kinds of lessons: from educational videos and explanation in the classroom to playful exercises in practice.
 
At ISD, each class has 3 practical Traffic lessons per acamedic year. The students practice crossing the road, cycling in the street and traffic signs and rules. PYP 1-2 brought their bicycles to school this week and had a traffic square set up in the playground. PYP 5 went for an educational walk in the neighbourhood and practiced crossing the road in real traffic situations. PYP 3-4 will do this next week. PYP 6 has an educational bicycle trip planned and PYP 7 is training for their traffic exam.

      
 
National Traffic Exam
On 15 June, our PYP 7 students will join the “National Verkeersexamen” in the city centre of Delft. The “Traffic Exam” is a practical cycling exam, during which the PYP 7s follow a bicycle route through traffic. The purpose of this exam, is to make students independent traffic users.
Students get tested on how they put the knowledge and traffic rules into practice and whether they behave safely and responsibly on the road and respond well to various traffic situations.
 
Parents help needed
The last years we had help from a group of parents that dedicated their time to help the teachers and students during the lessons. The help of parents is nescesarry and much needed with these lessons. Currently we’re looking for parents that can help us with the exam of PYP 7. 
Please, feel free to contact Marloes van den Heuvel at mvandenheuvel@isdelft.nl if you can help on Tuesday June 15th 10 am till 10.45. It is not nescesarry that you speak or read Dutch.
If you would like to join our Traffic parents team that helps 3 times a year with the lessons, please contact Heidi Heskes at hheskes@isdelft.nl
 
      

PYP 3 and the Circle of Life

PYP3 A and B are about to round off an exciting learning journey about life cycles. We started the unit with looking at our own life cycle. Students brought in pictures of the first stages of their lives and we wondered about the stages that will follow. "What will you look like when you are a bit older?" What will you look like when you are a granny? " 
 
After exploring our own life cycle, we looked at other life cycles. Planting seeds was one of the first things we did during this unit. We planted seeds of different kinds of plants and in a few weeks’ time, we had our own mini garden to observe and take care of. And that was not all, the first week of our unit, the caterpillars arrived! 
 

 
We started writing growth diaries about the plants and caterpillars and discovered many interesting facts about their life cycles. Students discovered that a caterpillar's first meal is its eggshell and a caterpillar's life is just about one thing: eating! Some students noted that this sounds like a good life, especially if you add the fact that they can walk upside down! But then the caterpillar’s life changed tremendously; students observed how a caterpillar transforms into a chrysalis. This stage worried some of them, "how do we know it is still alive?" "Is it sleeping?" "Does it hurt?" 


Learning about caterpillars also led us to sorting animals in different ways, for example: species, needs, habitats. We used Venn diagrams to sort them and students found out that different species can still have things in common. 
 


There is a chance that on our last day of the unit our last butterflies will emerge. We are hoping that they will, wouldn't that be a fantastic way to say goodbye to this rich unit of inquiry? 


 

 

Design project with TU Delft: “Together! The New Architecture of the Collective”
 

Contribution by Ms Miros Silva-Ordaz

Over the last months our PYP 4, PYP 6 and MYP 2 students have participated in a project about the ‘Future of Living’ with the TU Delft. Darinka Czischke is part of our school community and works as associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft. She has been leading the effort to bring the exhibition “Together! The New Architecture of the Collective” to Delft.
 
Project Together! stimulates a broad debate about new forms of housing, based on the principles of inclusivity, circular economy and long-term value development. As part of the project, our ISD students were invited to come up with various designs for new forms of housing. In the project the students aimed to design a healthy physical place that would bring people together and/or make people happy.
 
Each year group was assigned a different age group or ‘persona’ to focus their project on. Our PYP 4 students designed a place for toddlers. It is really interesting to see that the students put ‘safety’ and ‘having fun’ at the core of their designs. The PYP 6 students designed a space for 7 to 8 years olds and made sure their designs were eco-friendly, by adding solar panels and windmills to their designs. Lastly, the MYP 2 students made a design for 9 to 10 year olds, and mainly focused on places that could be sustainable to live and fostered the wellbeing of the community.
 
All students made use of the Design Cycle and the Design Tools to come up with their design solution.

We want to thank Darinka for inviting our students to participate and share their design ideas to imagine how they can create a place where we can live together in the 21st century.

We would like to share a couple of examples of what the students created:

PYP 4: The name of my design is Hutchur -  by Gouri.
 
With this design I want to give a solution to Margaret. The central problem is that, because of the lockdown Margaret couldn’t go outside to play a lot and she was feeling sad.



The solution for her problem is a hutchur. It looks like a hut and it is built just outside the house.
Margaret can now play outside safely, which makes her happy.
 
PYP6: Peas Zone – Niko designed a veggie garden called “Peas Zone” where the school community could gather to have a nice quiet green place to relax and grow vegetables.

 
 
 
MYP 2: Anna designed a rooftop with different activities for children. To watch Anna’s presentation in which she explains her idea, the design and why it is helpful for her persona, you can click this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fEwazeshR2dhwEwEp4h5BfBlWBP1-vdn/view


 

MYP 3 Interdisciplinary Unit: Design and Humanities
Contribution by Ms Minke Veeneklaas


What happens if you tell MYP 3 students: 
“You are working for an advertisement business but also an environmental influencer; your task is to raise awareness of one of the issues of the Sustainable Development Goals. You should produce an awareness campaign that will attract a large number of followers and mobilize people to make a difference on a global scale. ‘
Some real good pieces of work and impactful campaigns!
 
In the past few weeks students in MYP 3 have been working on an interdisciplinary unit between Design and Humanities. Making connections between subject areas and learning across disciplines is an essential part of the MYP philosophy. In each year group, students take part in  an interdisciplinary project. The MYP 3 interdisciplinary unit focused on environmental sustainability. By investigating the UN sustainable development goals students were encouraged in the Humanities lessons to choose a sustainable development goal. In the Design lessons the focus was on the development of campaigns, what makes a good campaign and how do you reach a target group. After in-depth subject study students were asked to synthesize their ideas in an environmental campaign. 
 
By asking the question:  ‘Environmental sustainability, who cares?’ students were set a task to develop their own campaign on a sustainable development issue. Last week the students presented these to Mr. Madahar and Ms. Veeneklaas. We have seen some great presentations and have been impressed by the creativity and the great variety presented by the students. We are proud of the work they have done and would like to share some examples with you. 
As part of the project we also asked students to give each other feedback and asked them for feedback on this project. To conclude the students agreed that they liked this project because they had the freedom to choose a topic and how they wanted to present it.
 
All in all successful. 
 

PYP 7 taster day at ISD Secondary


The Friday before the May-holiday, we welcomed PYP 7 students for a taster afternoon on the Secondary Campus. We are looking forward to the new school year and to guiding them through the next step in their learning journey.

From PYP to MYP is a natural step

Contribution by Ms Evelyne Le Poole and Ms Sandip Jagdev
 

The transition from primary to secondary is often seen by parents and students as a big step. However, the skills and knowledge our students gain throughout PYP, prepare them to succeed in MYP. The focus in both programs on the Approaches to learning (ATL’s) equips students with the necessary skills.

You could say transitioning from PYP to MYP is a natural ‘ next step' in their learning journey.

Connections between PYP and MYP
PYP students study and explore six transdisciplinary themes of global significance that offer students the opportunity to explore the commonalities of human experience.

They are described as transdisciplinary, because they focus on issues that transfer across subject areas. MYP students connect their learning with their life and the world through the use of Global Contexts. The MYP has identified 6 global contexts for teaching and learning, that extend from the PYP transdisciplinary themes.


Approaches to learning in PYP

  • The PYP Approaches to learning (ATL) are 5 sets of interrelated skills, designed to support transfer of learning between curricular areas.
  • These are Thinking skills, Research skills, Communication skills, Social skills and Self-management skills.
  • Teachers work with children to help with the development and application of these skills.
  • The ATL skills are extensively worked on and highlighted during the PYP exhibition. By continuously working on these skills we can prepare the students to prepare naturally for the MYP.

Middle Years Programme

MYP students continue to develop their knowledge, concepts and skills by studying eight subject areas through the 6 global contexts (see above). Each subject is taught through their key-concept and related concepts with links to the global context. Each subject area needs to assess their criteria (A,B,C,D) two times a year. Each year level is also involved in at least one interdisciplinary project every year to enhance their learning.

Throughout the MYP, students are involved with Service as an Action. Just as the PYP culminates in the PYP exhibition, the MYP does that in the Personal Project in MYP 5.


Further developing ATL skills in the MYP
The focus on Approaches to Learning skills (ATL’s) is to help students to develop the self-knowledge and skills they need to enjoy a lifetime of learning. ATL skills empower students to succeed in meeting the challenging objectives of the MYP subject groups and they prepare the students for further success in the rigorous DP programme.

These ATL skills are transferable across their courses and into the students personal lives They are worked on in each unit, throughout all the years of the MYP programme. The Personal Project in MYP 5 provides students with the opportunity to showcase these skills before they take the next step into the diploma programme.

The IB Learner Profile
Finally, students as well as staff and parents are encouraged to recognize and support the learner profile attributes. They are promoted and talked about from PYP to DP onwards.
By allowing students to follow these attributes, we can prepare them to be internationally minded lifelong learners.

Sources:

https://alisonyang.weebly.com/blog/how-does-the-pyp-and-myp-connect

Spanish: holiday in a Parador

Contribution by Ms Marinieves Fagel

Who doesn’t want to be the lovely Dulcinea, the brave Don Quijote or a cool knight…? Well, your dreams may come true by just simply booking a stay at one of the great Paradores in Spain! Beautiful, luxury hotels, most of them accommodated in ancient monasteries, castles or fortresses. 
 
During our last unit about Las vacaciones, the MYP 2 & 3 students chose one of the Spanish Paradores and, as real marketing managers, promoted the Parador of their choice to a target group of children. What are the selling points, why would kids want to stay at a Parador?
 
The students were paired up and all made attractive presentations, in Spanish of course! We were really impressed by their creativity and use of language. Some of the students only had a few months of Spanish up until then. Great job everyone, ¡estupendo!
 
But that wasn’t all. After the presentation part was done los estudiantes made a real Tik-Tok, again about their favorite Parador. These were really amazing and there was even some dancing involved. Together we selected the best, so enjoy our special selection! 

Science: It's a bug's life

Contribution by Mr Suneel Madahar

In science we have been busy looking at those things not normally seen with the naked eye. We’re luck at the ISD to have such lovely surroundings, including the park that sits across the road from us. With our adventurous MYP 1 students, we studied the wildlife found in the freshwater that is found in the park. Using microscopes we examined the water to see the life that could be found in there. What the students saw was an entire ecosystem of plants and animals. We practiced our scientific drawing skills, as well as our observational skills when looking at these tiny, microscopic lifeforms. 

One could ask what the purpose of looking at things so small, and seemingly so insignificant. The students were amazed to realise just how much work these little creatures do for our ecosystems (and actually the entire planet), and were even more amazed to learn that without these tiny animals, the world would have a very tough time surviving. So I guess the lesson we can take from this is while we are busy thinking about the big picture, it’s sometimes the smallest amongst us that can have the biggest influence! 

After School Activities back on!

Dear Parents and Students of ISSD,

As you may already know, we opened our activity program for the first time at the ISSD Campus in November 2020, but unfortunately, due to the lockdown, our sessions were put on hold. However, we are very pleased to announce, we are able to open once again, and squeeze in the final 6 weeks of the courses before the school year finishes up in July! We will begin these sessions once again from June 7th and the final class will take place on Wednesday July 14th. To the students who are already a part of our program, we are so looking forward to welcoming you back! 

We are accepting new sign-ups to these courses! This is a great opportunity for your child to try out some activities for 6 weeks and have some fun before the end of what has been a challenging school year. If you are interested in signing-up, please head to our website for more details: www.kingproductions.co

The classes we have on offer:
Mondays 14:15-15:15  - Karate
Mondays 14:15-15:15. - Lego Club
Wednesdays 15:15-16:15 - Drama
Wednesdays 15:15-16:15 - Sewing 
          

We will gladly answer any questions you may have in regard to the After-School Activity Program. You can reach out to us here: info@kingproductions.co


Warm wishes, 

King Productions.
Information & contact

For more information about our school, the enrolment and contact options, please visit our website:
www.internationalschooldelft.com
Facebook
Website
Email
Copyright © *2019 International School Delft , All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
info@internationalschooldelft.com

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.
 






This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
International School Delft · Jaffalaan 9 · Delft, Zuid-Holland 2628BX · Netherlands

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp