Dear Parents,
I hope this email finds you well. Keep healthy as the weather changes. We have just finished our fantastic ACAMIS swim fest over the weekend and our students who went for the ACAMIS golf competition are back after doing a commendable outing.
We are well into March and in the thick of academics and a lot of events for the rest of the academic year. I would like to highlight some of them for you, especially the ‘digital detox week’ coming up from March 23-27.
Digital detox week-During this week, no student from M1-M5 is allowed to bring their laptops to school. All work given during this time would be hands on and hand written. Any and all homework that is given should also be device free. We request parents to support us with this. As a school, we are considering some common ways to ensure that research can be done yet does not require a device. These are:
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Promote collaboration-Hands on jigsaw activities from pre-printed material that require teamwork, structured debates, model making, mathematical manipulatives, simulations and role plays. Encourage note-taking on notebooks.
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Provide physical handouts, articles, or excerpts. The act of annotating a physical page with a pen can lead to deeper cognitive processing than highlighting on a screen/library book check outs to take home and read from.
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Handwritten submissions for homeworks/classwork
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Students will not be looking into Managebac for the week, hence alternate arrangements such as writing out the command terms/lesson objectives on the board for every lesson. I know some teachers already practice this. Please continue this.
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Strategies such as that go back to chalk talk- Build ideas collaboratively on the board. Use different coloured markers for emphasis, create mind maps, and have students come up to add their ideas/work out problems on the board.
Some of the recommendations that we have for parents to check, support and model back home are:
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It is normal for students to say that they are bored. Don’t rush to fix it. Validate the feeling. However, this boredom can be tackled using creativity. Plan specific, engaging alternatives.Having a family cook-off, reading, nature walks, family sport, a puzzle on the dining table, or a blanket fort. The goal is to replace scrolling with togetherness.
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We request you to model the behavior you want to see at home. If parents minimize device use at home, children are more likely to follow this.
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Maintain this initiative may be a day in the week where the entire family is using devices to the minimum.
During this detox week, our student council has also come up with an initiative to dress differently. During this time, it is important to remember that no flashy jewelry, nail extentions and hair color is permitted. Students are to follow the colour code to wear dresses that are school worthy.
We are all trying to get the community to focus on mental health and the cons of prolonged device use.
Oxford Professors visiting XLIS-A team of Oxford professors will be visiting XLIS on 18th of March and offering students support on expectations that happen in high quality interviews and future majors. Some students have been selected for this and are part of a panel for interviewing and participating in the lessons. Such interviews and interactions allow our students to get a better understanding and preparation to handle high pressure interviews in the near future.
Pi-Day-Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). It’s observed on March 14th (3/14 in month/day format) because the first three digits of pi are 3.14. However as we had the ACAMIS Swim fest last friday and could not run this on the same day. The Math Department will be organizing a Pi Day Celebration on Friday, March 20. Students from M1 to DP1 will participate in a variety of fun math games in teams and share the joy of mathematics together.
Sports day-We will have our school sports day on the 27th of March. Our athletics and PE department has been preparing for this for the whole year. Our athletes would be showcasing their talents by participating in different track and field events.
Early Release on March 18th –Personal Project Standardization: Our secondary teachers would be standardizing the MYP personal projects. By checking for consistent journal entries, source citations, and report sections for each criteria, teachers look to ensure that the awarded grades are fair and accurate. This organized approach ensures they meet IB criteria while focusing on their product goal. Tomorrow, students will be dismissed at 2:30 pm.
Shameek
