Dear Parents,
I hope you are having a lovely week. There has been so much fantastic learning taking place at XLIS over the past month. I have been observing lessons in our PYP classes and am delighted with the quality of instruction I am seeing across the program. In particular, the students’ understanding of key concepts. This past weekend our students hosted the ACAMIS Model United Nations conference at the school. I was delighted to see them advocate for global issues alongside visiting schools from Chongqing and Xiamen. Another group of students attended the China Business Professionals Alliance in Chengdu. They needed to design business plans connected to sports. I am so proud of our students for winning the national bronze award.
Parents as Partners
I have recently been studying the impact of parent involvement in learning. According to this research by Education Endowment Foundation, parent impact can have an average impact of four months on a child’s progress at school. We are so fortunate to have such supportive parents at XLIS. Let us continue to work together.
MYP Assessment Criteria
In order to support our parents to become more involved, I would like to share a resource from our MYP coordinator Mrs. Emma Yang. She has put all the MYP assessment criteria in one place for us. One of the advantages of the IB programmes is the clear assessment criteria required. Students need to learn how to read the assessment critera, understand the command terms. By carefully reading the criteria, students can plan their assessments to achieve their desired grade.
I encourage all our MYP parents to discuss this criteria with your children for a particular subject. All PYP summative assessments at XLIS also have assessment criteria, which you may get from the teacher or ask me. Our assessment policy which I discussed in a previous communication may be found on our website here.
Let us continue to work together to lead education through innovation and a student-centered, community-driven approach. As always I love to hear from you, so if you have a moment please reply to this email, let me know who your child is and how he/she is doing at XLIS.
Sincerely,
Brian Lalor
Deputy Head of School
