FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK

March 2020 Newsletter

Primary Years Programme (PYP):

EYP End of unit celebration

On 4th March 2020, Reception, Prep 1 and Prep 2 culminated their unit on

‘How the world works’ and ‘How we express ourselves’. They showcased their

understanding through the ‘Inquiry Cycle Presentation’. Learners sang a

‘Spring’ and ‘Holi’ song, welcoming their parents for the end of unit

celebrations. Our young eagles took their parents through their learning

journey by sharing their knowledge about the spring season and the festival of

Holi. Students of Prep 2 concluded the presentation by an energetic dance

performance. The performance was a befitting end to their unit which brought

our students one step closer to being reflective and true inquirers.

New methods of learning

As we scale through the dynamic situation with the Covid-19 pandemic, our

teachers have been working tirelessly to ensure academic rigour is in place. To

this end, resource packs were created for all subjects including single subjects

and mailed to our students, with a detailed calendar of submission. Students

were able to explore learning online through interactive videos, audio visuals

and task sheets. Teachers have risen to the challenge of giving feedback

effectively through personal emails to each student and maintaining the

trackers for the same. We are very proud of our IISP team!

Leadership Curriculum

PYP Leadership Retreat – 28th February 2020 – Grades 2 and 3

The second leadership retreat for Grades 2 and 3 was conducted on 28th

February 2020. The concept -‘CHANGE’ was the focus of the retreat. Learners

were provoked to think about the changes that are happening around us

particularly, climate change. Students pondered over the reasons for the same

and the responsibility each one of has to reduce its effects. They deeply

reflected and connected their responses to IB learner profiles. Students also

conducted a survey in the school to calculate the carbon footprint of Indus

International School, Pune. The survey was completed for various departments

like cafeteria, administration, teaching staff, gardeners, supporting staff etc.

Post the survey, students created various action plans to reduce carbon

footprint in school with the help of entire school community.

Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS):

Eco-friendly Holi:

Our young eagles are consciously working towards doing their bit to save the

planet for a better future. Here is a young Eagle who stood up to spread the

message of celebrating an eco-friendly Holi. Avyaay Rathi of Grade 3 took a

step towards supporting an NGO that makes Holi colours using natural

ingredients. He built awareness by speaking to his classmates about the

importance of celebrating Holi in an eco-friendly way. He also took a great step

forward using a signature campaign to ensure the word spreads far and wide.

Plogging by Grade 1

As a part of Tikkun Olam through our leadership curriculum, Grade 1 focuses

on plogging which is scheduled once a month around the school campus. As

every change starts from within, we first chose to switch to reusable hand

gloves that the students can wash and reuse every time they go plogging. This

helps us ensure that we do not add more to the landfills. In the process of

plogging, the students are enthusiastic about keeping their school

environment clean and making each one, around them aware of garbage

segregation. The young Eagles looked at different spots around the school

campus and got to work.

Whole Education:

Handwriting club:

The learners of handwriting club, our ‘Happy- Hands’, have come a long way

since the time the club started. They are aware of the right posture they

should be sitting in and the size of the pencil they should be using in the class!

The Helicopter and Woodpecker exercises have helped our learners develop

their fine motor skills. Some of the aspects in handwriting enhanced so far

include-letter formation, sizing, spacing, pencil grip, alignment etc.

Public Speaking:

This month learners enhanced their extempore skills, specifically- thinking skills and presentation skills.

The students demonstrated their creative thinking skills by talking about the characteristics of ‘My Fictional Animal'. Through the activity titled, ‘I Act Like that’ students displayed collaborative teamwork. They focused on, stage presence and short skits based on learner profiles.

Environment club:

The Environment club students took an initiative to recycle material and create

innovative articles. They have started to create cloth bags, coasters, planters

and paper bags, creative minds saving the earth one step at a time! They also

tended to the PYP vegetable patch ensuring that the patch is weeded, and

plants are free of pests.

TED club:

Learners in the TED club have started working on their final speeches. They

had a brainstorming session wherein they decided on the global/ local issues

they want to address through their speech. Agam Singh from Grade 4 is

exploring the possibility of running cars with magnetic wheels to save precious

resources while Mihika of Grade 3 is ideating to create a mobile school for the

underprivileged. We do wish them all the best and can’t wait for their final

presentations!!

Professional development:

Story telling session:

Story telling is an ancient art that generations before us have used to not only

captivate our imagination and help us travel to distant places but also to

impart valuable life lessons. This important form of communication is still

relevant today especially for our youngest learners. A story naturally piques a

child’s curiosity, imagination and creativity. PYP teachers from Prep1 to Grade

2 got the opportunity to attend a whole day workshop on story telling by Ms

Dharitri Krishnamurthy. In an engaging session where all attendees were active

participants, they learnt how to keep students tuned in to the story, to use

different elements like voice modulation and small instruments to enhance

their story telling skills. This session also highlighted the importance of

delivering socially relevant messages in a child friendly manner. There is no age

bar when it comes to stories and our educators learned how a teacher can

successfully employ this method for even higher grades especially when

teaching subjects like history.

Zoom:

As we work through the current situation of social distancing due to the

pandemic – Covid-19, our educators are devising ways to engage with students

in a fruitful way. To ensure that academics do not suffer in the event of

extended school closure, all PYP teachers attended a session on how to

conduct online classes through zoom. The same was led by Mr Vatsal Parekh

and we are glad that teachers are now preparing for the month of April with

renewed vigour.

Middle Years Programme (MYP):

Academics: Transitioning to Virtual Learning

Coronavirus is the black swan of 2020. Some of you (and some of us) have

already been personally impacted by the virus. With lives at risk, we hope that

conditions improve as quickly as possible. In the interim, we should brace

ourselves for turbulence and have a prepared mind-set for the scenarios that

may play out.

In our endeavour to maintain the academic rigour for students across all grades

even during this critical time, we started with our online classes through

Microsoft Teams from 16th March for Grades 6-12. Initially we kept the online

classes only till 1:00 pm, however 1st April on-wards we are extending the

timings to 3:10 pm. We have tried to keep the schedule same for our learners

so that the transition from face to face to virtual learning is smooth for them.

PHE, Music and Visual Arts have also been part of online classes. The technical

glitches have been very few and each day we are mitigating them further. The

ICT team is always on standby during the scheduling of these online classes. We

have been closely monitoring all online classes and giving immediate feedback

to teachers to ensure best teaching practices are implemented.

As Darwin surmised, those who survive “are not the strongest or the most

intelligent, but the most adaptable to change.”

Inter-class Competitions:

To provide more opportunities to our learners for more participation based on

their interest and passion and also to build the team spirit in the classes,

different competitions through Inter-class Competitions were introduced to our

MYP learners. Where ‘Create Your Own Space Challenge’ made our learners

dress up their classrooms with their own nick-knacks, panel discussions on the

non-fiction book introduced in each grade through our Leadership Curriculum

brought our learners discuss their learnings and concepts from these books.

Grade 6 had their discussion on Ikigai by Hector Garcia; Grade 7 on Alchemist by

Paulo Coelho; Grade 8 on Start with Why by Simon Sinek and Grade 9 on How

to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.

Professional Development

To keep up with the challenging situation around the world, our teachers had

various sessions on different aspects of virtual teaching and learning platform.

This helped us in smooth transition when we shifted from face to face to virtual

classes.

Diploma Programme (DP):

March threw up challenges anew which the school faced without batting an

eyelid. Precautions were taken to check temperatures of students and Hand

sanitizers were provided to each class- as precautionary measure to counter the

threat of COVID 19.

Weekly updates and meetings kept us abreast of the situation outside- to enable

us to take quick decisions.

Within a week, the school mid- March took the decision to train students in

Microsoft teams and school was closed from 16th March.

The DP team of teachers moved from face to face classes to online classes

seamlessly to meet the challenges thrown up by the COVID virus.

The week before spring break saw teachers conducting classes on Microsoft

teams and collaborating with each other to conduct workshops for teachers too.

The Senior Management team members conducted walkthroughs and

addressed concerns immediately.

Professional Development:

The subject specific workshops – which were led by HODs were a huge success

– going by the feedback from teachers.

Some workshops focused on syllabus change, others on assessments and some

others on strategies for rigour in online classes

Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS):

Much before the school shut down, Mails were sent from the DP office for

students to get donations in kind for the community kitchen which continue

despite the mock exams.

Students from different Houses were assigned different ingredients that were

required on a regular basis.

Apart from the above, the different Houses pursued the house vision tasks with

enthusiasm. For instance Orion House, Pegasus House and Hercules sent

students to different parts of the community outside to implement these tasks.

Leadership Curriculum:

The Leadership Curriculum continued with a focus on empathy as a core value

and deep reading of a new text- Outliers.

LC teachers used different approaches to implement deep reading. The

relevance of deep reading was re visited in the class.

SPORTS:

PYP Aquatic Meet and Equestrian display

The Aquatic Meet saw all the PYP students participating enthusiastically in the heats and the finals. Congratulations to all the Winners! Our PYP students were part of a special equestrian display. It was witnessed by parents and guests to view the progress their children have made in horse riding thus far in this session. Our students did remarkable well and we are proud of our young jockeys!! Indus Sports Fest –2019 -20

It was a great pleasure and delight for IISP to host an invitational Inter school

Sports Fest on March 7th and 8th – Saturday & Sunday. The event saw a total of

ten schools, Clubs and Academies participating and displaying team spirit and

sportsmanship. Below are the participants and the results.

1. THE ORCHID SCHOOL 2. LOYOLA SCHOOL 3. RISING PUNE FC 4. VIBGYOR HIGH, CHINCHWAD 5. LOUKIK FA 6. RIVERDALE INTER. SCHOOL 7.4’LIONS ACADEMY 8. VIDYA VALLEY, SUS 9. VIDYA VALLEY, WAKAD 10. IISP Match results

Age category Final results

Under 10 Boys WINNER – LOYOLA SCHOOL

RUNNER UP- RISING PUNE FC

Under 12 Boys WINNER –4’ LIONS ACADEMY

RUNNER UP- LOYOLA SCHOOL

Under 15 Boys WINNER – RISING PUNE FC

RUNNER UP- VIDYA VALLY SCHOOL

PLAYER OF THE TOURNAMENT

UNDER 10 UNDER 12 UNDER 14

SOURJYO GUPTA

(LOUKIK FC)

MANTHAN

(4’ LIONS ACADEMY)

VANSH PATEL

(RISING PUNE FC)

BEST STRIKER

UNDER 10 UNDER 12 UNDER 14

JOEL SUDARSHAN

(LOYOLA SCHOOL)

SHREYAJ M

(LOYOLA SCHOOL)

ARYAN S

(VIDYA VALLY SCHOOL)

BEST GOALKEEPER

UNDER 10 UNDER 12 UNDER 14

ADITYA DESHPANDE

(LOYOLA SCHOOL)

SHARVIN DEORE

(4’ LIONS ACADEMY)

AAYAM

(RISING PUNE FC)

Inter house matches

Inter house Badminton Results

Boys Grade 8, 9 &10 House Position

Hercules 1st Pegasus 2nd

Phoenix 3rd Orion 4th

Boys Grade 6 & 7

House Position Hercules 1st

Phoenix 2nd Orion 3rd

Pegasus 4th

Girls Grade 8, 9 &10 House Position

Phoenix 1st Hercules 2nd

Pegasus 3rd

Orion 4th

Thanks and warm regards Preeti G. Prabhu Principal Indus International School Pune principal@indusschoolpune.com preeti.prabhu@indusschoolpune.com +91 8390905891 www.indusschoolpune.com

Dates For Your Diary: April 2020

Date Event

April 15th Virtual Parent Teacher Meeting (EYP)

April 16th Virtual Parent Teacher Meeting (PYP)

April 20th Virtual Parent Teacher Meeting (Grade 6)

Y 5-Grade 10 Final Examinations Commences

April 21st Virtual Parent Teacher Meeting (Grade 8)

April 22nd Virtual Parent Teacher Meeting (Grade 9)

Earth Day/ Mufti Day (PYP)

April 23rd Virtual Parent Teacher Meeting (Grade 7)

April 24th MYP Orientation of Grade 5 parents

April 25th Virtual Parent Teacher Meeting (Grade 11)

April 30th Y5-Grade 10 Final Examination Ends