Straits International School Penang, Malaysia

Stra its Talking Issue 28 | 2019-20

A newsletter for Parents, Students and Friends of our School

Issue 35 | 2020-2021

Inside

this i

ssue

Primary

Sports Spotlight

Leadership Message Secondary

A

messa

ge fr

om Le

aders

hip

Ms Yo

ges

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the new school year.

What a fantastic start. To open the school and see our returning students re-enter our campus along with those new to our school was an overwhelming-ly positive event. Students, teachers and parents alike were elated to return to face-to-face school. At this stage of the term, we expect that students are beginning to settle into the routines of school. They should be getting to know their new teachers, adjusting to new sub-jects and courses and, if new to the school, finally knowing their way around.

As the world around us remains uncertain, we can reassure you that what we see in our corri-dors are students going calmly about their daily school life. They have remembered how to greet one another and their teachers (albeit a little muffled through a mask) and connect and enjoy the company of their friends. Lessons may be a little different as the usual dynamic, and active components of group work and movement are mini-mised, but the activities remain engaging and effective. As we start the new academic year, we should publicly congrat-ulate our Year 11 for their IGCSE results. Whilst their results were secured in unusual circumstanc-es, these outcomes represent two years of focused work and diligence, and we are proud of our students’ achievements.

As teachers, we are now focused on the next steps to protect our students from the long-term im-pact of school campus closure.

We are working hard to identify areas of weakness within stu-dents’ understanding and sup-porting them to attend to these. For the exam year groups, Years 9 and 11, we will be looking to respond to changes to assess-ment in their exam sessions for May 2021.

Aside from the academic chal-lenges of Virtual School, we are also keen to attend to the lost personal and social learning. We hope that for our students, returning to school will be an overwhelmingly positive and exciting experience. Some ac-tivities are designed to help students to rebuild social bonds and adjust back to the school environment prior to returning to classroom lessons.

I have been immensely im-pressed and reassured by the ad-aptability of our students as they take all this in their stride. They have maturely accepted their role in protecting our communi-ty and behaving appropriately. In many ways, we are seeing the best of our students as they illustrate through their actions that they are up to the challenge of navigating through a global pandemic. We are committed to guiding them through this with the highest quality educational experience that has become the mark of our school, and we very much appreciate your support. Through adjusting our behav-iours inside and out of school, we stand the best chance of in-sulating these children from the impact of this crisis and protect-ing their education. Thank you.

E

YFS

Nu

rsery

with M

s Kam

ini

Nursery has had a great start this year; we have a total of 3 new students joining us, in total 4 boys and 2 girls. The Nursery children started their week happily with a smile back to school.

Nurserystarted their learning jour-ney by learning new rules in school.

In Literacy, we started our Jolly Phonics Stage 1 songs. The children sang the song happily.

The theme for this term is all about me. The kids partici-pated in Circle time; Children

introduce themselves, Talk about their feeling on their first day of school, buddy the children so they will not feelleft out and children talk about their origin during cir-cle time.

So all the children drew their friend in their sketch book and writeabout their friends. Also we did hand print paint-ing for Malaysia National day. Kudos to everyone!

E

YFS

Rece

ption

wiht

Ms S

erene

and M

s Moh

ana

What we learn about Welcome back after the sum-mer break and to the start of the new and exciting school year! We have a lot of exciting things planned for the chil-dren along with their learning journey.

This term, we are learning about friendship. The students were excited to explore the difference of their interest and their friends. They took this opportunity to draw their friends and have so much funsinging “You got A friend in Me’ from toy story.

In numeracy, we strengthen

our number recognition from 1 – 20. We enjoyed playing games and counting using blocks. We also look at what things that we can count around the classroom andmade Math fun to learn with songs.

Our work in English in this term was using phonics to read and spell words, as well as daily phonics sessions. The children took part actively in morning sessions by playing phonics games and collectingstars.

Prim

ary

Year 1

with M

s Kelly

Year 1 have made a great start to the new school year!

Firstly, we would like to wel-come all of our new students and parents who have started SIS this term. For those return-ing students and parents, we would like to say welcome back and we hope you had a fantastic summer break. The year one stu-dents have made a great transi-tion into Year 1 from Reception and their previous schools. They are beginning to understand therules and routines of the class-room as well as the changes to their daily timetable.

In Maths, our learning has focused on ordering numbers and learning our number bonds to 10. We have been using both addition and subtraction facts to ensure our learning is secure. Our next topic focuses on meas-urement where we will use our understanding of number lines to help us estimate!

In English, we have been learn-ing and acting out different verbs! We have been focusing onusing the correct punctuation in-cluding capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. To help usunderstand stories better we

have learned that stories have a clear beginning, middle and end,as well as different characters.

Our Science lessons have al-lowed us to investigate the hu-man body and begin to discusssimilarities and differences be-tween us. We have also looked at how to stay healthy and learnt about our 5 senses.

Prima

ry

Year 2

wth

Ms H

anna

h

WELCOME BACK!

I have to admit it seems like a lifetime since we were last in the classroom. The students were verylucky because they were able to come back to school for a couple of weeks at the end of Year One.This meant that they were aware of the SOP’s and the school expecta-tions ready for their return toYear Two. They have all been very mature and respectful of the new learning environment. Theyshould be very proud.

The children have been working really hard in all of their lessons so far this term. We have had greatfun looking at our main reading book for this year, Man on the Moon. We read the story and wrotecharacter descriptions about the main character, Bob. We even re-ceived a letter from the aliens onthe moon. They wanted to know so much about us so we wrote them some character descriptionsabout ourselves. Please don’t tell Bob though because he doesn’t think the aliens are real. SHHH!The students particularly enjoyed ordering the story using just the pictures from the book (seephotos).

In Maths we have been revising our learning from Year One and we have started to challengeourselves to do higher level think-ing. Recently, we have been focus-sing on partitioning and

practising our counting on skills.We have loved learning about our new Science topic, Earth and Be-yond. We already knew so muchabout the Solar System but we have had great fun learning so much more.

Finally, I would like to take this op-portunity to welcome Ms Aimi and Ms Hema to the Year group.

P

rimary

Year 3

with

Ms K

ayleig

h

It has been a great start to the year in Year Three. The children have shown great enthusiasm to-wards their learning. They have been very resilient and mature in dealing with the new rules in school due to COVID. In English we have been focus-ing on story tellings and have learnt about all the features to help us write our own stories in the coming weeks. In Maths the students have been exploring number and place value, addition and subtraction. multipliation and division and will soon be moving on to ex-plore 2D and 3D shapes.

In Science we have been expl-roing plants. The children have enjoyed learning about the dif-ferent processes and have even got to grow some plants in class for experiment purposes.

In Humantities we have learn-ing all about Ancient Egypt. We have explored the impotance of the River Nile and the Egyptian society. We will soon be finding out all about mummification.

We are excited to welcome Ms Hema to our Year Three team as a form tutor, Maths teacher and Art teacher. We have also welcomed Ms Aimi who have taken over Year Three Humanities teaching.

Please remember to continue to support your child at home with their home learning and en-coruage them to read at home, whether this be through Bug Club, or home reading books. Homework is set each week on Thursday and due to be retruned each Tuesday, with spelling tests each Wednesday.

We are excited for the year ahead and know the children will do a fantatstic job develop-ing their learning skills.

P

rimary

Yea

r 4 w

ith M

r Gwy

n

I can honestly say that it’s a real pleasure to finally start to get to know the Year 4 classes! After last year’s very brief meeting with some of them while in Year 3, and then the final term being able to only see them as tiny moving pictures on my computer screen, I can, at last, spend some time with them, face to face – well, except for the masks, of course.

So far, the students have coped very well with the restrictions that we are all under. It is very difficult for students so young to be sitting in the same seat all day, with very little chance for movement. It is a very frustrating time but the behaviour and levels of responsibility shown have been very pleasing to see.

Year 4 are now taking some big steps on their road through Primary School. They are no longer the ‘lit-tle ones’ but are in a posi-tion to set good examples to others. They have also been given a higher level

of trust and responsibility by showing they can make good use of their Chrome-books and can look after them properly.

I am sure the year ahead will settle and become smoother for us all. I am looking forward to seeing the students grow further and mature, and also have a great time while learning.

P

rimary

Year 5

with

Ms G

osia

Welcome parents and stu-dents to year 5!

The new academic year has started for the students and both classes have settled well. As you are aware, there have been many changes to our school pro-cedure both inside and out-side of the classroom. The students are all following the guidelines and SOP and we are all very impressed with their positive attitude to the changes.

We would like to remind students that wearing masks during lessons is compulsory and that they must be eating food during break and lunch.

For PE lessons, students are now able to participate in light to mediate exer-cise while practising social distancing. On PE days, students are to come into school wearing their PE attire.

Across all subjects, students have now begun their first topics including Plants in Science and Place Value in Maths. In English, the stu-dents have been studying Fables and working towards identifying the features of a fable before writing their versions of a story.

In form time, we are en-couraging students to use the extra time more wisely and to be more organised. This involves being on time for form and lessons, as well as ensuring they are ready to learn at the start of each lesson with all equip-ment.

We are looking forward to a great year ahead!!

P

rimary

Year 6

with

Mr J

ack

What a strange way to start your final year in Primary School – wearing masks, sitting separate-ly, not being able to share things properly. Never mind, Year 6 are here and have made a very posi-tive start to this academic year.

It will be very busy year. The main focal point, of course (perhaps more in the mind of parents?), always seems to be the Checkpoint assessments. We can’t escape the fact that there will be plenty of revisionand ‘mock exams’ to cope with

but there will also be plenty of time for Year 6 to show many other qualities.

The Year 6 students will have plenty of opportunity to show leadership skills, whether through the School Council or being one of the House Captains or Vice Captains. There is also the day to day responsibility of

setting great, positive examples to the younger students. I have complete confidence that this Year 6 group, with the support of all their teachers and their parents, will shine through some very difficult circumstances.

Good luck for the coming year, Year 6!

S

choo

l Cou

ncil

Wi

th Ms

Kay

leigh a

nd M

r Jac

k

We would like to introduce our wonderful Primary School Council Members: Suchit (Year 2), Meera (Year 3), Ysabel (Year 4), Ruo

Shuen (Year 5) and Siddhraj (Year 6).

Here we have our wonderul Secondary Student Council Members: Corlissa and Jordan (Year 7), Jia Jia and Jayden C (Year 8), Asmitha and Warrick (Year 9), Bareesh and Ye Jing Tan (Year 10) and Kass-andra and Shiwaanee (Year 11).

H

ouse

Lead

ers

With M

s Kayl

eigh a

nd Mr

Jack

Here we have our wonderful House Captains and Vice Captains for both Primary and Seconday.

For Primary we have -

Rusa: Mahita and AsukaNaga: Allen and AlesshaHarimau: Nicole and YsabelBK: Jarrell and Kaelyn

For Secondary we have -

Rusa: Teresa and DaricNaga: Faye and AhviineshHarimau: Issac Puah and SamanthaBK: Nor Faradisha and Vivian

Sc

hool

Capta

ins

Wi

th Ms

Kay

leigh a

nd M

r Jac

k

We would like to introduce you to our School Captains and Vice School Captains.

This is a new position this year, with the students acting as the ultimate role models and ambassadors for our school.

For Primary our School Captain is Gervaise, Lohitya is our Low-er Primary Vice Captain and Lakshana is our Upper Primary Vice Captain.

For Secondary our School Captain is Jing Xuan, Kenji is our Lower Secondary Vice Captain and Vaishnavi is our Upper Secondary Vice Captain.

Se

cond

ary

E

nglish

with

Ms J

emma

This year for our English depart-ment newsletters we will be fo-cusing on different ways that we as a parent – teacher partner-ship can best support students to achieve their personal bests in the subject.

One of the most valuable things we can do to support students as they grow in their English skills is to encourage regular and var-ied reading. To help support this in school Years 7 – 9 will be con-tinuing with library programmes where reading for pleasure and enjoyment is strongly encour-aged. This term Year 7 students are reading the classic survival tale “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen, Year 8 are reading a wide varie-ty of short stories to help them find the genre they most enjoy reading, and Year 9 are reading the Malorie Blackman novel “Noughts and Crosses”.

Both years 10 and 11 are start-ing the year with a literature unit for which we are explor-ing the George Orwell classic “1984”. This is a challenging text but one that is very highly regarded and is relevant to the world we find ourselves in at this point in history. Reading has huge benefits for students and

helps them in both their reading and writing skills. It helps to develop vocabulary, understand different text types, demonstrate correct grammar in action, whilst also helping to develop inference and deduction skills. Moreover, reading also supports emotional development and empathy.

As a department we would ad-vise creating time and space for reading on a regular (preferably daily!) basis. Encouragement from home can go a long way to achieving this, as can creating opportunities to talk within the family about what is being read and enjoyed by different mem-bers of the family. This will be particularly important for year 10 and 11 students as ‘1984’ is a relatively long novel which they may require some encourage-ment to continue reading.

Sec

onda

ry M

aths w

ith M

s Yi C

hin

The first chapter of the Pri-mary Mathematics syllabus is always started with place value. For the first newslet-ter for this academic year 2020/2021, I would like to share with you an activity which is related to place value which you could do with your students in class or even at home (with par-ents).

This activity is named ‘Tar-get 100 000’. I would rec-ommend this activity to Year 4 and above, as the place value is up to hundred thousand. However, Year 3 and below could play this as well, just make the number lesser for instance 10 000 or 1 000 instead of 100 000.

You will need a 0-9 dice or 0-9 spinner, paper and pencil for this activity. First, generate six digits and write them for the whole class to see. Students use these dig-its to make two three-dig-it numbers. For example: 3, 5, 9, 2, 4 and 1 can be used to make 921 and 543. Students write down their

chosen numbers and then decide whether to multiply each number by 10 or 100.

The aim is to get a total that is as close to 100 000 as possible when the two prod-ucts are added together. For example: 921 x 100 = 92100 and 543 x 10 = 5340; 92100 + 5340 = 97530. 100 000 – 97530 = 2470. The student(s) whose total is closest to 100 000 scores one point. Generate a new set of numbers and continue the game.

Se

cond

ary

S

cienc

e with

Ms N

ellie

Welcome back to everyone! It is a delight to be back in school and the students have been very enthusiastic to start learning again.

In Secondary, students have started off by learning the Biol-ogy aspects of Science and will proceed to the Chemistry and Physics aspects as we progress over the term. The Secondary Science teachers have been working hard to bring practical/demonstrations to the students. We do hope that the students can take away the knowledge with what they have seen, tried and learned to support and enhance their learning.

A very exciting event took place where the Kancil Science Com-petition 2020 was held on the 22nd and 23rd September. This competition was initially set to be carried out in April but was postponed because of the current health situation in the country.Nonetheless, the students were excited to be participating in this competition. It is the first time that Straits International School has participated in this competition. This is also the first

time the competition was carried out fully online. A total of 55 students participated. Although the questions in the competition were based on the Malaysian syllabus, it serves as a good exposure for the participants as well as a challenge to their knowledge. Well done to all the participants for your efforts!

Year 7—Maps and Map SkillsThis term Year 7 will be under-taking a unit of studywhere they learn about maps and map skills.Although we are now heavily reliant on our phones/GPS/Google maps to get around , it is vital that thestudents are equipped with the skills that they needto navigate themselves from A to B without these ifnecessary .Year 7 will by the end of this unit be equipped to dothis and hopefully will retain this vital skill for the restof their life,.To get you in the mood—see if you can ‘navigate’ yourway through the maze All in all, it has been a good start to the academic term. We hope to continue to ignite their pas-sion towards the learning of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world.

Sec

onda

ry Hu

manti

es wit

h Mr C

hris

Year 7—Maps and Map SkillsThis term Year 7 will be under-taking a unit of study where they learn about maps and map skills.

Although we are now heavily re-liant on our phones /GPS/Goog-le maps to get around , it is vital that the students are equipped with the skills that they needto navigate themselves from A to B without these if necessary.

Year 7 will by the end of this unit be equipped to do this and hope-fully will retain this vital skill for the rest of their life,.

To get you in the mood—see if you can ‘navigate’ your way through the maze.

Year 8 —Glaciers and GlaciationThis term Year 8 will be undertak-ing a unit of study wherethey learn about Glaciers and Gla-ciation. Believe it or not—Malaysia was completely covered by iceduring the last ice age—and many of the features and landforms that were created then exist today. Sadly—many of our Glaciers and Ice Sheets today are under serious threat from Climate Change and the resultant effects of Global Warming.Check out the article below that highlights the issues. https://www.theguardian.com/environ-ment/2020/aug/20/ greenland-ice-

sheet-lost-a-record-1m-tonnes-of-ice-perminute-in-2019

Year 9—Earth’s Natural ResourcesThis term Year 9 will be undertak-ing a unit of study where they learn about Earth’s Natural ResourcesEach year our planet’s population increases—meaning that our reli-ance on its resources also increases.Students will focus on a few of the resources that we need to survive and begin to explore the impacts and effect of a growing population on them as well as what can be done to limit our reliance on them.Students will also look at what inventions and scientific break-throughs have occurred to helpmoderate and lessen our impact on the planet.

Sec

onda

ry Ma

ndari

n with

Ms P

ang

A new academic year starting by sharing SOP in Mandarin lessons. How do I conduct my lessons while also fulfilling the SOP requirement?

Quizzes team mode and Ka-hoot individual mode are my favourite revision games for my students. Apart from these, my students also enjoy some starter activities. They play a Tic- Tac-Toe game by reading aloud the vocabulary and a student helps to mark the answers for them. They will improve their listening, speaking and reading through this game.

As for listening and pointing the correct vocabulary, students are able to play this game while keeping their social distance. Small whiteboard is also a good tool for practising vocabulary writing. For teamwork projects, I encourage the use of Google Slides to the students, so that they can collaborate their ideas directly in the slide instead of sitting together and writing their ideas on a piece of paper.

The recent Chinese event was the Lantern making competition, on 30th of September. Students had to use recycled items to design their lanterns. Other than that, we also have some students who will participate in the HSK Mandarin test on 17th of Octo-ber.

I am looking forward to our stu-dents achieving excellent perfor-mance and experiencingenrichment activities from the Mandarin department this year.

Sec

onda

ry

ICT w

ith M

s Han

iza

Azam Baru for 2020/2021 aca-demic year!

We are extremely delighted to be finally back in school with the new normal rou-tines – sanitize, wearing masks and practise social distancing even in class-rooms. And for the subject Bahasa Malaysia in primary this academic year, will be conducted by Ms. Sathia, Mr Rukhsana and Ms. Shan-ti.

We are looking forward to a fresh new start with our students to learn and ap-ply BM in and out of class-rooms. The teaching team has planned several exciting events (bearing the new SOP in mind); all geared for this year such as spelling competition, story-telling contest and sing-along for the younger ones.

For the first week, we would like to encourage and motivate our students to set their minds and write their goals and resolutions for the rest of the year (write and speak in BM)

and later on share them during lesson time!

This goal setting is going to help both teachers and students to stay motivated and inspired for the rest of the year.

Ba

hasa

Wi

th Ms

Sathi

a

Sp

orts

With

Mr V

inod

It’s Autumm 2020-2021 and a new term again.To begin with, there are some changes in the PE Depart-ment and also the lessons. We are still in COVID SOP formalities and PE lessons are conducted in a modified version such as indoor and classroom activities/ MPH with proper distancing and safety measures being maintained

Even though we are going through this process the students are still having fun during PE lessons. We are making sure there is some form of exercise going on which keeps them fit.

While inside the PE Depart-ment there are some slight changes as well. Mr. Vinod is the new Head of Depart-ment, while Mr. Jack is the new Head of Pastoral. Mr. Dennis and Ms. Emily are still supporting in the PE Department energetically.

The PE Team are trying their best in conducting the lessons during this SOP period with some tweaking and turning. Hopefully we can overcome this together and always stay safe.

Teac

her Sp

otligh

t

Wi

th Ms

Sharm

illa

Some of the children were asked: ‘What do you think Ms Sharmilla does in her free time?’

‘What makes Ms Sharmil-la great?’

I think she acts in the MPH.

I think she finds worms in the garden.

I think she does Drama things.

I think she relaxes in the garden.

We get to play fun drama games in the lessons.

She’s a good teacher.

She’s kind and let’s us play games.

Diary

Dates

Upco

ming e

vents

Diary Dates

26th October - Assessments period begin

26th October - Yar 6 and 9 Checkpoint Mocks begin 29th/ 30th October - School holiday 6th November - Assessment period ends 12th November - Deepavali Mini Break 18th November - Return to School