03 June 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

Our Assistant Admissions Manager Ms. Tatianna Nasr announces our seventh winner for the ISS Community Challenge – Squared! Thank you to our students, teachers and parents who has participated in the past 7 weekly challenges, and we hope you have enjoyed solving these little quizzes throughout the circuit breaker period. We are so glad to see many of you back in school starting this week, as we adjust to the new normal. Remember, always set aside some time to take a break amidst your busy schedule!

01 June 2020

Returning to School after the COVID-19 circuit breaker

28 May 2020

Wellness Session with our Elementary and Middle School Counsellor

Our Elementary and Middle School Counsellor, Ms. Berna Sekhon, discussed the transition back to school with Dr. Sanveen Kang, Principal Clinical Psychologist, from Psych Connect. With schools reopening after the circuit breaker, Dr. Kang shares about what students and parents can look forward to, what to expect, how to prepare for the transition, and most importantly, how do we ensure that our students’ mental health is our top priority going forward.

Psych Connect is a specialist psychology clinic with child development and wellness services seeking to provide holistic therapeutic intervention and assessment for children, adolescents, young adults and their families. If you would like to seek support, email admin@psychconnect.sg or contact their clinic administrator at +65 91092024.

27 May 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

Our Assistant Admissions Manager, Ms. Tatianna Nasr, announces the winner for our sixth community challenge – Equal Sides! Watch the video to find out who is our sixth lucky winner of the ISS Community Challenge, and learn more about our seventh challenge – Squared. Stand a chance to win 2 x large pizzas, on us!

We would like to thank everyone for your participation in the ISS Community Challenge over the past weeks, and we hope that you have enjoyed these little positive distractions while engaged in your daily learning and work. Keep your entries coming!

26 May 2020

Wellness Session with our Elementary and Middle School Counsellor

20 May 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

Our Assistant Admissions Manager, Ms. Tatianna Nasr, is back to share about our Graduation Ceremony that will be held this Friday, and to pick our winner for the Spot The Difference quiz! Watch till the end to find out who is our lucky winner of the ISS Community Challenge this week, and try your hands out at our sixth challenge – Equal Sides! Stand a chance to win 2 x large pizzas that will be delivered to your home!

The Spot The Difference quiz has had the highest level of participation across our past community challenges, and we’re glad that you’re enjoying them! We look forward to receiving your entries this week – keep them coming!

13 May 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

It’s time to announce the fourth winner of our ISS Community Challenge – Match the Matches! Our Assistant Admissions Manager, Ms. Tatianna Nasr, shares the answer to the quiz, picks our lucky winner, and introduces our fifth community challenge – Spot the Difference! Watch the video to find out what this challenge is all about, and stand a chance to win 2 x Large Pizzas, on us!

Thank you to all the participants of the last week’s challenge. Keep your entries coming in and who knows, the next winner might just be you!

12 May 2020

Thank you for participating in the ISS Hats For Hearts Fundraiser

Today, our ISS community wore their favourite hats in support of ISS Hats For Hearts, a fundraising initiative aimed at helping the migrant workers community in Singapore. Participants of this fundraising initiative made a donation (link below), and wore their favourite hats and headwear to home-based learning or online meetings!

We are proud to announce that not only did we achieved our target goal of $1,000 and as of today, we have exceeded three times the initial goal for our fundraiser and have almost hit $4000, Keep those contributions coming in!

We would like to thank everyone for their overwhelming donations in support of the programmes and services of the Migrant Workers’ Centre. All donations further MWAF’s mission to meet the physical and emotional needs of Singapore’s Migrant Worker community.

Please continue to support our #ISSHats4Hearts campaign, which will last till the end of the month and donations can be made to https://www.giving.sg/campaigns/hats4heartsiss.

12 May 2020

Middle School Friday Challenge – Physical Exercise

The third Middle School Friday Challenge was all about physical exercise and getting our learners away from their devices! Our Middle School Physical Education Teacher Mr. Orgee provided 4 options for our students to participate in:

Option 1: Sporting talent

Option 2: Family Workout

Option 3: Minute to win it

Option 4: Creative workouts

Our MS students demonstrated a wide variety of exercises that can be done from home, or around their neighbourhood while maintaining social distancing! We would like to encourage everyone to keep yourselves active while staying at home, and to take some time out of your daily schedule to spend some quality time with your loved ones!

11 May 2020

Home Art Ideas from our Elementary School Art Teacher

Our Elementary School Visual Arts Teacher, Ms. Hima Venkateswaran, shares creative ideas for Loose Parts Play at home for young learners – using clothes! Turning towards sustainable ways of creating art puts minimum stress on resources at home, and using clothes as a medium and a tool to create collages allows children to manipulate their ‘artwork’ in many different ways. When students engage in Loose Parts Play, they engage in creativity and critical thinking, and employ competencies such as problem solving, planning and decision making through their creation process.

“I believe that there is enough inspiration at home, all you have to do is look for it and explore possibilities.”

Watch the video to get inspired!

8 May 2020

Well-Being and Self-Care Session with our Elementary and Middle School Counsellor

Ms. Berna Sekhon, our Elementary and Middle School Counsellor, spoke with Ms. Veronica Mckibbin, Counsellor at SACAC Counselling, who continues to support students and their families, as well as school counsellors during the COVID-19 outbreak. With a focus on younger students and parents with young children, Ms. Mckibbin shares some of the challenges faced by parents and young children as they get used to the ‘new normal’, advice for members of our community for self-care, and some of the positive stories that she has heard from families during the circuit breaker period.

As an essential service, SACAC Counselling has been exempted from Suspension of Workplace Activities. If you would like to seek support, you can email the SACAC at admin@sacac.sg, or call +65 6733 9249.

7 May 2020

ISS Hats For Hearts Fundraiser

You can leave your hat on and support a great cause.

Join us on Tuesday 12th May for the ISS Hats For Hearts Fundraiser #ISSHats4Hearts for the Migrant Workers’ Assistance Fund (MWAF)! The MWAF provides emergency humanitarian assistance in the form of accommodation, food, ex-gratia, medical, repatriation and aid in cash and/or kind to the next of kin of migrant workers who died due to work related accidents.

How can you participate? It’s simple! Wear your favourite hat, or get creative and make/decorate a hat at home, and for a minimum donation of $5.00 or more you can wear your hat to home-based learning or work, in support of the programmes and services of the MWAF. All donations further MWAF’s mission to meet the physical and emotional needs of Singapore’s Migrant Worker community.

Donation Link: https://www.giving.sg/campaigns/hats4heartsiss

Email photos of you during home-based learning or as you work from home in your hat to engagement@iss.edu.sg so we can share your participation with the rest of the ISS Community. Tag us @ISSSingapore and use #ISSHats4Hearts on any posts you share on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

GET INVOLVED!

Visit www.mwc.org.sg to learn more.

Share what you learn with family and friends.

For more information contact engagement@iss.edu.sg

About MWC:
The Migrant Workers’ Assistance Fund (MWAF) is the humanitarian charity of the Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC). MWC assists migrant workers redress employment disputes and furthers education and awareness among them of their employment rights. MWC also promotes migrant workers’ social integration as well as their harmonious co-existence with Singaporeans at the workplace and beyond. As case assistance for migrant workers is frequently accompanied by follow-on issues with housing, food and other subsistence costs, the MWAF was set up in 2012 (IPC-certified in 2014) to fund all humanitarian and emergency assistance rendered to MWC case clients – if their employers fail to discharge the duty to care for and protect their own workers. The MWAF allows the MWC to cover and protect vulnerable workers up till their outstanding matters are resolved and concluded, and is a key resource for the MWC in providing proper and adequate help to distressed and victimised migrant workers in Singapore.

6 May 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

Our Assistant Admissions Manager, Ms. Tatianna Nasr, is back to announce our third winner for the ISS Community Challenge! Ms. Tatianna briefly explains the solution of the Sum It Up quiz, and introduces our fourth challenge – Match the Matches! Watch the video to find out how you can participate, and stand a chance to win 2 x large pizzas, on us!

Thank you to all the participants of last week’s challenge. We hope we continue to see your entries coming in for this week!

4 May 2020

A Day in the Life of our High School Assistant Principal

Our High School Assistant Principal, Ms. Fiona Edwards, takes us through a typical day of her life during the circuit breaker period, both as an educator and as a working parent. Ms. Edwards encourages the ISS community to stay active with daily exercises, and to keep our spirits up by connecting with each other.  Watch the video to find out who are the little special guests who starred in this vlog!

“Be flexible and have a sense of humour about things. Listen to what your children need, and don’t be too hard on yourself either. We won’t be doing this forever. And in the meantime, keep up the connections that you have with family, friends and colleagues, locally and afar. Enjoy the highs and the lows.”

29 April 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

Our Assistant Admissions Manager, Ms. Tatianna Nasr, announces the winner for our second ISS Community Challenge – the Learner Profile Word Search, and explains the rules to our third challenge, Sum It Up! Watch the video to find out who’s our second lucky winner and gather some hints from Ms. Nasr about the Sum It Up Challenge. Stand a chance to win 2 x large pizzas, on us!

We’d like to thank our students and ISS parents who have been participating in our ISS Community Challenges. Keep your entries coming! We will announce the winner for the third challenge on 6 May, Wednesday.

29 April 2020

A Song About COVID-19 By Our Student

A little birdie told us that our Grade 3 student Sara and her father Mr. Dhamija made a fun rap song about COVID-19! Sara prepared the music, and both father and daughter wrote the lyrics together to encourage listeners to take care of their personal hygiene and to stay safe during the outbreak.

For many of our ISS parents, juggling work and family time during the COVID-19 outbreak has been challenging, but we believe everyone, like Mr. Dhamija, have been taking the chance to bond with their children, keeping them engaged and learning through play while staying at home.

Thank you to Mrs. Dhamija, who shared this lovely piece that brings a smile to our faces during these challenging times!

28 April 2020

Middle School Friday Challenge

Our Middle School is back with their second Friday Challenge! In conjunction with the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day last week, our learners were provided with 3 choices of activities that aimed to get them in touch with nature, and to think about how they can promote and talk about the issue of conserving our planet in their own creative ways.

Option 1: Nature – recycle bottles/containers to create a hanging garden or terrarium; paint or draw on rocks with Earth day as inspiration

Option 2: Art – use or recycle materials at home or outside of home to create an art piece that communicates messages about Earth Day

Option: Music – to create a song about Earth Day

Once again, our Middle School students have demonstrated their dexterity, creativity and thoughtfulness through their submissions! We hope this stay home challenge prompted our learners to reflect on how they can better utilise resources through recycling, and continue to be mindful of their environmental footprint.

27 April 2020

Well-Being and Self Care Session with our High School Counsellor

Ms. Jo-Anne Kys, our High School Counsellor, spoke with Ms. Vinti Mittal, Director and Counsellor at SACAC Counselling, who continues to support students and their families, as well as school counsellors during the COVID-19 outbreak. Their discussion includes challenges faced by students and their families, recommendations for students to regain some sense of control, tips for parents to look after their own wellbeing, and the positive side of things in relation to the circuit breaker measures.

As an essential service, SACAC Counselling has been exempted from Suspension of Workplace Activities. If you would like to seek support, you can email the SACAC at admin@sacac.sg, or call +65 6733 9249.

24 April 2020

Masks Sewn With Love

Our Senior School Transportation Executive, Mr. William Cheong, has volunteered to sew reusable masks for migrant workers from home. With the help of his wife, Mr. Cheong has made 150 masks over the past week, ironing the completed masks and packing each of them together with a note to remind the recipients to wash them. A volunteer picks up the masks from his home after he is done, and delivers them to the Jiwa and Kian Teck dormitories for their use.

“2 weeks ago, a friend told me that migrant workers cannot afford surgical mask as it would cost about 50-60 cents per day, and this made me decide to help. I’ve never thought of this as a difficult thing to do. I don’t have any experience of sewing, so my wife and I learnt how to make masks from YouTube. We will continue to make them till materials at home run out.” – Mr. Cheong

We are touched by Mr. Cheong’s kindness and willingness to give back to the society, investing time and effort together with his family to provide resources for the migrant workers in Singapore during this critical period when they have to keep themselves safe while staying in high risk environments.

If you would like to learn to sew your own mask, watch this video here: https://youtu.be/qP01A_YzyNs

See this video for the sizing guide. Cut out the size you prefer, put over your cloth and trace to get the relevant outer and inner layer size. https://tinyurl.com/MasksSewnWithLove-EngGuide

For more information or queries about this community project, or how you can participate, you can email: sewnwithlove.sg@gmail.com

and join FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1133616816975991/?ref=share

23 April 2020

Message from our Assistant Principal (Middle School)

Our Assistant Principal (Middle School), Dr. Jeremiah, shares her thoughts on one of the highlights of home-based learning the past week – the MS Friday Food Challenge, and gave a few IB Learner Profile shout-outs for our Middle School students and staff for their open-mindedness towards adapting to the changes, for being caring as we support each other through our transition to home-based learning, and for being wonderful communicators.

“Thank you for being part of our caring, open-minded and inclusive community here at ISS!”

23 April 2020

ISS Learner Profile Word Search

Thank you to everyone who participated in the ISS Bingo. Congratulations to the winner of our first ISS Community Challenge – Mckayla from Middle School! We will be delivering the pizzas to you soon.

Let’s continue to spread love and kindness during the stay safe home-based learning period with ISS’ second community giveaway – ISS Learner Profile Word Search!

Rules are simple: locate the given words in the grid by striking it off the board. The words are running in one of eight possible directions horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

22 April 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

Ms. Tatianna Nasr, our Assistant Admissions Manager, announces the winner of our first ISS Community Challenge – the ISS Bingo, and explains the rules to our second challenge, the Learner Profile Word Search! Watch the video to find out who’s our first lucky winner and learn more about how to participate in the Word Search challenge. Stand a chance to win 2 x large pizzas, delivered to your home!

We hope everyone takes this opportunity to have some fun, relax, and take a break!

21 April 2020

Middle School Friday Challenge

To get our Middle School (MS) students away from their computers on Friday afternoons, our MS teachers posed a Food Challenge for them to complete over the last weekend! Students had 3 options to choose from:

1. Cooking challenge – choose 1 main ingredient, find a recipe that uses it, and follow the recipe to cook the dish
2. Nailed it challenge – find a picture of a food item and replicate it to the best of their best ability
3. Food Art challenge – create an artistic piece with food items they can find in their kitchen

Seems like we have some hidden cooks and food artists amongst our student community who absolutely nailed these food challenges. It was definitely a chance for our learners to learn some life skills offline through this hands-on activity. Here are some of the submissions by our MS students, and we have to say, they’re really awesome!

21 April 2020

Students’ experiences about home-based learning

We have our High School Student Council share their experiences and thoughts about home-based learning. Chanwoo (president) provided some feedback about home-based learning, the challenges he faced, as well as how he has managed adjusting to staying at home with online learning. William (treasurer) talked about the challenges he faced, as well as how he has managed adjusting to staying at home with online learning.

“Home-based learning has brought different experiences and challenges. It was easier to communicate with others than in the classroom since I am at a comfortable place, home. I also get to see other classmates’ faces that I am not familiar with because all of them are shown on the screen. It was very different from a regular school day as we do not have to move between classes and have a home-cooked meal, not canteen food.

20 April 2020

Message from our Paterson Principal

The benefits of reading are widely known – it develops imagination, creativity and literacy skills, and helps to relax one’s mind and body. Storytelling also provides a great bonding moment for parents to interact and communicate with their young ones.

Our Paterson Principal, Ms. Susan Tilney, shares about the joys of reading and storytelling, and reads aloud a storybook, “Suzy’s Shoes”, for our learners.

We encourage everyone to pick up a book in their free time, to calm yourselves, relax, and let your imagination fly!

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” – Mason Cooley

18 April 2020

Head of School Address

Our Head of School Dr. Margaret Alvarez discusses 3 vital skills for the age of disruption: developing learning agility through this transitional phase and see mistakes as a chance for development, being curious and embrace challenges, and being resilient by identifying opportunities in a difficult situation and thinking “What can I do differently?”.

“Many people talked about the calm before the storm. I really think that the reverse of that is true – that actually, the transition to home-based learning is almost like a storm before the calm. It does get much easier.”

Watch to learn more.

17 April 2020

A Day of Online Learning

Our creative Middle School student, Izumo, shared a glimpse of his daily routine as an international student engaged in home-based learning through his 3-minute video, “A day of online learning”. We would like to commend Izumo for his videography and editing skills at a young age, and for putting together this succinct piece that accurately showcases the importance of a daily routine and having a balanced lifestyle during this period of home-based learning. We hope that Izumo’s efforts will inspire our learners to stay motivated through creative outlets that support their individual passions.

Thank you for sharing your work with the ISS community, Izumo!

16 April 2020

Message from our Assistant Admissions Manager

If all the news and uncertainty about the COVID-19 outbreak has been wearing you out, here’s some positive distraction: free pizza, anyone? Ms. Tatianna Nasr, our Assistant Admissions Manager, explains the simple steps to participate in our first community giveaway through the ‘ISS Bingo’! Tag us @isssingapore and 3 friends, and stand a chance to get 2 large pizzas delivered to your doorsteps. Share what relates to you as a member of the ISS community through our ISS Bingo template, and get connected! Watch till the end of this video to learn more.

15 April 2020

Fitness and Health Session with our Physical and Health Education Coordinator

Mr. Paul Crozier, our Literacy Coordinator for Physical and Health Education, demonstrates simple exercises that everyone can do while staying at home to maintain their physical and emotional well-being, and answers some commonly asked questions in relation to the do’s and don’ts of workouts and fitness. Set aside some time in the day for some physical activity to keep yourselves energised!

This 15-minute session covers:

1. Physical fitness – Movement
2. Physical fitness – Strength + Stability
3. Emotional fitness – Breathing
4. Q&A

14 April 2020

Message from our Counsellor

Ms. Berna Sekhon, our counsellor and learning support, encourages learners, parents and staff to “pull back, unplug, and reconnect with ourselves and each other” as she shares some tips on self-care for the whole family.

13 April 2020

High School Principal Address

Mr. Christopher Hayward, our High School Principal, shares about how our learners can further develop attributes from the IB Learner Profile (Caring, Balanced, Risk Taker, Reflective) as they engage in home-based learning.

9 April 2020

Head of School Address

Hello everybody. I hope you’re doing well as we move further into our home-based learning. Today I thought I would speak to you about the importance of routines. The information that I’m going to share with you is from two sources: one is from Aha Parenting, and the other is from my experience as a mother, and my experience of working long-distance with my two daughters, who are in lockdown in two different countries. As many of you know, I was the Head of ISS during the SARS epidemic several years ago. So, what I’m going to talk about comes from, very much, these resources.

I learnt, as a mother, when my children were very small during SARS, one was 3 years old, and the other was 5, almost 6, that routines are really important. Why are they important? In a situation of uncertainty and ambiguity, those routines help to give children and yourself a sense of control over the situation that, at a very large extent, is not really controllable. I found that having some kind of a fixed schedule worked really well. I had a fixed schedule for school days, and a fixed schedule for weekends as well.

What would the schedule look like?

On a school day, I recommend that the children and young adults start their day, pretty much, at the normal time. You can see that we’ve designed our home-based learning to do that. There are check-ins, there’s Kampong time; there’s all sorts of things going on to make sure that we all come together as a school at the normal time. And then, it’s important that during the school day, during home-based learning, that there’s times for breaks, exercise, a proper lunch break, some more breaks in the afternoon. In the evening, we make time for fun activities – free-time activities that we all like to engage in. If that routine is followed to the best extend possible, I think it really helps to give students a sense of security.

Likewise, on non-school days, I know it’s very difficult to do many of the things that we do on a weekend or on holidays, but if we do have a fixed schedule that is agreed upon in advance, perhaps, if we have breakfast together at this time, then we’ll do this activity together, then we’ll have lunch, then we’ll maybe have some free time and some free space; that’s really important too.

I want to emphasise this idea of giving students some space as well to do their own activities. When I talk to my daughter in Scotland, who is now in lockdown for almost the third week, she said to me that what was really important to her is to have that time in the day when she can do exactly what she needs to do maintain a sense of being centred, comfortable, and secure. For her, that means playing one of the instruments that she plays, singing or listening to music. That can be many things. For me, it means going out for a long run. That’s how I maintain a sense of being centred, and being in control as well. I think we need to work with our children to work out what it is that they actually need.

This leads on to the idea of self-care – taking care of ourselves and building that into a daily routine. Of course, within all of that is caring for others as well. I was part of a very inspirational webinar this morning, with Heads of School from the EARCOS (East Asia Regional Council of Schools) region. We were working with an educational psychologist who talked about people’s ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. He talked about all of us having different tolerance levels, and for us to go through various cycles of feeling insecure, uncertain and so on. And so, we need to be aware of how people are feeling, we need to understand when our friends or our colleagues are having a bad day, and we really need to be kind and caring to each other. If we do that, as a community, we will all come out stronger at the end of all of this. We will strengthen our resilience to cope with uncertainty. So, let’s get these routines going.

On that note, I’m off for a very long run.

Have a wonderful long weekend, and we’ll touch base again next week.

Dr. Margaret Alvarez
Head of School
ISS International School Singapore

Click here to download the video message. 

9 April 2020

Virtual Easter Day Celebrations

Our Middle School learners in Mr Lebon’s homeroom class found creative ways to celebrate Easter and the long weekend in face of COVID-19.

The homeroom Easter Parade was a fun way for everyone to keep their chins up and celebrate together. Bringing some smiles to home based learning during our stay home circuit breaker.

6 April 2020

Head of School Address

Welcome to our online learning programme. First of all, a very big thank you for all your support over the last few weeks as we have worked to manage the situation of COVID-19 here in Singapore. It’s now reached the point where we need to close school, and to do what we’ve been preparing for for many weeks, which is to do online teaching. There will be many challenges to work in this environment, because to do an online programme – a fully online programme, is something that’s very new for all of us. However, I do believe there is a silver lining behind most situations. And at the end of this, we will be able to look back and reflect on all the wonderful new technology skills that we have learnt, all the different ways of learning that we’ve been exposed to, and how much we’ve learnt about ourselves as learners. That can really, only strengthen us for the future. Given that, I thought I would run through a little bit on how the online programme is going to work.

We’ve built a programme that is developed mentally appropriate for the age of our students. So if you have a student in, say,  High School and Middle School, it will look a little bit different from what we’re doing in Elementary as well, because we’ve developed something that is age appropriate for our students.

In High School, we will be running a normal school day, but it will be done 100% online. We’ll be using a programme, primarily Zoom, along with Google Classroom, and some other applications that our teachers have identified. In Paterson Campus, in Middle School – MYP 1, 2 and 3, we’re going to begin the programme with doing quite a bit of pastoral work in order to prepare our young adolescents for working online. We recognised that we need to do some serious groundwork with these students so that they can be effective in that online programme. This is building on the work that we did already before the holidays, where we did some practice work for working online.

In the Elementary School, you will see that it is a little bit different, and that’s for different purposes. We’re very aware that Elementary students need a bit more support in order to work online. We do recognise that a number of our parents are also working from home. So the programme is a little bit more flexible. There are, however, expectations for the number of hours that students are engaged in things like mathematics and writing, and that they will also be doing quite a lot of work, project based work, which will extend over several days. We hope this gives our parents some flexibility to work within working hours that they may have to adhere to as well. Nevertheless, we’re asking all of our students to keep a log of the number of hours that they will be working outside of school, online, or on projects, so that we can keep track that things are going in the way that we expect to. 

Each of our programme coordinators will be sending out a set of expectations for online learning, and that will be in alignment with the things I’ve said, and the development stage of each of the students. Please, if you have any questions, make sure you email us, or call us, because we are all working from home but online most of the day as well. We will be asking for your input in the review process as this programme goes on so that we can make some in-flight adjustments as at where, to make sure that what we are doing is meeting your expectations and the learning outcomes that we have set for our students. Fingers crossed that this online learning and working from home really helps us to reduce the number of cases we have in Singapore so that we can eventually all get back to normal, and be together as a community.

Once again, thank you so much for your support, and look for my videos from time to time as I talk to you about some tips for working from home, and we’ll engage in different discussions about learning. Have a wonderful day ahead and all the best. Thank you.

Dr. Margaret Alvarez
Head of School
ISS International School Singapore

Click here to download the video message.