Dear Middle School Parents,
With conferences coming up, here is a great article that provides different ways to ask questions for when you children get home. Some of these questions are also great question stems for conferences as well and replace “today” or “tomorrow” with the subject and that should provide for a rich dialogue between everyone at the conferences.
Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences
We will have our first set of conferences on 28 and 29 September. You should have received the instructions of how to sign up for them. Should you have any problems signing up, please contact Ms. Aziz in the MS Office. Please remember that your child must accompany you to the conferences.
Conferences and Learning Habits
One of the aspects of moving to a Standards-Based Grading and Reporting system is to separate the behavior from the academic achievement. Therefore, we will be giving feedback on student’s behavior using the four words with its description below to indicate how frequently they display these attributes. In addition to the feedback that students are getting from the assignment, students will use this information to guide their conversations with their parents and teachers during conferences. The guiding question is: How have these attributes impacted your learning in class?
Preparation
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Student actively plans for learning activities, displays effective organization and manages their time well.
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Engagement
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Student actively participates in learning activities and is communicative about their thinking and learning.
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Collaboration
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Student works with all peers by showing respect and compassion in a diverse classroom environment.
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A Growth Mindset
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Student can thoughtfully self-asses and strives for continual improvement.
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Celebration of Learning
While you are on campus for conferences, please stop by the MS CIC on Thursday, 28 September from 4:00-7:00pm to see some of the presentations by our students.
What is a Celebration of Learning? It is a fair in which middle school students will host different booths highlighting their learning from in different classes. Each booth will display an essential question addressed in class and students will be on hand to guide you through their displayed work.
- What do the selected artifacts show about what you learned and how you learned?
- Describe the Learner traits that you think your artifact(s) connect to.
- How is this experience connected to the trait?
All School Spirit Week - 18-22 September Reminder
Here are the themes for our first All School Spirit week. Please encourage your children to dress up.
Monday: Pajamas Day
Tuesday: Formal Day
Wednesday: Multiple Day
Thursday: One-color Day
Friday: National Costume day
Middle School Parent Coffee
AISC's Mission Statement begins with "Together we inspire a love of learning, empowering all students." Please join us for MS Coffee Morning on Tuesday, 26 at 8:45 in the Hall of Light, as we explore what it means to provide Inclusive Education for all students. Through a framework of collaboration among the teachers, all students are supported in acquiring grade level standards.
Screening of the documentary “Screenagers”
Due to popular demand, we are happy to announce that we will be hosting a second screening for parents of the documentary film Screenagers, at a parent coffee on Thursday the 5th of October from 8:45 to 10:30 am. Middle School will be showing this documentary to our students on Wednesday, 4th October and follow up with a discussion in Advisory on Thursday, tth October. You will have an opportunity to have this discussion with your child at home.
The film explores how screen time impacts kids’ development and offers solutions on how adults can empower kids to best navigate the digital world and find balance. Parents who have seen the film have said they now feel more confident and better equipped to establish balance around screen time.
We are inviting parents to attend this event which we are providing for free in the Madras Hall. Students from Grades 5-9 will also be watching the film and participating in class discussions that week, which may provide an opportunity for rich discussions at home about technology use. The film will be viewed with Korean subtitles.
Sincerely,
Alan Phan & Andrew Ranson
Middle School Administration