After a long wait, or so it felt for me, we are finally back after our school holidays. I hope that everybody had an opportunity to rest, to recharge their batteries and that the families enjoyed some quality time together.
There are of course some updates that I can share with you. Over the holiday’s we got confirmation that the school has been awarded ‘Recognised status’ by the International Curriculum Accreditation body for our implementation of the IEYC (International Early Years Curriculum) and the IPC (International Primary Curriculum). This is a wonderful testament to our hard-working, dedicated and creative teachers who make the learning in IEYC/IPC come alive.
The curriculum publisher, Fieldwork, pointed out that our school is one of the first three schools in the world to have been recognised for the way we use the IPC/IEYC to help the children learn. They used the phrase ‘Ambassador of Quality’ for our school. I must admit that this did make me feel proud of what our team has achieved since we introduced those curricula.
An important part of the process was the conversation between the assessor and our parents. I big thank you goes out to all the parents who have participated as this formed an important part of our successful recognition.
Reaching the ‘Recognition’ status now allows us to enter the process that will lead to a formal accreditation of our IEYC and IPC programmes. We are inviting the Fieldwork inspection team in for a site visit in the middle of term 3, aiming to successfully finish the process by the end of this year. Part of the procedures will again be conversations with children, parents, teachers and school leaders. Do let us know if you wish to be part of this process!
IPC accreditation is organised around the 7 foundations of the IPC.
- The school ensures that implementation of the IPC is always learning focused
- The IPC is learnt and taught utilising recommended progressive pedagogies
- The Process to Facilitate Learning is articulated and made visible (wall display) in all learning and teaching activities in a relevant and appropriate way
- Learning and teaching provides opportunities for the development of international-mindedness and global competence
- Learning and teaching activities differentiate between Knowledge, Skills and Understanding
- Learning and teaching enable learners to connect personal interests with meaningful contexts and real-world experiences
- Learning and teaching engage learners in a range of strategies to assess learning
The IEYC follows very similar principles with the addition of ‘Learning through Play’, a very important element for the development of our young learners.
We will explain more about the IPC and IEYC foundations and how they drive our learning over the next couple of months.
For all parents who are new to the IEYC and the IPC, we will be planning information sessions very soon, invites will go out via REMIND.
On the topic of parent meetings, thank you to all parents and teachers for attending our ‘Meet The Teacher’ sessions over the course of this week. I hope that all of the sessions were useful and informative. They form a good start of the collaboration between parents and teachers to ensure that all our children will have a great year of wellness and learning.
In addition to those sessions, We would also like to provide an opportunity for parents to meet the Senior Primary School Leadership Team. These will be online. The invites will also soon be published via Remind.
The last point of order is a welcome to our new members of staff. Ms. Zen has joined our EY team as our new reception teacher. Ms. Vasuki is the new teaching assistant in year 2. They both have made an excellent start and we are very happy to have them on board.
Mr. Marco Damhuis (Head of Primary)
Email Contact : marco.damhuis@pc.tis.edu.my
