European Secondary Campus Newsletter

Transcription

1 European Secondary Campus Newsletter EDITION 10 WEDNESDAY 29 TH JANUARY 2014 Fri IN THIS ISSUE A message from the Headteacher As a busy first month of the New Year comes to an end at the Secondary campus, I suspect many students and teachers feel ready for a restful Chinese New Year break. Mock examinations for H2 and H4 students and a work experience week for our H1 s has seen them thrown in at the deep end in Term 2. As always, our students rise to such personal and academic challenges, all the while embodying the school values of perseverance and responsibility. Message from Page 1 Chinese New Year Photos Page 3 Student Council Page 4 Year 7 Page 6 Year 9 Page 7 Mathematics Department Page 8 Geography Department Page 9 University & Careers Page 11 ESC Sports News Page 13 Titans Football Page 18 Dates for your Diary Chinese New Year Holiday 30 th Jan 6 th Feb Our Key Stage 3 Mathematicians have also been kept busy this month trialing our new Samsung Galaxy notebooks as learning devices in their lessons. Unsurprisingly, their reaction to having access to the most up to date technology in their lessons was overwhelmingly positive. Now that we have stable Wi-Fi access in Phase 1, we look forward to our students being able to innovate and interact with technology in increasingly creative ways to enhance their learning. Continued on page 2 National Colours nonuniform day H2 and H4 reports issued Parent Teacher meetings H1 and H2 Drama Performance evening HS Options Information Evening Peace Memorial Day Friday 7 th Feb Tuesday 11 th Feb Thurs 13 th Feb Thursday 20 th Feb Tuesday 25 th Feb Friday 28 th Feb ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

2 In this and future editions of the Newsletter you will find a new and hopefully regular feature from Janice Liu the President of the Student Council providing a frankly exhausting account of all the work being undertaken by our hard working student council members. I defy you to read it and not feel impressed by the scope and creativity of their work both within and beyond our school! Today was a day of colourful and interactive celebration in school with festivities held across the school in honour of Chinese New Year. Our congratulations and thanks to our wonderful Chinese Department and many others who helped make this a day to remember. Please enjoy a montage of images from the day on page 3. Please note that February 7th marks the opening ceremony of the 22nd Winter Olympic Games. This year's games will be host to 88 nations vying for sporting glory. To help us celebrate the games with our vibrant and diverse community of learners, we are having a non-uniform day on Feb. 7/2014. This day has been established as a 'Dress in your National Colours' day, where students are to dress to impress as they cheer on their home country. We look forward to seeing students ready to celebrate and cheer on the athletes in vivid attire. Chrysta Garnett Message from James Woodall Assistant Headteacher; KS3 - IB Happy New Year to you all. I hope you have a restful and enjoyable time with your families over the holiday period. There are a few important dates coming up after the break. High School (H2 and H4) reports will be issued on Tuesday February 11th. Parent teacher interviews for the whole of High School will take place on Thursday 13th February. ALL lessons, KS3 and High School will end at 11.10am on that day. Students will leave campus at this time. A Message from Sonya Papps Deputy Headteacher I would like to wish our wonderful TES community a happy and prosperous Year of the Horse. I enjoyed talking with many parents at last week s Music Concert, and I look forward to seeing High School parents at the upcoming interviews. All the best for a relaxing, fun and safe new year holiday; Gong Xi Fa Cai! The new Interview schedule will begin at am and run until 7.00pm on this day. This is to enable parents to meet with as many teachers as possible. Happy New Year! ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

3 Chinese New Year Celebrations Chinese Dragon Dance Dr. Weston chooses a bride Making lanterns The brides are revealed! Students gather for the ceremony Making cookies ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

4 Singing Chinese songs Chinese language quiz Ms. Garnett and Dr. Weston ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

5 The Student Council A new year calls for a new and improved Student Council! With 2013 being such a huge success for the Student Council, the new executive team and all the members have been working assiduously to help improve the school environment, as well as the local and global community. With our goals set high, the Student Council has started to take on several new projects, with each committee focusing on different aspects. To kick off 2014, the Blue Team has been working on raising school spirit through working on school merchandise, ranging from stationery to hoodies. The Hoodie Competition has been launched already, allowing all students to participate and be part of designing the official school hoodie that will then be printed and sold! In addition, we are also working to make smoother the process of students using certain facilities, such as printers in study areas, as one of our services for the student body. With Valentine s Day just around the corner, the Green Team has been planning to host a friendship quiz to challenge friends on how well they know each other. The planning process has been incredibly enjoyable, with members coming up with questions and discussing the suitable prize for this event. It will take place on the 14th of February and we encourage you all to participate and celebrate the holiday! Furthermore, we are now taking orders for roses and chocolates which will be delivered on Valentine s Day; profits will go into improving future events and to the philanthropic works of the other two committees. School dance organized by the Student Council. ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

6 The Red Team, focusing on helping the local and global community, has continued to write letters, make friendship bracelets, create close friendships, and financially aid the six children we support from Taiwan s Fund for Children and Families (TFCF), a non-governmental organization that awards financially incapable children and their families with welfare and benefits. In addition, we have started supporting four more children from this organisation - two boys and two girls from Swaziland. Furthermore, the Red group has been concentrating on spreading awareness on Autism, a condition that affects a person s ability to interact with others, a condition where people think and perceive the environment differently to us. We have already started to plan a Coffee gathering for TES parents to attend (on April 2nd, 13:40-15:00, Phase II Cafeteria) in order to shine a light on Autism, as well as plan a PSHCE lesson on educating students about Autism. On April 2nd, a team of students will go down to Taipei 101 and watch the building light up blue for Light it Up Blue Day, a day that celebrates Autism. Lastly, we have begun to work with the Foundation for Autistic Children and adults in Taiwan (FACT), and will continue this liaison for future years. With a new vision and new direction, we will start something that matters, and take us, as a school, forward, towards our next stop, everywhere! Janice Liu, Student Council Dance organized by the Student Council ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

7 Year 7 By Mr. Imbleau Head of Year 7 Sleep is food for the brain. During sleep, important body functions and brain activity occur. Skipping sleep can be harmful, you may feel moody, and you perform poorly. Sleepiness can make it hard to get along with your friends and impede your scores on school assessments, on the court or on the field. National Sleep Foundation. Once in a while I see Year 7s strolling slowly into TES at 7:45am looking a bit tired. The first thing I ask them when I see their drowsiness is What time did you go to bed last night? Sometimes the response I get is a bit surprising: 10:30pm or 11:30pm. A lot of research shows that teens need at least 8 hours of sleep a night and going to bed that late will make it difficult for them to reach that target. I hope that in the evenings after dinner and homework, Year 7s can make sleep a priority. The proper amount of sleep should prepare them for an active day of learning the following day! Facts about sleep Man is the only mammal that willingly delays sleep. We naturally feel tired at two different times of the day: about 2:00 AM and 2:00 PM. It is this natural dip in alertness that is primarily responsible for the post-lunch dip. Sleep is just as important as diet and exercise. ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

8 Year 9 By Mr. Sing Key Head of Year 8 & 9 Year 9 Learn about Alcohol abuse through Drunkbusters Over the past 3 weeks the Year 9 cohort has been exploring the effects related to the use and abuse of alcohol and cigarettes during their weekly PSHCE lesson. The Year 9 teachers have done an excellent job in presenting key information for this unit that will empower our students to make positive and healthy life choices both now and in the future. Last week the Year 9 students engaged in a few simple but fun activities to expose them to the effects and dangers of being drunk. With the use of special goggles produced by Drunkbusters, the students tried to complete an array of challenges such as; walking on a straight line, tossing a tennis ball into a bucket, sweeping up papers from the floor and even copying a reading text by hand! Needless to say that the tasks seemed rather elementary without the goggles, but once the students tried the same task with the goggles, the opposite became a reality! Top left - Yu-Ting Chen copying a paragraph Top middle - Emma Hamilton sweeping papers Top right Jun-young Yoon helping Ben Faure Bottom right - Siri, Mason, Bruce, Shinya and Jimmy ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

9 The Mathematics Department News from the Mathematics Department Year 7 students used the new android tablets in Maths class last week and tested their mental skills at games involving patterns, symmetry, mental arithmetic and various other mathematical skills. The class really enjoyed the challenges, so much so that for some parts of the class there was no noise apart from the sound of powerful little minds working away. Lots more lessons like this are in store for Maths classes as the tablets are used for graphing functions, visualizing shapes, sharing ideas and problem solving. Some comments from the class: "All maths should be done like this" "I've been concentrating too hard" "Time attack is the best" This is so much fun" "Nobody tell my dad I played games in maths" "My brain's hurting!" Mathematical Explorations Our H4 IB students are coming to the end of their exploration journey, from deciding on their topics in H3, conducting research, surveys and experiments, to writing up their final piece of work. The deadline for submission is Thursday 6 th February; students should submit their work to the phase 2 office by 3.00pm on that day. ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

10 The Geography Department Geography, Maths and ICT Thanks in no small part to Mr. Sparks from the Mathematics department, 2 groups of Geographers have had a chance to use ICT in a creative and imaginative way to enhance their learning in Geography. The Years 7 s have spent their time since the break furthering their understanding of the way we organize cities. Part of this was for them to think up the different areas and zones you might find in a city and see if they could design one themselves, adding in the amenities that they would need to run it. Some of the results are impressive in their detail and understanding of the ways in which different land uses can complement or affect each other. (Cities by Natalie Tioh, Shani Lim, Sarahi Zunige Ruiz and Ellie Tarpy) This project fortunately coincided with an investigation by Year 7s in Maths into using graphic calculating software to produce various shapes (the equations required to do so leave me slightly in awe!). So the Year 7s were able to apply their skills learnt in Maths to recreate their cities using mathematical principles, with impressive results. ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

11 Geography Department news continued Meanwhile, in another tip off from Mr. Sparks, the H1 IGCSE class was able to shake off the usually fairly dry task of drawing complex annotated diagrams of plate tectonics by using the website which enables users to pin a number of different pieces of content on to a single screen. These could be web pages, links to video s or animations and hopefully some information that the students have researched and interpreted for themselves. The result is a very interactive and informative webpage filled with considerably more detail than a normal hand drawn diagram. As an added bonus (again thanks to the mathematics department), the students were able to work on tablets within the Geography classroom to complete the task. Thinglink diagram by Moeti Sparks showing 9 tags entered by the student with video link highlighted ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

12 University and Careers Here are some news and opportunities in the ongoing search for careers and college destinations. H2 Futurewise interviews As I wrote last time two staff from Futurewise in the UK will visit TES for five days beginning February 10 th. For thirty minutes each, the students will receive the educational findings based on the questionnaires they filled in last October. This profile relies on the Morrisby method of assessing a person s aptitudes and preferences. If you wish to attend your child s interview, Futurewise staff request that you agree together when parents will be present, and to observe without taking part in the dialogue. The students will bring their profiles and scheduled interview time home on Friday 7 th February. Summer Opportunities Summer 2014 opportunities are being sent to the UCC office. Short Summer schools on US college campuses, an exposure to life on campus in term time in Japan, or even going to England. Though the value for money needs to be assessed carefully. Here are three examples among the many in the UCC office: College Visits organizes tours this year in the Northeast of the USA and in Canada, starting from June 21 st. Each lasts from five to six days. The cost is from US $ 1,535 up to 1, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan, an dual language university that teaches in English offers High Schoolers ten days in Beppu, Japan to interact with students from 80 nations and study Japanese culture. Applications close on 14 th March. See In England during July and August, the Arts University Bournemouth offers courses in portfolio preparation and theatre set design ceveritt@aub.ac.uk. A useful book Want to think smart about applying to the USA? Then read The Thinking Student s guide to College I have benefited from an online article advocating one of the seventy-five strategies in this book. That there are thousands of US colleges that SAT or ACT tests come up regularly. must not be allowed to rush us; Andrew Roberts published his book in 2010, and it may help you to pause and think clearly how you want to apply. ISBN ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

13 Key stage 2 parents: getting ready to choose Especially tailored for KS2, is the presentation on 19 th March at the Primary Campus. This will be a chance to be informed for your long-range educational plans. Upcoming university lunchtime visits to TES Secondary Campus: 20 th February: UC Berkeley Summer school 21 st February: Widener University Linking university course choices with Exam subjects now: H2 Destination IB The H2 year group is in the middle of two Thursday PSHCE lessons that Mr. Latchford is organising, called Destination IB. The interviews with our High School experienced teachers concerning their choices of subject to study at International Baccalaureate two year course, will help in the process of choosing a university course that fits you. INTO INTO recently visited our school. It is a foundation year with a difference; students apply directly through a faster track, and study on campus at some state universities in the US (Colorado, Oregon), and many universities in the UK, such as Exeter, Queen s Belfast and University of East Anglia. Entry is guaranteed for those who follow the full year. Students applying through INTO receive extra tuition for one year; lengthening the time it takes to receive a Bachelor s to typically four years. In return they are housed on the campus, mix with the regular students while upskilling to reach the required entry scores. The prices are available on request. Julian Brown University and Careers Counselor ucc@tes.tp.edu.tw ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

14 ESC Sports By Head of Sports Kwok Chow Season 2 ended with great victories for our High School Basketball Teams. It was amazing to witness some of the performances and the support that was given by our students. Of course this is not possible without the hours and passion for coaching which is put in by the staff at TES. Also this newsletter brings you all the nominations for Most Improved and Most Valuable Player for Season 2. Lastly I wish you all a Happy Chinese New Year and look forward to the Year of Horse! Season 2 High School Sports Tournament Results JVB Boys Basketball 1 st Place TISSA Champions JVB Girls Basketball 1 st Place TISSA Champions (Coached by Jared Duxfield) (Coached by James Woodall) JV Girls Basketball - Runners Up at TISSA JV Boys Basketball 1 st Place TISSA Champions Championship Tournament (Coached by Ming Chien Li) (Coached by Chinlin Huang) Varsity Boys Basketball Runners up at TISSA Championship Tournament ( Coached by David Lin) JVB Boys TISSA Basketball Champions On the 17 th of January, the JVB boys met up at 11:30 and travelled to Kaohsiung to attend the JVB International School Basketball Tournament, hosted in ISIS. We had to leave on Friday because we had one game in the afternoon. Our first game was against MAK (Morrison Academy Kaohsiung), during the first half, our team took the lead quickly with great defense and transition offense. With a double digit lead, all players got to play during the second half and we maintained the lead to get our first win of the tournament. ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

15 On the second day, our first game of the day was against MAB (Morrison Academy Bethanny). Our team did a great job on defense again and took the lead early on, in the second half Bethanny made a little come back, however our team managed to keep the lead as we grab the second victory of the tournament. Our second game of the day was against the host school ISIS, it was a very heated matchup. The lead constantly changed, until the final 2 minutes, Jacob Wu had a great steal and got fouled. He scored both free throws giving us a lead. With great defense, we forced a turnover and got the possession in under 1 minute 30 seconds. In the final 1 and a half minute we started swinging the ball around and used up all the time. Grabbing our 3 rd win. In the playoffs, we played MAC (Morrison Academy Taichung), this was yet another tough game and the lead constantly changed until the final minutes. Howard Hsu had 3 steals in a row, which got us back in the lead with not much time left. MAC tried to foul our players to stop the time, however with great passing, they weren t able to stop the time. As we grab our 4 th win of the tournament. In our final game, we played ISIS as they were 1 st in the other pool during playoffs. Both teams had very tight defense and offense on both team was very fluent, this kept the scores really close, however ISIS took the lead to finish the 1 st half. During the second half of the game, with under 3 minutes left, Howard Hsu made a shot which made our team lead by 2. Later on, Kentaro Tenma scored a three, bringing the lead even further. As our team had a 5 point lead, we decided to swing the ball around, trying to not get fouled by the other team. ISIS stopped the clock once or twice, however we did not make any turnovers and eventually time ran out. In this tournament, we won all games and got first place, there were three MVPs: Howard Lin, Howard Hsu and Jacob Wu. I am really proud of the team, we played great defense and had excellent fast breaks, which is why we kept games really close and took the lead in the final minutes. This was a great season and I look forward to next year s tournament! Written by Christopher Lu JVB Boys Captain ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

16 JVB Girls TISSA Basketball Champions The day started off with an early morning alarm clock which woke us up at 4 am to get ready for the tournament. We arrived in Kaohsiung an hour before our first game started which was against MAK. This game wasn t a very intense game, everyone got a chance to play. Christine made a couple of marvelous shots and the game ended with a score of 24 to 4. Next was the game against ISIS. They had the home court advantage, but that didn t stop us from winning. In the beginning of the game, we accidently let loose of our defense and let them score 4 points immediately. Luckily, we woke up and started pressuring them and made many steals. Thanks to Angelina, who scored many points by doing three point plays, making a fast break with a foul shot. The game ended with a score of 24 to 10. These two wins lead us into the semi finals against Bethany. We were very nervous because the winner of this game, goes into the finals. The game started off with very close scores. We were only two points ahead until we made a lot of steals and scored many points. This game was the most memorable game because we showed most sportsmanship throughout the game. We clapped for each other whenever a team made a basket and helped each other up when we fell. This game had a score much closer than the previous games. Our game ended with a seven point difference, 19 to 11. Finally, our time to win the championships came. Once again we were playing against Morrison Academy Taichung. Last time at the TAS tournament, we beat them by a score of 34 to 17 but like Mr. Woodall said, Don t underestimate a team, they might turn out better than you thought. And they did. They improved a lot since the last time we played them. The game was a very close match, we took turns taking the lead by one point since they swished a three pointer. We were dazing off and tired since we played without resting a lot between games. Even though we went for a lot of fast breaks, we missed a lot of them for the first half, credits to Alida who chased down every fast break and scored them. After Mr. Woodall s pep talk during half time, we reorganized ourselves and stepped onto the court again. This time, we scored six points in a row which took us into a five point lead. This gave Morrison enough to panic. They threw away passes for us to score easy layups. Twenty seconds left and they were down by one basket. We passed the ball around and held it until the buzzer sounded. The game ended with the score of 21 to 18. ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

17 Once again, under Mr. Woodall s lead, we won the Championship! Credit to Ivory, who fought for the rebound and made numerous blocks. Credits to Alida, who chased down all the fast breaks. Credits to Kimberly, who made many steals. Written by Irene Kuo JVB Girls Captain JV Boys TISSA Basketball Champions First game: Our first game was fairly easy, we won by more than 30 points even though we were not warmed up completely. Although I felt that our energy to start off the first half was incredibly low but it became better in the second half when we started to pull away the scores. We weren't doing that well defensively and were lucky to have faced a team that wasn't stronger. Second game: Our second game was fairly well matched in the first half, we were only up by small numbers most of the time and our energy still was not quite at our potential, after the first half we had a huge increase in energy as everyone became motivated and this caused our defense to become a lot better leading to a lot of forced turnovers and fast break points that led to our victory. Third game: In this game the starters were benched most of the time so that they could conserve energy, fortunately our bench players are also tremendously skilled and played extremely good defense and force a lot of turnovers that lead to another easy win for our team. ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

18 Finals: This was the game that our whole team had been waiting for. We lost in the finals the week before so this time everyone was extremely motivated to win. To start the game our defense was quite good but MCA still made a lot of three point shots which decreased our morale. After the first half we were tied up, in our team talk we reminded each other of our experience last week and how we do not want that to happen again, this was a huge momentum boost for our team as we came out the second half by knocking down nearly all of our shots and free throws, this gave us a double digit lead that we continued to maintain throughout the rest of the game through solid defense and boxing out for rebounds and came out with the victory as champions of the TISSA tournament. Three players from our team were awarded with all tournament team certificates and these players were Chris Chen, Brian Shih and Vincent Wu Written by Chris Chen JV Boys Captain Season 2 Nominations for Most Improved and Most Valuable Player Teams Coaches MIP No1 MIP No2 MIP No3 MIP No4 MVP No1 MVP No2 MVP No3 MVP No4 Y7 Bronwyn Elizabeth Jemmi Regina Renee Tal Ellie Wynne Softball Shannon Peng Thompson Brown Chan Liu Hsiao Halperin Tarpy Tseng Girls Y7 Softball Boys Y8 Softball Girls Y8 Softball Boys Y9 Softball Boys JVB Girls Basketball Ryan De Lange Craig Morris Raymond Imbleau Gavin Matthews James Woodall Sylvain PICHOT Melody Chang Billy Skjonnemand Yuval HALPERIN Daphne Oani William Tuomarata Jonathan YU Scarlett Pygott Tom Wikstrom William Chen Howard Chao Rosh Ho Christine Lee Chloe Oani Amber Liu Peter LEE Khyati Zaveri Isyraf Pg Hj Mohd Ariff Morris Chen Shoko Makino Dheeman SHAHRI Hannah Kwuo Brian Wu Jun-Young Yoon Irene Kuo Justin Huang Molly DiRienzo Timmy Chiang Ryoki Kunii Angelina Chen Banele Vilakati Ashley Yeow Kei Simiya Jason Ma Ivory Lee Bernard Yang Michaela Lintott Bo-Chyan Topham Shinya Kida Alida Lilljequist JV Girls Basketball Chin Lin Huang Anni Chen Josephine Blanc Lillian Chang Rebecca Ellis Melody Cho Charlotte Lee JVB Boys Basketball Jared Duxfield Howard Hsu Kentaro Temma Vincent Wu Tiger Hong Howard Hsu Jacob Wu Howard Lin Chris Lu JV Boys Basketball Ming Chien Li Vincent Wu Ryan Patterson Oliver Lin Jim Lu Chris Chen Felix Klemm Brian Shih Andy Huang V Boys Basketball David Lin Sion Ings Borren Hui Ryan Chiang Henry Lin Charlie Barratt Jacky Chen William Fang Wang Alex Chiang ESC Newsletter 29 th of January

19 Titans Football Robert Iwanicki is a certified professional coach from Germany, holding a German Football Association level C license and Team leader license for school aged kids. Back in his teens, he participated in youth program of FC Schalke 04, a German semifinalist of 2011 Champions League. He played for several amateur clubs in Germany before joining Red Lions Taipei. With Red Lions he won the Taiwan Foreigner cup 2005, scoring the 1:0 decider in final game. Titans Football Club: About the Coach In 2011 Robert took over the CPL Chairmanship (Carnegies Premier League, one of the best football leagues in Taipei) and is still involved in all league matters, trying to improve the leagues image. Nowadays - besides Titans - Robert is the head coach and founder of the Formosa Football Academy and manager of Royal Blues Taipei, an adult team, which is preparing to qualify for Taiwan's 1 division. The Titans' Football Club trains every Mondays and Wednesdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at TES Wen Lin Campus. All TES students are welcome to participate. For additional information, please contact Coach Robert (iwanrobert@hotmail.com or mobile number ) or TES Parent Coordinator, Annette Oani (ap.oani039801@gmail.com) ESC Newsletter 29 th of January