Welcome to Year 8 at ISS.
Below is some information that will help your child transition successfully into Year 8. If you have any questions or concerns that have not been addressed below, please feel free to send us an email or pop in and see us any morning between 7:30am and 7:50am. Important Upcoming Dates
First Aid Kit and Personal Hygiene Items The Year 8 students are requested to keep a basic first aid kit in their locker for minor needs such as band-aids for small paper cuts or blisters as a result of new shoes. Some of the items that students may bring in their first aid kit include: · Band-aids · Safety pins for popped buttons · Personal care items: sanitary pads, deodorant, hat and sunscreen · A box tissues · You are welcome to include any other items that you feel your child may need throughout the year. Tuesday Activities Program It is a requirement for all secondary students to participate in one of the Tuesday activities that will be offered during both semester one and semester two. These sessions start at 2.30pm and finish at 3.50pm. Lockers Each student is assigned a locker. It is your child’s responsibility to maintain and look after their lockers and key. Students are expected to return the key at the end of the year and is part of the clearance process at the end Semester 2. A replacement key will incur a fee. Friday Afternoon Sessions If for any reason students cannot participate in the Friday activities they must provide a note signed by a parent or caregiver explaining the reason why. Students must bring a change of clothes each Friday for the middle school activity session. It is expected that students will bring clothing that is appropriate and comfortable for participating in sporting activities. It would also be ideal for students to bring their drink bottles to this session. School Uniform The Year 8 pastoral team will be using aspects of the student diary to assist students in developing effective strategies to become life-long learners. We would like to take this opportunity to direct your attention to the school uniform rules on page 10. Students are to wear brown, black, grey or dark-blue sandals. School sandals should have a back strap and provide support over the top of the foot. Canvas/joggers/runners are permitted to be worn with the school’s Bula uniform and should be inconspicuous in colour (black, white, navy or any other dark colour). In particular, please take note of the type of shoe boys are expected to wear with sulus. We thank you in advance for your cooperation. DEAR Our DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) program is a whole school initiative implemented to instill in our students a love for all kinds of texts (fiction and non-fiction) and to create within them a desire to be a lifelong reader, as not every child has an opportunity to do this at home. Students are welcome to bring reading material in from home (with their family name clearly printed on the material to ensure its return) to share with other students. Physical Education (PE) Sessions Physical Education is a compulsory part of the curriculum we offer here at ISS. If for any reason students cannot participate in PE they must provide a note signed by a parent explaining the reason why. Year 8 students have a double PE session every Thursday and it is essential that each student bring the following items to school each week:
For showering at school:
Items that can be kept in their locker:
Homework In Year 8 we do not provide daily homework activities that are separate from the learning experiences that are happening in the classroom. Rather the work completed by students at home is an extension of what is happening in class. In relation to this, there are a number of activities that students should be working on at home, which include:
Assignments will be posted on the class website, PowerSchool as well as in Google Classroom for respective disciplines. Regarding PowerSchool please contact our IT department at [email protected] for your log in details. Communication with Parents
Emails Email is our main form of communication with parents. We send out regular emails with updates of what we are learning in class, announcements of upcoming events as well as sharing individual student concerns or successes. Website On our website you will find a list of all the teachers who teach Year 6, as well as the subjects they teach and their email address on the Teaching Team tab. Our website also includes our class blog, term overviews and assessment information. Please visit our website at http://issyear8.weebly.com/ Parent Visits We welcome all parents and caregivers to stop by Year 8 for a chat in the mornings before pastoral class begins. We are in our office between 7:30am and 7:50am to discuss any news or concerns you may have or every Thursday afternoon between 2:30pm and 3:30pm. We also encourage you to email us to ask any questions or to give us feedback. Parent / Teacher Meetings We have two structured parent/teacher meetings per year (Term 2 and Term 3) and an email will be sent out to all parents and caregivers with the link to make a booking. However, please do not wait to these meetings to discuss any concerns you may have, please email us and we can set a time to discuss any concerns you have. SeeSaw Last Year 6 trialed an e-portfolio and we will be implementing this across Middle School this year. What is SeeSaw? Seesaw is a student-driven digital portfolio that empowers students of any age to independently document what they are learning at school and share it with their teachers, parents and classmates. Seesaw empowers students to independently document their learning with built-in creative tools, and provides an authentic audience for their work. It also gives families an immediate and personalized window into their child’s school day. We have been using SeeSaw to:
Something to consider:
Your child has his or her own learning journal, and you can receive notifications when your child adds new items. It is completely private platform, only you can see your child's journal outside of their teachers. Please contact us for the link. Sincerely, Carmen Fox & Jojina Tulele |
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