KISU Newsletter

With the recent increase in the number of COVID 19 cases I would like to remind parents of some of the measures you can take to keep everybody at KISU safe and well.

1. If you or a family member travel, particularly to a country with a large number of COVID 19 cases such as India or South Africa, please inform school and keep children at home for 10 days and return to school only after a negative COVID 19 test.
2. If your child exhibits any COVID 19 symptoms please keep them at home until they are well.

We have worked very hard since reopening in October and we would not want to waste all of these efforts with only a few weeks of the school year left. All teachers who are eligible for a COVID 19 vaccination have now had their first dose and vaccinating our administrative and ancillary staff is underway.

On a more positive note we received an unannounced visit from the Ministry of Education and Sport. Two inspectors spent about 90 minutes looking at all areas of the school to ensure that we were sticking to all the SOPs. I am very pleased to say that at the end of their visit they renewed our permission to remain open and I am delighted to tell you that we scored full marks on all the areas they have on their checklist.

Over the past 6 months we have welcomed many new students to our school. These students came from a variety of educational backgrounds. For the vast majority the transition to KISU has gone very well and they have become assets to our school. However, a small number are still to be fully "KISUfied". We are working hard to ensure that all our students live up to our behaviour and academic expectations and that all students learn in a safe and caring environment. If you feel that your child has witnessed any behaviour that is unacceptable at KISU then please make sure that they inform a member of staff immediately.

In response to the ‘pupil numbers for next year’ survey that was sent out to parents via EdAdmin at the beginning of April, please can parents take the short amount of time necessary to fill in and return the survey so that we can begin to plan accordingly for the next academic year. Thank you!

See the Global Perspectives article below.

Building on last week’s exciting news that many of KISU's Primary pupils are now practicing their spellings regularly and using Spelling Shed as part of their daily routine, there are some children who have become somewhat obsessed with scoring the most points they possibly can in a week to rank up the school leader board. As a result of such commitment, I am incredibly proud and astounded to say that KISU’s Year 6 children (group 6WP) are currently this week’s top scoring class in the whole world!!!!!

With over 7 million children using Spelling Shed in over 14 thousand schools, what an incredibly outstanding group effort!

Here is a screen shot of the ‘World Group Leader Board’ taken on Friday morning… HOW AMAZING!

Our individual ‘Speller of the Week’ who has accumulated 276,137,306 points over that last 7 days is Maha Nahdi.

Next week we will celebrate the highest scoring speller in each year group.

At KISU we value breadth of knowledge as well as depth of understanding, and we are proud to offer and provide a broad and balanced curriculum where students learn across a wide range of academic disciplines.

Let’s see who our ‘Primary Super Learners of the Week’ are for demonstrating the power of KNOWLEDGE

KG1 & 2: Anir Damani and Keturah Ddungu

KG3: Imaan Kassam and Zeinab Ahmad

Reception: Krishay Patel and Rishan Kotecha

Year 1: Riya Kotecha and Lethabo Hlanyane

Year 2: Zeinab Charara and Thomas Coetzee

Year 3: Miia Merrifield and Ahmet Eryilmaz

Year 4: Nadia Satti and Jack Forbes

Year 5: Jade Luswata and Yoab Yonas

Year 6: Miia Merrifield and Ahmet Eryilmaz

Well done to all children for sharing and showcasing their wisdom and expertise and teaching others such interesting information and facts.

Next week our super learning skill is ‘Communication’.

As the end of year continues to approach quickly, there are a number of events scheduled for which dates have now been finalized. Key Stage 2 teachers have unanimously decided that Tuesday 11th May is the perfect date for KS2 House Sports Day. The equivalent event in Key Stage 1 and Early Years will be held on Friday 11th June. Unfortunately, due to adherence of SOPs, parents are not yet invited to attend such events on campus, but are encouraged to have a look on our Facebook page and read our weekly Newsletters to keep updated. Children should wear coloured house shirts as part of their PE kit on these days if they have one, if not, they should wear their usual PE shirt and we will provide a house colour bib.

During Child- Initiated Play- every child is given the opportunity to freely explore both their indoor and outdoor surroundings. They can choose from a variety of activities ranging from the role play area, construction, writing centre, woodwork area, play dough, painting, water play, sandpit and many more! Child- Initiated Play supports children in having ideas and being in control of their own learning. It enables them to learn through first- hand experiences, allowing them to choose how to use the resources to do so. Children’s emotional development is supported because the children are able to make their own choice, they gain independence as they can help themselves to resources, they learn to take turns which helps with their social skills. It is more than just –play!

Year 11 students have started their IGCSE examinations and DP2 are due to start theirs in the next week. We will also be holding end of year examinations for Year 7, 8, 9, 10 and DP1 and they will take place towards the end of this term. We will be sharing more details with students next week and emailing parents soon after.

Exams are without doubt a stressful period for most students. KISU has chosen to continue with exams for non-candidate classes, not because we simply want a grade for your child but instead to give them the opportunity to learn how to prepare, sit and reflect on the exam process. In doing so, when they reach Y11 and DP2 they should be better prepared to handle higher stake examinations.

Here are our top ten tips to parents on how to support your child’s revision:

1. Check your child understands what topics could come up in the exam. KS3 and Y10 students will be given an exam notification next week which lists the potential topics in each subject. Y10 students should use this together with the syllabus.
2. Encourage your child to identify which topics they understand and recall. Students should revise the topics they are least confident in first.
3. Set-up a quiet place for your child to work, which has no distractions.
4. Support them to find the method of revision that works best for them (remember that their best method of revision may be different from yours and their siblings)
5. Take an interest and ask your child questions about their revision. Children like it when parents take an interest but not take over.
6. Keep the kitchen cupboard stocked with delicious food.
7. Encourage them to be balanced! Students should break up their revision into manageable chunks and take regular breaks. It’s far more effective to do 30 minutes of successful revision – rather than plough on for hours on end and not get anywhere.
8. Exercise, fresh air, healthy food and lots of sleep are crucial.
9. Most important of all; help your child to keep everything in perspective. Remind them that the better they prepare and the more confident they feel in their subject knowledge the less stressed they will feel when the exams start.
10. After receiving their completed exam papers back, encourage them to reflect on what they did well and how they can improve next time. They should reflect on how they prepared as well as knowledge and skills.

References

https://www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/curricula-and-exams/revision-top-ten-tips-for-parents

“Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives is a groundbreaking and stimulating course that stretches across traditional subject boundaries and develops transferable skills. It is both cross-curricular and skills-based and taps into the way learners of today enjoy learning, including team work, presentations, projects, and working with other learners around the world.” (https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-igcse-global-perspectives-0457/)

To support their GP curriculum, Year 10 students are entering a Global Social Leaders Global Goals Competition. This competition gives students the opportunity to create positive change and join a global movement of socially conscious leaders. The year group have divided themselves into teams and planned local projects that contribute towards addressing the needs identified by the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development. This week one team was very visible in their fund raising activity for their project. Team Dragonflies (Anita, Bernice, Emma, Hero, Munenyiwa, Tariq, Tumelo) raised money to purchase trees to donate to help increase awareness of deforestation. The team decided to raise money, they would auction the opportunity for 1 teacher to be ‘mudded’. Students and staff were asked to bid on the teacher that they would like to see ‘mudded’. The teacher that had the most money bid on them would then be ‘mudded’ in front of the secondary school. On Wednesday 28th April the money was all added up to reveal that the teacher to by ‘mudded’ was Mr Garbett.

As a team 7 people that had been working together for five months to raise enough money to give them the opportunity to buy 300 trees! Well done, Team Dragonflies!

Next week, we will share information about some of the other team projects year 10 are undertaking as part of their GP course.

In our recent assemblies the following students have performed:

06 April 2021

Ashley Martha, Lakiesha Emmanuela, Janet Kamboja, Serena Sayed Ali performed “Cheap Thrills”

19 April 2021

Selena Babiiha and Anne Gekonge performed “Dream a little Dream”

27 April 2021

On the International Jazz Day assembly, we had Anita (Piano) Selena (Voice), Anna (Voice) and Lakeisha (Voice). In addition, we had Ultimate Tony and Herbert Rock and Dr Benon perform a Jazz repertoire.

Due to the COVID 19 situation, the ABRSM has decided to have a different format of assessments this year. Instead of the usual face to face exams, ABRSM instead offer the Performance Grades exams, a remote assessment option. The Performance Grade exams have an equivalent ranking to the usual Practical Grades as standardized on the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) exams. For more preliminary information about these remote assessment exams, please follow the link. https://gb.abrsm.org/en/our-exams/information-and-regulations/exam-regulation-and-ucas-points/. The first set of Performance Grade exams in Uganda, will have the registration opening in June between 2 June (07:00 GMT) – 9 June (23:59 GMT) with the exam video uploads deadline being in July. For more on this, do go to the link https://ug.abrsm.org/en/exam-booking/exam-dates-and-fees/ and to select the Performance Grades Tab.
For more information about the exams themselves, click on the the following link https://ug.abrsm.org/en/our-exams/performancegrades/#.

For any more questions and clarifications please contact Dr Benon Kigozi on 0774 655 864 or b.kigozi@kisu.com.
Due to exceptional demand, ABRSM is pleased to announce that they have several dates dates for a webinar, Introducing Performance Grades with Chief Examiner John Holmes, which are now live on the website: https://www.abrsm.org/en/about-us/news/articles/?abrsm[newsId]=91267.

You can register for free for any of these webinars by visiting the above link.

Wednesday 5 May: 09:00 – 10:00 (BST)
Wednesday 5 May: 17:00 – 18:00 (BST)
Tuesday 25 May: 12:00 – 13:00 (BST)

Tuesday 25 May: 17:00 – 18:00 (BST)