Thank you to our parents who came along last week to join our PYP Early Years meeting on ‘Jolly Phonics’. We also look forward to our parents joining us this week for the IB Diploma Parent Teacher Conferences and the PYP Three Way Conferences.

The whole school calendar for 2019-20 has been finalized and authorized by the school Board and I will be sharing this with the community before the Chinese New Year. As you will see, many of the school events and dates are approximately the same as they have been this year but the major change is with the Christmas (Winter) holidays and the Chinese New Year (CNY).

Because the CNY is much earlier than in previous years and because of its awkward timings, we have decided to shorten the Christmas holiday and extend the CNY holiday. This change does not, however, affect the number of days that school is open.

On behalf of all our teaching and support staff, allow me to share with you all a happy, healthy and prosperous Chinese New Year – the Year of the Pig!

News from Secondary School. The MYP Year 7 Design students have finishing their Mechanical Hand projects, which they have developed and built using wood, springs, and string according to their own research and designs.

MYP Arts. Tableaux Vivant means, “living picture.” The term, borrowed from the French language, describes a group of suitably costumed actors or artist’s models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move. The approach thus marries the art forms of the stage with those of painting or photography, and as such it has been of interest to modern photographers.

This Tuesday at lunch the Year 8 MYP Arts students had their graded performance for their Tableaux Vivant mini-unit in the Auditorium. Thinking about “how can we creatively communicate our personal & cultural beliefs to our communities without the use of words” as their statement of inquiry, the Year 8s focused on transforming themselves by use of body movement and facial expressions. They needed to focus on their body awareness, and self-control, in order to mimic a painting or picture of their choice. Many smaller activities and steps were taken before being able to show an emotion/feeling and hold that position for a consistent 2 minutes, without “breaking character.”

Each tableaux presentation was to include the following: costumes, props, background setting that supports the message (paper or ppt), music that supports the scene (appropriate emotional tone), their bodies arranged in tableaux positions that support the message, to be able to hold the Tableaux for approximately two minutes.

Students were expected to: rehearse, learn, and perform a tableaux. Maintain good participation, focus, active listening, mime, and accepting of offers from their director, and then participate in an in-class and public performance using the above skills.

Tuesday’s performance had 2 small groups…

“Umbrellas”

Alicia (Tsztung)

Sean (Seojun)

Jayden (Jein)

Sally (Hyeju)

Diego

“Power Rangers”

Chloe (Chaeyoon)

Leon (Dongkyun)

Jack (Jaeho)

Lucas

In addition to the “onstage” duties, the Year 8s also had to do their reflective writing on their Arts Process Journal. This had to include a chronological narration of their experience doing this assignment from beginning until their performance, with various guiding questions about their self-performance (abilities), their group cooperation – ensemble skills, and various IB MYP Approaches to Learning Skills throughout the process.

Congratulations to the Year 8s in their excellent first-time on-stage performance! These great new honed skills will be added into their Comical Play (title to be released at a later date) once we all return from Spring Festival. We hope to have left the audience wanting more from Year 8 Drama Troupe!

We look forward to giving the Hanova Community the gift of entertainment once more at the Lower Secondary Arts Assembly in May 2019!

News from Primary School. Last week the PYP Early Years team gave an outstanding presentation for our Primary parents that explored an innovative way that the school is using to teach English to its younger students.

‘Jolly Phonics – A Synthetic Approach to Learning’ showed parents how young children can more naturally start to learn English.

Thanks again for your continuing support.

Yours,

Robert C. Muntzer

 

Upcoming Events

Please take note of these dates. As soon as they are confirmed, we will inform you about any additional events and activities that may take place in the following weeks:

Thursday, 31st January                                    Year 13 IB DP Parent Teacher Conferences

Wednesday/Thursday, 30/31 January         Primary School 3 Way Conferences

Friday, 1st February                                          Year 13 IB DP Reports 2/5 (full) issued

Friday, 1stFebruary                                           Chinese New Year Assembly

Monday – Friday, 4th – 15th February         CNY Holidays

Monday – Thursday, 18th – 28th February Year 13 ‘Mock’ IB Diploma Examinations