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THE PRINCIPAL'S NEWSLETTER

MYP students’ ‘Arts @ Lunch Show’

By Mr Robert Muntzer

Dear Parents and friends

New Campus planning continues. In the last Newsletter we had a look at the planning going on for the Secondary School building at the new campus. This week we have a look at the new Primary School building.

As you can see, the new building is four floors high and is connected to the Secondary School building with a bridge across the third floors.

PYP Early Years classrooms will be on the first floor, with a PYP Library, an Early Years Art Studio, open areas and a dedicated playground and garden outside.

The next three floors will house PYP Upper Years classrooms and facilities such a dedicated Science Laboratory, Music Room, Ceramics Room and an Art Studio. There is even a design room where students can learn to build things and learn how to cook!

The teaching staff in both Primary and Secondary schools are now busy planning the interior of their allocated rooms, studios and labs, and the plan is to start ordering furniture and equipment within the next month.

Meanwhile, in Secondary, some of the Year 12 IB Diploma students have started a new CAS Project. They have been given the floor plans and are now designing the interior of their future DP Study Room and DP Common Room!

News from Primary School

PYP House Captains. Last Friday 18 brave Risk-Takers from Years 5 and 6 prepared and gave speeches in front of their house members. The goal was to win the vote for House Captain or Co-Captain. All the PYP students from each house voted for the person they chose as the best candidate. The results were carefully counted and the numbers were close! Please welcome me in congratulating the following representatives as House Leaders for the 2019/2020 school year:

- Han House (Red): Captain: Laura Hur Y6 and Co-captain: Seth Rice Y6

- Qin House (Blue): Co-Captains (tie result): Emily Wang Y6 and Julie Bae Y5

- Song House (Green): Captain: Elena Dowdy Y6 and Co-captain: Sally Kim Y5

- Tang House (Yellow): Captain: Joseph Kim Y5 and Co-captain: Constance Zhang Y5

An Amazing Adventure to the Dentist. Last week, our Reception class had a wonderful trip to the dentist as an Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC). For the first unit of inquiry, Reception students are learning about good habits and daily routines. They already learned about the importance of maintaining proper hygiene and are now learning about making balanced life choices to keep themselves healthy. After conducting a science experiment in the classroom to see how different liquids such as coffee, milk and cola affected their teeth, students traveled to Dr. Nie’s Dental Clinic in Kai De Guang Chang to learn from the experts. The dentists and dental hygienists checked the student’s teeth and taught them how to properly brush and floss to keep their mouths healthy. The students then applied their knowledge by practicing to brush their teeth after lunch each day last week. Wonderful connections, Reception!

News from Secondary School

MYP Year 8 Tableaux Vivant. On Wednesday, September 11th, the Year 8 students conducted their graded performance for their ‘Tableaux Vivant’ mini-unit in the Auditorium.

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.

The most recent heyday of the tableau vivant was the 19th century, with virtually nude tableaux vivants or poses plastiques. They were a major feature of festivities for royal weddings, coronations, and royal entries into cities. Often the actors imitated statues, much in the manner of modern street entertainers, but in larger groups, and mounted on elaborate temporary stands along the path of the main procession.

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 included the following: costumes, props, background setting that supports the message, 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.

Wednesday’s performance had two small groups…

“Inside Out” 

Lisa (Zixi)

Eva (Yiyi)

Vivian

Daniel Kim

Jake (Yeonje)

 

“The Lion King” 

Ellie (Hyeyun)

Yulia (Yutong)

Ariel (Zimo)

Daniel Kang (Jusung)

Alex (Seunggeon)

Raphael 

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, their group cooperation – ensemble skills, and various IB MYP Approaches to Learning Skills throughout the process.

We look forward to giving the Hanova Community the gift of entertainment once more at the Secondary Arts Assemblies come November 22ndand 29th!

MYP 10 Tadashi Suzuki Physical Theatre Newsletter. "The Year 10 students performed their public demonstration for their Tadashi Suzuki modern Japanese physical theatre experience in the Auditorium.Also known as ‘STOMPING SHAKU HACHI’, it consists of the ‘10 Ways of Walking’ and the ‘Four Basic Positions’. In Year 10 Drama the focus is on ‘Theatre Throughout the Ages: Research, Reflections and Performance.’

Thinking about how “modern theatre is a combination of aesthetically different forms, expressive styles, and interpretations of theatre communicated from the cultures of the past – then changed for its current audience” as their Statement of Inquiry. In reality, this means that we have started with a very modern theatre style and will then combine it with a very ancient play, and see how the forms will combine, change, enhance-illustrate the script, and bring this old story into a modern age – audience.

The Year 10s focused on transforming themselves by use of physical theatre to push themselves into a new form of movement, while driving themselves to a higher level of body awareness and control. The Tadashi Suzuki method required the students to have strong bodies, strong voices and/or breathing, astrong center (or core strength for stamina). In order to be able to cope with physical stress, and maintain a high level of energy and commitment when performing.

Students were to rehearse, learn, and perform, maintain good participation, focus, active listening, mime and accept offers from their director.

In addition to the ‘onstage’ duties, the Year 10s also had to do their reflective writing on their Arts Process Journal. This had to include a chronological narration of their experience doing this theatre form 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.

These great new honed skills will be added into their Ancient Greek Tragedy (Antigone). We hope to leave the audience wanting more from Year 10 Drama Troupe!

We look forward to giving the Hanova Community the gift of entertainment once more at the Secondary Arts Assemblies come November 22nd and 29th!"

- Jennifer Lazareck

MYP News. It was a great pleasure to see so many parents at our first MYP Parent Info Session of this academic year. I do hope that I was able to clarify some of the unique and special characteristics of the MYP and our reasons for loving it! If you have any further questions, or if you were unable to attend and do have issues that you wish to discuss, please know that my door is always open. I can be reached through my school email account: sandy.trull@his-xian.com.

Please be sure that you diarise the Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences on the 9thOctober 2019 and 8th April 2020. These are our opportunities to come together to speak to your child and teacher together to discuss his/her progress and plot the way forward that allows him/her to reach their academic potential. Experience has shown that these discussions positively impact student achievement.

Parents are invited to our Awards Assemblies on the last day of each semester and our Arts Assemblies towards the end of each semester. The Awards Assemblies are special occasions during which we celebrate the students’ academic achievements in the semester just concluded. The Arts Assemblies showcase the work of the students in our Arts Faculty.

In addition to our very busy MYP, Hanova offers students the option to sit for the IGCSE and HSK examinations. Letters about these have gone out to all MYP parents. Students wishing to participate in these examinations should please let me, or our IB Administrator, Ms. Lilian (lilian@his-xian.com) know. These additional examinations will require a further investment of the student’s personal time and effort as the work is additional to the MYP load.

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:

Friday, 13th September     Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday

Friday, 20th September    Staff Professional Development (school closed)

Friday, 27th September    MYP First Interim Report issued

30th – 6th October            National Day Holidays

Wednesday, 9th October MYP Parent Teacher Conferences

Friday, 25th October        International Day


About our Head of School


Mr Robert Muntzer

School Principal

Mr Muntzer is the current School Principal of Hanova. He is highly experienced International Baccalaureate (IB) educator who has worked at Hanova as Deputy Principal, and Secondary IB Diploma Coordinator. His former posts include DP Coordinator in Dulwich College Shanghai, founding Director of Studies and IB Coordinator at Repton School Dubai along with Head of English and Head of Languages at schools in Thailand, Ethiopia, Zambia, India and Vietnam. He holds a Bachelor Degree in English from University of Warwick (UK). He has two children both educated in IB World School International schools


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