NEWSLETTEROuR SchOOL LauNch – it’s here!

Tel: 0121 566 6400 | Fax: 0121 566 6423 | E Mail: enquiry@internationalsch.org.uk | Web: www.isccbonline.net

SUMMER TERMJULY 2012

These events finally allow us to take the opportunity to open our doors to ex-students, prospective students, parents, members of our local community and VIPs such as The Right Honourable Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who will officially open the school.

Our guests will enjoy tours of our new school, an opportunity to view our exhibition on the history of the school and the chance to watch and even take part in a variety of sport, music and drama presentations.

The whole event has been driven by a group of students who have formed the school opening committee. Since September, this dedicated team has been meeting regularly

Year 5 Open Day

Saturday 22 September 2012

9.30 to 12.30

On 11th, 12th and 13th July, we are hosting a series of events to mark the official opening of our refurbished school and show it off to our wider community.

before school and during their lunch breaks in order to put together their grand plans. The 12 Primary committee leaders have led various sub-teams - incorporating over 60 pupils from across the school - to help them put into action all their fantastic ideas. Each sub-team has been tasked with organising a different aspect of the ceremony ranging from tours and catering to the exhibition and promotion teams.

The students have given inspirational presentations to students and staff, including leading an assembly in front of the whole school. The team also gave a presentation to Alcoa to inform them about the school’s activities, which provided a chance to get some feedback from business leaders on how to organise large events.

a fantastic year for the school

New facilitiesIt’s hard to believe that the refurbished school was only completed in February 2012! It has been such a fantastic, welcome change and it has taken us no time to settle in because of the uplifting effect it has had on the whole school. The improvement in morale, motivation and behaviour has been impressive and has impacted positively on all aspects of school life.

We have also offered a range of curriculum activities to our local Primary schools to help support the work they are doing. Our new drama, music and sports facilities were seen by students from Timberely, Hillstone and Shirestone Primary schools, who were delighted to be able to check out what our school now has to offer during our recent multi skills festival. We have also offered the use of our facilities to local primary schools, for example, our new theatre for their Christmas concerts.

We look forward to welcoming more students - both from within the school and elsewhere - to use our facilities next year.

International by name, International by natureYou may have already heard about two areas that demonstrate our school’s commitment to being ‘International’: The British Council’s International School Award; and Comenius. Both of these form key opportunities for the school to live up to its name.

The International School AwardWe have achieved the International School Award from the British Council, accredited for 2011-2014. The British Council praised the school, commenting that “the panel considered the quality of your school’s international work to be outstanding…such an impressive range of work”.

The award recognises that our school has:• An international ethos embedded throughout the school • A majority of pupils within the school impacted by and involved in international work • Collaborative curriculum-based work with a number of partner schools • Curriculum-based work across a range of subjects • Year round international activity • Involvement of partner schools and the wider community in the UK

It truly has been an eventful year for our school. Below we summarise some of the key developments and events of this year.

Comenius Programme

SSaT commends the school’s progress

The Duke of Edinburgh award Scheme

The Comenius Programme is a European Union Social Fund project that supports links between schools, colleges and local authorities across Europe, Comenius gives our school excellent opportunities to further enhance international links.

Named after Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670), who is often considered the father of modern education. Comenius has two main objectives:

• To develop knowledge and understanding among young people and education staff of the diversity of European cultures and languages, and the value of this diversity • To help young people to acquire basic life skills and competences for their personal development, for future employment and for active European citizenship.

This year the project took us to Turkey and Germany as well as hosting international visitors here at our school. The school has also received a number of grants from the British Council to fund Global School Partnerships with secondary schools in Sri Lanka and China. Both of these projects are ongoing and have received funding from Global School Partnerships to continue.

Our parents are very supportive of our international activities in school and have expressed gratitude for this rewarding experience.

Our school has received recognition from the Specialist Schools and Acadamies Trust (SSAT) for its outstanding progress on improving GCSE results. SSAT is an independent organisation that works with its 5,000 members to promote a world-class education system.

The recognition comes as rankings show that the school is in the top 10% in the country for improvement of GCSE results, with an increase year-on-year from 2008-2011 of at least 19% overall.

Sue Williamson, Chief Executive of SSAT, commented “These results are a testament to the hard work of the students, teachers and leadership team at The International School and a vindication of their belief in high expectations, good teaching and ambition for every young person.” She added “There is plenty that other schools could learn from The International School’s success.”

This year saw the school take part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme (D of E) for the very first time. We had 28 student participants from Year 11 and the Sixth Form. As well as the main expedition, the scheme promotes the development of new skills and volunteer activities. Students chose activities ranging from football to gym and Zumba and even maths!

The initial practice expedition took part in Shropshire and gave the students a chance practice some new activities including map reading, first aid, hiking and camping skills such as setting up a camp and cooking on a campsite.

The second expedition, the Cannock Chase walk, was a brilliant example of our students discovering a completely new environment, whether it was the varied wildlife or the enormity of Rugeley Power Station that shocked them. Their walking and navigation skills were certainly put to the test!

The main expedition, held on the 8-9th July, is the culmination of this year’s D of E activities. The pupils involved this year have been a credit to our school, with many members of the public commenting on their behaviour and enthusiasm. A big thank you to them for their commitment!

Jubilee celebrationsYear 5 students from The Oval, Timberely, Shirestone and Ridpool Primary schools were welcomed into the school to take part in our Jubilee celebrations. We ran competitions to design Jubilee stamps, as well as Art, Graphics and Food Technology sessions. To put the icing on the cake, the Jubilee party lunch gave them a chance to show off all their designs and hard work. Well done to all involved!

Will Simmons from Timberley Primary school commented “My friends and I liked working on the MAC computers and thought that the teachers were really good at answering all our questions.”

Out and about in the communityStudents from the school opening committee went around the local community on 20th June to hand out invitations to our Launch Event to local residents and businesses. They enjoyed meeting members of the community, answering their questions and sharing with them the progress that the school has made.

Challenge 24 Maths CompetitionWe took ten of our Maths Gifted and Talented pupils along to Hillstone Primary to Referee the Final of ‘Challenge 24’. The competition is a mental maths activity based around using a set of four numbers and the four maths operations to make

Students reach One Water charity target Chasham International is a business set up by a group of our students to support the work done by the One Foundation. The One Foundation creates and sells quality products, donating 100% of its profits to life-changing projects in developing countries. Every One product funds a like-for-like equivalent, for example, the One Supersofty toilet tissue funds hygiene and sanitation projects in Africa.

The project was born when students from our school went to a presentation about the work of the One Foundation. On returning to school, the students developed their ideas and recruited friends to help. Chasham International is run by Taonga Sakala, Lewis Moseley, Curtis Cahill, Karine Harber, Kierren Horne, Mubarak Abdi and Siddique Ahmed.

“We thought we would like to support water projects in Africa,” said Taonga “BT have been fantastic, providing our first pallet of water so we could get started quickly. I’m delighted that the money we have raised will go to irrigation schemes in Africa.”

“We were committed to raising £1,000 for the foundation so we organised One Water Days and supported other events where we could sell One Water” added Lewis Moseley.

Allan Witherington, Assistant Headteacher, said: “As the school’s specialism is Business and Enterprise we have encouraged them to approach the project as a business. They are all able students with high aspirations who aim to go to university.”

A cheque for £1,000 is to be handed over to Mr Mark Salter of One Water Foundation by Chasham International during the school’s Opening Ceremony.

Developing our local tiesthe number 24. Our pupils were amazed at the skills show by pupils from Hillstone, Shirestone, The Oval, Firs, Heathlands and Our Lady’s. No sooner had the cards been turned up than a pupils would shout ‘24’ indicating that they had the correct answer.

Our pupils were hooked by the game and we are in the process of setting up a club where our pupils can improve their mental arithmetic skills. The pupils who attended were Thomas Daniels, Ikra Kalsoom, Saiba Abbas, Salma Botan, Lauren Miles, Zorran Nasim, Karl Whitehead, Rahil Mahmood and Katherine Randle, and they were taken by Lisa Paddock, Coordinator for Gifted and Talented. They behaved impeccably and were commended both by Hillstone Primary and the EAZ for being such great ambassadors for our school.

We have also invited the EAZ community to hold the Challenge 24 competition at The International School next year. This will give some of the local maths experts the chance to see our excellent facilities.

Birmingham Airport Trip The International School was the only secondary school to attend at Birmingham Airport the unveiling of the new air control tower and Olympic Rings on 23rd April. Our very own opening committee students were selected to attend this event as a reward for their hard work and commitment to planning the opening of our new school. In addition it was an opportunity to get some ideas of how a large scale professional event should run. The students got involved in the evening’s activities and the teachers were also impressed with how well our students networked with the CEO of the Airport and various VIPS!

clubs and GroupsChess ClubTwenty nine pupils have attended the Chess Club on Friday lunchtimes since we entered the new buildings. There are some very promising youngsters, especially in Years 7 and 8. Ernest Dlugoszewski has an especially impressive record of 16 wins and 3 defeats with 1 win and 1 defeat against Mr Perryman. The atmosphere has been great, as pupils pit their wits against each other! Next year we hope to start competing with other schools.

Business Consulting and Trading Club This after school club has given its students several challenges such as estimating the weekly revenue of a Domino’s Pizza takeaway or the size of the UK chocolate market. The club helps students to develop the ability to structure a problem and arrive at a conclusion. The club also ran online virtual stock market trading where students have a virtual £100k to trade with over a half hour period, using live stock market data. The creators of www.tradechase.com hosted an online session offering advice and tricks of the trade to our students. They explained how market volatility can be used to generate profit in the short term, while sustained growth and decline can be used to generate profit in the long term.

School standardsWe have made excellent progress this year in raising the standards of our school and we should all be proud of our achievement. We will continue to expect the best possible behaviour from our pupils and we believe that our Golden Rules will play a big part in ensuring that we do.

Attendance continues at around 94% and after our recent drive on punctuality we are seeing rapid improvements. We will continue to monitor and support both of these in order to ensure that we are outstanding in all categories.

Remember, better attendance = better learning.

We have been sharing our good practice with other local Primary Schools in order to support them in raising their standards.

EnglishAlcoa supports our school’s literacy initiative

Poor literacy levels in school children have been highlighted as a national issue by chief schools inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw. He said “England is being overtaken by other leading nations because progress on literacy has stalled and reading standards had not improved since 2005.”

The local Alcoa team applied to the Alcoa Foundation in America for $20,000 to support the school’s literacy programme. The funds have been invested in ‘Accelerated Reading’, which is a system for assessing and monitoring literacy in pupils and providing suitable learning materials.

All pupils at Key Stage 3 have been successfully assessed and intervention has been organised to support pupils where required. We are confident that with Alcoa’s continued support, this programme will provide life-changing opportunities for our students.

MathsDeveloping EAL through MathsMr Bukreedan has been working with groups of Year 7 & 8 EAL students to help them develop English through their Maths. They attend after school sessions twice a week and are making very good progress. Amaal Muktar’s achievements were highlighted by Mr Boulton, “Her English and maths have certainly improved and she is far more confident in what she does. Her ability to understand mathematical processes is now outstanding.”

Y12 Peer MentoringSeveral Year 12 students have acted as peer mentors to help Year 7 with basic numeracy skills. Working with the same student every Wednesday in period 1 for a term, they helped them using a variety of activities, puzzles and quizzes. One Year 12 student, Louis Johnson, even re-wrote some Maths problems using examples that would be more relevant for Year 7 students.

The Year 7 thoroughly enjoyed the sessions, so we have run the programme until the end of the year, with plans to make it a permanent feature within the department.

MathleticsWe have created student accounts for the Mathletics website which provides worldwide Mathematics competitions and games to develop Maths skills and offers activities focusing on specific curriculum areas. Students collect points and can be awarded certificates for their achievement and it can be used at school or at home. The following students have been awarded Bronze certificates for their achievements:

Year 9Cheyenne Evans | Conor Glynn | Lewis Gould | Arifa Karimi | Hadi Rezaye

Year 8Sunjidah Khanam | Courtney Smyth

Year 7Marihah Haseeb | Selina Malik

And finally...Arany Anandarajah from Year 9 has achieved a Grade C in mathematics.

Well done!

Foreign LanguagesOn 21st June, Year 10 Spanish GCSE students went to La Tasca to sample Tapas dishes and try out their Spanish skills conversing with the waiters.

Enterprise

Sports

Year 10 practice interviews As part of Year 10’s preparation for a two-week work experience placement, 20 professional workers came into school to conduct practice interviews. Students prepared a CV and a job application for their interview and enjoyed learning about how to present themselves at interview. Everyone said it was an excellent event and has agreed to repeat it next year.

Visit to a real Dragon’s Den Students Mohammed Raees, Rufaro Chaza and Kirstie Cotton were taken on an exciting trip by Mr Boulton and Miss James to visit the Thames Valley Investment Network, the business group that the TV show Dragon’s Den is based on.

Students saw the maths they’d studied used in real life, including percentages, compound growth and appreciation. They were given advice on creating a strong presentation, asked to make notes on different presenters’ styles and taught about marketing and value proposition. The investors and entrepreneurs happily explained their reasons and motivations for being there.

Not being a usual ‘educational visit’ for students, they got a real ‘behind the scenes’ look at a business event that would never usually be open to outsiders. We thank Leo Dunn and Heni Sanislova for giving us the opportunity to attend.

FootballA group of students entered a football tournament in Blackpool over Easter. Although they found it hard going, they were praised for their excellent behaviour and received the Fair Play Award.

Trampoline CompetitionYear 8, Year 7 girls and Year 7 boys did us proud in a recent trampoline competition. Our trophy cabinet was blessed with Yera 8 Silver, Year 7 Boys Gold and Silver, and Year 7 girls Bronze awards.

RoundersOur U13 Team came 3rd in a recent competition and our Year 10s came 4th, which was an excellent achievement.

Well done to everyone!

SUMMER TERM Monday 16th April 2012 - Friday 20th July 2012

AUTUMN TERM Monday 3rd September 2012 - Friday 19th October 2012

HALF TERM Monday 22nd October 2012 - Friday 26th October 2012

AUTUMN TERM Monday 29th October 2012 - Friday 21st December 2012TE

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What’s in store for 2012-13

The International School Gressel Lane, Tile Cross , Birmingham B33 9UF

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cONTacTINFO

New school uniformAs you are aware we have introduced a new school logo which reflects the progress we have made and acknowledges the beginning of another chapter of our school‘s history. The Student Council have been consulted about changing the main uniform and they recommended that it should remain the same as they thought it already looked smart, but that we should change the blazer badge and school tie.

Students were involved in a detailed consultation process where they all had the chance to vote on what aspects of the school they wanted the designs to reflect and the students’ ideas and mock ups were sent to the graphic designer to come up with the final designs. Designs are with the suppliers and we aim to introduce these ready in September.

Duke of Edinburgh Award SchemeFollowing the success of this year’s D of E scheme, we will be extending it next year to enable Year 9 and Year 10 students to take part. We will be offering 20 spaces for each year group.

PerformancesAfter a very successful series of performances for our International visitors, the Performing Arts team are now preparing for their upcoming Arts festival, which will include Music, Art, Drama and Dance.

Parents, prospective students and members of the wider community are welcome to attend. If you are interested please contact Pat Porter on 0121 556 6400.

We’ve had a big year but we will continue to develop the school and celebrate every success story. We’ve got plenty of plans and here are some that we can share with you.

School Cottage at BryntailThis term Mr Mann has continued to plan the legendary trips to Bryntail with a range of Key Stage 3 students. Students have really enjoyed the opportunity to use the school’s cottage, which is set in such a contrasting setting to the one they live in. The three-day trips often incorporate outings to the Science Museum, local castles and include night time forest walks for the brave!

“I can’t wait to go again this summer” said Jordan Ash, Year 7.