TENBY SCHOOLS IPOHNewsletter #89 - October 2015

Highlights in this newsletter:

Message from Campus Principal

English Week at SR Tenby

Dental Care Session at TEYCI

Our Favourite Festivals

A Big Smile

FairMUN Conference

A Visit to Langkap and Teluk Intan

From the Campus Principal Jane Kuok

Dear Parents and Ipoh Community,

This week, Malaysia has been experiencing unhealthy air quality due to the haze with some states having to close their schools. Luckily we have not needed to close although we have to stay vigilant with the weather being unpredictable. On Wednesday and Thursday, the School’s Leadership team had to cancel all outdoor CCAs owing to a sudden change in the air quality. Students were asked to stay indoors and they were supervised in classrooms or in the Library. We thank parents for their understanding when the School has to make such unavoidable decisions but the health and safety of our students is paramount.

Suspension of a StudentThis week, we also had an unfortunate incident where a student from the Sixth Form was suspended for 9 days because he knowingly bypassed the student Wifi to access inappropriate websites while at School. We want to reiterate the message to all students that the onus is on them to make sensible decisions for themselves and that the School will not tolerate anyone who breaks the School rules / expectations or put the School’s reputation in jeopardy.

Join us on Twitter - Twitter LaunchIn an effort to improve regular communication with our wider community, we have created the following Twitter account for the school:Tenby Schools Ipoh – follow us ‘@tenbyipoh’. To be kept up to date with developments at the School, all you need to do is have an active Twitter account (free), sign in, search for us using the above ID and then ‘follow’ us. You will be automatically kept up to date with what’s new as we Tweet.

We will not be using Twitter to ‘follow’ any students, staff or parents. However, we will be following organisations, e.g. the Department for Education, Ofsted, other schools and some key educationalists who we feel may be of interest to you. We would like parents to follow us so that we can Tweet you important information and keep you updated. So, essentially, information will be sent to you from us ‘one way’ only.

Please do not reply any tweets. Please do not use Twitter to communicate directly with the school as the messages will not be picked up. If you need to inform us of anything, you should do so in the usual manner – Student Planner, telephone, e-mail, letter or drop in. We will start sending you information from next week.

We would like to move towards this as the main means of communicating real time information as we will have access to this outside School hours. This will replace SMS blasts from January 2016. Twitter messages can be set up on mobile phones to be received like SMSes.

Visit by Rotary International District GovernorThe Rotarians of Greentown together with Rotary International District Govenor Siti Subaidah came to visit the School this week and our Interactors gave a Powerpoint presentation of their activities over the past 12 months. It was rewarding to see our Interactors committed to their vision of “Service Above Self” that is in line with our School Vision of ‘A United World At Peace – Through Education’.

Visit by British High Commissioner of Malaysia The British High Commissioner of Malaysia, Victoria Treadell will be coming to Tenby Schools Ipoh on Monday 19th October as part of her roadshow to visit Perak. The High Commissioner will be giving a motivational talk to the senior students of Tenby as well as students from local schools, who upon her request have been invited to attend. We are honored to be hosting this event and I am sure our students will be looking forward to what she has to share with them.

Visit by Corporate Team to Review Sekolah TenbyNext week we welcome Denise Sinclair (Group Academic Development Manager), Jonathan Warner (Group Academic Development Officer), and Lee Mei Leng (Head of Sekolah Sri Tenby, Setia Eco Park Campus) to the School. They will spend four days reviewing Sekolah Tenby and their visit will include meetings with staff, parents and students as well as visiting classes. We look forward to receiving their report in due course to

Parents’ Coffee MorningYesterday, we had our first Parents’ Coffee Morning here in Meru Campus. It went ahead smoothly with Ms. Carrine Teoh from Cyber Security Malaysia coming in to speak to approximately 40 parents about being safe online. It was a very enlightening session and parents had many questions to ask Carrine at the end of her talk. We thank the PA for arranging this session and hope to see more parents at the next Coffee Morning (date to be confirmed).

Community Code of Conduct & Parent/Student HandbookThe Community Code of Conduct was distributed to familes with children in Year 3/KBSR2 upwards via the Student Planner. If you have not done so already, please take a look and sign the bottom of the Code of Conduct. The Parent/Student Handbook 2015 – 2016 will be available for download from the School website. Please take the time to peruse this document to be clear of Tenby Schools’ expectations.

Updating Contact DetailsSimilarly, we also spoke about communications with the School and shared with parents the Update of Student Contact Information Form. The form will be sent out International students on Monday 5th October and we hope to receive them back by Friday 9th October. This update exercise will enable the School to maintain current contact and e-mail information of parents and/ guardians. Sekolah Tenby parents will receive the Update Form at the start of their academic year January 2016. However, you may contact the School at any time to inform them of any changes to your contact and home details. We are moving towards e-mail as a regular means of communication.

Information Session on AssessmentDuring the Meet and Greet session held last month with parents, one of the suggestions from parents was that they wanted to know more about how assessments work in School. As a follow up, the School’s Leadership Team has scheduled an information session on ‘Assessments Across the School’. It will be held on Wednesday 21st October at 08:30 hrs. We will email to parents

more details on this session as well as the online reply slip.

Parent ForumsTo improve communication between the School and the community, we would like to invite parents to attend relevant forums. The sessions will be informal with members of the Leadership Team present. These may include Year Group Leaders, Key Stage Leaders, Heads of School and Deputy Heads of School. The purpose of the forums is to answer queries from parents as well as for us to gather feedback on general matters. Individual concerns regarding students or individual staff members should be directed at a personal level to the School as we think that discussing individuals publicly would be unprofessional. These will be arranged in year groups. More details to follow in due course.

Payments to School - UpdatePlease note that we encourage parents to avoid paying by cash unless they come to the School to make payment directly to the Finance Department. We have also discontinued the credit card facility. When making payment in one of the following ways, proof of payment will need to be provided.

• via cheque/bank draft made payable to ‘Ipoh International School Sdn. Bhd.’;• via ATM – please attach bank in slip with the Parental Consent form (if applicable);• via online bank transfer – please attach proof of payment with the Parental Consent form (if applicable);• With Cash direct to the School’s Finance Department (please do not pass cash to students or teachers) – please attach receipt with Parental Consent form (if applicable).

The School’s bank details are as follows:

Account Name : Ipoh International School Sdn. Bhd.Account Name : 5-08177-207406Bank Name : Maybank BerhadSwift Code : MBBEMYKL

Summer Courses at Churchill College, Cambridge UniversityThe Director of Cambridge Programmes, Mrs. Rebecca Clarke will be visiting Malaysia from October 19th to 22nd, 2015 to meet and talk to parents who are interested in enrolling their children in the 2016 Summer Programmes in Cambridge. For more information, please visit their website at http://www.cambridgeprogrammes.com/

Also, do follow the link to a short video made by Tenby pupils who attended the August 2015 Courses. There is also a video from Rebecca giving details of the 2016 Course.

http://bit.ly/1N7SUnLhttp://bit.ly/1M5W9qa

Please drop Miss Wee Sim (Deputy Head of Early Years & Key Stage 1 from our sister school in KL) an email at weesim.lam@tenby.edu.my if you would like further information about the programmes.

Have a lovely weekend.

Jane Kuok

News from Sekolah Tenby

English WeekSekolah Rendah Tenby Ipoh conducted the English Week which began from 14th September and ended on 18th September. Students from KSSR 1 to KBSR 6 took part in various competitions namely, Nursery Rhyme Recitation ( KSSR 1), Story Character Dress-up (KSSR 2) and Story Telling (KSSR 3) whilst students from the upper primary participated in the Story Writing Competition.

In addition, language based activities such as spelling bee, word puzzles and charades were carried out throughout the week for the respective classes. Responses from the students were encouraging as they were enthusiastic and actively participated in these competitions and activities.

The prizes will be presented to the winners during the coming weekly assembly.

News from Sekolah Tenby

Dental Care Session at TEYCIDentists say that the most important part of tooth care happens at home. Brushing and flossing properly, along with regular dental check-ups, can help prevent tooth decay and gum diseases. Having said this…Well done to the children for taking good care of their teeth as they received positive feedback from the nurses who came for a Dental Case Session on Tuesday 29th September. Armed with their cups, brushes, tooth paste, the children had hands-on session on the proper ways to brushing their teeth. Our teeth are so important - when we lose them, we are never the same again, as it effects our whole being.

Th

Slide Presentation on dental care for children Jia Qi having her teeth checked by nurse

Students brushing their teeth following instructions from the Nurse.

News from TEYCI

Lantern WalkLantern walk as mentioned in our last week’s newsletter saw parents, grandparents, aunties, cousins and maids joining the lantern procession. It was a beautiful sight watching parents getting involved with their child and creating a closer bond between school and home.

This is what parents have to say about the walk .....

Mooncake festival meant a lot to my son. He enjoyed the walk with the lantern. He now knows the story about the mooncake

and understands it better. We get to know this is another traditional festival

celebrated in Malaysia.

Tomohiro’s mum (Mrs Momoe Kobayashi)

My son and daughter were surprised and excited to see me walking with them. It also gave

me an opportunity to mingle with new parents.

Jia Qi’s mum (Mrs Phang)

Classroom News

Toddlers - Little Nemos

Toddlers enjoying sand play and water play

Nursery - Little Tulips

Look! Here we are trying our best to form the shapes that we have learnt. It’s full of fun.

Reception - Little Einsteins

Tanah - Sand In Bahasa Malaysia. A Lesson in Bahasa Malaysia for our Little Einsteins.

Little Fish Nursery Class

The children are learning about their families

Here is Theepan’s family

photograph in a frame he painted and collages himself

Letish Ashwin and Theepan sorted shapes

at home with their mums and dads as a follow up to what was learned in class.

The Reception claasse had lots of fun with Bbbblowing bubblesand going on Uuumbrella

News from Tenby Early Years Meru

The Reception classes also started working on simple

patterns in Maths

Xue Fang building a patterned tower

Idris arranging a marble and seashell pattern In the water tray

Kai Qing helped the little red hen sow her seeds in a pattern beads

Norman is very excited about his string of beads

Wen Rui made a pattern from shells and

stones in the water tray.

Miguel dug for colourful ‘worms’ in the sand tray and used them in a pattern

We are glad that the haze has cleared. It has allowed us to do more outdoor activities which the children have thoroughly enjoyed.

It is great to be moving around the school into classrooms and reviewing displays of work from the students. As I have visited classrooms, I have seen many wonderful activities and lots of great teaching and learning. It is so good to see students interacting more with each other and the teacher in lessons rather than lessons being teacher orientated. It is so important for children to enjoy learning and coming to school, especially in these formative years of learning, as this sets the standard for their future study. I have been pleased to see the bright colours and excellent displays of students’ work. When you are at the school you should make more time to discover the great things happening in classes, look at the different activities and talk to your child’s teacher more often; rather than leaving it until parent teacher interview time; just remember to let the teacher know that you will be coming.

Thanks to those parents using the car recognition signs. If you are not using it please do so, as this is really helping with the traffic flow and pick up time. Don’t forget to be courteous to other drivers and choose the right lane for your respective pick up point. If it is raining do take extra care and realise that it will take a little longer for pick up or drop off.

A number of parents have come to discuss issues with myself and staff. These meetings have been very positive and the outcomes have been successful for helping the particular student move on in their learning. Again, I advise that it is better to come and speak to us if you have any concern. This gives us an understanding of your thoughts and concerns in a positive way. Matters can then be resolved to aid student learning.

Thought:“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person.” David Burns

By David Key (Acting Head of Primary)

News from International Primary

Like most classes in Tenby Schools Ipoh, Year 6 Green is a richly multicultural mixture of students. We decided to write about our favourite festivals from around the world to display our International Mindedness. We also wanted to display our new punctuation knowledge by using colons and semi-colons :) ;)

Nicole: Swiss National DayIn Switzerland, national day is on August 1st. We celebrate it with fireworks, lanterns and food (obviously). When it’s around July, a lot of shops sell all kinds of fireworks and all that stuff. Some people wear special Swiss clothes and many people stay up late, until midnight. We usually eat a lot of Swiss food around that time: hornli and gehacktes; fondue; raclette; etc. National Swiss Day is one of my favourite festivals ever!

Aditya: DeepavaliDeepavali is the Indian festival of Light. I celebrate the day Rama killed Ravana in the battle of Lanka. I normally would do to the temple and pray. At home my grandpa will make lots of jummy dishes. On that day I also watch Star Wars. My Grandma makes: muruku; laddu; and lots more. Sometimes I follow my mum’s instructions and make a chocolate cake. I normally celebrate Deepavali with: Dad; Mum; Brother; and Grandma.

Nicholas: New YearI celebrated New Year with my family in Taiwan, while sitting on the stairs with my family. Before we sat down and did the countdown, we all went out to buy some food to enjoy while watching the beautiful fireworks. There were lots of fireworks and they were fired from the Taiwan 101 tower; it was beautiful.

Choe Zheng: Moon Cake FestivalI celebrated Moon Cake festival because every year all my family and my friends will hang lanterns up on the wall and we will do it outside our house and all of us will play games and will even get to eat moon cake and drink juice with my friends from next door to my house. I mostly celebrated in my cousin’s house, because their house is bigger and nice and clean; we only celebrate in my house when we have a tea party and this will include kids and adults.

An: Hallowe’enI love Hallowe’en! Hallowe’en day is October 31st. It involves: fancy dress; visiting friends around the city; and playing. It is a fun festival! Popular Hallowe’en characters are: ghosts; Frankenstein; pumpkins; witches; wizards; and vampires. A lot of people visit our house and give greetings, presents and sweets. Hallowe’en is a very popular festival around the world.

Kenki: Chinese New YearMy favourite festival is CNY. I celebrate it with oranges and Angpow. Inside the Angpow there is money from RM1 to RM100. I spend time visiting many houses. Some are my best friends’ houses. The best part is when among family members. I donate Angpow to my mother. Then at night I party with family members. My guests attempt a challenge to cut a string without touching it! Nobody can do it, then I show how to do it.

Danish: Hari RayaTo me, the point of Hari Raya is to spend time with your family. It includes: receiving gifts; eating; having a good time. Hari Raya is my favourite festival because we get to travel, eat and receive gifts. Not only that, we celebrate it every year.

Rui: ChristmasMy favourite festival is Christmas. It on December 25th every year. At Christmas we decorate the fir tree. Stores are bright with decorations. We write letters to Santa Claus, saying ‘I would like…’. On December 25th we have a Christmas party. Santa gives presents.

We all love living in Malaysia – the land of festivals

Our Favourite Festivals

News from International Secondary

A Big Smile!!!Year 7 Blue carried out the first assembly for this academic year. The theme was ‘World Smile Day’ which is celebrated globally on 2nd October.

The group conveyed the message of why smiling is important for both our emotional and mental health and gave some very helpful tips of how to develop our smiles‘The Year 7 Blue 3 tips to a perfect smile”

The grand finale to the assembly was a song called ‘You’ve got to Smile’ written and sung by the amazing and very talented Alborz… the whole group sang the chorus line.

It was a perfect way to start this year assemblies and reinforced the message of why we need to smile more, especially when aspects of our lives become difficulty.

So the message from Year 7 Blue is SMILE!!!!

Tenby Ipoh and Epsom College Malaysia Basketball and Football ExhibitionSaturday 26th September 2015Last weekend saw our students travel down to Epsom College Malaysia for basketball and football exhibition matches. The fixtures were very fairly contested by both schools, with Tenby Schools Ipoh leaving with a win for the girls’ basketball team and a tie for the boys’ basketball team.

There was a buzz of excitement in the build up to the first school team fixtures of the season, and we kicked off proceedings with a good win for the girls’ basketball team. It was a closely contested match to start with, however by the half way point the girls had hit their stride and ended the match with a winning margin of 20 points as they recorded a 15 – 35 win.

The boys too started their match rather tentatively, but they soon settled into good rhythm as they tussled for the lead of proceedings. The match was in the balance throughout, with neither team managing to dominate the other. The match ended all square at 43 – 43, a fitting result in the end and after both teams had given their all.

Unfortunately due to the haze that descended on parts of Selangor this weekend, the boys football matches were cancelled. To ensure their trip was not entirely destroyed by the weather, they did manage to participate in short indoor futsal games with students from Epsom College Malaysia.

Well done to both our basketball and football teams and thank you to all the staff that helped with the coaching and officiating. All teams are eagerly awaiting the return fixtures, which will be held early in 2016.

By Ricky Singh

FairMUN ConferenceOn the 11th of September, the Model United Nations Club participated Model United Nations Conference (FairMUN) hosted at Fairview International School in KL. They had an amazing time there debating and devising resolutions to solve crises in different councils. With the theme being Historical Revisionism, it was a blast to the past, especially for the unique Alternate History Council where the Cold War took a turn for the worse, as a few of our delegates became “involved” in a nuclear standoff.

Other conferences included ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) which discussed on the topic of youth unemployment and the question of meeting growing energy demand around the world. We are happy to announce that our very own Bryan Sim from Cohort 12 has received an honourable mention in this committee.

The Security Council questioned the reformation of the council and addressed the issue of Boko Haram, while DISEC (Disarmament and International Security Council) addressed the development of laser weapon systems and electromagnetic rail guns, and also revised the Arms Trade Treaty.

Our Press Corp team, chaired by Emily of SM4, worked extremely hard for the whole of the 3 days, writing articles, taking pictures, recording videos, etc. no hard work went to waste. Their work can be viewed at https://fairmunaffairs.wordpress.com/.

FairMUN was a great experience for all the members who attended. It was a great opportunity to socialise with the most intellectual people from schools around Malaysia and learn from them and students discover the power of articulating their opinion to the world through debating and discussing before coming to a consensus.

Since joining, our students have learnt to think critically and make decisions under pressure and this is a necessary life skill. The students have also gained confidence in their speech, and we’ve also seen a great improvement in their intellectuals.

Currently, the MUN Club is preparing for the next MUN Conference in Taylor’s College, our club president, Emily Tan has been chosen to once again become the Head Chair of Press Corps. Congratulations, Emily!

Visit to Langkap and Teluk Intan On 15 September 2015, Cohort 12 students of the Tenby Sixth Form, TISSI, went on a one-day educational & community service trip to Langkap and Teluk Intan.

During the trip, we had made a donation of English story books to SK St. Anthony, Langkap and visited the Leaning Tower of Teluk Intan. At around 1.00 pm, we arrived at the Shoon Fatt Biscuit & Confectionery Factory Sdn. Bhd. The large facility was decorated by dazzling water fountains in the front, and the staff were very welcoming and friendly.

We were greeted by our tour guides in the conference room where we left our belongings. After being given a briefing on safety precautions we split up into three groups of seven. We donned on precautionary measures such as surgical masks, hairnets and shoe covers to prevent contamination of the production line.

We witnessed many stages of the manufacturing process:

• Raw ingredients and weighing stage: Most biscuits produced are manufactured from flour, colouring and enzymes to break down complex molecules. The raw ingredients are carefully weighed in a nearby part of the factory to ensure consistency between batches.

• Mixing stage: There are several mixing machines on the factory floor, each missing and combining the raw ingredients for several hours for each batch of biscuits. Some batches are placed in a storage space to be fermented.

• Moulding stage: The raw dough is placed into a hopper to be moulded then placed on a conveyor belt where rollers made the sheet of dough increasing thinner. The dough is then cut into the desired shapes and the excess dough is recycled.

• Baking stage: The raw biscuits travel through a continuous gas-powered baking oven. They are then cooled and quality control is carried out.

• Packing stage: The biscuit sandwiches are prepared and packaged by machine into plastic packages to be shipped. Some biscuits are hand-packed into larger metal containers for bulk supply.

• Shipping stage: The finished packages are arranged into large cardboard boxes and loaded via forklift to be shipped to various outlets around the region.

At the end of the tour, we were gifted with free snacks courtesy of the factory. Despite the sudden downpour, we all had an enjoyable time during our educational visit. We wish to thank Mr. Louis, our Head of Sixth Form for organising this trip. We would also like to record our sincere appreciation towards Mr. CS Loo, Senior Administrative & Human Resource Manager at Shoon Fatt Sdn Bhd for his hospitality and generous arrangements.

Report prepared by:Brendan Class Secretary, Cohort 12Tenby Sixth Form