Message from the Head of School

Dear IGBIS Parents and Community Members,

Workshops for Parents and the Community

The workshop on flower arrangements delivered by one of our IGBIS parents was fully subscribed this week. Twenty enthusiastic parents and community members watched a demonstration and then set about creating their favourite bouquet.

Likewise the workshop on parenting had a very good turn-out.  One of the discussion points was how we as adults can manage and balance the demands of 21st century living. This workshop will be the first of a series of workshops on parenting.

The school plans to expand on the offerings of parent workshops in the future.

International Day and 5 Year Celebration on March 16

Our biggest event of the school year is now just two weeks away. Please make sure that you have this day marked on your calendar. Since we are celebrating (nearly) 5 years of ‘Living our Legacy’, as well as International Day, the programme is really exciting. We hope to see many of our past students and staff (our alumni) joining the celebrations, so please pass on our invitation in case they didn’t hear directly from us!

Alumni

A few weeks back I shared a photo of meeting up with some of our alumni in London. Ms Boyd wasn’t able to make it to the dinner but has since caught up with some of our students who went on to study in Japan:

Mrs Anne Fowles | Head of School

News from Secondary School

Dear parents,

Our second round of innovation projects are underway, as teams of students from all grade levels of MYP investigate a United Nations Global Goal for Sustainable Development of their choice. They have begun the process of researching into an area of the Goal, and working together to formulate a plan that will result in service as action; which is an essential component of the MYP. The topic itself is exciting for students, but what makes it even more interesting is that groups are mixed by age, with students having aligned themselves with topics that match their own passions or interests. Through the beginning of this process I have enjoyed seeing the leadership of our Grade 9 and 10 students in particular, though sometimes it is not only them. Sometimes it is a Grade 7 student who is standing up and helping to lead a group! This is a new direction for us, an innovative approach where students continue to develop their skills in research, planning and action. It will be exciting to see what comes of the projects, and I encourage our MYP parents to speak with their son/daughter about the topic they are involved in.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Arcidiacono |Secondary School Principal

News from Elementary School

This week saw two parent education events take place. On Tuesday 26th a group of about 20 parents attended the hand bouquet workshop. This was a great event to build community and I am sure the parents learned a lot and were able to create some masterpieces to appreciate.

On Thursday 28th Ms. Aga ran the parenting workshop ‘How to help our children self-regulate to be emotionally, socially and physically balanced’. I am sure the practical tips to the 40 parents who attended can be used at home.

The Elementary school production team is working tirelessly behind the scenes, as they assist the students to entertain you with Roald Dahl’s musical “Cinderella”. If the singing practices in the last two ES assemblies are anything to go by, it is sure to be an enjoyable event on 27th March at 1.45pm.

Dates for your diaries

• Thursday 7th, Friday 8th, Monday 11th March: Student photos (details have been sent via email)
• Wednesday 13th March: KLISS Primary Athletics (Track and Field) @IGBIS
• Saturday 16th March: International Day/5 Year celebration
• Wednesday 27th March: ES Production

Simon Millward |Elementary School Principal

Media Mentor Month

March is Media Mentor Month! This is an opportunity to help parents to foster a healthy relationship and create connections with their children around digital technologies. It’s a way to introduce topics that may be difficult to broach, and there are resources provided to help parents navigate tricky subjects. Each day of the month has a different activity, from playing games, to starting discussions, to learning new things from each other. You don’t have to participate every day, you don’t even have to do the right activity on the right day. But if you do participate and share your fun on social media, be sure to add the following hashtags so we, and the organisers of this enterprise, can follow along. #MediaMentorMonth #igbis #igbignites. For more information, visit Tip of the Iceberg.

Geoff Derry |Technology Integration Specialist

IGBIS Dominate at NISMUNC 2019

From Friday 22nd until Sunday 24th of February, 19 students from IGBIS travelled to NEXUS International School in Putrajaya, for the annual NIS Model United Nations Conference. Over 240 students from Malaysia and neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia participated in the event.

Anam and Marvin (Grade 10) were a double delegation in the Historical Crisis Council; Gabriel (Grade 7), Gabrielle (Grade 10) and Lucas (Grade 11) were part of the UNODC Council, which was co-chaired by our very own Supriti (Grade 10); Denny, Charisse and Abirrami (Grade 9) participated in the UNHRC; Jayden (Grade 11) was a delegate in DISEC and lastly, Thesya (Grade 7) was part of the Youth Assembly. Six of these students took a risk to be delegates for the first time, which was very pleasing.

Hannah and Taejaayn (Grade 6), Sasha, Stefano, Andy and Ben (Grade 9) and Quetz and Hong Yi (Grade 11) also came along to watch the procedures of both THIMUN and HMUN in the various councils as observers. Furthermore, the students were also provided with the opportunity to participate in some of the workshops which helped them to gain a better understanding of MUN in general to assist them to further develop their MUN skills and confidence to become delegates themselves in the near future.

The highlights of the weekend included lobbying, drafting and debating resolutions collaboratively in the various councils, participating in the social, making new friends within the MUN community both in Malaysia and neighbouring countries, and learning valuable life-long skills such as complex problem-solving, coordinating with others, critical thinking, negotiation, judgement and decision making, active listening, and creativity: all of which will be beneficial to the students both inside the classroom and beyond in future years.

On Sunday at the closing ceremony several members from our IGBIS MUN Club received awards for their efforts over the weekend. Gabriel was awarded Best Delegate, Denny was Most Diplomatic Delegate, and there were honorable mentions for Marvin and Anam. Overall, I am pleased to announce that IGBIS came 2nd out of 14 teams for Best Group Delegation which is a huge honour considering that so many of our team members were participating for the very first time.

We are very excited with the dedication and improvements that our next generation of IGBISMUNners are making as we move towards EOSMUN 2019 which will be hosted by IGBIS on the 22nd to the 24th of March. Sign ups are open now for delegates and observers via the website: https://eosmun19.wixsite.com/2019-eosmun. Remember, you don’t need to be a member of the IGBIS MUN Club to participate and the cost is covered by the school so it is free for all IGBIS secondary students. The Secretariat for EOSMUN led by Secretary Generals Dameer and Supriti are working around the clock to ensure that this will be a memorable event for all who are involved. We are also looking for passionate, enthusiastic and committed students to join our MUN Club in Season 3, so don’t hesitate and please sign up to become part of this highly enriching experience.

Below are some quotes from some of the students capturing their experience over the weekend at NISMUNC:

“I feel that even though I have attended many conferences NISMUNC 2019 was a really insightful experience for me because I have never been part of the dais and it was really interesting to chair.”

Supriti

“It was a very interesting experience; the DISEC chair was amazing.”

Jaden

“NISMUNC 2019 was the first MUN I have ever experienced as a delegate. Although I was nervous for the experience I enjoyed it very much and it was a very exciting and interesting experience for me. I’m looking forward to my next MUN conference.”

Gabrielle

“Before NISMUNC, I looked at MUN from a fixed angle. Now, I’m looking at it from different sides.”

T.J.

“It was a good experience for me because I’ve never done MUN before so going as an observer was good and I learned a lot from it.”

Quetz

“I was honoured to be part of UNODC again after one year of MUN! At times it was challenging representing China for my delegation… but I learned a lot during this conference.”

Gabriel

“NISMUNC taught me the system of how MUN works and it was a warmup for EOSMUN”

Andy

“What I have learnt in MUN is to be patient even though your gut tells you to argue with the other delegates. It is because you aren’t allowed to crosstalk until they request for POIs.” Thesya

Thesya

Greta Corney | Co-Director of the IGBIS MUN Club

Grade 5 Camp

On Wednesday 20th February Grade 5 departed for our 2019 Camp.  

Day 1 camp

“Wake up! Wake up!” shouted my mom. I wasn’t sure why my mom was waking me up early but she looked serious. Oh! I just remembered it was camp. I quickly showered and ate my scrumptious breakfast before heading to school. It was quite early when we arrived at school. I hugged my parents before they left and put my bag on the bus and we headed for Gopeng.

In the middle of our journey we went to the rest stop station. Then when everyone came back in the bus, some of us caught Mr Rizal eating lemon ice cream. We begged him for ice cream but no success. In an hour we reached Gopeng.

The kind Nomad’s Guides greeted us at Natasya Riverside Resort. We split into 3 teams and  created team names. We also created a flag of what we like and something common about us. The teams were, drum roll please… the frist group was Crazy Rich Aliens, the second group was Sea Dragons and the third and final group was named Elements.

We were all dying for our lunch of rice, chicken and vegetables. After we ate our mouth watering meal we were excited to do some gardening. The groups and had different tasks to complete, and all of us had one big main task – to collect the harvested tapiocas so we could make a Malaysian desert called Ubi Kayu.

After gardening, we brought the tapioca back to our campsite and we were split into groups again. One group was to make the fire, another to take the coconut meat and the third group had to peel the skin of the tapioca, cut the palm sugar and shred the tapioca.

Our dinner that night looked delicious. It was french fries, lamb, chicken, and more. After dinner we tried our Ubi Kayu, then we headed to the gym to play some games before going to bed. It was lights out at 9:30pm!

Day 2 Camp

At 7:00am we woke up and had a lovely breakfast. Then we got ready to go river walking. We walked 700 metres to get to our river destination.

After we were safety checked, we separated into our three groups and each group took one activity. After we finished each activity we would rotate. Crazy Rich Aliens did defensive and aggressive swim lessons, Sea Dragons  practiced how to cross a river safely and Elements learnt how to rescue people. All of the activities were really fun and we all enjoyed them.

In the aggressive swim activity, we learnt how to swim in a fast current. To do this we had to float down in a really fast current and when we got near a rock we would swim as fast as we could to the rock. Then we would climb onto the rock and swim the other way to shore. We did this several time and before we knew we were swimming like fish! During the river crossing activity we learnt different ways we can cross a river in a very fast current. We used our communication skills a lot in this activity. We also had to use our thinking skills because we had to walk in a fast current and think about how we were going to get all of our friends across safely as they held onto us. We all managed to get to the other side without getting a single scratch and that was the main highlight of this activity. In the river rescue activity, we learnt how to rescue people. We used a lot of thinking skills and communication skills in this activity too because we had to shout out to to be rescued and think about where we would throw the rope. Everyone loved this activity because we had to slow down in the fast current and get pulled back to shore.

After lunch we learnt how to raft. Rafting was really fun because we had to communicate to each other about which paddle would go first. About halfway through we got out of our rafts and had a lovely big play time in the river. It was really funny because we all tried to go to the top of the river in the current and float back down. After that, we were so happy and continued on our rafting journey all the way to the final destination, which was our bus! Back at camp, we showered, had dinner and of course went to sleep!

Day 3 Camp

On the last day of camp, we went to the Nomad Adventure Mountain School. There was a lot of diverse treetop challenges like rock climbing, zipline, leap of faith, and the giant swing!

Everyone was so keen to try them, but – always safety is first! We had to put on helmets, and special harnesses that we needed for connecting ropes, clips, and safety wires. After we finally finished with “The Safety Patrol”, we split into four groups.

The first activity was “The Giant Swing.” It was a swing with three ropes, one wrapped around your hand, and rest connected to your harness. an everyone pulls you up to the sky, you could choose if you wanted to challenge yourself and go high, or if you are less confident, you can go low. When you reached the height you wanted, you let go of the rope. As soon as you let go, you swing far if you are high and a short distance if you went low.

The next activity was “The Zipline”. The guides clip a zipline rope and a normal rope on your harness, and you zipline to the other side. It was a very short ride, so in the entrance, they put some obstacle courses you have to complete to reach the zipline.

Another activity was rock climbing. Most of us found it the most challenging activity of all. Unlike man-made rock climbing walls, we actually climbed on real rocks! The height was quite high, and only a few people made it to the top. It was very hard to find a grip that we could sustain our grip on. Some people got injuries and bruises from sharp rocks. But still, all of us tried rock climbing, and we tried our best. The guides would connect our harness on one single rope, and then we would start climbing. Rock climbing was the most dangerous sport of all, because if you fell, you could get seriously injured.

https://youtu.be/AwaB0W0MCOg

The final activity was “The Leap of Faith”. We were connected to a rope, then climbed the extremely high ladder, then jumped down, having faith on our harness. On the way down, we would try to touch one of the two balls dangling at the top. One ball was much higher, and one was much lower. No one could touch the high ball, so next year, the current Grade Four students will need to try to be the first to touch it!

After all of the activities, we had lunch and then camp was finished!

Brinda, Chloe, Aveesha |Grade 5M

Timetable for Next Week

International Day

Book Week (11 to 15 March)

Posters