The Crane, 27 September 2019

The Crane
ITEMS: HIS Hoodie Order; BOD & BOT Meetings; Nominations for BOT: PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE Dear HIS Community It has been a very interesting couple of weeks in terms of climate change action with quite a few of our students being inspired by Greta Thunberg and the global action that she has prompted. I posted a TED Talk by Greta Thunberg on the Crane last year and it was quite a remarkable talk. It was just over a year ago since she walked out of her school to organize a school-strike to raise awareness of global warming, protesting outside the Swedish Parliament. This address, below, to the UN Climate Change Summit a year later has an added note of urgency. A group of HIS students spoke with me yesterday with some ideas…
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The Crane, 20 September 2019

The Crane
Items: Camps; MYP Information Morning (Thanks); Typhoon Principal's Message Dear HIS Community We had two guest speakers in this week and I would like to thank Noh performer,  Kinue Oshima sensei, who introduced Noh to our PYP students and also Professor Machida from Hiroshima University who gave a presentation to our DP students on language and thought. These were great learning experiences for our students. We also have six students from Shudo University who will be visiting over the next two months as part of their service program so we appreciate the support from our wider Hiroshima community. I teach the Grade 12 DP Language and Literature class and we have been looking at some powerful speeches, each influential in unique ways. I particularly like this message by spoken word poet…
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The Crane, 13 September 2019

The Crane
Items: Board of Trustees Nominations; Message from the Volleyball Teams; After School Clubs. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you have enjoyed the week and have fun plans for the long weekend. I have a letter on the noticeboard in my office from Rinoka and Mahiro (Gr5 now) urging HIS to put up solar panels for a range of good reasons. I saw the following TED Talk by Elon Musk where he shared some thoughts for the future and it reminded me of this letter. The talk is longer than a regular TED Talk, but I found it really interesting to hear the speaker's thoughts on why he thinks the way he does. Our HIS vision specifically states that we will develop a lifelong commitment to a sustainable world and…
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The Crane, 6 September 2019

The Crane
Items: MYP Coffee Morning, September 20th Board of Trustees (BOT) Guardian Positions Parent-Teacher-Association (PTA) Event Leads Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Thank you to all of the parents who joined us for the Parent Information Night. We hope that you enjoyed the evening. The partnership between the parents, child and school is so important and meeting face-to-face early in the year really helps us to develop this relationship. Thank you for participating in our activity in the gym. It was just a short insight into the Social, Emotional and Ethical learning program used to support our Approaches to Learning skills. The short presentation SEE Learning that we used last night can be viewed here. Although there are links to many of the Approaches to Learning skill areas, self-management skills are very closely…
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The Crane, 30 August 2019

The Crane
Items: Parent Information Evening; Primary Camp; Secondary Camp; Online account permission forms. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community We are all settling into our new routines now at the end of our second week. Our routines, such as a regular time to sit and read at home, or stand and read, are important to help us reach a goal such as improve our reading. We all know that the more we read, the better we get at reading, as well as a host of other related skills. We also know what we need to do in order to accomplish this - read and read. Sometimes, though, it just doesn't work out. We just don't manage to do what we need to do. This is as true for our children as it…
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The Crane, 23 August 2019

The Crane
Items: Annex replacement update; PTA Committee; Peaceful Moment Cards; Annual Hiroshima International Peace Marathon; Student/Parent Handbook link; HIS Website redesign; Bento Order Form. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Welcome back to another year at HIS. We are really excited to have you back with us again. To start the new year, we can celebrate the very successful experiences of our 2019 graduating class who received very strong IB scores and are now pursuing their post-secondary adventures. All students registered for the full-IB Diploma received their IB Diploma which is a great achievement. Every subject scored higher than world averages, which are very competitive in the DP, and we had two overall scores that matched our all-time high scores for HIS.  Although there is much more to an education than a…
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The Crane , 21 June 2019

The Crane
Items Nominations for Guardian Position on Board of Trustees Textbook Orders - Secondary Principal's Message Dear HIS Community One of our learner profile attributes is 'thinker' and we constantly examine creative processes during our units of inquiry. During the summer, you may find some quiet moments and Adam Grant has some interesting ideas regarding original thinkers that I thought you may find interesting. Thank you all for a great year. We look forward to seeing you back at HIS in August. Kind regards Damian Rentoule (Principal) The Crane Nominations for Guardian Position on Board of Trustees We have three Guardian positions on the Board of Trustees and you are able to nominate yourself on this nomination form. The Board of Trustees provide a valuable contribution to our school community and we…
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The Crane, 14 June 2019

The Crane
Items: Withdrawal Form Reminder; Peace Activity for High School students. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Our Secondary students have been on camp this week. Here they are on top of Mt Sanbe. Most students travel back to Hiroshima tomorrow while twelve set off on a further adventure cycling through Shimane and back to HIS over a period of six days on the annual Peace Ride, which is one of the many activities being held at HIS across the whole school during Action Week, next week. Keep an eye out for some posts of the various activities. Some of the ideas coming from students when talking about possibilities for Action Week inspired me to start looking at our HIS grounds more closely. This is a great talk. Thank you, Pam Warhurst,…
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The Crane, 31 May 2019

The Crane
Items: 2019/2020 Staffing Update; 2019/2020 CRANES Calendar; Tuition for 2019/2020; Secondary text lists; Read-A-Thon; Graduation dates; Coffee Afternoon with Grade 12; PTA News; CIS Parent Survey. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Firstly, I would like to congratulate our Grade 12 students who have now finished their exams and will graduate tomorrow evening. I would like to wish our graduates the best of luck and would like to use a TED Talk today that explores an interesting perspective on this thing we call luck. After watching this TED Talk, I think it would be best to wish our graduates the best winds of luck. As our Secondary Camp and Peace Ride approaches, we have been looking at our risk assessment and have given some thought to our Learner Profile attribute, 'risk-taker'…
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The Crane, 7 June 2019

The Crane
Items Grade 2/3 Food Drive Staffing Update; Grade 5 Graduation; Teacher Appreciation Day (Food/Drink Form); Unscheduled School Closures; Music for Peace Concert. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community We would like to congratulate our Grade 5 students who graduate today from our Primary Years Program into our Middle Years Program. We are very excited to see our new Secondary students transition into their new IB program. We also farewell our Grade 12 students who graduated last weekend although you will still see them around campus, on the Secondary Camp as well as on the Peace Ride before now and the end of the year. You have been great role models for everyone at HIS. (Thanks to Jackie for the photo which was posted on the HIS Facebook page. A great shot.)…
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