The Crane, 19 January 2018

The Crane
Items Instructional policies PTA News 1. Principal's Message Dear HIS Families I hope you have enjoyed your week. I am currently in London attending a recruitment fair for international schools interviewing teachers for next year. This particular fair specializes in teachers with IB experience. The success of any school depends on the dedication and passion of its teachers and we are fortunate to have such a great team of teachers at HIS. I have been interviewing some great teachers and will announce the successful candidates in the Crane in the near future. It is an exciting time of year for HIS. There have been some activities that our students have been involved in with Think Global School (TGS), an amazing high school that moves around the world, shifting four times per year.…
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The Crane, 12 January 2018

The Crane
Items Staffing changes from August 2018 Bento orders PTA News Kanji Club 1. Principal's Message Dear HIS Families Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who helped out to make our Japanese Culture Day such an enjoyable event on Wednesday. You can see some images in this week's video. Each year, we welcome new teachers into our community and farewell others as they move off on new adventures. As we move into the new year, we look at our staffing for 2018/2019 and in June we get ready to say farewell to some of our teachers who have helped to make HIS such a special place for our students to learn. You will see some notes about this below. Also, if any of you are interested, there is a great…
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The Crane, 15 December 2017

The Crane
Items: Introducing John Savage; Contributing to HIS; Festive Eve Survey; Syrian Refugee Winter Clothing Drive; Sakura Medal; 1. Principal's Message Dear HIS Families I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday. Please make sure you keep up a consistent routine of reading through the holidays (English & Japanese) and also practice that kanji. Just a bit each day can make a big difference over time. See you all back in January. Kind regards Damian Rentoule (Principal) 2. Crane Video 3. Introducing John Savage Here is an introduction from John Savage who will be joining HIS as MYP Coordinator/Secondary Vice Principal in 2018/2019. We are all looking forward to seeing you here next year. As a Canadian born educator, I spent the first part of my teaching career in…
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The Crane, 8 December 2017

The Crane
Topics: Festive Eve; Kanji Club update; Japanese Culture Day; Soccer Opportunity; PYP Cleaning Day; Otafuku Visit; Hirosho Department Store; Soccer Coaching in English 1. Principal's Message Dear HIS Families Thank you to the HIS families who are organizing the Kanji Club, an opportunity to create some time for children to practice kanji. The kanji club has sent home an order form for a kanji book that will be used for this practice.  The book can only be ordered through a school, so we will place one order for anyone who would like a copy. This does not follow the units of inquiry in our program but has a range of kanji that parents may find useful to practice. Your child's Japanese teacher will be able to let you know which kanji…
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The Crane, 17 November 2017

The Crane
Topics: Jessy Bosman's last week at HIS Contributing to HIS web-page DP Open Day MYP consultation visit - parents panel Japanese Workshop follow-up letter 1. Principal's Message Dear HIS Families I hope you all receive the Crane email this week. We have been having difficulties with Crane email and embedded link bouncing back with a 'This message has been blocked' notification. This started about a month ago. We seem to have solved the problem by creating a new email address and last week the emails seem to have gone through. We are all very excited as Festive Eve Fever grips HIS. The students are rehearsing scenes, singing songs, creating props, planning for sound and lighting, sorting and sourcing costumes, stressing and laughing to name just a few of the actions…
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The Crane, 20 October 2017

The Crane
Items: Bentos; Vocabulary Study; Typhoon; Netherlands Student Exchange; Coffee Morning Workshop 27 October; Secondary Halloween Party; Japanese survey; 1. Principal's Message Dear HIS Families I hope you have all enjoyed your week. I received a question this week at the PTA meeting regarding the reason why HIS is considering a boarding program. I thought I would say a few words about that today. Firstly, a boarding program has been discussed by the Board of Directors for a number of years. The main benefit of a boarding program would be to boost the number of students in our upper Secondary classes to stabilize enrolments at HIS over time. Historically, enrolment numbers have gone up and down, year-to-year. When student numbers go down, the costs of running the school do not. For this reason, if…
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The Crane, 6 October 2017

The Crane
Topics:  Exhibition; PE Shirts; Guardians Elections to BOT; MYP & Japanese Workshops; The Netherlands Student Exchange Meeting; Bento Orders; 1. Principal's Message Dear HIS Families Thank you to all of the parents who came in this morning to help with feedback for the PYP self-study. We also had a quick look at the set of Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills that we can target to support learning at home. For example, if the all-important reading is not happening at home it could be a case that the development of organizational skills (time-management/goal setting) may be needing some support. Many of the definitions are not perfect translations, such as a term like 'critical thinking/批判的思考' with slightly different connotations in English and Japanese, however below are the official translations which are a…
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