ISSUE # 18

SY 2014 2015

MIDDLE SCHOOL
WEEK OF:

Friday Bulletin

Weekly Publication for Middle School Parents

JANUARY 12 TO 16

Dear Middle School Parents,

Happy New Year, and all the best for 2015 to you and your families. It has been
great to have so many conversations with students and teachers this week
hearing about everyone's travel adventures or time together connecting with
family and friends during our end of semester break.
We welcome our new families that have come for the start of second semester. We will have a Middle School new parent coffee on Thursday morning
from 7:45 - 9:00 in the Little Theater. We will share with you some information
about Middle School and provide the opportunity to meet other new parents
and members of the PTA. Also next week we have a math consultant here
working with math teachers across the school, a parent workshop will take
place on Tuesday morning in the Little Theater from 8:00 - 9:30 a.m.
Teachers are now in the process of finalizing report card achievement and
learning habit levels along with writing report card comments. Semester one
report cards will be available for parents on January 21, 2015 - you will be able
to access a pdf copy of the report card through the online parent portal and
power school, in advance of this we will send out a guide with screen shots for
how to access your child's report cards. We will not be sending out hard copies
of the report card. If you have any questions please contact the Middle School
Office.
We are excited to be hosting the International Schools Theater Association
(ISTA) drama festival for Middle School January 23 - 25, 2015. Students will be
coming from other International Schools in the region to join with 20 of our
students in various workshops and performances with guest specialists and the
opportunity to work together with other students. We are still looking for host
families to have visiting students stay with, if you are able to host a student
please contact the Middle School office or the Fine and Performing Arts Office.
Next Friday January 16, 2015 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. we will be having Middle
School Parties (one for grade 5 and 6 students which will take place in the MS
canteen and MS field, and one for grade 7 and 8 students which will take place
in the Little Theater and the ES gym) permission slips will be sent home on
Monday with more detailed information. This is an opportunity for students to
interact with each other and build connections and have some fun in a supervised environment.

Inside this issue:

Superintendents Office

Athletics & Activities

After-School Activities

Sailfish News

Fine Arts Office

ISM Upcoming Events

Events & Activities:

JANUARY

13

Steve Leinwand
Parent Coffee

15

New Parent Coffee

16

MS Party

23-25

ISTA

FEBRUARY

Grade 4-5 Parent

Transition Meeting

9-13

CWW

PowerSchool Update:
Jan 21

Report Card Access

As we begin second semester we would like to remind parents that over the past couple of years in Elementary and Middle School a group of parents have come together to organize after school lessons for students
to further develop and support Mother Tongue language development. This has been parent driven with
the hiring of instructors in the language and these have taken place in Chinese, Dutch, French, Hindi, German, Spanish, and Russian. If you would like to find out more information about what classes are being
offered this year or how to set up a course please contact Mei Jusay our after school activities secretary
(AFAC -afac@ismanila.org) who is located in the ES office area and she can put parents in touch with the
other parent liaisons for the different languages.
Please note that Marc St. Laurent one of our three Middle School Guidance Counselors will be away for the
month of January and February, he is okay, but dealing with a family situation in the United States. He is
available by email, however, if you or your child needs support both Diana van der Merwe and Charlotte
Bliss are available. Thank you for your understanding.
We are looking forward to a great second semester ahead - please note that school will be open next week
during the visit of the Pope on Thursday, Friday and Monday with regular classes scheduled.
Yours in Education,
Simon Gillespie, Middle School Principal
Amanda Pekin, Middle School Assistant Principal

Dear Parents,
As you may know, Proclamation 936 declares Special Non-Working Holidays on January
15, 16 and 19 in commemoration of the Papal visit to the Philippines. Much as we understand the importance of this occasion, it would be impossible for us to lose yet more days
of school without seeking to retrieve them by shortening, say, the Easter vacation.
When I balloted the faculty about this, they voted by a margin of 182 to 3 to stay with the
original calendar rather than take the Special Holidays. We shall, accordingly, be open for
regular classes on these days.
Sincerely,
David Toze
Superintendent
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Welcome back Bearcats! I hope everyone has had a wonderful vacation and are ready for action in 2015. Local
league matches resume tomorrow with Basketball, Rugby, MS Tennis at ISM and our touch teams play at Brent.
In 3 weeks we host IASAS tennis and we need to house the visiting players. Please see information below and submit a form if you can support this event. It is going to be a great event for our community hosted at the best tennis
venue in IASAS. At this time we still need to house 40 players so please assist if you can by submitting a housing
form which is available from the ATAC blog.
Our IASAS teams will be working hard to prepare over the next 3 weeks for Rugby/Touch and Swimming in Bangkok and Basketball in Taipei. It is an exciting time coming up with the end of season 2 and the start of season 3 just
around the corner. Good luck to all players and coaches in the final run toward IASAS. 2nd season will run until Jan
28th, 2015.
Season 3 practice and tryouts schedule have been posted this week on notice boards and on the ATAC blog. Season
3 sports for HS are Track & Field, Softball, Badminton and Golf. MS do the same sports in season 3 with the exception of golf.
Community Announcement: Junior Golf opportunity...FREE JUNIOR COACHING SESSIONS. As we say goodbye to
2014 and enter 2015, the search for the next wave of talented junior golfers within the Philippines begins.
On Saturday January 10th and Sunday January 11th from 10am to 12 noon, British PGA Golf Professional Paul
Creasey will be holding two FREE Junior coaching sessions at The Orchard Golf & Country Club. The aim of these
sessions is to present Pauls plan for Junior golf in the Philippines, where he aims to develop a very active and competitive Junior Academy. All juniors are welcome, including new or existing golfers, please come along and see
what they have to offer. Help Paul to help you and lets continue the exciting growth of golf within the Philippines. Please RSVP before 01/07/15 - inc. Name, age and any previous golfing experience
to: paulcreasey@mac.com 09158270150
Please note the practice times for the following ATAC programs: ATAC all year round teams- 3:15-4:30. Sailfish/
Gymnastics and all HS seasonal teams now conclude practice at 4:50pm each day. MS seasonal teams 3:104:45pm. The last bus is now 4:55pm and all after school programs will conclude by 4:50pm in order to try and clear
the campus prior to 5pm due to the ever increasing traffic concerns in our area.
Parents and students please take some time to peruse the ATAC blog it has a wide variety of information and links
to our sports and activities program. If you have any questions regarding the competitive program of sports at ISM
after reading the information on the blog please send an email to pekinm@ismanila.org and I will endeavor to assist you as best I can.
Bearcat Den- drop by our fantastic spirit store. There is a range of new products (mouthguards and rugby balls for
2nd season) and items to purchase including items from our service partners. Bearcat Den hours of operation- 7am
-4pm Mon-Fri.
The ATAC game schedule pdf which is updated regularly by Triz Gonzalez (ATAC Athletics Coordinator) gives the
most up to date information on where/when and who our Bearcat teams will be playing throughout the school
year. Access to the game schedule is via the ISM parent portal. Use this link to access the parent portal, log in with
your user name/password and look for the ATAC Game Schedule tab. Remember to refresh the page when the pdf
schedule appears so you view the most current schedule.
GO BEARCATS!
Regards,
Mark Pekin
Athletics and Activities Director
3

Please send us an email for any clarifications or concerns:

afac@ismanila.org

http://wordwenches.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c84c753ef0168eb87d246970c-popup

We have the pleasure of producing The Wind in the Willows this spring for our musical. If students are interested and would like to know more, first check out this website. Secondly, students can contact Ms. Grev or
Ms. Rankin--either in person or via e-mail (grevc@ismanila.org or rankinc@ismanila.org)--to ask questions
and get access to the google folder. And finally, students can sign up on the google sheets that are shared
with all who express interest in participating.
AUDITIONS WILL BE HELD FROM TUESDAY, JANUARY 13TH, TO FRIDAY, JANUARY 16TH. PLEASE SEE THE
GOOGLE FOLDER FOR DETAILS.
Thank you for your kind attention,
Ms. Grev & Ms. Rankin
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HOST FAMILIES NEEDED!

ISM is hosting an International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA) festival between January 22nd and 25th. The theme is
Bayanihan, a Filipino word for a spirit of communal unity and cooperation, and we hope to embody this by featuring
a Saturday Service trip as part of the program of events. We are still in need of host families for our guests who are G7
and 8 students from Malaysia, Japan, China and Hong Kong.
In addition, we will be the first school ever to trial scholarships for our service learning partner students. Ten children
from various service learning groups will be included in all activities. If you feel that you could accommodate some of
these students, there is a special space on the housing form to tick.
If your family could help with housing, please read the detailed information sheet then fill out the housing form linked
here and email or return it to the Fine Arts Office by Wednesday January 14th.
Best Regards,
Marsha Hillman
Fine and Performing Arts Director
International School Manila
6