Osaka International School February 9, 2017

OIS Community Bulletin

website: www.senri.ed.jp Twitter: @oisinbrief Facebook: SOIS.jp

Upcoming Music Concerts

On Wednesday February 22 4:00 PM in the theatre, the middle school performance and high school concert
strings ensembles and the choir will be performing. This is an additional concert not on our published calendar. The
middle school and high school intermediate and beginning winds groups will perform on Thursday February 23
4:00 PM in the theatre. All parents are invited to attend both performances.

Important 2017-2018 Calendar Dates

To assist your future travel plans, we would like to announce the start and finish dates for trimesters and major
holidays.

Fall Trimester: Monday August 28, 2017 - Tuesday November 21, 2017
Fall Break: Wednesday November 22, 2017 - Monday November 27, 2017
Winter Trimester: Tuesday November 28, 2017 - Friday March 16, 2018
Christmas & New Years Holidays: Saturday December 16, 2017 - Monday January 8, 2018
Spring Trimester: Thursday April 5, 2018 - Friday June 29, 2018 (half day)

Little Shop of Horrors - All School Production 2017

Advanced sales tickets are sold out for all four performances. There will be a limited number of tickets on sale on
the day of the performances, 30 minutes before the show begins. ASP performances take place on February 16,
17 and 18 in the SOIS theatre.

OIS Elementary School Language Week - February 20-24

The Actioneers of elementary would like to invite parents to join us in celebrating our diverse languages. This
includes International Mother Language Day on 21 February. We want to know if some parents can translate short
parts of the song You Give A Little Love into 15 languages and also from 20 February we want many parents to
tell us about their languages and how they learned it, telling us picture-book stories and telling us how to write
your name in that language. We will make a big poster in front of the entrance. On the poster we want to write
hellos in different languages. We hope you can help.nPlease contact Ms Marshall at cmarshall@senri.ed.jp.
Thank you from Alona and Yoonjae in G3

OIS Podcasts
You can listen to interviews with various members of our community on the podcast page of our website. This
week Head of School Bill Kralovec interviewed three students about the upcoming World Scholars Cup
competition April 29-30.

http://www.senri.ed.jp/en/links/downloads-2/podcasts/
 Osaka International School February 9, 2017

Grade 10 and 11 Students Excel on PSAT

Students and parents today are much more anxious of standardized test scores and the college admissions
process than when I was in high school 30 years ago. I think part of it is that with the globalization of the
economy and rise of the internet, it is a much more competitive job market which makes families concerned
about their childrens future success. Based on the recent results of our OIS high school students, OIS
parents can rest assured that their children are on track for university and career success.

The faculty and students are analyzing the scores of the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT).
Students in grades 10 and 11 completed the exam in October and the scores came back to us earlier this
month. Half of the 24 OIS students who took the test scored at or above the 90th percentile. 2/3 of the
students scored above the 80th percentile. A score above the 90th percentile means a student score higher
than 90% of the students in his/her grade that took the test.

The PSAT is used to prepare students for the SAT, which many universities in North America and throughout
the world use for determining admission. It is an accurate predictor of what the student will score on the SAT
and it also gives the strengths and weaknesses of students on the test. We highly recommend students to
do extra preparation for the SAT. Counselor Melissa Lamug and our testing coordinator, John Van Plantinga
can give students guidance in this area and are working with them to understand their score reports.

This is the second year of the revised SAT and PSAT. The ACT has surpassed the SAT as the most popular
admissions test. College Board, the publishers of the SAT reacted to this by making its test more like the
ACT. OIS is a testing center for both the SAT and ACT and offers the test throughout the year for our
students. We host the SAT 6 times per year in October, November, December, January, May and June. We
host the ACT 4 times per year, in September, October, December and April.

Three grade 11 OIS students scored in the 99th percentile of the exam. Congratulations to Kaya Friese,
Mark Yamamoto and Nicole Yoo! (pictured above) American citizens scoring that high are eligible for the
National Merit Scholarship.