NOVEMber 2010 Twenty-Seventh Edition BISI COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER GUIDING STATEMENT OF THE BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ISTANBUL The British International School Istanbul provides a caring international environment, fostering cultural diversity. Individual students achieve their full academic potential, inspired to become lifelong learners and responsible citizens of the global community. YOUR COMMUNITY! YOUR NEWS! 1 Hello from Pre and Primary School A successful Halloween Party was organized by the PTA on the Wednesday 27 October. The Green Gym was once again turned into a Spooky Haunted House! The students all looked fantastic in their costumes and much fun was had by all. The PTA Book Swap was held on Thursday 4 November in the morning outside the theatre. The Coffee Morning for Zekeriyakoy was also held on this morning. This was an extremely successful event with so many of the children swapping their books for other ones. The event will be held again in springtime. A huge thank you to Camilla and her team for arranging this event. 2 The teachers received Inservice Training on Friday 5, Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 November. On Friday 5, teachers set up workshops for the other teachers to attend. We held workshops on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) arranged by Miss Leila, and Moder- ating Writing arranged by Miss Guven. Miss Lynne arranged workshops for the Teacher Assistants to attend. Thank you to Miss Leila, Miss Lynne and Miss Guven for organising these workshops. We have set up a Middle Leadership Team (MLT) to strengthen the Pri- mary School Curriculum. Madame Lucie will be coordinating Literacy, English as a Second Language (ESL), and Modern Foreign Lan- guages (French and Turkish) when she returns from her maternity leave next month, Miss Holt will be co-ordinating Mathematics, Miss Tutal will be coordinating Science, DT and ICT, Miss Esiyok will be coordinating History, Geography and Citizenship, Miss Lincoln will co-ordinate Creative Arts and Miss Fox will co-ordinate Personal, Social, Emotional Development (PSE) and PE. Congratulations on your new appointments! Year 3 have been out and about in Istanbul again. They are studying the local environment and went to Zekeriyakoy to visit the old village, Migros and Carrefour. As part of their topic on Ataturk, Year 5 visited Dolmabahce Palace where he died. They also visited the Body Worlds Exhibition and the Military Museum. Year 1 visited the Little Sisters of the Poor and took them further supplies to follow on from our Autumn Festival. They interviewed the old people as part of their History project on homes. EYFS visited Emirgan Park to observe and discuss the changes Winter brings and also they went to the theatre again to see a production of Town Mouse Country Mouse. International Week started on Monday 8 November. Our focus this year was charity. The younger children chose a charity in Turkey, the older children focused on a charity outside of Turkey. Year 3 organised a healthy snack sale to raise money to Send A Cow to Africa. The week culminated in an Assembly where each year group promoted their charities to the rest of the school. The children voted for their favourite charities that they wanted to continue to support. The funds raised from our Winter Bazaar on Thursday 16 December will support the local Uskumrukoy Primary School and the Send a Cow charities. We then recorded our own version of We are the World with the help of Miss McDonald. A huge thank you to Miss Frigeri for coordinating the week. We celebrated the end of the week with a Food Court set up by the PTA. The children visited 13 countries in the classrooms where they sampled food from that country and looked at where the country was on the globe. A huge thank you to Elena Vardar and all the parents who brought in a dish and decorated their classroom in the colours of their flag. 5F made an excellent contribution to our Assembly to mark Ataturk’s death on Wednesday 10 November. The children wrote a short paragraph about Ataturk as the man, the leader and the hero and spoke in front of the whole school. They then laid flowers at the Ataturk bust in the playground, followed by two children from Pre School. Thank you to Miss Fox and Mr Burak for coordinating this event. Thank you again to the PTA for cooking so many wonderful dishes for the teachers to celebrate Teachers Appreciation Day on Wednesday 24 November. We have eaten our way through this month! The school will be represented at the International Women of Istanbul (IWI) Christmas Bazaar at the Hilton Hotel on Tuesday 30 No- vember. Thank you to the Secondary Art Department and Helen for organizing the Art Display of students’ work. Best regards Amanda Ilhan Richard I’Anson Pre and Primary Deputy Director Pre and Primary Director 3 Zek Primary – Halloween Poems / PTA’s Haunted House! Halloween at School On Wednesday 27th October the whole of the primary school came dressed for school wearing scary costumes, there were ghosts, devils, witches and lots more because it was the big day: it was Halloween. School on that day was so much fun; this is what our class schedule was. After break we went to the Haunted House. We went in with the other year six class too. When we walked in it was dark and there was an ugly, cruel witch that was putting mice and lizards in a saucepan. After that, we walked on and saw a cage; standing in the cage was a person, a really scary person. There was also a vampire, with a green face, in a box. Suddenly it jumped out of the coffin. There was also a lady with a drill who chased us. The Haunted House was so scary! We went Trick or Treating. Mr Dave gave us candy; Miss Fox made us shout as hard as we could to get the candy. After that, we had a really cool disco. There was food and drinks. The boys were dancing weirdly. It was a great and fantastic day. By Willemien De Jong 6A The Haunted House So we crept in, and it was very dark. “ Boooooooo!” A witch screamed. We carried on further into the Haunted House and got to a place where there was a jail. The jail went: “Muhahaba” then a ghost came out! And then we got to the place were I thought my heart would slip into my shoes. First a light flickered on, off, on, off… a witch sud- denly appeared out of a broken old coffin. After that a witch jumped out of a gigantic grave. We ran as fast as we could out of the Haunted House, we were like toys and didn’t say a single word. By Batuhan Kulac 4 The Fright in the Night! The time when wolves howl and growl, When ghosts haunt and taunt. When trees whisper above my bed, That kind of image stays in my head! I lie awake for hours and hours hoping, I won’t get a fright, During the night. I hear an evil scream, Like someone stepped in icecream. A whisper whizzes through, And suddenly I knew, I was close to doom! That was, My Fright in the Night. What was yours? By Lauren Watson Year 6A 5 Zek EYFS Department EYFS Autumn at Emirgan EYFS took a trip to Emirgan park to experience autumn first hand. The children noticed so many exciting signs of au- tumn in the environment on their journey through the park. They loved finding the beautiful autumn leaves, acorns and chestnuts while we wandered along the winding paths, they all had great fun shuffling with their feet through the leaves and listening to the sound they made! They had the opportunity to investigate Emirgan as a habitat for squirrels, ducks, swans and other birds and ask questions and ideas for further researching. They were very observant and noticed local landmarks and geographical features in the park, they were able to learn some new vocabulary to describe environments. We were lucky to have a beautiful autumn day and are now looking forward to visiting again in spring. After all the excitement of the trip to Emirgan we made a piece of Autumn artwork together as a group. The children chose a favourite leaf from our collection and took turns sticking it onto the picture. Everyone was very happy with the finished product and it is now hanging proudly on the classroom window for everyone to enjoy. 6 . Happy Thanksgiving! Deven’s Mum, Debbie came to school to tell us the story of Thanksgiving, we learnt about the pilgrims traveling from England to America and all about Native American people who helped them when they arrived. She also showed us the traditional food that Americans eat at Harvest time and enjoy at Thanksgiving dinners together. We talked about being thankful for what we have and all the children were very thoughtful and offered ideas about how we could show others we were grateful. Mmmmm Pumpkin pie! Then Mr Dave came to school to help us make a traditional pumpkin pie to celebrate Thanksgiving. The children watched the process carefully, smelt the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves that went into the pumpkin filling. They all enjoyed a delicious slice of pumpkin pie topped with cream. Yummy! 7 Director of Secondary From the point of view of the Secondary Department, possibly the most important day of the last month was November 9th, the day of the Parent Teacher Conferences. This year we had a change of format for the PTC's, deciding to do the whole Conference on one day between 1 pm and 6:30 pm rather than opt for two shorter days.