Tuesday 25th of November -

Year 9 Subject Options Information Sessions 

For your information, during the last part of this term the Year 9 pupils will be learning about the option choices that they will get to make for Year 10 subjects. Ms Sharma, the school's KS3-4 careers adviser, is running 2 sessions with each tutor group in which they will learn how to become more self aware of their academic interests, strengths, weaknesses, possible mid/long term goals etc. 

All pupils have been given access to all of the careers material in an iTunesU course. Ms Sharma encourages all parents to take some time with the Year 9 pupils to sit down and look through the material. No decisions are made until term 2, but obviously it is important to start thinking about choices now. The code to access the iTunesU course is: EB6-ERT-HKB. If you have any questions at this time, please feel free to contact myself or Ms Sharma directly:

Dr. Browning: browning.m@gardenschool.edu.my

Ms Sharma: sharma.v@gardenschool.edu.my

Monday 10th - Friday 14th November 2014

Science is a hugely popular and successful subject at GIS with numbers for triple Science at IGCSE and at A-level increasing dramatically over the past few years. This year the top performing IGCSE Chemistry pupil in Malaysia, a delight to have personally taught, Sarah Saram, graduated from Garden! It is clear that the Science faculty has gone from from strength to strength and Mr Fernandes, Mr Grierson and Mr Netcher deserve real praise for orchestrating such enjoyable schemes of learning for Year 9. In the next few weeks the Year 9 pupils will be having their IGCSE options session with Ms Sharma and I imagine just as many of this cohort will be looking to choose triple Science next year. 

This year, Mr L'Hostis joined GIS in the Physics department and has already shown me some great examples of work from his lessons with Year 9. Please check the links below for some wonderful examples of how the pupils are using iPads effectively for collaborative learning:

http://padlet.com/lhostis_f/9Gsc2Resistance

http://padlet.com/lhostis_f/9KSc1Resistance

http://padlet.com/lhostis_f/9GSc4Resistance

http://padlet.com/lhostis_f/9Ksc2Resistance

http://padlet.com/lhostis_f/9Gsc3Resistance

Rewards and Recognition:

This week the 2014 Year 9 Camp Champions, 9P, had a celebratory pizza party with their tutor Mr Cartwright. Now attention is turning towards the closely contested termly prize for form with most merits and best attendance. The merits totals are still being led by 9G, although 9S have had a great week and really caught up, 9P are currently in 3rd. For me, pupil attendance is one of the most important requisites for success at school and 9I are currently leading this competition. 9P are in second for attendance and 9M in 3rd place. Keep up the good work Year 9's, you make me very proud!  Have a great weekend, Dr. Browning

Monday 3rd - Friday 7th November 2014

What's been happening this week in Year 9?

This week at school a number of teachers have approached me and enthusiastically described their lessons with Year 9 pupils. Ms Newton in English has just started a new topic - Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. To help the pupils understand the context of the novel they were given areas to research and then each group had to feedback to the class about the following areas:

• Great depression & Wall Street Crash
• Life of a migrant worker
• Women in 1930s
• Race in 1930s
• Effects of long term loneliness.

By the end of the lesson students had comprehensive notes about the context ready to start the novel. Here are some pictures of the pupils reporting back on their research.

Mr Lawrence from drama also sent a couple of choice pictures to me and described how the Year 9's had been acting out scenes from Romeo and Juliet. Here is a touching picture of when Romeo (Zidan 9K) meets Juliet (Melly 9K).

...and an equally emotive final seen featuring Russell and Shanker as the star crossed lovers!

 

This week we also had a Year 9 assembly, and I finally had a chance to reward some of the tremendous effort and attitude that we witnessed on the Year 9 camp last half term. 9P were victorious as 2014 Year 9 Camp Champions thanks to some fantastic reflective comments on their form's padlet reflection wall. Individual success was rewarded with commendations from the Head of Secondary, Dr. Mason. The commendations went to the following individuals for various demonstrations of having a growth mindset:

 Urvi 9M 

Erin 9K

Ebby, Tasnim, Danish and Alex 9W

Jan 9W

Sabrina 9S

Chun Yang 9G

It was also great to be able to acknowledge the following people who scored in the top 10% of the entire year group for both their organisation for learning and attitude to learning last half term. This really is a remarkable achievement so well done!

Vanessa 9P

Leila, Rachel and Molly 9M

Ila 9G

Jack 9P

Sang Gon 9W

Robin 9K

I encourage everyone in the Year group to really embrace the challenges that are faced on a day to day basis and know that the more effort that you put in the more success you will have! Have a nice weekend, Dr. Browning