Dear IS HCMC Parents,
My heart is always filled with joy to observe the strong relationships between our students and teachers. Observing learning in action at ISHCMC showcases how these positive relationships create a learning environment that enables our students to flourish as energized, engaged and empowered learners.
As I walked through our primary school last week, I was excited to see our students energized to explore how the number six (6) can be represented in different ways and engaging with stories that have been intentionally chosen to build understandings of friendship and growth mindset.
In addition, I was able to participate in a visual graphing activity to determine the number of people with different hair colors and learn more about the skills needed to construct a strong paragraph that showcases their personal talents.
On the secondary school campus there was a dynamic energy at the recent Service as Action Fair where students offered opportunities to other students to engage in and sign up for service activities. A week later it was a pleasure to observe our students leading their service groups with the support of our teaching team.
All of the learning spaces I visited were warm and welcoming. In each learning space our students were engaged and motivated. Each learning engagement I observed was intentionally shaped to be inclusive and each interaction between teachers and students observed was framed through a growth mindset lens.
As I visit our learning spaces and observe our teachers in action, I see the passion that each of our teachers have for our learners and the passion that they have for their craft as educators.
As I observe our ISHCMC educators in action I can feel their ikigai’. Ikigai is a Japanese concept meaning ‘a reason for being’, your purpose, passion or ‘your reason for jumping out of bed each morning’ (Garcia & Mairalles, 2017).
I am proud and grateful for our amazing ISHCMC educators who ‘jump out of bed in the morning for our students’!
Our faculty and staff are committed to growth and continuous improvement and last week they met to find connections with other members of our team to form their annual action learning teams. Over the course of the year our innovative team of educators will be engaging in learning and action research in teams that include areas of focus such as: AI in the classroom, literacy development, inclusion, global citizenship and much more. We are excited to go on this year's learning journey with our teams.
On Monday 18th September our team spent time further developing their knowledge and understandings of data protection, safeguarding and the Positive ISHCMC programme. In addition, our team took time to meet with their leaders to set their annual growth and development objectives. You can find more details about our professional learning day in this newsletter.
Last week it was a pleasure to connect with many of our parents at our Head of School Parent Forum. At this forum we shared the actions that we have taken in response to key findings from our CIS (Council of International Schools) Survey completed in October 2022 and our Voice of Parent completed in April 2023. In October we are pleased to be launching once again our CIS Survey. From the data we collect this year will be able to begin to analyze current perception and year on year changes and continue to use this data to inform and guide our growth and improvements. You can find links to the slides and video in this newsletter.
I look forward to seeing many of our families on Saturday at our Family Fun Day as we officially kick-off our 30 Year Anniversary Celebrations on the International Day of the Rhino!
With kindness and gratitude,
Kim Green,
Head of School
ISHCMC
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