Thank you to all the parents and carers who attended our recent parent-teacher conferences. Your involvement and commitment to your child's education are crucial. Open communication between home and school creates a strong foundation for student growth and ensures that everyone is on the same page. By working together and sharing insights from different perspectives—home, school, and the student themselves—we can better support each child's journey. This is what we mean when we talk about the power of effective triangulation. We encourage you to keep the lines of communication open, not only with us but also with your child, so that we can capitalise on children’s interests and moments of inspiration, address any concerns early on and ensure there are no surprises. Thank you for being such active partners in your child’s learning!
We are always interested in reflecting on our practices and finding ways to meaningfully improve - what we might describe as the process of lifelong learning - so please know that we are keen to receive feedback about what works and what isn't working when it comes to things like our conferences. If you have feedback you'd like to share about the conferences, please get in touch (mkajiwara@isa.aberdeen.sch.uk).
Communication and Upcoming Events
Unbelievably, we are heading into the final five weeks of school in 2024. Our calendars will soon become stuffed with events. You might well start to suffer from information overload - especially if you have children in several different grade levels (or perhaps even more so if you have children in different sections of the school). My one recommendation is that you routinely check the Community Hub, which is regularly updated and houses both the Daily Notices and the Events Calendar. Entries on the Events Calendar often include extra information, including links to parent/carer letters that have also been sent directly to people via our BrightArrow messaging system. If you are having any difficulty accessing PowerSchool, the Community Hub or your child’s class newsletter please get in contact with our Elementary Student and Admin Assistant, Diane McBain (dmcbain@isa.aberdeen.sch.uk).
Children in Need Day
One important event happening this coming week, for example, is Children in Need Day. Children in Need Day is Friday, November 15. On this day, the children will be encouraged to (1) wear spots and (2) bring in a donation to support this important charity. In addition, the Preschool and Grade 4 students will be working together to bake cookies for a Bake Sale on Friday (£1 per cookie). The children in Grade 4 have taken on the leadership role for this event and will be making presentations to all the other grade levels on Monday. They will also run the Bake Sale and count up the donations on Friday, as well as leading a portion of our weekly assembly to report back to the rest of the Elementary School. This letter was sent out to your email address via BrightArrow on 7 November; it provides an overview of our efforts related to Children in Need Day.
November in Scotland
November, in case you hadn't noticed, can be cold and wet. In fact, we can expect the weather to only get colder and wetter over the coming weeks. With that in mind, please ensure that your children have appropriate clothing with them at school each and every day. This is the time of year when it becomes increasingly necessary to add gloves, scarves and hats to the list of necessary daily items. As with all other items, please make sure that your child's name is written on their clothing so that misplaced items can be reunited with their rightful owners (instead of ending up in our Lost and Found pile)!
A plug for this week’s Middle and High School Thistle Talk article
Our Middle School is working to become a formally-accredited IB Middle Years Programme (or MYP) school. For more information about the work that is going on in our Middle School (that is, Grades 6-8), what it will mean for your child at that stage and how it connects to our programmes and pathways at the High School level, please take a moment to read this week’s Thistle Talk article from Stuart MacAlpine, ISA’s Middle and High School Principal. The MYP aligns well with the philosophy and approach of our Preschool and Elementary School programmes here at ISA, so this development will enhance the coherence of our students’ learning journeys from Preschool through Grade 12.
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