GHAMUN at LCS

February 8, 2012

Artwork of the Week

February 8, 2012

by Edward Effah

Grade 1A - PYP Art

Material tempera paint 

Grade 1 students looked at artwork that use light or sound in their PYP Art class. They identified and experimented with the elements used to express light and sound like color, line, shape, symbols, letters and expression. They then drew or painted their own interpretations with light and sound as a subject. They experimented at activity tables where they had a chance to discover how heat and sound can be used as a tool to create art, like using a light table for tracing, using a light projector to create shadow images, darkroom drawing and sound visualization computer art.

PYP Art teacher, Judith Bouwmans comments, "you can see that Edward was able to not only compose an interesting art work expressing light, heat, and sound but he can also communicate what has been studied," as shown in the label for the artwork below.  

International Schools' Assessment at LCS

February 6, 2012
By Edward Woods, Karen Hansen and Rob Wadeson, LCS Counselors 

One of the most important questions for parents is always, “How is my child doing?”  A related question is “Compared to what?” This is a particularly critical question for families away from home, where it is hard to know how systems, and standards, compare. For the past 4 years, LCS has administered the International Schools' Assessment (ISA), which is an external assessment that norms the results with other international schools.   This year the ISA will be admininstered to all students in grade 3-10 on February 7 to February 9, 2012.

What is ISA?

International Schools’ Assessment (ISA) is an annual assessment program that has been specially developed to measure skills in mathematical literacy, reading and writing of students in international schools.  ISA is based on the internationally endorsed reading and mathematical literacy frameworks of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It is designed and developed in Australia by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

The ISA reports provide descriptive information about what students know and can do. The results are equated from year to year so they can be used to track changes over time at individual and school level.

What is ISA NOT?

ISA is not a competitive or comparative test, such as the IB Diploma or AP. It is not a test that students “pass”. It will not be used for purposes other than providing data to us, you, and your child, about his/her learning. While we give opportunities for practice, students do not ‘prepare’ for the tests, since they are consistent with what students learn on a regular basis.

Who uses ISA?

A growing number of international schools now use ISA, including many of the acknowledged world leaders in international education.

How do the assessments work?

Students complete a reading literacy test, a mathematical literacy test and two writing tests, each of which takes between 45 minutes and one hour to administer. The tests include both multiple-choice and open- ended tasks.

How will LCS use the results?

As a school, we will analyze all data about the general patterns of performance and use these as another way in which we monitor and modify our educational program. This data will be one of the ‘success indicators’ to which we pay attention each year.

Individual reports  will be sent to parents at the end of May. These reports are provided by ACER and are very comprehensive. They give a detailed record of a child’s performance in relation to scales that describe increasingly advanced skills in mathematical literacy, reading literacy and writing.

We see the administration of ISA as a significant tool in international education that will provide us with clear information about students' progress against credible, objective international standards. 

Grade 4 Visit to Ricemasters and MPS Ports

February 3, 2012
By Rosie Upson, Grade 4 Teacher

As part of Grade 4’s unit on trade, we have had the opportunity to go on two field trips to Ricemasters and the MPS Port. These trips have been a great opportunity for the students to see business and trade in action.

On Friday 27^th January grade 4 went to the Ricemasters Office and Warehouse on Spintex Road. Nabil Moukarzel, LCS parent and Board of Trustees Member, kindly took time out of his busy work day to teach the grade 4 students about the production of rice. The Marketing  Director, Anshul Midha, gave an interesting lesson on marketing and branding. Nabil and Anshul were amazed at the deep thinking of our LCS students, as they asked many great questions.  

On Thursday 2^nd February, Grade 4 went to Tema to visit the terminal at MPS. The students were amazed at the size of all the machinery and cranes and also at the precision that is used to stack the containers.  We saw how the cranes load containers onto the ships and learnt that each ship can hold up to 4500 containers.  We also learnt how the computer plans and organizes the containers according to what destination they are going to.

Thank you Ricemasters and MPS for hosting us once again. We really enjoyed it. 

Above: SS English Teacher, Daniel Nukala presenting students with their certificates.