End-of-school PARTY!

Please, mark your calendar:

Saturday, December 19th, 10pm

Party, Party, Party!

at Pimpa's

Come with your better half and be ready to have a blast as we treat ourselves to a well-deserved end-of-year celebration.

Between this coming Monday and Tuesday, at school we'll decide on the food and beverages.

Important announcements

Reminder

Please remember that a session of our February Professional Development Workshops will be devoted to your best practices. As you start to wrap up the year, please think of possible material you'd like to share with your colleagues then. If you have any idea you'd like to discuss with me, please go ahead and do so. This session will be shared with the primary school teachers, some of whom will also present.

Evaluation

This last year term, we agreed that the Global Studies final will be comprehensive (integrative) and will cover the contents for the last term only. In the December finals, Language will be comprehensive, and Global will be divided by the terms, i.e. students will take a final on the contents of the term they failed during the year. In February, both subjects will be comprehensive.

Entrance Exam

Please, make sure you select six (6) sample texts from your literary texts and your thematic units. These packets should be submitted to me by Monday November 23.

Let me as well remind you that when you administer the oral exam, you should ask the prospective student to give you their packet of texs. There will be five (5) texts in it. You should choose ONE of them. Along with this one you should give them ANOTHER one that they will not have seen. I'll pass this one to you - the 'unknown' text will one from the packet you submit to me. I'll run the copies and give it to you before the exam. Should you have any doubts about this, please let me know and I'll be happy to explain it further. Anyway, we are likely to have one more meeting for the annual department evaluation, so we can discuss this further then.

Minutes Meeting October 29

Members present: Carolina, Paula, Pimpa, Grace, Elvi, Norita, Adela, Silvia, Sofía
Absent: Alina, Cecilia, Janine

Agenda
Updates: EGB 3, FCE, IB
On-going projects: Hairspray; SSR program
Curriculum: Language, Global Studies, Lit

The meeting started at 12:50.
Updates
7th Grade / 1st Year Secondary School
The group in general seems to have gotten a bit worse than at the beginning. They are not as attentive and responsive as they were when the year started. Paula and Pimpa agreed that the number of students per class -higher than last year- has had an impact on the level of achievement for the whole group. One of the three groups is noticeably weaker than the other two.

8th Grade / 2nd Year Secondary School
In general, all groups are doing well. They have gotten considerably better at reading. They had a good transition into reading unabridged texts. The fact that they are small groups has allowed teachers to help each student better. In general, they seem more organized than at the beginning of the year.

9th Grade
The three groups are quite different: one being really good, the other one average and one of them is pretty weak. Kids in the latter group do not seem capable of abiding by class rules and constantly break them. There are five or six cases of boys showing serious discipline and attitudinal problems.

1st Polimodal
The attitude and all groups in general have a positive attitude. They have been working diligently in preparation for FCE. The main problem seems to be their grammatical skills, esp. reflected in their achievement in the Use of English paper.

2nd Polimodal
Students in the FCE groups are not so good. The students well-prepared to succeed at FCE are vastly outnumbered by the apathetic cases who lack motivation to improve their level.
Students in the A2 group have been doing really well. They are a hard-working group, several members of which may become well prepared to eventually take the A2 Higher level exam.

3rd Polimodal
In general, the group as a whole has become a serious case of "Senior Syndrome", i.e. showing lack of motivation, little energy to improve their skills. Due to this attitudinal problem, teachers report not being able to cover as much material as in other years.

On-going Projects
Hairspray: 2nd Polimodal teachers have had their audition session and have spotted some good actors for the main roles. There seems to be better singers than last year and hopefully we'll be able to have all of the voices we need. The team now needs to decide what kind of work they will do for the remainder of the year. We know that in March we are likely to start systematic rehearsals with actors and dancers. Hopefully, Julio will have worked on the complete sound track by then.
SSR program: Carlos informed that he was making a presentation on the SSR program to the Parents Association on Monday Nov 2. (It went really well. This is a nice group parents, actively involved in their children's education. They said that they would provide a budget for an annual purchase of books for the Secondary and Primary sections. They truly value our efforts to implement this program. I did present the problems we have encountered this year, which did not allow some of the groups to enjoy the benefits of this kind of reading, however I also stressed our determination to make it work better next year. The authorities and school owners are truly committed to improving facilities so that we can make better use of time and space for reading purposes.)

Curriculum
Carlos informed that out of the team meetings he had in August and September, there is an apparent need to seek a better balance between Global Studies thematic units and Literature.
The proposal to use grammar practice embedded in the Global and Lit units had a lukewarm reception. There was a misunderstanding regarding this. We would not need to develop full materials apart from what is already prepared in each unit. Rather we would need to spot recurrent grammatical structures and use them to allow for further practice, which can be obtained from workbooks such as Nelson's and Vince's. We shall keep discussing this after summer break.

The meeting was adjourned at 2pm.

Meeting Thursday June 25

Hi!
It's been a while since my last post here, yet the first half of the year has been quite eventful. And to discuss this we'll be meeting Thursday at noon, at 12:45 more precisely. We haven't had a meeting since the beginning of the year, so this will a be good opportunity to share our work, concerns, hopes, and joy. The agenda so far looks as follows:

0. Welcome and farewells
1. Review of group achievement (7th grade or 1st Year Secondary -3rdPol)
2. Mid-year evaluation
a. Individual (teaching)
b. Team (program, material development, projects)
c. Golden classroom moments
3. Reading and writing throughout the program

If you have any item to add to the agenda, please let me know. See you there!

Good Vibes from Alina's 8th Graders!

Last Thursday May 14, Alina launched her Green Ribbons Project with a get together in the school library. Parents, teachers, other students, friends and relatives of hers and her 8th graders joined the event in which each student gave out green ribbons with the words: "Who I am makes the difference!" to their loved ones.

Alina introduced the event with the presentation of the video of an American teacher who initiated this project in the northern hemisphere. It only took a determined mind willing to risk sending positive vibes to others to get the idea rolling in this part of the world. And the response of the audience couldn't have been better. Soon the room was filled with heartfelt appreciation and warmth. As they received the ribbon and a hug, all people attending felt touched and valued. The objective set out by Alina had been achieved.

Soon the repercusion went beyond our school walls. After hearing about it, Alejandra Poliche, our Kindergarten Head, asked Alina to go there, show the video, and present the idea.

In our school, Diana and Filomena, on their and the owners' behalf congratulated Alina with text below documented in the School Teacher's Log (Folio 60):

"El Equipo Directivo estimula y felicita a la Prof. Alina Terán por los proyectos innovadores y creativos que está poniendo en práctica desde su aula. El Proyecto de Green Ribbons superó el ámbito áulico y se hizo extensivo a los distintos actores de la comunidad educativa San Patricio. Adelante Alina!" Firmado: Filomena Araoz y Diana Parrau.

Way to go, kids (and Alina!) :)

Happy Labor Day!

Enjoy the long weekend! :)

Meeting March 26

We'll be starting our meeting at 12:45.

Agenda

• Reflections, thoughts, comments re groups over diagnotic period
• Planificaciones: http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf (see chapter 3)
• Objectives 2009: Department, Class
• Class material needed
• Bibliography
• Library use (SSR) and subscriptions (propose titles of magazines, journals, etc.)
• FCE and IB results
• IB info: A2 projections; oral exams: Sept. 28-Oct. 2
• 6th Grade and 7th Grade teachers meeting

If you have any other item for the agenda, just let me know. See you there!

Dice are rolling

This is the time of new beginnings. As every new academic year is about to start, the quiet anticipation of a new group of students in our classroom, and the expectation of facing new challenges and of continued growth give us an opportunity for reflection.

It's true that for most of us, the scents of summer beaches or deep green mountains still engulf us with a nostalgic taste. But at the same time, little by little the inexorably looming beginning of class pulls our attention and engages our energy. By now, with the several meetings and training workshops we get closer and closer to that special moment of a first class with a new group that, whether they'd be willing to admit it or not, are ready to fill notebooks, turn pages by the hundreds, crack a joke in the middle of a tense class moment, and together write the pages of a significant experience in the lives of yet another bunch of avid, irreverent, inquisitive, challenging, energetic teenagers. And we are getting ready to step up to the task.

For the first time since its foundation, the school will have one coordinator for the entire English program K-12. It's true that I'll be only a couple of hours per week in Kindergarten and the Primary School, and that my hours at the Secondary section will remain at the low 12 I had last year. However, even on a supervisory visit to the Aconquija Ave building once a week, I'm confident that little by little we shall become part of one single project, one program with everyone's joint effort in pursuit of the same goals. The training workshop this year has had this objective in mind.

This year has started with a few good and not so good news.

First and foremost, we all join our positive energy and prayers to support Cecilia's therapy after surgery and current treatment. She's likely to stay home till full recovery. We look forward to welcoming you back onboard, Ceci.

We are saying a brief goodbye to Omar. He'll be away for a year devoting his energy and many skills to a family enterprise. Even though we'll sorely miss you, we wish you best luck in this new challenge you're about to face.

We're excited to have Adelita back in Secondary School. She has moved from 6th to 8th grade. However, since she is on maternity leave till around May or June, Silvia Inochea will continue in 8th grade.

To replace Omar, we're happy to welcome back Elvirita. She's really excited to take on the challenge of teaching 7th graders and to join the 7th grade team.

These first weeks of 2009, I've had to face different types of situations I'd never faced at CSP before, and I've seen you all share your concern and preoccupation for anyone of us at a particular juncture in our lives. Once again, let me just say how lucky I feel to work with a group of people who are not only excellent teaching professionals but also the warmest and most caring individuals as well.

I wish you all a most rewarding and enriching 2009.

Meetings Next Week!

Hi everyone!
I just talked to Diana and this is the chronogram of activities for next week:

Tuesday Feb 24:
9am-3pm Faculty meeting (lunch will be provided)

Wednesday Feb 25:
8am-1pm Faculty meeting

Thursday and Friday Feb 26-27:
2-5pm English Program Workshops

See you all soon!

Another IB Ace!

I just got news from Jane Yocca: all of our students have passed the IB exams, (B and A2)! CONGRATULATIONS to everyone of you! This is the corollary to everybody's work throughout these kids' experience in our classrooms.
Hope you're having a blast in your vacation wherever your are! :) (I'm leaving Thursday!)