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September 22, 2017

A weekly bulletin for Parents and Students

For ATTENDANCE concerns, please contact the HS Office (Sam Ramos or Laurie Atilano) Tel: 840 8650 / 840 8653 Email [email protected] For COUNSELING or IB/AP concerns, please contact Nyla, Tina or Arni Tel: 840-8655 / 840-8660

MESSAGE FROM THE ADMINISTRATION: Dear Parents / Guardians, Today was Battle of the Bearcats and WOW! what a wonderful day. The noise in the high school gym at 8:0am was louder than I’ve ever heard it before. Dance Co. started the ball rolling with a great performance and then… drum roll… the SENIOR PARENTS flash mobbed us all with a dance of their own – absolutely fantastic! That must have been a huge effort, so a big shout out to all the senior parents that took part this morning, especially to the organizing parents. The cheers this year were great again and even the Freshmen (that have, in the past, been a little intimidated and shy) were confident, loud and entertaining – well done to the Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors whose cheers also brought the house down. The Grade Level Coordinators Mr. Berg and Ms. Gough for Grade 9, Ms. Waldock for Grade 10, Ms. Patrikios for Grade 11 and Ms. Mazarakis and Mr. Paulson for Grade 12 all deserve our thanks for the huge amount of time and energy that they have put into their grades in order to make the day a huge success. I’m sure that sometimes it felt like herding cats! But it all came together in the gym this morning. The rest of the day was also a huge success with spirit prevailing over success and unity being put before division. The Seniors won the most gold medals, but the Juniors lifted the trophy for Bearcat Spirit. Wednesday of this week saw another excellent Great Works Concert with our high school student musicians from the Orchestra, Symphonic Band, Show Choir and Concert Choir coming together to perform Handel’s “Messiah”. A big thank you goes out to our conductors for the evening, Mr. Nazareno, Ms. Arrieta and particularly to Ms. Provencher. Also, a great note of thanks to the rest of the High School and Middle School Music departments. This year we also had an unprecedented number of faculty “wannabees” in the combined band, orchestra and the choir so a big thank you to everyone who made this evening another one to remember. In my last 11 concerts I really think that this ranks at number one. Sometimes it can be difficult to find this caliber of musical culture and here it was right on our door step. The link to the concert is not yet ready, but I’ll be sure to add it to next week’s bulletin. As I have mentioned in previous bulletins, the Grade 12 Theory of Knowledge (ToK) Presentations begin next Monday and run for three days until Wednesday. These presentations count for one third of the Senior’s IB grade for ToK. Please take a look at the schedule and know that you are welcome to attend for all or part of a session. And now a message from our IT Coordinator: We are happy to announce that the Google Classroom Guardian function will be rolling out by Friday of next week. You will receive an email that looks like this, asking you to accept the invitation to view a summary of your child's classrooms activities and the frequency. We recommend Weekly Summaries. The summaries will look similar to this. Please note that at the top of the summary will be "late work." This can be misleading as it is possible (even likely) that this work is not actually late as it may have been turned in by hand rather than electronically. So we advise that you ask your child about it first rather than assuming it is not turned in. Please be assured the teacher will contact you about late or missing work and so you don't need to follow up on what is listed in the classroom. We hope you enjoy this new addition to our ISM communication and that it provides an additional resource for you to talk with your child about their learning in school. If you have any questions or concerns about this system, please feel free to contact our IT Coordinator David Collett: [email protected]. Finally, don’t forget that there is no school for students on Thursday and Friday of next week. Have a great weekend everyone. Regards, Mike Dickinson High School Principal

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HS CALENDAR: Monday, September 25: Gr. 12 TOK Presentations Tuesday, September 26: Gr. 12 TOK Presentations Wednesday, September 27: Student Late Start Gr. 12 TOK Presentations Thursday, September 28: No Classes—Faculty In Service Friday, September 29: No Classes—School Holiday

UPCOMING EVENTS: October 12-15: First Season IASAS October 23-24: HS Parent Teacher Conference October 27: Filipiniana October 28-November 5: SCHOOL HOLIDAY

REMINDERS: For those who would like to order student photos taken by our school photographer, TINO LEY, please send your payment and order form to the HS Office. We will let you know via email when the photos are ready for pick up.

INVITATION TO TOK PRESENTATIONS: Dear Parents, Next week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (September 25-27) the G12 IBDP students will be performing their final Theory of Knowledge Presentations. These presentations count for one third of their IB grade for ToK. Please click here to see the schedule. All parents are welcome to attend for all or part of a session. We would just like to remind you to please enter and exit the room quietly. Thank you. Wendy Gifford ToK Coordinator.

FROM THE CAS OFFICE: Dear Parents,

This is to inform you that all students have signed up for their choice of ICARE sites today. We will now process these requests to give as many as possible one of their four choices. Whilst many will get one of their choices, a small percentage will not. Next week we will inform students about which site they will attend. If there is an issue with their site you have until the 27th of October to speak to myself or Ms. Bee in the CAS Office. After this point, changes become increasing difficult and costly. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the CAS Office on or email. [email protected] [email protected] (02) 8408677 Best Regards, Neil Woods CAS and Activities Coordinator

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FROM THE ATAC OFFICE: The next Rifa soccer festival date is tomorrow Saturday Sept 23... the festival venues will be as follows… for the E & G teams at ISM 8am start. For the MS C1/C2 teams at BSM 8am start and the ES C3 team at BSM 1pm start. The next MS Rifa Girls soccer festival is Oct 7th. Good luck to all players. Well done to our HS Varsity Volleyball/XC/Soccer teams who participated in the pre IASAS exchanges this past weekend. XC race results from Thailand. Girls volleyball won 3 of their 4 matches and boys went 2 of 2 in Taipei. Our girls and boys soccer teams lost 2 won 1 match here in Manila. With 4 weeks until IASAS this weekend has provided an opportunity for great match practice, IASAS style matches and racing and gives a focus for the final 4 weeks of season 1. Rosters will be decided by coaches on Sept 27 and for those students selected to the IASAS traveling teams the online travel packet will be sent to parents next week. Please complete asap and submit your child's passport to the ATAC office if your son/daughter is selected to the final IASAS team. A very big thanks to all the soccer host families who looked after our ISB/TAS soccer players this past weekend. These events cannot happen without our host family community support. Well done to all our Sailfish swimmers who raced at the first meet of the year at Brent on Saturday. Race results will be available from the Sailfish blog. Our Chess team recently participated at Brent and had a successful competition. Final standings of MS Division in ISSA Chess event ISM won the overall 2nd place after 5 rounds (out of 12 teams) with players winning 2 gold and 1 silver medal. Srihaan P - Silver in Board 1, Boyuan C - Gold in Board 2, Vidyut P - Gold in Board 4. Well done to our Chess team Bearcats. For our year round teams and season 1 sports teams practice schedules are posted on notice boards around the school and on the schedules page of the ATAC (Athletics) blog and provided in links below. Our S1 practice schedule runs from Mon Aug 14 until Oct 13th. See schedule links…1st season 17-18-Practice sched All season sports sched 17-18.xls – 17-18 Please take the time to navigate the ATAC blog as it is our one stop shop for all information related to the competitive ISM sports program.

UPCOMING EVENTS: *matches at ISM unless specified as *away venue. Check ATAC game schedule at the parent portal for all the midweek and weekend matches upcoming. Please check on a regular basis as venues and time do change at short notice. Players will always be informed by their coaches if times/venues change. Sept 22 VBoys Volleyball vs CSA 3:30pm/JV Girls soccer vs Faith 5pm Sept 23 Rifa soccer festivals-E & G teams at ISM 8am start/MS C1/C2 teams at BSM 8am start/ES C3 team at BSM 1pm start. Sept 23 For full details of Saturday home and away matches go to ATAC game schedule on the parent portal. Oct 4 IASAS S1 teams lunch at LT Oct 11-15 S1 IASAS Championships- Teams depart for IASAS Soccer to Bangkok and XC/Volleyball to Singapore. Oct 26 S1 sports awards at Fine Arts Theatre 6pm *new format this year Information on our ES/MS Activities program is available on the ES and MS Activities blogs. Links to these blogs are on the helpful shortcuts menu on the home page of the ATAC blog or accessible via the ISM website. For our Sailfish swim team program please check information about tryouts at Sailfish blog For gymnastics team information please check Gymnastics blog for returning and new gymnasts Look for Coach Jas or Coach Ramon at the MS gym when attending training sessions. Please note the practice times for ATAC programs for SY 17-18 are as follows:  All year round team team training sessions are – 3:154:30. See schedule for our All year round teams program here…  See Sailfish blog for swim squad start and finish times after the tryouts period has concluded and squads have been finalised.  Gymnastics team training is 3:10-4:50pm every M,W,F All HS seasonal teams practice from 3:05- 4:50pm. MS seasonal teams practice 3:15-4:40pm. In order to clear the campus prior to 5pm all after school programs will conclude by 4:50pm or earlier. The last bus is 4:55pm this is due to the ever increasing traffic concerns in our area. Parents and students please take some time to peruse the ATAC blog it has a wide variety of information and links to our sports and activities program. If you have any questions regarding the competitive program of sports at ISM after reading the information on the blog please send an email to [email protected] and I will assist you as best I can. Bearcat Den- drop by our fantastic spirit store. There is a a range of new products and items to purchase including items from our service partners. Bearcat Den hours of operation- 7am-4pm Mon-Fri.

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FROM THE COUNSELING OFFICE:

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FROM THE PHILIPPINE CULTURAL CLUB:

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FROM THE OFFICE OF THE LEARNING COORDINATOR:

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