Thank you from PTA for Welcome BBQ Success

Dear ISA families and friends,

Thank you to everyone for making the PTA BBQ the success that it was!

It was a lovely day with a great turn out of 1250 people enjoying delicious food, great music and awesome weather. It seems that the skies cleared just for that day for us! We were truly lucky that the drizzle started only as we walked out of the building in the evening. Overall, the atmosphere was amazing and could see smiles everywhere.

We have the privilege to work with a fantastic, supportive and hard working team. We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the school management, operations, and maintenance. Last, but not least, a huge thank you to the happy ISA families that streamed in. What’s a party without the people, good food, music and yes, the sun shining down especially for us.

Sincerely,

The PTA Team

Photos by Luciana Blair

PTA and Expatcenter Amsterdam Host Newcomers Meeting

The PTA Newcomers Committee hosted an information session about expat life in the Netherlands on Friday, 11 September in the cafeteria annex. The programme, developed in cooperation with the Expatcenter Amsterdam featured a speaker from the community organisation who discussed transitioning to life in the Netherlands and answered any questions new families had on this subject.

Excellent DP Results for Class of 2015

In early July, we received the IB Diploma results for the Class of 2015 and once again they are something to make us all proud.

This year 98% of our diploma candidates achieved the full diploma (51 out of 52) with a total average score of 34 points. ISA’s average grade was 5.35 points while the world average was 4.99 and 39% of our diploma candidate’s obtained 36 points or more, which comes to an average of 6 points per student.

In total 9 of our diploma candidates obtained 40 points or more, with 2 having obtained nearly perfect scores with totals of 44 points.

Additionally, 91% of this year’s diploma candidates received one or more bonus points for their work in Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay. Lastly, 39 % of our diploma candidates received a bi-lingual diploma.

Congratulations!

 

Duke of Edinburgh Award Dates 2015-16

The dates for the ISA Duke of Edinburgh Award practices and finals are now available. ISA students have been participating in the international award programme for over 17 years and have gained invaluable life skills from the programme challenges. 

Bronze-level practice will be from 8-10 October, 2015 and the final will be from 4-7 May, 2016. Silver practice will be from 16-20 October, 2015 and the final will be from 12-16 May, 2016. Gold practice will be from 22-27 March, 2016 and the final will be from 15-21 April, 2016.

Lower School EAL Parent Sessions

On August 31, ISA hosted parent sessions covering the ISA English as an Additional Language programme.

The programme, while open for all parents, was geared towards parents of children who are still acquiring English as an additional language. The sessions were also provided in English, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Russian.

A sincere thank you to all parent volunteers who helped to bring this programme to our community

Early Childhood School Start Date Information

School starts for all ISA students on 20 August 2015.  We would like to remind parents of returning ISA students in Early Childhood and Kindergarten that their children will only attend half-days for the first five days of the new school year. Full-time attendance for these returning students will begin on 27 August.

New children starting in the Nursery programme will have a differently scheduled school starting date.  Nursery families should check their email for more information on the starting date schedule.