Many hands contribute to a great afternoon at Ghana charity concert

/in ,

ISA hosted the 3rd annual Ghana charity concert on Saturday 20 May, featuring the local Ghanaian choir, Inspirational Voices, and various musical groups from the Lower School. The concert has become a popular feature on the ISA calendar and raises funds for the Nunya Academy in Ghana.

Organised by ISA Music teacher, Fabian Galli, the event also featured Kofi Gbolonyo, who has long been involved with ISA and has been instrumental in the creation of this fundraising initiative. Mr Gbolonyo was able to spend some time at the school to join in the music classes, share stories from the Ghanaian culture and perform in the concert as well.

A traditional Ghanaian (Ewe) proverb says, “Knowledge is like a baobab tree, one person’s hands cannot embrace it” and this was well and truly reflected in the many hands that contributed to a fantastic performance. It was a fabulous display of colour, music and dazzling dance from all involved, including the Lower School choir, the Kufara Marimba Group, Junior and Lower School percussion groups, and Marimba Mania, a performing group comprised of ISA parents and staff.

The event raised €4.435 for the Nunya Academy which will go towards continuing the building work that commenced in 2015, through funds raised by previous years’ concerts. The 2015 concert was featured in our Connections magazine. Since that time, ISA has continued to host events that help Mr Gbolonyo in his quest to build a music academy in his home community of Dzodze, Ghana. At its conclusion, Mr Gbolonyo extended his gratitude to all who were involved in making this year’s Ghana charity concert a very memorable one.

“I never expected such a high quality and high level of musical and performance expertise and skills from the students. The enthusiasm and dedication from the students, parent volunteers and teachers to the whole process: from the preparations to the final show far exceeded my expectations.”

Congratulations to all the students who performed and to Fabian, Aideen Nolan and Judy O’Callaghan, and the fantastic parents volunteers who gave their time to help make this event a great success. 

 

ISA Green Team springs to a successful start of the year

/in ,

The first half of 2017 has been a successful and busy period for the ISA Green Team with a number of successful events, presentations and fundraisers highlighting the school’s commitment to sustainability and environmental awareness.

The ISA Green Team hosted its annual Room to Read Book Sale in April this year, with thousands of books donated by the ISA community. It was a wonderful success, raising €7520 which will be distributed to Room to Read, a charity that provides educational scholarships for girls in developing communities.

Grade 2 student, Noga, thanked everyone who helped support the book sale, “the book sale was brilliant because we got to buy books at a great price and it was a great way donate money to help send girls to school.”

Not willing to solely rest on the success of the Book Sale, grades 2 and 3 Green Team members also hosted a parent workshop that featured over 20 tables filled with informative projects developed by the students. For the workshop, students brainstormed their passions and created group projects that highlighted environmental challenges and promoted sustainability and eco-awareness. Some of the projects included ‘Save Our Bees’ providing information about the importance of bees; ‘Lost and Found: Label Your Things’ promoting responsibility for personal items to avoid waste; and ‘Cafeteria Clean Up’, a project encouraging other students to clean up after themselves in the cafeteria.

Teaching students to think about real-world environmental challenges is reflected throughout the ISA Curriculum, particularly in the Primary Years Programme (PYP) Transdisciplinary Theme called “Sharing the Planet” which explores questions such as to how to share the finite resources of the world with all its living inhabitants. In 2016, a new strand was also added to the Social Studies Curriculum for Preschool through to grade 5 called ‘Resources and the Environment’.

Lower School Green Team Coordinator, Marta van der Meer said that being active in the Green Team provided students with another learning platform to expand on their curriculum. “The students learn through their own inquiries and discover new passions, all the while learning that they have a voice and they can make a difference.”

The Green Team has also been busily involved in other events including the second ISA Beach Clean Up which saw a large number of students, parents and staff visit Zandvoort in May to help collect all manner of beach waste while raising awareness for cleaner oceans and waterways. The vegetable and herb gardens at ISA are also flourishing in the springtime with students using their green thumbs to carefully tend to the gardens. The Green Team is a great example of the different ways that students and staff engage with real-world environmental issues to help make a difference, reflecting ISA’s commitment to building sustainable futures and communities through a variety of local projects and eco-initiatives.

ISA Student Debate Skills on Show at Oxford School Debate Tournament

/in

On Sunday, 5 February, 12 students from ISA represented the school at the Dutch regional finals of the global Oxford Schools Debate Tournament, held at the Wolfert Tweetalig School in Rotterdam. Organised by the Oxford University Debating Union, the tournament saw around 100 students from across the Netherlands debate and explore topical social issues including international development aid, welfare, and the purpose of the European Union. ISA students performed extremely well, with all achieving some success and Grade 9 student, Lukas Joosten, placing 4th out of all the speakers that participated on the day.

The students’ debating skills were developed for the event through training with high school teachers, Ian Kilbride and Jonathon Denny and grade 12 senior students, Chhavi Nashier and Ryan Collins. Although the ISA teams were not invited to Oxford for the global finals, debate coach, Ian Kilbride, said he was really impressed at the students’ improvement throughout the competition.

“The students listened to the feedback of the judges well and applied the advice [they received] to how they approached the next motion and, more importantly, all of the students enjoyed the day,” said Kilbride.  Congratulations to all of the ISA students that participated in the tournament.

ISA Beach Cleanup a Real Success

/in , , ,
via The Lower School News Blog

The ISA Green Team organised a beach clean-up for the first time on Saturday. A group of students, parents and staff participated, bringing together people from across our school. We’d been warned to dress up warm after a windy week and were fully prepared to brace ourselves against the cold.  But we were pleasantly surprised by the gorgeous weather that awaited us on the beach at Zandvoort.  We found a wide variety of objects including a diaper, bottle tops, cans, cartons, plastic bags, straws, socks, string, styrofoam, pieces of glass, buckets, string, an old body-board, a tyre and even a curtain!  

We also visited the Jutters Museum further along the beach which houses a fascinating collection of an even wider range of objects than we’d collected such as pacifiers, slippers, buoys and boat signs. The museum also houses displays of local natural history and creatures from the sea.  

A Spring event will be organised as well. Keep an eye out for more information after the Crocus break.

Record-setting Trash Audit Results from Green Team

/in ,

Be sure to check out this great video from the ISA Green Team highlighting the results of their recent trash audit of the school. More than 80 volunteers attended – a new record! See which trash has increased and where we, as a school, have improved on eliminating waste.

Go Green Team!

Duke of Edinburgh Award Dates 2015-16

/in ,

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.

ISA Debate Team Closes Season at Roosevelt World Schools Academy

/in ,

Members of the ISA Debate team rounded out the 2014-15 season by attended the prestigious Roosevelt World Schools Academy at University College Roosevelt in historic Middelburg. The programme, offers debaters three days of master classes, coaching and feedback from debate experts.

ISA debaters, Nicolas Carmont, Hugo Debaig, Frederique Joosten and Sofia Romansky took part in the event, which was organised by the Netherlands Debate Institute, Cogency and the Dutch Schools Debating Foundation. Special congratulations to Frederique and Hugo who were invited to try out for the national debate team.