Parent Book Club: Discussing the challenges of the college application process

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On Thursday, 2 February, the ISA Counselling department hosted its first book club event to explore the challenges that students and parents face when approaching colleges and universities.

The featured book Where You’ll Go is Not Who You’ll Be written by renowned New York Times journalist, Frank Bruni, investigates the ‘college admissions mania’ and provides anecdotes, advice and opinions about the value of a high-pressure university admissions and selection process, with a particular focus on the college system in the United States.

“I found it encouraging to hear parents express their support for their children choosing pathways that lead to a successful, balanced, and productive life following university” noted Upper School Counsellor Frieda Dietrich.

“Caring deeply about what they wanted most for their children, many comments focused on character attributes such as integrity, commitment, humility, ability to deal with setbacks. Things that make a difference in the long term.”

ISA is hoping to hold additional book club discussion sessions throughout the year, so if you are interested please contact Geoff Richman or Frieda Dietrich.

ISA Beach Cleanup a Real Success

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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.

Raising Teens to be Happy, Healthy, Confident Adults

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Always wanted to know what’s going on in your teen’s mind or how to discuss topics such as body image, social media or substance use? Ever needed help with   promote resilience and self esteem for your teenager or his or her friends.

These topics and more were discussed in the interactive and informative parent session  Raising Teens to be Happy, Healthy, Confident Adults: Practical tips, led by  paediatrician and ISA parent Anisha Abraham in November. Abraham, specialises in teen care and has been a consultant visiting high schools around the world to guide students  and parents though the transitional stages of the teenage years.

To get a better understanding of what Dr. Abraham offers, be sure to listen to her TEDxWilmington talk on this subject.

ISA hosts film screening of ‘The Empowerment Project’

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What would you do if you knew you would succeed?

 

The ISA Upper School hosted a screening of the documentary film ‘The Empowerment Project’ on 2 November.  The event opened with introductions from student leaders from ISA’s two student feminist groups – Like a Girl and Girl Up –  outlining the role that today’s young feminist at ISA wish to play in the fight for equality. Both groups are new to ISA this year and work to address issues surrounding inequality and human rights violations for women and children.

The documentary showcased a group of women documentary filmmakers as they travelled across the United States to interview strong female role models in a variety of industries from science to non-profit management and military leadership. Following the screening, the student group leaders moderated a Q&A sessions between the filmmakers Sarah Moshman and Dana Cook and the over 100 student and parent attendees.

CAS Q&A Session for Parents

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Understanding the requirement for the IB Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS) programme can be confusing to many parents, therefore the ISA CAS programme coordinator, Vlad Gogelescu, recently hosted a Q&A session on 31 October for parents of grade 11 and 12 students.

CAS formally begins at the start of the Diploma Programme (grade 11) and continues regularly, ideally on a weekly basis, for at least 18 months with a reasonable balance between creativity, activity, and service experiences that the students voluntarily engage in that involve one or more of the three CAS strands. A CAS experience can be a single event or may be an extended series of events.

Parents were invited to email questions prior to the event so that their specific needs and  queries could be addressed. Read here for a general overview of  CAS at ISA.

High School Student Council Elections

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On 25 August, ISA welcomed over 1300 students and their families to campus for the first day of school. The halls of ISA came alive again as friends shared hugs and told stories from their exciting summer vacations. There is no doubt that this year will be filled with new memories, friendships, and accomplishments.

At the end of the last school year, the high school student body elected three new Student Council leaders. These students will serve as role models and advocates for their fellow students as they plan and implement a variety of projects over the next year. We look forward to seeing what they have in store.

The newly elected members are:

President: Ari Economon
Vice-President: Ryan Collins
Secretary/Treasurer: Blanca Carmont-Zaragoza

DP Results Exam Year 2016 – Congratulations to the Class of 2016!

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Dear Members of the ISA Community,

I would like to take the time to celebrate with you this year’s final IB diploma results. In early July, we received the first IB exam results for the Class of 2016. After a few remarks over the summer, these results are now final. Once again they are something to be very proud of.

ISA students performed exceptionally well on these externally assessed exams and assignments. In fact, ISA’s average grade in each course was 5.25 points; to put that in context, the worldwide average was 4.95.

The graduating class of 2016 included the highest number of IB Diplomas earned in the history of ISA: 59 candidates earned the full ID Diploma with a total average score of 34 points! Out of these, 7 of the 59 received a total of 40 or more points! And if this was not enough, 96.7% of this year’s diploma candidates received one or more bonus points for their work in Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay.  Finally, 44 % of our diploma candidates received a bi-lingual diploma.

Whilst these statistics are impressive, they do not tell a complete story. Indeed, not all IB grades are equal as some grades achieved by this year’s DP candidates, whilst perhaps statistically not as impressive, are nevertheless genuine accomplishments and thus worthy of praise. For example, we had a few candidates this year who arrived at ISA in grade 10 with intermediate-level English and nevertheless received their IB diplomas with flying colors.

Such results are contingent on a number of factors. For sure the resilience, hard work, and perseverance of this year’s IB Diploma and IB Course candidates contributed greatly to their success but they could never have achieved it without the support and care of their parents and guardians. A great thank you thus goes out to parents and guardians of this year’s graduating class.

Finally however it is important to acknowledge in particular the hard work of ISA’s faculty, both the Lower School as well as the Upper School faculties as some of our students have been at ISA most of their educational careers. Indeed, our DP candidates would not have been able to achieve such results without their continued commitment and profound sense of professionalism.

Congratulations to the class of 2016!

Kind regards,

Matt Lynch

DP Coordinator

International School of Amsterdam 

 

“Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world” 

Nelson Mandela

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR ISMTF MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH COMPETITORS

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Several of our Middle School students competed in the recent International Schools Mathematics Teachers Foundation (ISMTF) Middle School Math Competition at the International School of Zug and Lucerne. Out of a total of 41 teams, ISA Team A (Anna Economon, Mamie Wilson, and Sylvia Liu) placed 4th and Team B (Daniel Duncanson, Pranjal Ray, and Vivienne Shi) placed 30th. Congratulations to everyone who competed!

ISA Basketball Teams Compete in NECIS Tournaments in Rotterdam and Antwerp

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The ISA U12, U14, Junior Varsity and Varsity Basketball teams recently competed in NECIS tournaments in Rotterdam and Antwerp rounding out a great season of training and international competitions. The results of the four tournaments are below.

U12 and U14 – Rotterdam
The U12 and U14 girls and boys teams competed March 4-6 in Rotterdam with exciting games featuring everything you expect to see in a tournament; joy, disappointments, determination, teamwork and sportsmanship. With support from friends and families, the ISA teams achieved the following results:
U12 Girls: 6th place
U12 Boys: 2nd place
U14 Girls: 2nd place
U14 Boys: 7th place
JV and Varsity – Antwerp 
The Junior Varsity and Varsity teams competed March 11-12 in Rotterdam. The tournament, which was also live streamed, had a great crowd turnout with families from all competing schools in attendance. The ISA teams fought hard and were successful in achieving the following results:
JV Girls: 3rd place
JV Boys: 1st place
Varsity Girls: 4th place
Varsity Boys: 2nd place