Snow Queen

An absolute entertainer!

Some Maths videos for the holidays! Lego and revision. Seasons greetings for 2019!

A final post for 2019, some videos for students and parents to watch on
Desmos graphing videos Desmos
iGCSE and GCSE revision videos iGCSE
Lego and Shapes Lego

Upcoming Evaluation Visit

Dear Parents,

We are glad to inform you that our school has been selected to take part in the School Experience Test (SET) using the new programme standards and practices that have been introduced by the IB. This has come about because we are due for the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IBPYP) evaluation visit from the 11^th - 13^th November 2020. The new programme is aimed at supporting programme development in IB schools. We will commence with the self-study in January 2020 and we urge parents to join some committees that will be formed where your input is required. More details about these committees will be communicated to you in January 2020.

We look forward to working with you and tapping into your expertise and experience in order to enhance your child’s education at ISL!

Leading the way

ISL sets the trend for all schools to follow!!

Primary Student Council Initiative

In support of Impact Hub Lusaka's, "Bring a Bottle" campaign, the Primary Student Council organised a bottle donation project at school.

Year 11 Maths exam preparation

Year 11 Extended Maths exam preparation. Watch it here: Surds

Incoming Secondary Drama teacher

Dear Parents,

On behalf of the administration, I’d like to welcome and introduce you to Mr Peter Holdway, who will be joining ISL as the incoming Secondary Drama teacher.

MADD week

The last two weeks at school have been MADD - Music Art Dance and Drama. Each day has seen several events and performances of different kinds showcasing the arts. The celebration culminated with a drama evening on 29th November.

It was a great effort by the arts department and students - well done all!

Go Green with Mayor Sampa

Lusaka Mayor Miles Sampa visited the school last week to kick start his 'Go Green' initiative at International School.

DP Students Calculator exam preparation

DP students prepare for their IB exam. Watch their calculator video here!

IB CAS YouTube video

DP Student starts working on his CAS project. Watch his video on Numbers here

Student Council Executive Committee 2020 results

Last week Secondary students gathered in an assembly to listen to the election speeches of their peers; students from across the High school competing for posts in the new Student Council Executive Committee (STUCO) which will begin their term in office from January 2020.

Year 5 students in Action

Guess who came to school on 19th November!

The Mayor of Lusaka himself! His Worship Miles Bwalya Sampa!

Year 5 students have been learning that "Finding solutions to environmental conflicts is their responsibility" under the organizing theme "Sharing the Planet".

Looking around them, outside school, children observed all the trees were cut down to facilitate road construction and Mukupa asked if it would be appropriate to invite the Mayor to speak to them and explain what was going on. What wonderful action! The Mayor was very kind and obliged the children by coming to school.
He explained the need to accommodate increasing traffic in Lusaka to the children and talked about his solution to plant trees. For every tree cut, he is planting 10 trees. He has taken it upon himself to lead by example and is setting the trend for all to follow.
So join in and support Lusaka in maintaining its trees and environment. Permission is now being sought to identify areas where planting can take place as a school for individuals or families.

Great Job Year 5's!! Wonderful action.... something for all to emulate!

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

We believe modern international education setting comes with the liberty to bring a technology that one is most familiar and comfortable with. Even though you have the freedom to bring in a device of your choice,

Year 11 Community Service Christmas Party

Christmas is round the corner........ and once again it is that time of the year when our IGCSE community service students become super busy with preparations to host Christmas party with the children at Cheshire home, Mother Teresa and Ngombe Compound school. This year they are going green and are collecting plastic bottles with cap to recycle and use for the party. You can help too......drop off any empty bottles you have at secondary reception before 20th November.

Rains and roads

The good news is that it has started raining; the bad news is that this has exposed
a number of issues with vehicle access as well as the usual crop of roof leaks. Our front car parks remain closed, but there does seem to be actual progress there. The contractor has confirmed that, come rain or shine, they will continue working on Nangwneya road.

Our own MPC car park and associated roads have become rather muddy. This, along with some other areas where water collects, will be subject to attention by Mr Simwanza and his team.

Who prays for the rain prays for the mud ...

Grandparents Day in Year 2

Thursday 14th November saw the Year 2 children celebrate Grandparents Day!

Year 13s donate to children in correction center

One of the many IBDP CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) activities that ISL students are doing is trying to make a better life for those children currently living with their mothers in the central correctional center (prison). These are the children of mothers who are currently serving sentences but who are unable to live with other family members. This is the only life these children know, this is their home.

As part of their CAS project, on Friday 8th November, five year 13 students Chaiwe Sakala, Eric Von Hofsten, Katende Mushimba, Saraphina Banda, and Zak Patterson visited the center and donated a variety of books and educational toys to the children as well as health and hygiene essentials to the mothers.  

Sherman's Shoeboxes- Reception

Every year, Mrs. Trish Anderson organizes the massive job of distributing 300 boxes to orphans from 12 orphanages all over Zambia,  in memory of her son Sherman.

At ISL, in Reception for the last 4 years, the parents have been kind and donated items to make up 6 of these boxes. This year too the boxes are going to children at Bethel Orphanage. Bethel is an orphanage for young children located in Chelstone.

Each box contains:

Toothbrush/toothpaste, bar of soap/ washcloth, an outfit of clothing, sweets, a toy, exercise books, writing materials, crayons, ruler, rubber, sharpener, and a pencil case.

This act of giving to those less fortunate encourages young children to think of others at a time of year when many celebrate Christmas.

Year 7 YouTube Floral patterns

Year 7s have made these floral patterns in circles: Watch it here on YouTube

Bike Day in Year 4

Connecting to their unit "Simple machines may use force and friction to improve work efficiency" the Year 4's brought in their bikes to school for a bike day!

Preschool 2 learn about the essential parts of a vehicle

On Monday, Preschool 2 received a lesson about the essential parts of a car. Using their class Teacher's vehicle for a prop, they learned about wheels, where the engine is, and what the steering wheel does. They even learned about fuel and which place it goes in the car. Mrs. Suda's class enjoyed their fun-filled lesson!

Rains are finally here--

Today, we had our first experience of the much-awaited rains at school!

Muffins for Moms?

Muffins for Moms and Doughnuts for Dads were combined into one event, catchily named 'Morning treats for mommies, daddies & caregivers'. This event was an attempt to put some joy into a hot Tuesday morning and it succeeded. Our thanks go to the ISL spirit team.

At ISL You are Part of an International Community

If you have a child/children between the ages of 2 to 18 years of whom you would like to have international exposure then International School of Lusaka (ISL) is the right choice. ISL has about 50 nationalities from all over the world. This academic year ISL has been privileged to have students from Israel, Jordan and Chad. ISL is truly international in nature because of the student body and members of the Faculty . Children at ISL are part of an International Community which accepts and appreciates cultural differences. This experience is not only for the children but also parents who become part of the international community as they interact with the Parent Teacher Association. Please visit the school and have a feel of what makes ISL the best choice.

Secondary Student Council elections coming up

Student Council (STUCO) Executive Committee (EC) elections are just around the corner. While all students are encouraged to run for a position on the committee, Middle School students are especially welcome to run for a STUCO EC position.

United Nations Day 8th November 2019

8th November 2019 we demonstrated that "Together We Can''

It was great to have the finance team be part of UN Day celebrations and was very refreshing to take a break from the Debits & Credits........, well at least for 2 hours on a working day!!.

MartinMaths learns Lino Printing!

Have a look at our ISL Art Students showing their great Lino Printing on YouTube!

Meet Mr. Martin Pikira - ISL Board Member

Martin Pikira has served on the Board of Governors of the International School of Lusaka (ISL) since 2011.

A cessation of inactivity

After a lengthy hiatus, purposeful activity has been observed at the Nangwenya road works outside the school. It has now been more than two months since the contractor dug a huge trench in front of the school before disappearing. Workers and machines have now reappeared and it seems that some progress is being made. We will keep you posted on car park accessibility.

Information on After School Care Services for children aged 2-4

ISL provides "Afer school care" services for children in Nursery, Preschool and Reception classes.

Dealing with the heat

As you may have noticed, it has been rather hot of late. We will be implementing the following steps to mitigate the effects of these elevated temperatures:

Meet Dr. Matt Sommerville - ISL Board Member

Dr. Matt Sommerville is a behavioral economist and natural resource management expert, and former educator, based in Zambia since 2014.

Happy Independence

We ended the last day before the holiday with a short assembly to raise the flag and to sing the national anthem. Although our main independence celebration will be held on 8th November, we wanted to commemorate the anniversary of the republic before we left. It was a great way to end the week.

Gabe Bush benefit for Red Cross

Catch ISL Year 13 student and singer/guitarist Gabriel Bush next Thursday and Friday nights, October 24^th and 25^th, at Tapas Caliente from 7:30 to 9:00 pm. Gabe's CAS project is raising money for the purchase of hygiene kits for the Red Cross program to help Congolese refugees here in Zambia. Any tips he receives goes towards this endeavour.

ISAZ National Finals

Our swimmers, volleyballers and basketballers had a hectic weekend at the ISAZ national finals of those sports. The volleyball was particularly thrilling with a tough semi-final heat for our boys vs Konkola and then a brutal final against Mpalembe that ended in a defeat for ISL 24:26 - it doesn't get any closer than that. We were gratified by the technique, tenacity and teamwork exhibited by our students.

I would like to thank students from Bayobab who consistently cheered our boys. I commend in particular one of our primary parents who showed up just to support our teams. Madam, many thanks!

ISL blog breaks 12k page views

Launched in May 2019, our blog has currently over 100 pages with over 12 000 page views and it's not all me hitting refresh constantly. The blog is part of a trio of initiatives - blog, Ask ISL and parent coffees - designed to improve communication with parents.

Car park congestion - use MPC car park

Recently, the secondary card park has been packed with cars while the MPC car park is relatively clear. There is space for parking and drop off at the MPC car park. Please consider using that area to take some of the pressure off the secondary car park especially at pick up time when more cars are parked. Thanks!

Meet Mr. Thomson Phiri - ISL Board Chairperson

Mr Thomson Phiri is a senior finance executive with over sixteen years of experience in leading finance functions at different stages in a company’s lifecycle. Mr Phiri has a strong background in corporate governance, risk management, strategic and business planning, and financial-related fields including taxation. He has proven competences at both strategic and operational levels. Mr Phiri combines clarity of strategic vision with executional focus to set and achieve results. He currently works as Chief Financial Officer for Toyota Zambia and has two children enrolled at ISL, a daughter and a son in Years 4 and 3 respectively.

Good news from Disacare and the Early Years Library

The Disacare  Wheelchair team are back from the Danhiko Paralympic games in Zimbabwe!

Youtube Maths!

Year 8 Maths have made a Youtube video on fractions, decimals and percentages! Watch it here: Fraction decimals percentages

Meet A. Rajan Pradeep - ISL Board Member

A. Rajan Pradeep has lived in Zambia for over 25 years. He is a member of the Institute of Directors

Year 11 Tree Tops Trip

Having just returned from the Year 11 Tree Tops camp

Meet Mrs. Emily H. Kasoma - ISL Board Member

Mrs. Emily Heneghan Kasoma has lived in Zambia for over ten years. She has two children at ISL, Tessa (Year 4) and Caleb (Year 1) and has been an ISL Parent since 2013.

Ask ISL - SY 2020-21 calendar

This seems really far away, and yet as I’m making plans for next summer I would like to know what our calendar for the next school year is.

Ask ISL - Board committees

Hi there- we have had interested Association members approach the PTA looking to join board committees

Meet Dr. Abidemi Coker - ISL Board Member

Dr Abidemi Coker works for the World Bank at the Zambia Country Office.

Meet Mr. Peter Cottan - ISL Board Member

Mr. Peter Cottan has been Managing Director for various leading Agribusiness Institutions, such as Bata Farms and Lendor Limited.

Zambia-UN day celebrations postponed

We usually celebrate Zambia (and UN) day in mid-October before we go on break as the actual date of Zambia's independence falls during our school holiday. As you may be aware, we are currently renovating our MPC and have learned that it will not be completed before the break. For this reason, we will be postponing our celebration of Zambia-UN day until Friday 8th November, which is the earliest practical date given pre-booked school trips. The original date of the event, Thursday 17th October, will remain an early release day with school ending at 11:00 to avoid disrupting families travel plans.

I apologize for this postponement and ask you to bear with us during our efforts to renovate the school.

From the Yr 11 Community Service team

Year 11 students will be running a bake sale for students and staff during break times on Monday 14th October to raise funds for Cheshire home, one of the schools we partner with. Cheshire home have specifically requested for dry/canned food and cleaning material. If you are able to contribute in anyway please get in touch with Ms Bush, our Community Service leader on mbush@islzambia.org or call the secondary office.

UN Zambia Day Flags!

Year 7s have made posters of the maths in flags ahead of UN Zambia day. here's some of their work!

IBDP2 Maths Studies Revision video!

IBDP2 Maths studies students preparing for exams with calculator questions. Watch this video to see how they are preparing! Calculator video

Urban Hotel Lusaka Launch

As you may recall, the school has entered into a build-operate-transfer agreement with The Urban Hotel Group.

Thank you to Civilstruts Engineering

On behalf of the association I would like to recognise and thank Mr Peter Kapala from Civilstruts Engineering.

Inside a renovated classroom

As you may know, we renovated fifteen classrooms, nearly a quarter of the total, during the July break.

Ask ISL - Head of School Evaluation

I note with interest that the Board has an evaluation for the Head of School planned for this year.

Board orientation

This year's board orientation retreat took place in mid-September.

Carnival postponed

We will be postponing this year's carnival to a later date and will advise the association when the new date is fixed. If we can balance the events, we will probably select a date closer to the end of the school year when the rains have finished.

Year 10 Percentages Video on Youtube

Year 10s C Maths have made a YouTube video showing understanding of percentages! watch it here: Percentages

From the Career and University Guidance office

The Year 13 students have started the exciting process of applying to university while the Year 12 are currently gathering information about their areas of interest and about the universities they are considering applying to next year. To help them with the process, a few steps/events have been or will be taking place in the next few weeks.

PTA Calendar

The PTA is happy to announce that the ISL school calendar is in and ready for sale!

Parent coffee items

We held parent coffee mornings on September 10th – 13th and harvested the following observations which will be discussed in the appropriate management meetings.

After School Activities contacts

We hope you are enjoying our after school activities programme. If you have questions about or suggestions for after school activities please send them to activities@islzambia.org. Our activities coordinator, Daniel Chansa will get back to you.

Ask ISL - Donuts for Dads

I see on the school calendar we have scheduled “Donuts for Dads” for tomorrow?  What is this and why haven’t we heard more about it?

Wild Math - Popcorn fishing

Please click here to see the video of students doing mathematics on the banks of the Zambezi.

Disacare Team heads to Zimbabwe!

Just a few weeks ago we asked the whole ISL community to gather together and donate money to help the Disacare Wheelchair Team go to Zimbabwe for an international tournament. 

Year 7 Wildtracks Field Trip

The biggest group catch by ISL students.

Our year 7 students had their field trip to Wildtracks in Lower Zambezi from 2nd - 6th September, 2019. This was an exciting experience for students and teachers as students explored the outdoors while learning about their strengths, weaknesses, privileges and responsibilities. Students took part in a bush walk, baobab tree climbing, fishing, obstacle course, cooking, talent night
, and learnt about scorpions, stars and crocodiles.

We also had some groups catching some fish with the biggest catch weighing 18 kilograms. The fish was later released into the river as Wildtracks run a catch and release project. It was a very successful week and the students had a lot of positive things to say about their first field trip in Secondary.

Update on Nangwenya Road Works

The Contractor has informed that they will be excavating further along Nangwenya Road, which might affect the ramps to the parking entrances. Should you find ramps disturbed, we kindly ask that you use the MPC or Secondary School parking.

First parent coffee of the year

I would like to thank all the parents who attended our first set of parent coffees last week. Turnout was notably higher than last year, for which we are grateful. It was a wonderful opportunity for parents to meet and get to know each other and to share their insights with us. Once again, a big thank you to all who attended.

Lost and Found

Lost and found items can be found in two places at school- Primary Lost and Found or Secondary Office.

Parent Coffees

Our School Year is off to a smooth start. We would be pleased to hear your feedback so we are going to reprise our Parent Coffees. We would be particularly pleased to meet our new Parents and find out how they are getting along.

Supporting our Local Community

Greetings ISL Association, Students, Parents, Friends

BridgeU-our new career guidance tool

During their PaCAS period yesterday, the Year 13 students completed the official launch of BridgeU, a new platform integrated to Managebac to help our students research universities and colleges across the world, following a number of criteria that each student enters as a profile builder. It allows students to engage proactively with personalised university, course and career recommendations that are aligned with their skills and interests.The Year 12 and Year 11 will be introduced to the platform in the next few weeks as they start thinking about their future plans. Parents will also be able to access the platform in order to support their son/daughter and find out more details about a university such as location, course and finance. 

GCSEPod for IGCSE classes

On September 4th Year 10's were introduced to GCSEPod, an award-winning digital content and revision provider used by over 1,200 schools worldwide. As a subscriber, all IGCSE children in Years 10 and 11 at ISL have access to GCSEPod’s library of over 6,000 ‘Pods,’ 3-5 minute videos designed to deliver knowledge in short bursts. GCSEPod makes learning and revision much more manageable: every Pod is mapped to the IGCSE exam board, and contains all the right facts, quotes, keywords, dates and annotated diagrams that your child needs for IGCSE success – all neatly organised into topics and exam playlists.

One of the best things about GCSEPod is that you can download any Pod to your child’s mobile device, and then they can watch them at any time, in any place: with or without internet. It’s like they’re carrying a whole set of text books in their pocket! Make sure you download the GCSEPod app from the App Store (Apple and Android are supported) to access this feature.

Blog training

Middle leadership blog training commenced today to give more colleagues a voice on our blog. The blog is primarily intended to house material that may be of interest to the association but which does not warrant its own email. I have, however, taken to using it for more important communications coupled with an email linking directly to the relevant blog post. The blog is part of our communications enhancements. Please also don't forget to use ask@islzambia.org to have a reply published on the blog.

Security update

We have reports of disturbances at Eastpark Mall and other locations in the area. The situation around the school is quiet with no evident threat to safety at this time.

Important Traffic Advisory

Car parks on Nangwenya Road are currently inaccessible. If the Nangwenya Road car park gates are closed, please use the MPC car park or the secondary car park.

Ask ISL - IGCSE results

I read your blogs re IGCSE results which are very good news indeed and look forward to reading further details about it soon.

Answer

We have posted on our website here our IGCSE results since 2015.

Nangwenya Road Update

According to the Contractor, construction works on Nangwenya Road will resume this Saturday 31st August 2019. The gates along the road will therefore only be accessible to high clearance vehicles beginning Monday the 2nd of September. Low clearance vehicles are advised to use the MPC and Secondary car parks. We will keep you updated.

ECAs and Pick up

Extra Curricular Activities (ECA) have made a fairly good start.

Year Seven Math

ISL Math teacher Martin McCutcheon has posted this video of our year seven students doing division.

School Fee Due Dates

A reminder for the due dates for payment of school fees for the academic year 2019-20

• Quarter 1:- 7th August 2019 (now overdue for those who have not paid)
• Quarter 2:- 22nd October 2019
• Quarter 3:- 31st December 2019
• Quarter 4:- 9th March 2020

Costs are incurred to manage debts and debtors affect the liquidity of the school to run effectively. To avoid late penalty fees, please pay your fees on time.

Primary House Captains

Voting complete and a new  Primary Student Council formed for 2019-2020!

Ask ISL - Activity days

We think you are offering a great variety of ECAs. Thank you for that. However, we wonder if the days are fixed or if there can be any changes to any of the days the activities are offered?

Ask ISL - IB results

I read your blogs re IGCSE results which are very good news indeed and look forward to reading further details about it soon.

Would it be possible to post your IB results since 2017 please?

Secondary house captains

Introducing our Secondary House Captains, 2019-2020. I appreciate and congratulate these students for taking on a leadership role and position of responsibility.

Primary open house

Wonderful to see most parents turn up for Open House this week!

Ask ISL - EdAdmin

We are new to the school and just wanted to say we appreciated the availability of all staff prior, during and after our visit to the school back in March.

We are still settling in and for some reasons I cannot get access to the Eadmin portal

Greetings from your PTA!

I’m writing this as I return from a busy and invigorating meeting this morning, our first of the academic year, and one with unprecedented new parent participation. With so many eager faces and new ideas, we are really looking forward to working with parents and teachers, alongside staff and management, to make our school a great place.

Welcome braii

Click here for the poster. This Friday, the 23rd August is the much anticipated PTA welcome braii, one of the social sensations of the season. The braii is from 17:00 to 22:00 in the primary play area with food and beverage available. It will be great to see as many of you as possible with a special welcome to all our new parents.

IGCSE results

We had 38 students sitting IGCSE exams at the end of Year 11 in May. I am pleased to report that 82% of our students' results were good passes (A*, A, B or C). This is a great improvement from last year, where we had XX% good passes. When the world averages are released I will update this post with that information but I expect our results to be at or above the world average.

Of particular mention is Divyam Kumar who achieved 9A* in total and one A in Additional Mathematics. This is a very strong result for which we congratulate him.

Ask ISL - Activities start date

When will ECA (Afterschool activities) enrollment start?

Answer

Thank you for using Ask ISL. Signup for after school activities will begin on Wednesday 21^st August 2019 through EdAdmin. After school activities themselves begin on Monday 26^th August 2019.

MPC renovations

MPC renovations are on-going as we prioritized work that needed completing before the school could open.

ECAs are more than supervision

How our children spend their time after school/out of school has a tremendous impact on how they do inside of the classrooms. Research shows that after-school/extra-curricular activities

School opens smoothly

I was happy to see children in classes benefiting from planned instruction from day one of the new school year.

Belonging vs Bullying

According to research, the more a child feels like they can connect with their family, their peers, and their school, the less likely they are to engage in bullying behavior.

A fabulous beginning

A great start to the school year...

First PTA meeting

Please note that our first PTA meeting of the 2019/20 school year will take place in the PYP room on Monday the 19th at 7:15.

Ask ISL - Abbreviations

In almost all your communication it appears abbreviations.

Amber at African Games

Amber Holmes (second from right) is representing Zambia at the 12^th African Games held this year in Morocco. Amber is representing Zambia in the showjumping events. The African games have been held at a variety of venues since 1965. All of us here wish Amber and the Zambian team well.

Welcome to the school year

I look forward to a wonderful year at International School. We have a solid set of student achievement results to celebrate. We have a strong cohort of new colleagues with whom to collaborate.

IB Results

As some of you will know, we have produced a strong set of IBDP results, comfortably exceeding the world average and including - as far as we know - our first-ever perfect score of 45 / 45 from Shidan Javahari. Only 213 students in the whole world - out of over 160 000 - get a perfect score. That is around one-tenth of one percent. Shidan was with us from preschool so this really is a whole school achievement - it is an honor for all of us here at the school to part of this young man’s success.

Ask ISL - Co-opting for board

Can you describe the process for the Board of Governors to co-opt members

Renovations

Using our regular maintenance budget plus additional funds allocated by the board, we have renovated fifteen classrooms in secondary school. This is just under 25% of all the classrooms in the school. The renovated classrooms have insulated ceilings, improved ventilation, lighting, and acoustics. They are at the standard we hope to provide to our students going forward. We hope students will be happy with this development.

Ask ISL - MAP testing

What is the purpose of this test

Welcoming new teachers

We welcomed our incoming teachers with a dinner held at Roan and Sable restaurant in Kabulonga. Our board chair, Thomson Phiri, attended the event to welcome our incoming teachers personally. This was followed up by a trip to Gwabi River lodge with Craig and Sunita. I know how much teachers enjoy spending the whole day with their principals.

Ask ISL - ESOL charges

Although this did not come as a question to Ask ISL I have chosen to post on the blog as the answer may be of general interest. The question concerns the timing and charges for ESOL services.

Nangwenya road

Nangwenya road is periodically affected by major roadworks. At the moment

Ask ISL - Capital levy

I beg to differ with this inspite of the same having been agreed at the last AGM. A capital levy should be commensurate to the time students have spent in the school

A new beginning

A new academic year begins....

The end of the year

We ended the year on a positive note with assemblies celebrating students' accomplishments

Holidays!

Completed a year full of activity and great work!

New board officers

At this morning's board organization meeting the following board offices were filled:

New board members

At the AGM on Thursday 6th June 2019 there were eight strong candidates for four positions on the board. We elected the following new board members:

Lease agreement signed!

The trustees of the school signed the lease agreement with the urban hotel group this morning. While there remain conditions precedent to be addressed, this marks a milestone in our school's redevelopment. The resources from this deal will begin to give our students and teachers the facilities they deserve.

Trustee Natasha Chiumya's signature witnessed by Secondary Principal Craig Patterson

5 reasons to be at ISL!

If ISL could speak, I wonder at the stories it could tell :)

Hotel lease deal

I spoke recently with parents who assumed - erroneously - that the hotel deal had been concluded and that money was flowing in. This is not the case.

New families

Time of year when we have many families visit us looking for admissions for their children.

Great to see new faces and meet new families! Some of the students seeking admission have siblings here and it is lovely to see families enrol their next child with us.

The Habits of Mind Fostered by Arts Education

While we certainly hope that each student performs as well as he/she can on their final examinations,
we need to remember some children may not get the grades which parents may be hoping for. Few children will excel in every subject in high-stakes, academically focused exams. We need to support individual needs and abilities but encourage all children to have a wide variety of experiences in these formative years.

Through Drama, Music and Visual Art, students learn essential social-emotional skills

Parent coffees

A big thank you to all the parents who came for our coffee mornings this week. The goal of the coffee mornings was to get unstructured feedback from parents in the form of questions or concerns about this year and suggestions for next year. The feedback was mostly positive, with some good suggestions also. This kind of insight from parents is helpful to us as we reflect on the year and plan for the future. Please see below for the feedback from parents and leave a comment if you think of anything else.

Your school needs you!

A responsible and constructive board is essential to progress at our school, which is where you come in. We have a number of vacancies on the board for next year; please consider running for the board if:

• You care about the school and the students in it.
• You have a vision of how you would like to see our school improve.
• You have the skills and motivation to make a contribution.

The board meets typically once a month. If you are interested in running for the board, please click here to get a nomination form.

ISL Hiring completed

With the acceptance of Gift Munsanje, our hiring for next year is now complete. We have a strong slate of incoming teachers joining us in August. For an account of who is arriving and who is leaving please see my blog post here.

G-Suite for Education

At International School of Lusaka(ISL), we use G Suite for Education as a basis for provision of technology to both staff and students.

G Suite for Education is a set of secure, cloud-native collaboration education productivity tools from Google which includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Classroom and more used by tens of millions of Students and Teachers around the world. ISL students use their G Suite accounts to complete assignments, collaborate with peers, communicate with their teachers, sign into their Chromebooks, and learn 21st century digital citizenship skills.

Supporting Learning at Home

Sometimes as parents we can think that we are ill-equipped to support our children in their academic studies at home, either because we do not have the required background knowledge in a specific subject or perhaps that its just been too long ago and we've forgotten the material.

Here are a few important learning-to-learn skills...

Planned Renovations

Renovations are planned for this June and July. This will be funded from school funds rather than receipts from the redevelopment deals which, as of date, are yet to be concluded. The board voted to release additional funding over and above budgeted renovations and maintenance to allow significant work to be carried out before August.

2019-20 Budget

The 2019-20 International School of Lusaka budget

Open House

Recently ISL had an Open House in Primary school.

Student Evaluation

An ongoing process...

Education Tax Relief

One of the things I have been working on recently is tax relief for the education sector. In conjunction with the Independent Schools' Association of Zambia, we are developing a submission to the Ministry of Finance making the case for sectoral tax relief.

New Human Resource Officer

Hello, my name is Ivy Chipasha, you probably know me as Mark's PA.

Reading at Home

If there is one thing I would ask parents of primary-age children to prioritize, it is reading at home. When they are small, read to them; when they are big, have them read to you.

Technology Distraction

With the internal exams coming up, I admit that there’s a tendency

Reflection

Reflection- A great skill/ attribute/ attitude to possess. 

Lease Agreement

For many months now our board of governors and the trustees have been working on our lease agreement with The Urban Hotel Group (TUHG). Following the failure of the initiative with FUTSAL and Sports Complex, the board redoubled its efforts to bring our negotiations with TUHG to a successful conclusion. Many months and many drafts later, we seem to be nearing the end. The lease itself is a complex legal document of 26 pages representing decades of time and millions of dollars. I would like to express my gratitude to the board members involved and to the trustees for their conscientious efforts on behalf of the association. I do believe that these negotiations with TUHG are approaching their apotheosis. I will use this blog to keep you updated as things develop.

IB Learner Profile

I have been learning more about the IB Primary Years Programme recently and wanted to share with you the IB Learner Profile. The learner profile is a set of desired dispositional traits which describes the kind of behaviour we aim to promote at the International School of Lusaka.

Hello and Goodbye

We look forward to welcoming the following faculty who will be joining us in August:

Martin McCutcheon joins us as a mathematics teacher in secondary. Martin is from the United Kingdom and comes with six years of teaching experience.

ask@islzambia.org

In an effort to improve communication we have created the ask@islzambia.org email address. The purpose of this is that any association member can email a question to ask@islzambia.org.