Panaga School Newsletter September 2012

Panaga School Newsletter

Inside this month’s issue: Page 2 - Welcome back to the new school year

- A trip down memory “jalan”

Page 3 - Introducing our new teachers for 2012/2013

Page 4 - Panaga School receives a visit from local primary school teachers

Page 5 - There’s a lot to learn about oil and gas

- Mr Peter shares many stories with other schools

Page 6 - P2 competes in the Panaga Olympics

- P7 caters for all learn-ers

Page 7 - An interview with Mr Peter Anderton, P7 teacher and school board member

- P4 and P5’s marvellous mascots

Page 8 - Milepost 3 prove there’s an athlete in all of us

Issue 35, September 2012

Quote for the month: “The larger the island of

knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.” - Ralph W. Sockman

Newsletter designed and edited by Damian Brady

Panaga School Brunei Darussalam Jalan Utara, Seria, KB3534, Brunei

Phone: +673 3372139 Fax: +6733373028

Web: www.panagaschool.com

As parents we always take an active part in our children’s learning and we always believe that we are offering the right advice and guidance. One of the most difficult things to do is to watch our children struggle when they are engaged in a challenging activity. As parents we always want to get in-volved and offer our years of experience in solving a particular problem. In reality, we may be actually hindering the learning process. Some of the advice on the right is based on the work of Carole Dweck, a leading expert in the field of child devel-opment. It is based on thousands of hours of research, and while the list is not ex-haustive, it offers some practical advice on aiding the learning process. Perhaps try some of the advice when helping with homework. The learning process is a complex one and sometimes children become frustrated; this is normal. Sometimes they really do need to ‘embrace the struggle’. Learning is not always smiles and high fives, sometimes expect the tears (not too often though). For some of our children, University life is only 7-8 years away. They will have to resolve may difficult issues using their own initiative. It is part of our role to en-sure that they have that imaginary ‘learning toolkit’ at their disposal. Good luck with all of your learning en-deavors. Tim Robinson

∗ Be a visible learner for your children

∗ Involve children in adult conversations

∗ Let them spend time with you while you are doing difficult things

∗ Involve children in family decisions

∗ Tell your children stories about your learning difficulties

∗ Encourage children to spend time with people who have interesting things to share

∗ Don’t rush in too quickly to rescue children when they are having difficul-ties

∗ Restrain the impulse to teach

∗ Don’t praise too much – use interest rather than approval

∗ Acknowledge the effort, not the ability

∗ Make clear boundaries and maintain them

∗ Don’t over stimulate – boredom breeds imagination

∗ Choose multi-purpose and open-ended toys

∗ Encourage different kinds of computer use

∗ Talk to children about the process of learning

∗ Watch and learn from your children’s learning

What a happy start to the school

year; plus wel-come to all of our new families and staff! We have

such an exciting year ahead! (More on Pages 2 and 3)

Welcome back to Panaga School for 2012/2013!

Message from the Principal

Welcome back!

Panaga School Newsletter Welcome back to Panaga School for 2012/2013!

There were smiles all round and hardly a tear in sight (from the stu-dents anyway) as Panaga’s new academic year began on Monday, 3rd of September, 2012.

After a well-deserved break, all children settled into their new classes ea-gerly and easily; including

last year’s P3s who be-gan this year in the “big school” (Teraja).

Plus, we welcomed many new families and teachers to the school community. (Please see next page.)

It was fantastic to witness so many smiles on the children’s faces as many

have long awaited being reacquainted with their friends, making new ones and continuing their stud-ies.

There are many wonder-ful events occurring this year - an exciting sched-ule of school residentials, concerts, theme days, Challenge Days, ASAs

and sports competitions – just to name a few.

Keep posted to the school website and Parent Infor-mation Letters for details.

But for now, welcome back! It’s going to be an-other great school year!

By Damian Brady

A trip down memory “jalan” for David On Thursday, September 27 2012, Panaga School was privileged to welcome past student, Mr David Barnard and his wife, Sue. David attended Panaga School be-tween 1959 and 1960. For David, much has certainly changed at the school and around Panaga: new buildings, classes, more trees, roads and houses; amongst many other things.

“The most interesting development since my time here is the multiculturalism of the school. It’s fantastic to see the diversity of children now attending Panaga,” David said. Although only 5 or 6 years old at the time of his studies here, there is still one memory David has kept.

“I can remember standing outside a classroom trying to teach a Dutch child the ‘th’ sound. I am sure the same thing happens in the play-ground today - Dutch children being helped master their English.”

David’s father worked as a civil engineer for Shell and the family lived at F2/14.

Thank you David and Sue for visiting and sharing your Panaga history with us. By Damian Brady

F2/14 Panaga in 1957

A 1956 Aerial shot of F2

Humble beginnings at Panaga School

Mum, Joyce Barnard, David and sister, Judith

(1958)

Panaga School Newsletter Introducing our new Panaga School teaching staff for 2012/2013

Rorie Ebert, SEN Specialist

Nationality: Australian Arrived from: Oman, where I was with my family for 4 years. Am here with: My family, wife Nicole - Nursery teacher, Darian, 7 years old and Riley, nearly 6 years. Interests: Trekking (walking for days on end), Motorbiking, travelling and having amazing new experiences. Hopes for this year: As SEN teacher, to help all the students in my care reach their full poten-tial. Personally, to be able to see the Northern Lights as this year and early 2013 will be one of the best times to see this spectacle.

Tim Robinson, Principal

Nationality: British Arrived from: UK via Syria Am here with: Alison, Ella and Mia Interests: Looking forward to starting sailing and windsurfing again. Hopes for this year: To become settled into Brunei as soon as possible and to start enjoying the rich and diverse opportunities that the country has to offer. Having lived in both Thailand and Indone-sia previously we still have a few more places to visit in SE Asia. Professionally, I am looking for-ward to carrying on all the inspira-tional learning that has previously taken place a Panaga School.

Nationality: British Arrived from: Shanghai Am here with: My wife, Fang and 7 month old son, Logan Interests: Love sport, particularly cricket, football, tennis and golf. Hopes for this year: To really enjoy teaching at Panaga school with a lovely P5 class. I look for-ward to making new friends, seeing the wonder-ful sights of Borneo and trying to become a single figure handicap golfer - which is a long way off!

Rue Smale, IP5R Class Teacher

Nationality: British Arrived from: Devon, England Am here with: Wife, Sarah, and daugh-ters, Holly, Lucy and Ella. Interests: Running, cycling, sail-ing, ukulele. Hopes for this year: To learn to dive.

Dave Salt, ICT Specialist

Name: Joanne Strange Nationality: British Arrived from: UK Interests: Photography, dance and fitness Hopes for this year: To be part of a loving community and enjoy the opportunities that the people and places of Panaga and Brunei offer.

Nationality: British Arrived from: Tanzania (deepest darkest Africa!) where I was a Year 2 teacher for the last 3 years. Interests: I love travelling, eating different foods, hiking, generally being outdoors, meeting new people and swimming. I have sailed all my life and enjoy being on the

water and love music. I have recently joined the choir for the first time and am enjoy-ing learning to sing!

Jenny Ballantyne, IP3J Class Teacher

Nationality: Australian Arrived from: The Interna-tional School of Moscow Interests: Art and outdoor activities Hopes for the Year: ∗ To see an orangutan, pigmy elephant and Suma-tran rhinoceros in the wild. ∗ I am excited to be teaching the IPC for the first time and am looking forward to lots of IPC fun.

Anna Sanderson, IP8AS Class Teacher

Tim Walsh, PE Specialist Nationality: Australian Arrived from: I had been working at the International School of Moscow for nearly 4 years.

I worked there as PE Coordinator, teaching students all aspects of the PE Curriculum from Foundation Stage to Year 9. Before this I was a PE teacher at Craiglsea State High School in Brisbane, Australia, specialising in Year 11 and 12 PE. Interests: I enjoy leading an outdoor lifestyle. I love playing basketball, cricket and volleyball as well as a variety of other outdoor activities. My hopes for this year: are varied. I hope to settle in to my new role and make a positive contribution to the PE department. I would love to help Panaga School students broaden their PE skills and knowledge and achieve further success in a variety of interschool sporting activities. Socially, I’d like to travel in and around Borneo and beyond in the coming months/year and play a few games of cricket and basketball for the local sporting teams.

Louise Ramsden, Pre Nursery

Teacher

Joanne Strange, IP6J Class Teacher

Nationality: British

Arrived from: Milan, Italy

Am here with: My husband, Gianfranco, and my two daugh-ters, Elisa Noemi and Eleonora Rose.

Interests: Playing the piano and clarinet, swimming and spend-ing time with my fam-ily.

Nationality: British

Arrived from: Man-chester, UK

Interests: Swimming, dance, gymnastics and travelling.

Hopes for this year: I am looking forward to meeting new people from all over the world, travelling to lots of ex-citing places and being part of the Panaga Community.

Christina Fenlon, IP1C Class Teacher

Sarah Hutson, Music Specialist

Nicole Ebert, Nursery Teacher

Nationality: CanadianArrived from: The Sultanate of Oman Am here with: My husband, Rorie and 2 daughters: Darian, age 7, and Riley, age 6. Interests: running, skating, reading, trav-eling and teaching aerobics Hopes for this year: To inspire young minds and learn Malay.

Nationality: British Arrived from: Malaysia Am here with: Husband, Matt, daughter, Niah, age 3 and son, Daniel, age 6 months. Interests: I enjoy running, reading and spending time with my family. Hopes for this year: I hope to enjoy getting to know and explore this beautiful country. I'm especially looking forward to some rainforest walks.


Panaga School in the local Press: From the Borneo Bulletin Weekend, Saturday September 22, 2012.

By Efna Ars About 30 teachers from Panaga Primary School in Seria visited Panaga School yesterday morning led by the Principal of Panaga Primary School Hjh Norzurina binti Hj Assim.

According to the Principal, the visit to Panaga School was part of their initia-tive to improve and upgrade from an ordinary school to the same level as an international school by learning and observing how education was taught in the school. Panaga Primary School was awarded as a 'model school' by the Ministry of Education last May and they are in the process to revamp the school's cur-riculum to fit into the SPN21 aspira-tions to motivate their students to fur-ther their studies. The visit also served to open the minds of the teachers and the Princi-

pal herself to be more upbeat and able to achieve three core values in the curriculum; literacy, numeracy and ICT. The Principal also added that they wish they can open up possibilities for their students to think beyond the box. The entourage was brought on a guided tour to all three buildings of Panaga School: Teraja building, Man-daram building and Rampayoh build-ing.

According to the Principal of Panaga School, Mr Tim Robinson, the visit en-abled them to work closer with the lo-cal learning communities and share ideas with them. Tim Robinson also expressed hopes to visit government schools as he be-lieved that it is a two-way process and it is equally important for them to wit-ness how education was taught in government schools. "Learning should be fun and apart from the curriculum, we also ask the children what they want," said the

Principal when asked about the school's curriculum.

Panaga School is using the Interna-tional Primary Curriculum (IPC) which provides flexibility in incorporating chil-dren's idea into the learning process. The school also promotes an interna-tional view to the students which al-lows them to see from different per-spectives and globally.

Currently, Panaga School has about 650 students, ranging from three to 12 years old and from 40 nationalities; whereby the parents of the children are working in the oil and gas industry. The school has 48 expat teachers comprising British, Australian, Dutch, South African and Canadian.

Principal of Panaga School, Mr Tim Robinson (seated

front row, 3rd from the right) and Principal of

Panaga Primary School, Cg Hjh Norzurina binti Hj As-sim (seated front row, 3rd

from the left) in a group photo with the visiting en-

tourage. - EFNA ARS

Panaga School Community Links

Panaga School receives a visit from local primary school teachers


Storytelling isn’t easy, especially when you are on a brightly lit stage with a large audi-ence! However, as I discovered on Sat-urday, 8th of Sep-tember, children at St. Angela’s School in Seria seemed to have mastered this performance style.

With brimming confidence and ex-ceptional memories, 21 children from P2 through to P7 wowed the audience with tales and legends, each with a strong moral undercur-rent.

I was delighted to have had the chance to once again be a judge for this competition and would like to extend my congratulations to Miss Wann Ching Chea, Principal, her staff and, most of all, the children of St Angela’s. By Mr Peter Anderton

Legendary storytellers unite at St Angela’s

On Thursday 6th September 2012, several lucky children en-joyed a trip to the Oil and Gas Discovery Centre at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Here, they learnt more about the manner in which oil and gas are found and used across Brunei. The children also had the opportunity to

further explore the careers avail-able in and around the oil and gas sector. Highlights included the liq-uid nitrogen demonstration and the shopping trip for oil based prod-ucts…Everybody came away with a (toy) Ferrari!

By Miss Joanne and Mr Peter

A world of (oil and gas) discovery Panaga School Community Links


At the end of August it was a case of on your marks for the children to get set, ready to re-start school. And what a go it was! The year started with a bang as the children learnt about the Olympics during the first week of term.

The children spent the week pro-ducing several pieces of work based on the Olympics. Over the week they drew their own Olympic Mascot, painted themselves taking part in an Olympic sport and even made their own winning medal.

Having found out about the Olym-pics, the children were ready to compete in Panaga 2012!

It started with an Opening Cere-mony, where the children proudly paraded around under the flag of their home country. And then the events started!

Finally, once they had competed, the week could not be finished in any other way than for the children to stand on the podium to receive their own winning medal!

It was an exhausting, but exciting start to the year. And, if the ru-mours are anything to go by, the event was even better than London 2012! By the IP2 Team

The P2 Olympics

P7 students and teachers launched ‘Go With The Flow’ in style on Wednesday 19th September!

All learning styles were catered for in our multi-activity Entry Point: vis-ual, auditory and kinaesthetic.

Children enjoyed travelling the course of a raging river whilst transporting essential objects, be-fore working out the best way to cross the river with a chicken, a fox and some grain and finally, using research skills, to consolidate their new vocabulary.

The teachers have already spotted some budding geologists, natural-ists and conservationists amongst the cohort and are looking forward to expanding the understanding on our upcoming residential trip.

By Team P7

An Entry Point for all Learning Styles!

How long have you been at Panaga School? This is my second year. Where were you before Brunei? Birmingham, in England. What is your favourite book? Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, a wonderful piece of writing. Which is your favourite restaurant in Brunei? Tandoor Hut in Seria. What is your favourite des-sert? Apple and rhubarb crum-ble with an endless supply of custard. What is your favourite holi-day destination? That's a tricky question! Either St. David's in Wales, or skiing in Lake Louise, Canada. Where do you see yourself in ten years from now? In front of a class of smil-ing students in an interna-tional school somewhere around the world. What do you enjoy doing most in Panaga? When not teaching, I enjoy playing squash and tennis against much better oppo-nents in the hope that my game will improve!

Panaga School Board Member and IP7P Class

Teacher: Peter Anderton

Sixty seconds with...

Panaga School Newsletter ART Learning Target: To be able to explain our work in terms of what we did and why.

The task: To design a mas-cot for the Panaga Olympics or for an Olympics in our home country.

As a part of the P4 and P5 IPC learning about the Olym-pic Games, we researched mascots from London 2012 and previous Olympics.

The children had to think care-fully about the purpose of a mascot and what it represents. They were also encouraged to consider the mascot’s features in terms of its colour, shape, line and pattern.

We gave our mascot charac-teristics to represent Panaga or our home country and the internationalism of the Olym-pics.

The children first sketched their designs on paper and made a list of the materials re-quired to make the mascot.

The children were encouraged to talk about their designs ex-plaining what they had done and why.

These are just some of the fabulous examples of mascots made by the children and here’s what some children had to say:

“It was an enjoyable challenge completed.” (Scott)

“We had to plan it before we made it to know what it would look like.” (Nicole) “It was fun! I learned a lot.” (Ibiene)

By the P4 and P5 Team

Primary 4 and 5’s Marvellous Olympics Mascots


Weren’t the Olympics exciting! I’m not talking about the games that happened on the other side of the world, but our very own version of the games held between the children in Milepost 3 on Friday 14th Septem-ber, 2012. All the children in P6, P7 and P8 started the year with the IPC unit, ‘The Athlete’, full of learning activities relating to the past and present of the Olympic Games. Many of the children had actually attended the games in London and contributed to our knowl-edge harvests with their own experiences in addi-tion to what they had seen on the TV. By the end of the two weeks the children were experts in the who, where, why and what of the Olympics and had been preparing during P.E. lessons for our main event. Friday afternoon saw lots of the parents in atten-dance as the children gathered in their respec-tive houses. Mr Tim Walsh quickly ex-plained the events and

they were off…Citius, Altius, Fortius! A key event at any Olym-pic games is the sprint and the children gathered by the Learning Centre to show their speed. In front of the P7 class-rooms, children tested their strength with that most familiar of (tropical) Olympic events, the coco-nut toss. The most technical of all the events was the triple jump and the children showed what a dramatic improvement they’d made in their skills with a high percentage of them get-ting the hop, step and jump perfectly timed. Finally, there was the great test of strength from the 1900 – 1920 Olympic games, the Tug of War. T h e d e t e r m i n a t i o n showed by the children as they were spurred on by Miss Barbara showed how resilient our children really are. It was a great event with all the children putting in a huge amount of effort, spurred on by a fantastic home crowd of parents. As with any competition though, there is a winner at the end and this year the gold medal was awarded to our Milepost 3 winners: Earth.

By Mr Andy Ryan, Milepost Three Leader

for Learning

Milepost 3’s Exit Point – The Athlete

Milepost 3

Games

Stop the press! Don’t forget the Panaga Club Beach Shelter Fun Run tonight! The children must register at 5.15pm ready to start the run at 5.30pm. - Clare Fowler

Kind thanks for many of the photos above; courtesy of Carolin Van Vliet

Documents

Panaga School Newsletter September 2012