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TODAYIssue Fall 2013
Genius Hour - Inspired Learning
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912
A FOCUS ON EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE
Students have the desire to learn for themselves both in and out of school they develop as self-directed problem solversNick Corben Yr 5 Teacher
You can trace Genius Hourrsquos beginnings back to the 1950s when 3M introduced something similar and the result were innovations like post-its and masking tape Today Google employs a variation of it and schools around the world are empowering
their students with Genius Hour one hour a week to inspire create research and form their own conclusions with their learning
Genius Hour is dedicated classroom time when students are challenged engaged and developing the necessary skills to be self directed learners Working in collaboration with others or independently students are provided with the scope needed to demonstrate their creativity and communication skills as they take responsibility for their learning in
this fun and interactive format Using research skills and their media literacy students study diverse topics driven by their own passion and interests
Our kids are growing up in a world that is far different from the world we grew up in It is becoming increasingly important for them to be able to synthesize large amounts of information quickly and apply this to constantly changing problems Mike JacksonGr 5 Teacher
1st in Korea SFS GAFE p8Excellence in our IB p3Essential Early Childhood p5
Students from BS-Year 5C ES-Grade 5J and MS-Grade 6T Learn More Here
2 TODAY
IN THE SPOTLIGHT 2What is Educational Excellence An exploration of opinions on the topic that unpack some of the complexities
SNAP SHOT BOX 4Health Office offers CPRAED Training IB HL Science Labs British School Science Awards
Genius Hour Cover StoryA balance of inspiration creativitiy and self direction
Excellence within IB 3A mature program at SFS built on solid foundations
Building Blocks of Learning 5 Critical thinking amp communication begin in the Early Years
SFS GAFE Summit 8The 1st South Korea Google Apps For Education Summit
Seoul Foreign School39 Yeonhui-ro 22-gil Seodaemun-gu Seoul Korea 120-823
Tel 82-2-330-3100Fax 82-2-335-1857yjumseoulforeignorg
What is Educational Excellence
Educational excellence from my vantage point is an ongoing process that flows naturally from an open supportive and challenging community where relationships are as valued as learning
In an environment that values learn-ing over achievement educational excellence comes through self-em-powerment and discovery Students learn how to go about investigating creating testing and refining ideas and skillsTim RelyeaMS Humanities Teacher
Educational excellence is not specif-ic to academic excellence It should also be equally about the formation of the character spirit physical cre-ative and emotional aspects of our beings
Educational excellence should also allow for failure as a process through which rich learning can occur And sometimes that is the most difficult and challenging place to be The learning that follows from this can prove to be the most importantFrances SnowdenBS KS3 Geography amp Religious Education
The primary focus of education is to provide students with the opportu-nity to undertake a ldquolearning jour-neyrdquo With this in mind I believe educational excellence is how well we
Prepare students for the journeyInspire student to go on the journeyEquip students to handle all that the journey entailsEncourage students to challenge themselves and to push on when the journey gets toughCare for students as they undertake the journeyAccompany the students on their journey by travelling with themStuart KentAP 11-12 amp IB Coordinator
In order to create lsquoexcellentrsquo art stu-dents must learn to embrace failure as their most valuable teacher for the only way to improve in Art is to constantly challenge oneself for one soon learns that the easy option is always less satisfying
Excellence in Art for me is when students emerge more confident creative and am-bitious individuals and one would struggle to find a job advert lacking those adjec-tivesBert YoungHS Art Teacher
REGULAR FEATURES
IN FOCUS
CONTACT US
FOLLOW US
IN THE SPOTLIGHT - SFS Opinion Column
LIKE US facebookcomseoulforeignschool
FOLLOW US twittercomSFS4U
JOIN US linkedincomcompanyseoul-foreignschool
SUBSCRIBE youtubecomseoulforeignschool4u
Check our website regularly for updateswwwseoulforeignorg
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 3
The Growth of Robotics
Lego Robotics continues to grow and thrive as a popular elective in the Middle School and a growing educational tool in the upper Elementary School
Many schools use the Lego Mindstorm series of kits Students are highly interested and engaged while being given opportunities to learn Essential Competencies such as prob-lem solving critical thinking collaboration and of course creativity
As many of our Grade 6 students have al-ready been exposed to Lego Robotics in Grade 5 we see the benefits of students com-ing into the Middle School having already established a basic level of skill in robotics
There is a lot we can be proud of when it comes to the level of ex-cellence that we offer Excellence manifests itself in a variety of ways and this can be witnessed everyday at SFS Our IB teaching faculty are some of the most expe-rienced in the region with many having taught IB for a number of years both at SFS and at other schools
Having offered the IB DP programme since 1980 SFS offers a mature program that has been built on a solid foundation and has produced outstanding graduates who have gone on to college level success
SFS has shown a deep commit-ment to inquiry-based learning employing a well-trained faculty and exhibiting a deep understand-ing of what is involved in offering the DP program
Excellence within IB
GROWING STRONG PROGRAMS
We have a number of staff that are IB examiners and one staff member is the only teacher world wide to sit on the IBO International Extend-ed Essay review committee This level of involvement with the IBO has a significant trickle-down effect on the excellence that is offered to our students in their IB classesStuart KentAP 11-12 amp IB Coordinator
Lego Robotics is creative hands on critical thinking and self assessed Itrsquos very easy for the students to gain instant feedback on their work It develops independent learning with the right structure in place Ryan KuhlMS MathScience Teacher
4 TODAYTHE SNAP SHOT BOX
Experiential Learning
Essential CompetenciesAccess to a vast array of infor-mation is so easy with comput-er technology and the internet Technology improvements have made our world smaller by be-ing more accessible But along with these innovations come new challenges
The biggest challenge is how to access credible information easily and use it responsibly to communicate effectively
How can we fit this in our Seoul Foreign School perspective We are a school of educational ex-cellence promoting responsible global citizenship in a Christian context We value knowledge but realize there is so much more involved in preparing stu-dents for their future
As such we have recently un-dertaken a process over many months to ensure we are prepar-ing our students well A variety of groups revised our Expect-ed Student Learning Results (ESLRs) extended their scope and renamed them as Essential Competencies skills
These Essential Competencies identify what we as a school see as important in developing responsible global citizens who possess not only the knowledge and skills of the content areas but also the skills confidence and passion to make a positive difference in their communities
Please see the academic section of our schoolrsquos website for more
Last year we reported on lsquoThe Underwood Memorial Hall Blogrsquo - a compilation of short essays written by our Grade 4
As part of her CAS (Creativity Action Service) activity Jenny Choi is translating the blog into Korean For those less familiar with CAS itrsquos a programme of-
fered in the HS involving stu-dents in experiential learning
In the process of translat-ing it was interesting to see how greatly rooted the Underwood family was in Korearsquos history Jenny Choi Gr 11
SFS Health Office offers CPRAED Training43 bus drivers and supervisors in Transportation received CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) AED (Automated External Defibrillator)
IB HL Biology Heart DissectionsAt the height of their learning our year 2 IB HL Biology Students get an up-close learning experience
BS Science Students of the Month (October)From left to right Alyssa Choi (Y9) Ewa Marczuk (Y7) Graca Kiboi (Y8) Hyong Kim (Y9) Henk-Jan De Boer (Y8) Jun Seob Shim (Y7)
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 5ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING
Author Julia Golding Inspires Writers
Building Blocks of Learning
The way she interacted with us made me want to read her books and write something myselfKrish Rapaka Gr 7B
Have you ever wondered what kind of creative imagination it takes to come up with characters for an award winning fantasy novel for teens
On 1st October Grade 7 students from the Middle School had the opportunity to work with British Award Winning Author Julia Gold-ing as part of their Writerrsquos Work-shop week
Julia shared some of her strategies as an author for how she creates char-acters including her own version of a round table for her new series Young Knights Planning a story can be a difficult task to start so our stu-dents were excited to see how a ta-blecloth could be used to create the lead character of a story
Students were given the chance to work with Julia to create several characters that would fit into her new series She also shared some wonderful tips about creating characters for her new book to be released in February 2015
After meeting with Julia the stu-dents wrote letters back to her sharing some of their reflections on their own learning about the writing process and how it will help them continue to grow as writers
I will definitely use some of these methods for the next story I writeMax Kral Gr 7J
You might be surprised to know that the teaching of Essential Competencies hap-pens everyday in Junior Kindergarten in fun and dynamic ways
One such activity that involved parents and students over a four day period was ldquoThe Construction Zonerdquo It involved loads of hands on action and building materials as our 4-5 year olds demon-strated their creativity initiative and collaboration skills and problem solv-ing their way through a series of chal-lenging activities
You could see that the children gained confidence in planning their outcome benchmarking from watching their peers accept-ing their failures with improve-ment and presenting their cre-ativity in front of all their peers parents and teachersAnonymous Parent
6 TODAYA LEGACY OF SUCCESS FROM PRE K - 12
Under the operation of Seoul Foreign School Namsan International Kindergarten in the Han-am-dong area is providing our students with an outstanding diverse and rich early years program With attention to every detail our students at NIK are enjoying the benefits of our whole school re-sources and their intimate premises Students have the best of both worlds at their fingertips - swimming lessons at the main SFS campus Manda-rin classes Taekwondo Art Music and more at NIK
Using the PYP early years program the NIK cur-riculum provides our students with an excellent grounding to tranistion to our main campus in their years to come For a tour of NIK contact admissionsseoulforeignorg or call 330-3121
NIK Building Success
Top Colleges Visit SFSSeoul Foreign School has been asked to host the lsquoOpenrsquo programs for colleges including the Universi-ty of Chicago Vanderbilt Univer-sity Rice University University of Pennsylvania Columbia Duke Georgetown Princeton North-western Oxford University Cor-nell Brown and the University of California But the opportuni-ties for our Students to meet with key representatives from colleges doesnrsquot stop there
By the end of this calendar year we will have had over 130 univer-sities visit SFS since August This represents an increase of 20 over the same period last year and 27 over the same period two years ago
The number of visiting Colleg-es continues to increase and have represented USA Australia the UK Canada Korea China UAE Switzerland and Japan This has broadened the range of options our Graduates have
11 Smooth Rolling in Gr4In August our 11 laptop program rolled into the ES Grade 4 classrooms with an emphasis on ldquocloud-basedrdquo learning
Having an audience makes for higher engagement with the students Knowing that other students are viewing their work leads to higher qualityBrad Thies Gr 4 Teacher
The introduction of 11 laptops hasnrsquot diminished the importance of learning the basics in reading and writing But it has challenged students to use their lsquotech-toolsrsquo to develop better communication skills problem solve and most importantly to work collab-oratively with their peers
At the end of the Asian tour each year we do an evalu-ation of all of the fairs we did and hands down Seoul Foreign School always comes out on top as being the BEST programUniversity Admissions Representative
With over 100 years of history it is no surprise that Seoul Foreign School is THE place the most pres-tigious colleges will visit if they have 24 hours to spare in Korea
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 7
High Ropes On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju Whether it was the in-dividual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith or the coopera-tive challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones It was a great day of fun team building and personal accomplishment
MS New AssessmentThe new assessment sys-tems will allow students to be more well-rounded Instead of focusing on the results theyrsquoll focus more on the journey to get to those resultsMenya Jefferson MS French Teacher
In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and stu-dents about learning students in the Middle School will re-ceive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year Under the new system the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately
Achievement measures a stu-dentrsquos understanding skills and knowledge of concepts learned in class Citizenship represents the studentrsquos atti-tude preparedness and partic-
ipation Additionally teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count to-wards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade
With a variety of types of formative assessment students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being ldquopenalizedrdquo with a grade By the time students take a final or summative assessment they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed Tim Relyea MS Humanities Teacher
Remember producing your own website when you were at school Probably not In Year 8 ge-ography in the British School students have pro-duced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth Projects like this one are on-going through-out our school divisions and evidence of the grow-ing importance of Information amp Media Skills just one of the new Essential Competencies be-ing intergrated into our curriculum
Here are two examples you can check outChaparral Henk Jan de Boer Year 8
httpbitly19VEKwv
Coniferous Awani Cuddon Year 8 httpbitly19Xw4rA
A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE
James Hooper - inspiring our studentsA young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit to climb Everest James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams
Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activistWe were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit
It was awesome We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that wersquod never done before The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the airJustin Jang Gr 8G
students producing websites on biomes
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
2 TODAY
IN THE SPOTLIGHT 2What is Educational Excellence An exploration of opinions on the topic that unpack some of the complexities
SNAP SHOT BOX 4Health Office offers CPRAED Training IB HL Science Labs British School Science Awards
Genius Hour Cover StoryA balance of inspiration creativitiy and self direction
Excellence within IB 3A mature program at SFS built on solid foundations
Building Blocks of Learning 5 Critical thinking amp communication begin in the Early Years
SFS GAFE Summit 8The 1st South Korea Google Apps For Education Summit
Seoul Foreign School39 Yeonhui-ro 22-gil Seodaemun-gu Seoul Korea 120-823
Tel 82-2-330-3100Fax 82-2-335-1857yjumseoulforeignorg
What is Educational Excellence
Educational excellence from my vantage point is an ongoing process that flows naturally from an open supportive and challenging community where relationships are as valued as learning
In an environment that values learn-ing over achievement educational excellence comes through self-em-powerment and discovery Students learn how to go about investigating creating testing and refining ideas and skillsTim RelyeaMS Humanities Teacher
Educational excellence is not specif-ic to academic excellence It should also be equally about the formation of the character spirit physical cre-ative and emotional aspects of our beings
Educational excellence should also allow for failure as a process through which rich learning can occur And sometimes that is the most difficult and challenging place to be The learning that follows from this can prove to be the most importantFrances SnowdenBS KS3 Geography amp Religious Education
The primary focus of education is to provide students with the opportu-nity to undertake a ldquolearning jour-neyrdquo With this in mind I believe educational excellence is how well we
Prepare students for the journeyInspire student to go on the journeyEquip students to handle all that the journey entailsEncourage students to challenge themselves and to push on when the journey gets toughCare for students as they undertake the journeyAccompany the students on their journey by travelling with themStuart KentAP 11-12 amp IB Coordinator
In order to create lsquoexcellentrsquo art stu-dents must learn to embrace failure as their most valuable teacher for the only way to improve in Art is to constantly challenge oneself for one soon learns that the easy option is always less satisfying
Excellence in Art for me is when students emerge more confident creative and am-bitious individuals and one would struggle to find a job advert lacking those adjec-tivesBert YoungHS Art Teacher
REGULAR FEATURES
IN FOCUS
CONTACT US
FOLLOW US
IN THE SPOTLIGHT - SFS Opinion Column
LIKE US facebookcomseoulforeignschool
FOLLOW US twittercomSFS4U
JOIN US linkedincomcompanyseoul-foreignschool
SUBSCRIBE youtubecomseoulforeignschool4u
Check our website regularly for updateswwwseoulforeignorg
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 3
The Growth of Robotics
Lego Robotics continues to grow and thrive as a popular elective in the Middle School and a growing educational tool in the upper Elementary School
Many schools use the Lego Mindstorm series of kits Students are highly interested and engaged while being given opportunities to learn Essential Competencies such as prob-lem solving critical thinking collaboration and of course creativity
As many of our Grade 6 students have al-ready been exposed to Lego Robotics in Grade 5 we see the benefits of students com-ing into the Middle School having already established a basic level of skill in robotics
There is a lot we can be proud of when it comes to the level of ex-cellence that we offer Excellence manifests itself in a variety of ways and this can be witnessed everyday at SFS Our IB teaching faculty are some of the most expe-rienced in the region with many having taught IB for a number of years both at SFS and at other schools
Having offered the IB DP programme since 1980 SFS offers a mature program that has been built on a solid foundation and has produced outstanding graduates who have gone on to college level success
SFS has shown a deep commit-ment to inquiry-based learning employing a well-trained faculty and exhibiting a deep understand-ing of what is involved in offering the DP program
Excellence within IB
GROWING STRONG PROGRAMS
We have a number of staff that are IB examiners and one staff member is the only teacher world wide to sit on the IBO International Extend-ed Essay review committee This level of involvement with the IBO has a significant trickle-down effect on the excellence that is offered to our students in their IB classesStuart KentAP 11-12 amp IB Coordinator
Lego Robotics is creative hands on critical thinking and self assessed Itrsquos very easy for the students to gain instant feedback on their work It develops independent learning with the right structure in place Ryan KuhlMS MathScience Teacher
4 TODAYTHE SNAP SHOT BOX
Experiential Learning
Essential CompetenciesAccess to a vast array of infor-mation is so easy with comput-er technology and the internet Technology improvements have made our world smaller by be-ing more accessible But along with these innovations come new challenges
The biggest challenge is how to access credible information easily and use it responsibly to communicate effectively
How can we fit this in our Seoul Foreign School perspective We are a school of educational ex-cellence promoting responsible global citizenship in a Christian context We value knowledge but realize there is so much more involved in preparing stu-dents for their future
As such we have recently un-dertaken a process over many months to ensure we are prepar-ing our students well A variety of groups revised our Expect-ed Student Learning Results (ESLRs) extended their scope and renamed them as Essential Competencies skills
These Essential Competencies identify what we as a school see as important in developing responsible global citizens who possess not only the knowledge and skills of the content areas but also the skills confidence and passion to make a positive difference in their communities
Please see the academic section of our schoolrsquos website for more
Last year we reported on lsquoThe Underwood Memorial Hall Blogrsquo - a compilation of short essays written by our Grade 4
As part of her CAS (Creativity Action Service) activity Jenny Choi is translating the blog into Korean For those less familiar with CAS itrsquos a programme of-
fered in the HS involving stu-dents in experiential learning
In the process of translat-ing it was interesting to see how greatly rooted the Underwood family was in Korearsquos history Jenny Choi Gr 11
SFS Health Office offers CPRAED Training43 bus drivers and supervisors in Transportation received CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) AED (Automated External Defibrillator)
IB HL Biology Heart DissectionsAt the height of their learning our year 2 IB HL Biology Students get an up-close learning experience
BS Science Students of the Month (October)From left to right Alyssa Choi (Y9) Ewa Marczuk (Y7) Graca Kiboi (Y8) Hyong Kim (Y9) Henk-Jan De Boer (Y8) Jun Seob Shim (Y7)
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 5ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING
Author Julia Golding Inspires Writers
Building Blocks of Learning
The way she interacted with us made me want to read her books and write something myselfKrish Rapaka Gr 7B
Have you ever wondered what kind of creative imagination it takes to come up with characters for an award winning fantasy novel for teens
On 1st October Grade 7 students from the Middle School had the opportunity to work with British Award Winning Author Julia Gold-ing as part of their Writerrsquos Work-shop week
Julia shared some of her strategies as an author for how she creates char-acters including her own version of a round table for her new series Young Knights Planning a story can be a difficult task to start so our stu-dents were excited to see how a ta-blecloth could be used to create the lead character of a story
Students were given the chance to work with Julia to create several characters that would fit into her new series She also shared some wonderful tips about creating characters for her new book to be released in February 2015
After meeting with Julia the stu-dents wrote letters back to her sharing some of their reflections on their own learning about the writing process and how it will help them continue to grow as writers
I will definitely use some of these methods for the next story I writeMax Kral Gr 7J
You might be surprised to know that the teaching of Essential Competencies hap-pens everyday in Junior Kindergarten in fun and dynamic ways
One such activity that involved parents and students over a four day period was ldquoThe Construction Zonerdquo It involved loads of hands on action and building materials as our 4-5 year olds demon-strated their creativity initiative and collaboration skills and problem solv-ing their way through a series of chal-lenging activities
You could see that the children gained confidence in planning their outcome benchmarking from watching their peers accept-ing their failures with improve-ment and presenting their cre-ativity in front of all their peers parents and teachersAnonymous Parent
6 TODAYA LEGACY OF SUCCESS FROM PRE K - 12
Under the operation of Seoul Foreign School Namsan International Kindergarten in the Han-am-dong area is providing our students with an outstanding diverse and rich early years program With attention to every detail our students at NIK are enjoying the benefits of our whole school re-sources and their intimate premises Students have the best of both worlds at their fingertips - swimming lessons at the main SFS campus Manda-rin classes Taekwondo Art Music and more at NIK
Using the PYP early years program the NIK cur-riculum provides our students with an excellent grounding to tranistion to our main campus in their years to come For a tour of NIK contact admissionsseoulforeignorg or call 330-3121
NIK Building Success
Top Colleges Visit SFSSeoul Foreign School has been asked to host the lsquoOpenrsquo programs for colleges including the Universi-ty of Chicago Vanderbilt Univer-sity Rice University University of Pennsylvania Columbia Duke Georgetown Princeton North-western Oxford University Cor-nell Brown and the University of California But the opportuni-ties for our Students to meet with key representatives from colleges doesnrsquot stop there
By the end of this calendar year we will have had over 130 univer-sities visit SFS since August This represents an increase of 20 over the same period last year and 27 over the same period two years ago
The number of visiting Colleg-es continues to increase and have represented USA Australia the UK Canada Korea China UAE Switzerland and Japan This has broadened the range of options our Graduates have
11 Smooth Rolling in Gr4In August our 11 laptop program rolled into the ES Grade 4 classrooms with an emphasis on ldquocloud-basedrdquo learning
Having an audience makes for higher engagement with the students Knowing that other students are viewing their work leads to higher qualityBrad Thies Gr 4 Teacher
The introduction of 11 laptops hasnrsquot diminished the importance of learning the basics in reading and writing But it has challenged students to use their lsquotech-toolsrsquo to develop better communication skills problem solve and most importantly to work collab-oratively with their peers
At the end of the Asian tour each year we do an evalu-ation of all of the fairs we did and hands down Seoul Foreign School always comes out on top as being the BEST programUniversity Admissions Representative
With over 100 years of history it is no surprise that Seoul Foreign School is THE place the most pres-tigious colleges will visit if they have 24 hours to spare in Korea
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 7
High Ropes On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju Whether it was the in-dividual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith or the coopera-tive challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones It was a great day of fun team building and personal accomplishment
MS New AssessmentThe new assessment sys-tems will allow students to be more well-rounded Instead of focusing on the results theyrsquoll focus more on the journey to get to those resultsMenya Jefferson MS French Teacher
In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and stu-dents about learning students in the Middle School will re-ceive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year Under the new system the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately
Achievement measures a stu-dentrsquos understanding skills and knowledge of concepts learned in class Citizenship represents the studentrsquos atti-tude preparedness and partic-
ipation Additionally teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count to-wards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade
With a variety of types of formative assessment students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being ldquopenalizedrdquo with a grade By the time students take a final or summative assessment they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed Tim Relyea MS Humanities Teacher
Remember producing your own website when you were at school Probably not In Year 8 ge-ography in the British School students have pro-duced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth Projects like this one are on-going through-out our school divisions and evidence of the grow-ing importance of Information amp Media Skills just one of the new Essential Competencies be-ing intergrated into our curriculum
Here are two examples you can check outChaparral Henk Jan de Boer Year 8
httpbitly19VEKwv
Coniferous Awani Cuddon Year 8 httpbitly19Xw4rA
A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE
James Hooper - inspiring our studentsA young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit to climb Everest James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams
Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activistWe were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit
It was awesome We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that wersquod never done before The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the airJustin Jang Gr 8G
students producing websites on biomes
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 3
The Growth of Robotics
Lego Robotics continues to grow and thrive as a popular elective in the Middle School and a growing educational tool in the upper Elementary School
Many schools use the Lego Mindstorm series of kits Students are highly interested and engaged while being given opportunities to learn Essential Competencies such as prob-lem solving critical thinking collaboration and of course creativity
As many of our Grade 6 students have al-ready been exposed to Lego Robotics in Grade 5 we see the benefits of students com-ing into the Middle School having already established a basic level of skill in robotics
There is a lot we can be proud of when it comes to the level of ex-cellence that we offer Excellence manifests itself in a variety of ways and this can be witnessed everyday at SFS Our IB teaching faculty are some of the most expe-rienced in the region with many having taught IB for a number of years both at SFS and at other schools
Having offered the IB DP programme since 1980 SFS offers a mature program that has been built on a solid foundation and has produced outstanding graduates who have gone on to college level success
SFS has shown a deep commit-ment to inquiry-based learning employing a well-trained faculty and exhibiting a deep understand-ing of what is involved in offering the DP program
Excellence within IB
GROWING STRONG PROGRAMS
We have a number of staff that are IB examiners and one staff member is the only teacher world wide to sit on the IBO International Extend-ed Essay review committee This level of involvement with the IBO has a significant trickle-down effect on the excellence that is offered to our students in their IB classesStuart KentAP 11-12 amp IB Coordinator
Lego Robotics is creative hands on critical thinking and self assessed Itrsquos very easy for the students to gain instant feedback on their work It develops independent learning with the right structure in place Ryan KuhlMS MathScience Teacher
4 TODAYTHE SNAP SHOT BOX
Experiential Learning
Essential CompetenciesAccess to a vast array of infor-mation is so easy with comput-er technology and the internet Technology improvements have made our world smaller by be-ing more accessible But along with these innovations come new challenges
The biggest challenge is how to access credible information easily and use it responsibly to communicate effectively
How can we fit this in our Seoul Foreign School perspective We are a school of educational ex-cellence promoting responsible global citizenship in a Christian context We value knowledge but realize there is so much more involved in preparing stu-dents for their future
As such we have recently un-dertaken a process over many months to ensure we are prepar-ing our students well A variety of groups revised our Expect-ed Student Learning Results (ESLRs) extended their scope and renamed them as Essential Competencies skills
These Essential Competencies identify what we as a school see as important in developing responsible global citizens who possess not only the knowledge and skills of the content areas but also the skills confidence and passion to make a positive difference in their communities
Please see the academic section of our schoolrsquos website for more
Last year we reported on lsquoThe Underwood Memorial Hall Blogrsquo - a compilation of short essays written by our Grade 4
As part of her CAS (Creativity Action Service) activity Jenny Choi is translating the blog into Korean For those less familiar with CAS itrsquos a programme of-
fered in the HS involving stu-dents in experiential learning
In the process of translat-ing it was interesting to see how greatly rooted the Underwood family was in Korearsquos history Jenny Choi Gr 11
SFS Health Office offers CPRAED Training43 bus drivers and supervisors in Transportation received CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) AED (Automated External Defibrillator)
IB HL Biology Heart DissectionsAt the height of their learning our year 2 IB HL Biology Students get an up-close learning experience
BS Science Students of the Month (October)From left to right Alyssa Choi (Y9) Ewa Marczuk (Y7) Graca Kiboi (Y8) Hyong Kim (Y9) Henk-Jan De Boer (Y8) Jun Seob Shim (Y7)
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 5ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING
Author Julia Golding Inspires Writers
Building Blocks of Learning
The way she interacted with us made me want to read her books and write something myselfKrish Rapaka Gr 7B
Have you ever wondered what kind of creative imagination it takes to come up with characters for an award winning fantasy novel for teens
On 1st October Grade 7 students from the Middle School had the opportunity to work with British Award Winning Author Julia Gold-ing as part of their Writerrsquos Work-shop week
Julia shared some of her strategies as an author for how she creates char-acters including her own version of a round table for her new series Young Knights Planning a story can be a difficult task to start so our stu-dents were excited to see how a ta-blecloth could be used to create the lead character of a story
Students were given the chance to work with Julia to create several characters that would fit into her new series She also shared some wonderful tips about creating characters for her new book to be released in February 2015
After meeting with Julia the stu-dents wrote letters back to her sharing some of their reflections on their own learning about the writing process and how it will help them continue to grow as writers
I will definitely use some of these methods for the next story I writeMax Kral Gr 7J
You might be surprised to know that the teaching of Essential Competencies hap-pens everyday in Junior Kindergarten in fun and dynamic ways
One such activity that involved parents and students over a four day period was ldquoThe Construction Zonerdquo It involved loads of hands on action and building materials as our 4-5 year olds demon-strated their creativity initiative and collaboration skills and problem solv-ing their way through a series of chal-lenging activities
You could see that the children gained confidence in planning their outcome benchmarking from watching their peers accept-ing their failures with improve-ment and presenting their cre-ativity in front of all their peers parents and teachersAnonymous Parent
6 TODAYA LEGACY OF SUCCESS FROM PRE K - 12
Under the operation of Seoul Foreign School Namsan International Kindergarten in the Han-am-dong area is providing our students with an outstanding diverse and rich early years program With attention to every detail our students at NIK are enjoying the benefits of our whole school re-sources and their intimate premises Students have the best of both worlds at their fingertips - swimming lessons at the main SFS campus Manda-rin classes Taekwondo Art Music and more at NIK
Using the PYP early years program the NIK cur-riculum provides our students with an excellent grounding to tranistion to our main campus in their years to come For a tour of NIK contact admissionsseoulforeignorg or call 330-3121
NIK Building Success
Top Colleges Visit SFSSeoul Foreign School has been asked to host the lsquoOpenrsquo programs for colleges including the Universi-ty of Chicago Vanderbilt Univer-sity Rice University University of Pennsylvania Columbia Duke Georgetown Princeton North-western Oxford University Cor-nell Brown and the University of California But the opportuni-ties for our Students to meet with key representatives from colleges doesnrsquot stop there
By the end of this calendar year we will have had over 130 univer-sities visit SFS since August This represents an increase of 20 over the same period last year and 27 over the same period two years ago
The number of visiting Colleg-es continues to increase and have represented USA Australia the UK Canada Korea China UAE Switzerland and Japan This has broadened the range of options our Graduates have
11 Smooth Rolling in Gr4In August our 11 laptop program rolled into the ES Grade 4 classrooms with an emphasis on ldquocloud-basedrdquo learning
Having an audience makes for higher engagement with the students Knowing that other students are viewing their work leads to higher qualityBrad Thies Gr 4 Teacher
The introduction of 11 laptops hasnrsquot diminished the importance of learning the basics in reading and writing But it has challenged students to use their lsquotech-toolsrsquo to develop better communication skills problem solve and most importantly to work collab-oratively with their peers
At the end of the Asian tour each year we do an evalu-ation of all of the fairs we did and hands down Seoul Foreign School always comes out on top as being the BEST programUniversity Admissions Representative
With over 100 years of history it is no surprise that Seoul Foreign School is THE place the most pres-tigious colleges will visit if they have 24 hours to spare in Korea
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 7
High Ropes On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju Whether it was the in-dividual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith or the coopera-tive challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones It was a great day of fun team building and personal accomplishment
MS New AssessmentThe new assessment sys-tems will allow students to be more well-rounded Instead of focusing on the results theyrsquoll focus more on the journey to get to those resultsMenya Jefferson MS French Teacher
In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and stu-dents about learning students in the Middle School will re-ceive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year Under the new system the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately
Achievement measures a stu-dentrsquos understanding skills and knowledge of concepts learned in class Citizenship represents the studentrsquos atti-tude preparedness and partic-
ipation Additionally teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count to-wards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade
With a variety of types of formative assessment students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being ldquopenalizedrdquo with a grade By the time students take a final or summative assessment they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed Tim Relyea MS Humanities Teacher
Remember producing your own website when you were at school Probably not In Year 8 ge-ography in the British School students have pro-duced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth Projects like this one are on-going through-out our school divisions and evidence of the grow-ing importance of Information amp Media Skills just one of the new Essential Competencies be-ing intergrated into our curriculum
Here are two examples you can check outChaparral Henk Jan de Boer Year 8
httpbitly19VEKwv
Coniferous Awani Cuddon Year 8 httpbitly19Xw4rA
A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE
James Hooper - inspiring our studentsA young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit to climb Everest James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams
Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activistWe were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit
It was awesome We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that wersquod never done before The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the airJustin Jang Gr 8G
students producing websites on biomes
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
4 TODAYTHE SNAP SHOT BOX
Experiential Learning
Essential CompetenciesAccess to a vast array of infor-mation is so easy with comput-er technology and the internet Technology improvements have made our world smaller by be-ing more accessible But along with these innovations come new challenges
The biggest challenge is how to access credible information easily and use it responsibly to communicate effectively
How can we fit this in our Seoul Foreign School perspective We are a school of educational ex-cellence promoting responsible global citizenship in a Christian context We value knowledge but realize there is so much more involved in preparing stu-dents for their future
As such we have recently un-dertaken a process over many months to ensure we are prepar-ing our students well A variety of groups revised our Expect-ed Student Learning Results (ESLRs) extended their scope and renamed them as Essential Competencies skills
These Essential Competencies identify what we as a school see as important in developing responsible global citizens who possess not only the knowledge and skills of the content areas but also the skills confidence and passion to make a positive difference in their communities
Please see the academic section of our schoolrsquos website for more
Last year we reported on lsquoThe Underwood Memorial Hall Blogrsquo - a compilation of short essays written by our Grade 4
As part of her CAS (Creativity Action Service) activity Jenny Choi is translating the blog into Korean For those less familiar with CAS itrsquos a programme of-
fered in the HS involving stu-dents in experiential learning
In the process of translat-ing it was interesting to see how greatly rooted the Underwood family was in Korearsquos history Jenny Choi Gr 11
SFS Health Office offers CPRAED Training43 bus drivers and supervisors in Transportation received CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) AED (Automated External Defibrillator)
IB HL Biology Heart DissectionsAt the height of their learning our year 2 IB HL Biology Students get an up-close learning experience
BS Science Students of the Month (October)From left to right Alyssa Choi (Y9) Ewa Marczuk (Y7) Graca Kiboi (Y8) Hyong Kim (Y9) Henk-Jan De Boer (Y8) Jun Seob Shim (Y7)
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 5ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING
Author Julia Golding Inspires Writers
Building Blocks of Learning
The way she interacted with us made me want to read her books and write something myselfKrish Rapaka Gr 7B
Have you ever wondered what kind of creative imagination it takes to come up with characters for an award winning fantasy novel for teens
On 1st October Grade 7 students from the Middle School had the opportunity to work with British Award Winning Author Julia Gold-ing as part of their Writerrsquos Work-shop week
Julia shared some of her strategies as an author for how she creates char-acters including her own version of a round table for her new series Young Knights Planning a story can be a difficult task to start so our stu-dents were excited to see how a ta-blecloth could be used to create the lead character of a story
Students were given the chance to work with Julia to create several characters that would fit into her new series She also shared some wonderful tips about creating characters for her new book to be released in February 2015
After meeting with Julia the stu-dents wrote letters back to her sharing some of their reflections on their own learning about the writing process and how it will help them continue to grow as writers
I will definitely use some of these methods for the next story I writeMax Kral Gr 7J
You might be surprised to know that the teaching of Essential Competencies hap-pens everyday in Junior Kindergarten in fun and dynamic ways
One such activity that involved parents and students over a four day period was ldquoThe Construction Zonerdquo It involved loads of hands on action and building materials as our 4-5 year olds demon-strated their creativity initiative and collaboration skills and problem solv-ing their way through a series of chal-lenging activities
You could see that the children gained confidence in planning their outcome benchmarking from watching their peers accept-ing their failures with improve-ment and presenting their cre-ativity in front of all their peers parents and teachersAnonymous Parent
6 TODAYA LEGACY OF SUCCESS FROM PRE K - 12
Under the operation of Seoul Foreign School Namsan International Kindergarten in the Han-am-dong area is providing our students with an outstanding diverse and rich early years program With attention to every detail our students at NIK are enjoying the benefits of our whole school re-sources and their intimate premises Students have the best of both worlds at their fingertips - swimming lessons at the main SFS campus Manda-rin classes Taekwondo Art Music and more at NIK
Using the PYP early years program the NIK cur-riculum provides our students with an excellent grounding to tranistion to our main campus in their years to come For a tour of NIK contact admissionsseoulforeignorg or call 330-3121
NIK Building Success
Top Colleges Visit SFSSeoul Foreign School has been asked to host the lsquoOpenrsquo programs for colleges including the Universi-ty of Chicago Vanderbilt Univer-sity Rice University University of Pennsylvania Columbia Duke Georgetown Princeton North-western Oxford University Cor-nell Brown and the University of California But the opportuni-ties for our Students to meet with key representatives from colleges doesnrsquot stop there
By the end of this calendar year we will have had over 130 univer-sities visit SFS since August This represents an increase of 20 over the same period last year and 27 over the same period two years ago
The number of visiting Colleg-es continues to increase and have represented USA Australia the UK Canada Korea China UAE Switzerland and Japan This has broadened the range of options our Graduates have
11 Smooth Rolling in Gr4In August our 11 laptop program rolled into the ES Grade 4 classrooms with an emphasis on ldquocloud-basedrdquo learning
Having an audience makes for higher engagement with the students Knowing that other students are viewing their work leads to higher qualityBrad Thies Gr 4 Teacher
The introduction of 11 laptops hasnrsquot diminished the importance of learning the basics in reading and writing But it has challenged students to use their lsquotech-toolsrsquo to develop better communication skills problem solve and most importantly to work collab-oratively with their peers
At the end of the Asian tour each year we do an evalu-ation of all of the fairs we did and hands down Seoul Foreign School always comes out on top as being the BEST programUniversity Admissions Representative
With over 100 years of history it is no surprise that Seoul Foreign School is THE place the most pres-tigious colleges will visit if they have 24 hours to spare in Korea
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 7
High Ropes On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju Whether it was the in-dividual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith or the coopera-tive challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones It was a great day of fun team building and personal accomplishment
MS New AssessmentThe new assessment sys-tems will allow students to be more well-rounded Instead of focusing on the results theyrsquoll focus more on the journey to get to those resultsMenya Jefferson MS French Teacher
In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and stu-dents about learning students in the Middle School will re-ceive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year Under the new system the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately
Achievement measures a stu-dentrsquos understanding skills and knowledge of concepts learned in class Citizenship represents the studentrsquos atti-tude preparedness and partic-
ipation Additionally teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count to-wards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade
With a variety of types of formative assessment students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being ldquopenalizedrdquo with a grade By the time students take a final or summative assessment they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed Tim Relyea MS Humanities Teacher
Remember producing your own website when you were at school Probably not In Year 8 ge-ography in the British School students have pro-duced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth Projects like this one are on-going through-out our school divisions and evidence of the grow-ing importance of Information amp Media Skills just one of the new Essential Competencies be-ing intergrated into our curriculum
Here are two examples you can check outChaparral Henk Jan de Boer Year 8
httpbitly19VEKwv
Coniferous Awani Cuddon Year 8 httpbitly19Xw4rA
A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE
James Hooper - inspiring our studentsA young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit to climb Everest James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams
Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activistWe were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit
It was awesome We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that wersquod never done before The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the airJustin Jang Gr 8G
students producing websites on biomes
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 5ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING
Author Julia Golding Inspires Writers
Building Blocks of Learning
The way she interacted with us made me want to read her books and write something myselfKrish Rapaka Gr 7B
Have you ever wondered what kind of creative imagination it takes to come up with characters for an award winning fantasy novel for teens
On 1st October Grade 7 students from the Middle School had the opportunity to work with British Award Winning Author Julia Gold-ing as part of their Writerrsquos Work-shop week
Julia shared some of her strategies as an author for how she creates char-acters including her own version of a round table for her new series Young Knights Planning a story can be a difficult task to start so our stu-dents were excited to see how a ta-blecloth could be used to create the lead character of a story
Students were given the chance to work with Julia to create several characters that would fit into her new series She also shared some wonderful tips about creating characters for her new book to be released in February 2015
After meeting with Julia the stu-dents wrote letters back to her sharing some of their reflections on their own learning about the writing process and how it will help them continue to grow as writers
I will definitely use some of these methods for the next story I writeMax Kral Gr 7J
You might be surprised to know that the teaching of Essential Competencies hap-pens everyday in Junior Kindergarten in fun and dynamic ways
One such activity that involved parents and students over a four day period was ldquoThe Construction Zonerdquo It involved loads of hands on action and building materials as our 4-5 year olds demon-strated their creativity initiative and collaboration skills and problem solv-ing their way through a series of chal-lenging activities
You could see that the children gained confidence in planning their outcome benchmarking from watching their peers accept-ing their failures with improve-ment and presenting their cre-ativity in front of all their peers parents and teachersAnonymous Parent
6 TODAYA LEGACY OF SUCCESS FROM PRE K - 12
Under the operation of Seoul Foreign School Namsan International Kindergarten in the Han-am-dong area is providing our students with an outstanding diverse and rich early years program With attention to every detail our students at NIK are enjoying the benefits of our whole school re-sources and their intimate premises Students have the best of both worlds at their fingertips - swimming lessons at the main SFS campus Manda-rin classes Taekwondo Art Music and more at NIK
Using the PYP early years program the NIK cur-riculum provides our students with an excellent grounding to tranistion to our main campus in their years to come For a tour of NIK contact admissionsseoulforeignorg or call 330-3121
NIK Building Success
Top Colleges Visit SFSSeoul Foreign School has been asked to host the lsquoOpenrsquo programs for colleges including the Universi-ty of Chicago Vanderbilt Univer-sity Rice University University of Pennsylvania Columbia Duke Georgetown Princeton North-western Oxford University Cor-nell Brown and the University of California But the opportuni-ties for our Students to meet with key representatives from colleges doesnrsquot stop there
By the end of this calendar year we will have had over 130 univer-sities visit SFS since August This represents an increase of 20 over the same period last year and 27 over the same period two years ago
The number of visiting Colleg-es continues to increase and have represented USA Australia the UK Canada Korea China UAE Switzerland and Japan This has broadened the range of options our Graduates have
11 Smooth Rolling in Gr4In August our 11 laptop program rolled into the ES Grade 4 classrooms with an emphasis on ldquocloud-basedrdquo learning
Having an audience makes for higher engagement with the students Knowing that other students are viewing their work leads to higher qualityBrad Thies Gr 4 Teacher
The introduction of 11 laptops hasnrsquot diminished the importance of learning the basics in reading and writing But it has challenged students to use their lsquotech-toolsrsquo to develop better communication skills problem solve and most importantly to work collab-oratively with their peers
At the end of the Asian tour each year we do an evalu-ation of all of the fairs we did and hands down Seoul Foreign School always comes out on top as being the BEST programUniversity Admissions Representative
With over 100 years of history it is no surprise that Seoul Foreign School is THE place the most pres-tigious colleges will visit if they have 24 hours to spare in Korea
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 7
High Ropes On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju Whether it was the in-dividual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith or the coopera-tive challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones It was a great day of fun team building and personal accomplishment
MS New AssessmentThe new assessment sys-tems will allow students to be more well-rounded Instead of focusing on the results theyrsquoll focus more on the journey to get to those resultsMenya Jefferson MS French Teacher
In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and stu-dents about learning students in the Middle School will re-ceive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year Under the new system the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately
Achievement measures a stu-dentrsquos understanding skills and knowledge of concepts learned in class Citizenship represents the studentrsquos atti-tude preparedness and partic-
ipation Additionally teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count to-wards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade
With a variety of types of formative assessment students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being ldquopenalizedrdquo with a grade By the time students take a final or summative assessment they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed Tim Relyea MS Humanities Teacher
Remember producing your own website when you were at school Probably not In Year 8 ge-ography in the British School students have pro-duced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth Projects like this one are on-going through-out our school divisions and evidence of the grow-ing importance of Information amp Media Skills just one of the new Essential Competencies be-ing intergrated into our curriculum
Here are two examples you can check outChaparral Henk Jan de Boer Year 8
httpbitly19VEKwv
Coniferous Awani Cuddon Year 8 httpbitly19Xw4rA
A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE
James Hooper - inspiring our studentsA young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit to climb Everest James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams
Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activistWe were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit
It was awesome We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that wersquod never done before The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the airJustin Jang Gr 8G
students producing websites on biomes
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
6 TODAYA LEGACY OF SUCCESS FROM PRE K - 12
Under the operation of Seoul Foreign School Namsan International Kindergarten in the Han-am-dong area is providing our students with an outstanding diverse and rich early years program With attention to every detail our students at NIK are enjoying the benefits of our whole school re-sources and their intimate premises Students have the best of both worlds at their fingertips - swimming lessons at the main SFS campus Manda-rin classes Taekwondo Art Music and more at NIK
Using the PYP early years program the NIK cur-riculum provides our students with an excellent grounding to tranistion to our main campus in their years to come For a tour of NIK contact admissionsseoulforeignorg or call 330-3121
NIK Building Success
Top Colleges Visit SFSSeoul Foreign School has been asked to host the lsquoOpenrsquo programs for colleges including the Universi-ty of Chicago Vanderbilt Univer-sity Rice University University of Pennsylvania Columbia Duke Georgetown Princeton North-western Oxford University Cor-nell Brown and the University of California But the opportuni-ties for our Students to meet with key representatives from colleges doesnrsquot stop there
By the end of this calendar year we will have had over 130 univer-sities visit SFS since August This represents an increase of 20 over the same period last year and 27 over the same period two years ago
The number of visiting Colleg-es continues to increase and have represented USA Australia the UK Canada Korea China UAE Switzerland and Japan This has broadened the range of options our Graduates have
11 Smooth Rolling in Gr4In August our 11 laptop program rolled into the ES Grade 4 classrooms with an emphasis on ldquocloud-basedrdquo learning
Having an audience makes for higher engagement with the students Knowing that other students are viewing their work leads to higher qualityBrad Thies Gr 4 Teacher
The introduction of 11 laptops hasnrsquot diminished the importance of learning the basics in reading and writing But it has challenged students to use their lsquotech-toolsrsquo to develop better communication skills problem solve and most importantly to work collab-oratively with their peers
At the end of the Asian tour each year we do an evalu-ation of all of the fairs we did and hands down Seoul Foreign School always comes out on top as being the BEST programUniversity Admissions Representative
With over 100 years of history it is no surprise that Seoul Foreign School is THE place the most pres-tigious colleges will visit if they have 24 hours to spare in Korea
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 7
High Ropes On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju Whether it was the in-dividual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith or the coopera-tive challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones It was a great day of fun team building and personal accomplishment
MS New AssessmentThe new assessment sys-tems will allow students to be more well-rounded Instead of focusing on the results theyrsquoll focus more on the journey to get to those resultsMenya Jefferson MS French Teacher
In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and stu-dents about learning students in the Middle School will re-ceive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year Under the new system the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately
Achievement measures a stu-dentrsquos understanding skills and knowledge of concepts learned in class Citizenship represents the studentrsquos atti-tude preparedness and partic-
ipation Additionally teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count to-wards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade
With a variety of types of formative assessment students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being ldquopenalizedrdquo with a grade By the time students take a final or summative assessment they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed Tim Relyea MS Humanities Teacher
Remember producing your own website when you were at school Probably not In Year 8 ge-ography in the British School students have pro-duced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth Projects like this one are on-going through-out our school divisions and evidence of the grow-ing importance of Information amp Media Skills just one of the new Essential Competencies be-ing intergrated into our curriculum
Here are two examples you can check outChaparral Henk Jan de Boer Year 8
httpbitly19VEKwv
Coniferous Awani Cuddon Year 8 httpbitly19Xw4rA
A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE
James Hooper - inspiring our studentsA young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit to climb Everest James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams
Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activistWe were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit
It was awesome We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that wersquod never done before The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the airJustin Jang Gr 8G
students producing websites on biomes
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
Inspiring Excellence Building Character - Since 1912 7
High Ropes On 6th September students and teachers spent an exciting day at Paju Whether it was the in-dividual challenge of a 30-foot leap of faith or the coopera-tive challenge of negotiating the high-ropes course students overcame their fear of heights and pushed the limits of their comfort zones It was a great day of fun team building and personal accomplishment
MS New AssessmentThe new assessment sys-tems will allow students to be more well-rounded Instead of focusing on the results theyrsquoll focus more on the journey to get to those resultsMenya Jefferson MS French Teacher
In order to provide meaningful feedback to parents and stu-dents about learning students in the Middle School will re-ceive grades for Achievement and Citizenship in each of their classes this year Under the new system the teachers will report Achievement and Citizenship seperately
Achievement measures a stu-dentrsquos understanding skills and knowledge of concepts learned in class Citizenship represents the studentrsquos atti-tude preparedness and partic-
ipation Additionally teachers are increasing the validity of the Achievement grade by only including assessments that are completed in class Homework and other practice assignments are more likely to count to-wards the preparedness aspect of the Citizenship grade
With a variety of types of formative assessment students have the benefit of practice and experience which should promote learning without fear of being ldquopenalizedrdquo with a grade By the time students take a final or summative assessment they should have greater confidence and SKILLS to succeed Tim Relyea MS Humanities Teacher
Remember producing your own website when you were at school Probably not In Year 8 ge-ography in the British School students have pro-duced some impressive websites as a product of their learning about various biomes around the earth Projects like this one are on-going through-out our school divisions and evidence of the grow-ing importance of Information amp Media Skills just one of the new Essential Competencies be-ing intergrated into our curriculum
Here are two examples you can check outChaparral Henk Jan de Boer Year 8
httpbitly19VEKwv
Coniferous Awani Cuddon Year 8 httpbitly19Xw4rA
A VARIETY OF EXCELLENCE
James Hooper - inspiring our studentsA young adventurer and world record holder as the youngest Brit to climb Everest James met with students in the British School encouraging them to manage risks and take hold of their dreams
Mohammad Tajeran - environmental activistWe were the 100th school he has visited during his around the world cylcing journey raising awareness and planting trees See our tree in front of the British School planted with students during his visit
It was awesome We had a great experience by trying out new stuff that wersquod never done before The leap of faith was scary at first but jumping off felt like you were floating in the airJustin Jang Gr 8G
students producing websites on biomes
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
8 TODAY
NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Recently Mrs Christine Williams visited our Year 4 classrooms to talk to the students about her job as an Archaeologist She talked about her training and job some of the sites she had dug and the tools she used
Under the guidance of our experts and parent helpers our Year 4 stu-dents gained a hands-on perspec-tive to Ancient Egypt replicating the mummification process using real fish and modified embalming techniques
Experiencing the techniques used in Ancient Egypt allowed the stu-dents to reflect more authentical-ly in their written responses and
their understanding of the rituals and traditions of this important ancient civilization Their culmi-nating celebration was to show-case their learning at their Ancient Egypt Museum
It was interesting to see the colour of the fish when we took it out of the salt It was first grey and then brownMario Hessmann Yr 4L
It became very smelly Im-agine the smell if it had been real humansMaxence Morel-Dierckx Yr 4L
Ancient Egypt Comes AliveSFS A REGIONAL LEADER IN EDUCATION
SFS Google Summit In Numbers
FEEDBACKTELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGES WErsquoVE MADE TO SFS TODAY ON FACEBOOK TWITTER OR ON OUR SFS WEBSITE FEEDBACK FORM LINK HERE Wersquove made some changes to TODAYhttptinyurlcomSFSTODAY
email yjumseoulforeignorg
