October 2011 Volume 3

Issue 1 SFS SFS SFS TodayTodayToday Details of daily distinction found at Seoul Foreign SchoolDetails of daily distinction found at Seoul Foreign SchoolDetails of daily distinction found at Seoul Foreign School

Seoul Foreign School, centered in Christ, inspires educational excellence & promotes Christian values, Seoul Foreign School, centered in Christ, inspires educational excellence & promotes Christian values, Seoul Foreign School, centered in Christ, inspires educational excellence & promotes Christian values, personal integrity & responsible global citizenship through a dynamic international experience.personal integrity & responsible global citizenship through a dynamic international experience.personal integrity & responsible global citizenship through a dynamic international experience.

www.seoulforeign.org

This is the year we honor our past, celebrate our present, and eagerly anticipate our future! On Wednesday, August 17th the Middle School kicked off our Centen-nial year with the opening of a ‘time capsule’ from the grade 8 class of 2000 – the year many of our current grade 6 students were born! It was great fun to look at the turn of the century through the eyes of Middle School students. Technology has changed a bit since then, but favorite books, movies, and foods were readi-ly recognized by our current student body. Also at the assembly a short slide

show of SFS history was shared giving students an idea of what SFS and Ko-rea was like in the past century. Watch out for the next official Cen-tennial Time Cap-sule Opening & Burial on May 29, 2012. It’s going to be fun opening up the time capsule to find out what was buried 25 years ago!

SFS Gathers Together for the 100th

MS students opening the Time Capsule

A er the annual See You at the Pole event, SFS students, teachers & staff gathered together on the soccer-field to pose for the 100 picture to commemorate the Centennial Year (2011-12) of Seoul Foreign School.

MS Opens its Millennium Time Capsule

This academic year, 2011-2012, all the British School students are participat-ing in a very exciting writing project to commemorate 100 years of Seoul Foreign School. The project is being led by Vi oria DʹAlessio, a trained journalist, and mother to Elisabe a Lawrence in Year 8L and Benji Law-rence in Year 3C.

Vi oria provided the vision for our work and turned Dr. Tim Grayʹs seed of an idea into a reality. As the theme of one hundred is significant, it was adopted as the core idea. Initially, Vi oria thought of different headings for each class to focus on. A er a great deal of creative thinking, Vi oria managed to present one hun-dred different titles, covering a range of genres, to inspire our students to write one hundred chapters. The titles cover life as it is being experienced now by our students, as well as re-flecting on what it was like in the past. Within the range of titles, there are also plenty of opportunities for stu-dents to consider life in the future.

Vi oria has already begun working with our students and sees each class

for two sessions - one to introduce the writing fo-cus and one for feedback. Google Docs is being used by all students, making it more accessible for Vi - oria to edit writing and leave helpful messages. We are grateful for Mr. Don Robinsonʹs expertise and for his sensible ap-proach. Through his guidance and patience we have a practical solution to organising the work involved in such a huge project. Mr. Damian Prest must also be thanked for helping the younger students in his classes to set up accounts. Mrs. Sally Corben is forma ing our special book, as well as working with all students to pro-duce a piece of art, which will be in-cluded in the anthology alongside their piece of writing. The British School staff have enjoyed supporting Vi oria in their classrooms and value and appreciate the writing skills she has been sharing with our students.

Students in Key Stage 3 have already been out in the field interviewing Mr. Robert Black about the future of Seoul Foreign School, and Mrs. Edie

Moon about the changes she has wit-nessed in her time at Seoul Foreign School. In early Sep-tember, students in Year 8L were for-tunate to have Fa-ther Giancarlo Fal-dani (Pastor at St. Francis, the Francis-can Chapel in Han-nam-dong) visit

them in their form room to share his vast

experiences of Seoul over the forty years he has lived here. It was a fasci-nating insight and a wonderful expe- rience for the students who conduc- ted the interview.

Once the book has been published, with support from Ines Hur (parent of Joanna Seung in Year 2C), everyone in the British School will celebrate with a traditional street party. All students will receive a copy of the anthology and a hardback copy of the book will be placed in the time capsule.

Centennial Writing Project… at the British School

“This anthology will become pre-cious to students - and of course to the school - in years to come, and it is an honour for me to be in-volved in its creation. Two months into the project, all students in Years 5 to 9 are fully immersed in their pieces, and the enthusiastic manner in which they have thrown themselves at their writing is won-derful for me to witness. At times the originality of the studentsʹ thinking amazes me. Every story they are producing is unique and special - just as the authors are themselves!ʺ

Vi oria DʹAlessio

Father Giancarlo Faldani visits Year 8L class

Vi oria working with Year 5B students on the Centennial writing project

SFHS commenced offering IGCSE (International Gen-eral Certificate of Secondary Educa-tion) courses to Grade 9 students in August 2009. These courses are offered through Cambridge International Exami-nations (www.cie.org.uk), part of the Universi-ty of Cambridge. Almost two years later, in May 2011, our first cohort of Grade 10 students sat for their final IGCSE examinations. Our students achieved excellent results that were well above the world averages. Our pass rate was 100% with 90% of grades awarded being high passes (grades A* - C). In fact, 60% of all grades our students achieved were either A* or A, the highest grades available. A total of 50 IGCSE grades were awarded across ten subjects. Two of our current juniors Jezamine Wee and Joseph Godden were key

members of the first IGCSE cohort. They both opted to take a full set of IGCSE courses in Grades 9 and 10, enabling them to be eligible for an additional qualification, the Interna-tional Certificate of Education (ICE). The ICE award demonstrates that the student has studied a balanced cur-riculum across five subject groups, with a minimum of 7 IGCSE subjects taken, and it is awarded at three lev-els – Distinction, Merit or Pass. Both Jezamine and Joseph received a

Distinction for their ICE award. They achieved four A* grades each with the rest of their grades as high passes. The IGCSE program continues to develop and strengthen at SFHS. We have seen an incredible growth in the number of stu-dents opting for IGCSE courses and we have included new subjects (Spanish, Additional Mathematics). This first set of results

is an excellent reflection of the quali-ty teaching and learning that is tak-ing place in IGCSE classrooms. The school continues to be commi ed to providing resources and training for teachers of IGCSE classes so that this quality is maintained.

If you have any questions regarding IGCSE courses at SFHS, please con-tact Mrs. Ruth Sanderson, IGCSE Coordinator at ruth.sanderson@seoulforeign.org

On October 13, 2011 at 9:30 pm, the ‘Heart to Heart’ program of Arirang TV fea-tured Seoul For-eign School in an interview with our Head of School, Dr. John Eng-strom. The pro-

gram offers a unique opportunity for the school to share its extraordinary history, breadth of educational ex-pertise and community spirit which is so characteristic to SFS. A link to this interview will be made available in our PRESS tab on our main school website. We’d encourage you to share this link with your friends and family all over the world!

Arirang TV Recognizes SFS’ 100th Anniversary

SFS Receives Excellent Results for First IGCSE Exams

Jezamine Wee and Joseph Godden with their teacher Ruth Sanderson

62 seniors (out of 99) were IB diplo-ma candidates last year. That means 62 students took all the required IB classes (three standard level, three higher level) plus the Theory of Knowledge class, wrote a 4000 word Extended Essay and fulfilled their CAS hours (Community Action and Service). This number is 22% more students than last year, the highest number in our history. It also indi-cates the high level of commitment to rigor-ous learning from our students. Many of our students now recognize that an IB diploma may give them advanced standing when enter-ing college. Our stu-dents routinely re-ceive advanced

placement and/or college credit for their examination results. In addi-tion, college requirements to take foundation courses, typically given in the freshmen year, may be waived for IB students who have been awarded higher level credit. Current-ly, 2545 universities and colleges in 75 countries recognize the IB Diplo-ma as superior preparation, and view

all Diploma program courses as Hon-or courses. The graphs below show the increas-ingly wide variety of topic areas that students are choosing for their Ex-tended Essay (EE). The EE is a 4000 word research paper and is a core as-pect of the IB Diploma program. This increasing diversity is an excellent indicator of the growing breadth of the IB program at SFS.

IB - Rigor and Recognition for SFS Students

Robin Lee, current senior was fea-tured in an article published by the International Tracing Service (ITS) for his research on his IB extended essay.

The article described his preparation for the IB extended essay, which explained the historical background of the movement for the Genshagen Daim-ler motor works called ‘Goldfish, Obrigheim’ during World War II. Robin spent three days at the ITS in Bad Arolsen and had the opportunity to look

through its archives this past sum-mer. His enthusiasm for history in general and for the Second World War era, predetermined the subject of

his extended essay paper. While con-ducting research he added:

“Primarily focusing on the facts, on the project story in itself, I have to try ’blending out’ the many personal fates of the people affected by it”.

Robin Lee, Senior

The ITS - Arolsen was impressed by Robin’s research and featured him in an article published on their website. A full version of the article on Robin Lee, “South Korean Conducts Re-search for Final School Paper” of Robin Lee is available at: h p://www.its-arolsen.org/en/homepage/latest_info/index.html

SFS Senior, Robin Lee gets the spotlight For

his IB Extended Essay Research

“The single most effective de-terrent to bullying is adult

authority.” This September 28th, all four divisions of SFS held their annual “SAY SOMETHING” assembly. The assem-blies highlighted school-wide efforts to educate students to recognize and deal with bullying at school. Students in Year 3/Grade 2 and up participat-

ed in these “SAY SOME-THING” assemblies, whilst the youngest students learned about this theme through small-group, coun-selor-led “SAY SOME-THING” presentations in their classrooms. Three years ago, SFS chose the school-wide theme of “SAY SOMETHING” to encourage students who experienced bullying firsthand

or who are bystanders observing others being bullied, to stand up and say something to the person doing the bully-ing and to others in the student’s support net-work, especially adults. Statistics indicate that when bystanders “SAY SOMETHING”, bullying incidents can be de-

creased by as much at 75%. In the first semester and in the semes-ter to come, as a school, SFS staff will be continuing to discuss and work with students regarding the issues surrounding bullying. SFS wants par-ents to be aware of the school’s efforts so that they too can support their child if he/she witnesses or ex-periences bullying. The Elementary School PTA will host the ES counse-lors as they present on the “SAY SOMETHING” topic on November 3rd in the ES Veranda. All are wel-come.

The 6th grade students in the Middle School had a fun time investigating the relationship between kinetic and potential energy recently. Students worked in teams to design and build roller coasters. Initially, they tested their ideas by recreating them in an

online simulation. Once they had a working idea, they began construc-tion, using rubber tubing, rubber bands, and pins to transform their ideas into something tangi-ble. Students had to continually test and redesign their ideas until a

small metal marble could pass all the way through their rollercoaster without ge ing stuck. Students collected data and created spreadsheets that reported how their model showed the relationship be-tween kinetic and potential energy. We have some very creative and innovative stu-dents in 6th grade!

Lauren Lee measuring out 10 cm increments for the Rollercoaster.

6th Grade Engineers build Rollercoasters

“Say Something!” Say “no” to Bullying

SFS Swimmers make a Splash

This last August, our Summer Swim Squad had the opportunity to partici-pate in it’s first Korean swim meet at the Olympic Swimming Center in Jamsil. The team was represented by a hand-ful of our own SFS swimmers. It was the first time our swimmers had competed in an Olympic sized pool (50m) barring a single time by our own Ashley Chang, Grade 6. Though the pool was two times the length the kids were accustomed to swimming in, all the kids stepped up to the challenge and not only swam admirably, but recorded personal bests! Both our Anna Rose Keating, Year 7 (100 Bu erfly) and Ashley

Chang (100 Breast) won gold in their respective events! The kids were able to participate in a much larger level of competition and were able to taste a li le bit of swimming beyond the confines of SFS and the small circle of international schools. The kids were treated to a celebrity of sorts here in Korea too, when the meet was repre-sented by Korea’s own Park Tae Wan, the Olympic Gold Medalist from the 2008 Beijing Olympics! Capping the team’s success at the meet, the team was alerted to the fact that Ashley Chang’s time in her breast stroke events would have placed her in the top 3 at the Korean National Competition!

Job well done Crusader Swimmers !

“I can’t wait until tomorrow!” These words became commonplace as SFS campers finished their day of Camp SFS. More than three hundred SFS students and staff participated in the six sessions of Seoul Foreign School’s Summer Seoulstice Summer Pro-

gram. Only in its second year, the summer program consisted of four “camps”: Camp SFS, Sports Camp, Academic Enrichment Camp, and Specialty Camp. Numerous reports were received regarding worthwhile programming, caring and profession-

al personnel, and excited children who had fun while learning and en-joying friendships- old and new. The summer program served SFS students from Reception/JK to High School. Camp SFS included daily rotations of activities such as drama, mu-sic, arts and cra s, instructional and rec-reational swimming and much more. The other camps includ-

ed individual and team sports, tutoring, lan-guage, math, writing, robotics, and many other opportunities. Watch for infor-mation about SFS Summer Seoul-stice Summer Program 2012. You will be glad you did!

Ashley Chang (Grade 6)

SFS Summer Seoulstice Summer Program

Pictures taken from 2011 Summer Program