IB Asia Pacific Newsletter

Quarter Two, 2007

Projects

Schools to Schools

Teacher Training

Sri Lanka & Banda Aceh, Indonesia

The Early Childhood Care and Development Teacher Training Program has been blessed with a very positive response from many educators around the world, making the selection process quite the tough task for the Projects Team at IB Singapore. It has been difficult to pick the teacher trainers from out of the many talented and highly experienced applicants who are most of all, so passionate about this type of work. We would therefore like to extent our sincere gratitude to all those that have offered to share their time and expertise through our programs and apologize that we are unable to accommodate to all requests. If only our budget would allow for more workshops to be led! The Projects Team would also like to thank school heads and their designated school communities for supporting their teachers’ initiatives in support of less privileged schools.

We are currently looking to fill five more spots for the later part of next year 2008. Do write to us at projects@ibo.org for more details, should you be interested or know of interested educators.

The Aceh Teacher Training Program in Indonesia has also been receiving a very promising response from the Indonesian IB School community. Since it is a very young program in comparison to our other two projects, the Aceh ToT Program remains unfamiliar territory for many teachers. We write this newsletter in hope that some of you will feel comforted by the news that we will be leading an information session for interested applicants and prospective trainers on 26-27 May in Jakarta (venue TBA). This will be our second information session after a successful briefing at the Dunia Meeting in March 2007. The workshop will brief on the program’s goals, workshop themes, and other logistical questions you may have about participation.

We are currently searching for teacher trainers in the Asia Pacific region with some knowledge of Bahasa Indonesian on top of the IB/equivalent teaching methodology. Please write to us at projects@ibo.org for more details.

Partnerships

The Schools to Schools Partnership Projects continue to flourish with the ongoing and unbelievable support by schools from all over the world. Some of these schools have been with us since the program’s inception, and there is no doubt that the existence of our program is due to their undying good will and generous contributions. To follow, as usual, are but few examples of the wonderfully inspiring work that our participating schools have been doing since the beginning of the year.

Having supported their partner school St Mary’s College in Sri Lanka, through the funding of the sports team jerseys that embody the very identity of the school and the city district as a whole, the International School of Singapore continues to lend its helping hand by creating innovative ways for both student groups to correspondent and learn about each other through the use of computers and the Internet. We should be seeing an exchange of both snail and electronic mail between the two schools very soon.

Scotch College Australia welcomed two Acehnese students, selected through rigorous tests and interviews, into their homes in Perth in early April 2007. Their acquaintance grew into friendship and perhaps a lifelong link between two cultures that may never have met without the push by both communities to make this visit happen. We feel very honoured to have been given the chance to be a part of this initiative and look forward to many more such projects to come. In addition, Scotch College also continues to support two schools in Lhok Nga, in the outskirts of Banda Aceh, where an oversized primary school remains cooped up inside a terribly ventilated tin container since the tsunami destruction two years ago. Their generous funding will go towards the setting up of an English curriculum while the students are moved to a larger and more permanent building near the city mosque.

Many more projects are reaching out as friendships are made and children are educated. If you think our mission is in line with your project work at your school or organization, and you are not yet a participating school, but would like to share your work with the world, we would like to hear from you. The web site will exhibit a diversity of projects and be a platform for you to further develop your projects through collaborative work. It will also hopefully inspire you and your students as you learn about other existing programs around the globe. We thank you for your patience as we continue to complete the last phase of the site.

Please write to projects@ibo.org for more information on what preparations you could do while the site is under construction.

Glynn Richards, Projects Manager
Han Nguyen, Projects Assistant
Email: projects@ibo.org

Cambodia

It has been a very busy few months in Cambodia. After the January Demonstration Lessons for second year student teachers finished, two weeks of Demonstration Lessons for first year student teachers began in early February. Six teachers from Victoria Shanghai Academy in Hong Kong volunteered their time, during their Chinese New Year Holiday, to contribute to the Project.

Two of the teachers, Alana Pino and Bene Benoit, taught Demonstration Lessons in sixteen grades 1-3 classrooms in the four Project schools. The lessons were developed by Lead Teacher Annie Auckland and focused on Language Across the Curriculum using “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Rainbow Fish” as central themes. Annie taught grades 4-6 using “Sylvester” as the central theme.  Every classroom teacher and four first year student teachers observed each lesson, and the accompanying four activities. Following each lesson, the student teachers were thoroughly de-briefed with ample opportunity for questions and discussion.

Shannan & Soeun                   Debriefing Student Teachers

The other four teachers, Shannan Young, Sheila Macvicar, Claudia Deblois and Julia Stern formed a work team that installed new whiteboards in ten classrooms. Prior to the installations, the whiteboard areas had to be scraped, washed and painted. This work team also prepared one complete classroom for painting by scraping, washing and patching the walls. Local teachers and students worked alongside the visiting work team creating a very “international” group.

Julia and Khmer teacher         The Victoria Work Team

In March, two more weeks of Demonstration Lessons for first year student teachers were scheduled. Ron/Soeun and Channan/Teng taught lessons to grades 4-6 the first week. Grace Molinaro and Lynne Ord from Ivanhoe Grammar School in Melbourne volunteered their time to teach Demonstration Lessons in grades 1-4 during the second week. Grace and Lynne used “Elmer” as their language focus.

Debbie Sukarna, Head of Primary at Ivanhoe, and Helena Swain, former Deputy Head, arrived to plan and investigate a possible field trip in 2008 for their year 7 students. Also, Glynn Richards, IBAP Projects Manager, visited the Project, toured the Schools and met the Khmer Project staff.

Grace and Soeun introducing    The Ivanhoe Crew and “Elmer”                                   Khmer Friends

Classroom Renovations

A highlight of the past three months was the contribution made by the Partner Schools for classroom renovations. Ivanhoe Grammar School, Melbourne, funded and provided work teams to renovate four classrooms; International School of Phnom Penh funded the renovation of three classrooms; and Victoria Shanghai Academy, Hong Kong, provided a work team to prepare and install ten whiteboards and began the renovation of one classroom. Queenwood School For Girls, Sydney, has designated funds to renovate ten more classrooms during the next term.

In summary, seven classrooms have been completely renovated and ten more are planned in the near future.

New desks arrive                    IBO recognition

Future of the Cambodia Project

Despite the positive results of the Project, there is an increasing awareness that this is just the begin  ning of a change process that will take years to complete before it is truly sustainable. Initially the IBO entered into a three year Project Agreement with the Cambodia Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, but clearly, three, even four years, is not enough to achieve its goals. Therefore the IBO-IBAP has signed a new five-year Project Agreement with the Cambodian Ministry to continue supporting the Project Schools by providing regular teacher training and demonstration lessons, employing local Project staff, and by strengthening its Schools to Schools Partnership Programme.

Ouch Soeun will continue as Project Coordinator but will assume the additional responsibility of Schools to Schools Country Coordinator. To assist him in this new role, Nin Channan, our long time translator and Teachers’ College Trainer, has been hired as Assistant Project Coordinator.

Ouch Soeun,                          Annie Auckland & Nin Channan

Project Coordinator  

Ron Auckland

email: rona@ibo.org