SSU TERM 1; UIS TERM 2 January 2014

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From the Schools’ Principal

Dear Parents/Guardians, Students and Colleagues

Welcome to a new calendar year! It has been with great pleasure I reflect on our progress at Sri Utama Schools Kuala Lumpur, and continue to look forward to watching our school develop as an exemplar. Our campus is a safe, welcoming environment, even more so now Matthew has done some great work implementing improvements to the primary playground. Our new canteen is beautiful, clean and organized, and working smoothly. We continue to welcome experienced dedicated teachers to our team. Our brilliant Panel Heads amazingly juggle complex administrative tasks while teaching their own classes. Teaching in a school in a collaborative enterprise in which everyone has an important role.

With the exponential growth in knowledge in the past decades, educators need to move to a new type of teaching and learning, in which students move beyond recalling simple facts and to learning how to learn – an essential aspect of living in the 21st century, in which the only constant will be adapting to change. This requires a greater focus on the development of skills, which are transferable across subjects and to future learning. These teaching and learning techniques are relevant to students working in every context, whether they are delivering the Malaysian National or CIE syllabus. As a result, our school introduced a more comprehensive assessment strategy last term, in which every subject will be assessed with an assignment as well as class work and examinations.

Another change being introduced is to augment our discipline policy with a trial of a ‘Merit Award’ scheme that will recognize the many responsible and thoughtful behaviors our students enact. We have also introduced a strategy in which victims and witnesses can anonymously report bullying, as this is behavior we do not tolerate. We hope also to introduce another program that will bridge what the school offers educationally with developing our emotional environment.

Sri Utama has a great tradition as a school of excellence and this has been achieved through our teachers’ enthusiasm and genuine care for children and adolescents. This newsletter celebrates achievement by individuals and by students in UPSR and PMR, and provides further detail to the policies names above, and information that will help you truly support your child as a learner.

It has been my pleasure to join this community, and I look forward to a rich and exciting term ahead.

Ms Annie Termaat Principal

SSU TERM 1; UIS TERM 2 January 2014

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Welcoming new staff at Sri Utama Schools, KL We welcome our following staff who joined Sri Utama Schools during our previous term or at the beginning of this year:

Ms Malathyie K. Arumugam

Ms Malathyie is our energetic new teacher of secondary PE, Moral and Civic Studies. She is a recognized athlete who has represented the Malaysian states of Melaka and Terengganau in long distance running! She has 4 years teaching experience in Malaysia, and holds a degree in Commerce.

Mr Deji Abdul Wahab

Mr Deji has 9 years’ experience in Nigerian and Malaysian schools. He is a multitalented teacher and engineer. As well as being an experienced teacher of Economics, he is the class teacher of F1B and teaches them Biology and Mathematics.

Mr Olivier Serbrock

Mr Olivier is teaching English and Oral English in the secondary school. He has over 7 years teaching experience in Barcelona and Shanghai.

Mr Mohamad Hafiz

Mr Hafiz has been teaching Living Skills, History and Geography since 2008. At Sri Utama he is responsible for Islamic Studies to SSU and UIS and Kemahiran Hidup for SSU secondary students.

Ms Rasdiana

Rasdiana is highly skilled in Arts and crafts. She has been teaching for three years and is teaching Forms 1-5 UIS students at Sri Utama.

Mr Henson George

Mr Henson is another one of our international staff, having 10 years’ experience in India, teaching IGCSE and ICSE. At Sri Utama Schools he is teaching Social Studies and PSHE to Forms 1, 2 and 3.

Mr Alfred Jr. Sy

Mr Alfredo has 5 years’ experience teaching and tutoring in the Phillipines and most recently, in Hong Kong. At Sri Utama (UIS) he is teaching Primary 3 English, Maths, Social Studies, English Oral and Arts.

Teacher Victoria Munnich

Teacher Victoria has 15 years’ experience as a specialized teacher of drama. She has run 2 drama centres in the UK but has decided it was time for an adventure in teaching our lovely young people in Malaysia. I am sure our students will not let her down!

SSU TERM 1; UIS TERM 2 January 2014

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Inclusivity at Sri Utama Schools Sri Utama welcomes students from many different backgrounds and we hope they all feel a sense of belonging, respected and comfortable. Bullying unfortunately sometimes occurs in every school and work place, and is always very distressing for victims and their families. Here are some ways we are managing it. Please discuss this information with your son or daughter to help your child understand acceptable ways to deal with incidents where someone has been mean to them.

Victims of bullying can handle it by

(i) By telling a teacher, or writing a report. This defers the authority to another person,

but may be the only recourse for a truly powerless victim.

(ii) Telling the bully that what they are doing is hurtful. Incidents sometimes happen because the perpetrator/s considers it fun, not realizing the harm they are doing. Simply stating one’s feelings as a victim can be empowering, and usually stops the bullying if it was truly an unconsidered act.

(iii) Agreeing with the bully, (e.g, ‘Yes, I am a bit overweight.’), and then asking ‘Do you have a problem with that?’ This is particularly effective when the bullying is about appearance, for example, a person’s sex, race etc. that the person has no control over. By turning the hurtful statement around as a question, you are showing the bully how prejudiced he/ she is about a matter that is no one else’s business. Dealing with a bully this way is very empowering for victims, and also reinforces that the school is an inclusive community.

(iv) Writing to URSafe@sriutama.edu.my. This is a new confidential email address in which anyone (witnesses as well as victims) can report names, dates and details of incidents. These emails will be read quite often (weekly) and all individuals named in emails will be interviewed. Because the email can be sent from anywhere, at any time, bullies will never know who is watching and listening and that should curb their mean behaviour.

We want your children to feel Safe at Sri Utama!

Annie Termaat Nakhil Hassan, Principal Assistant Head of Student Affairs.

SSU TERM 1; UIS TERM 2 January 2014

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PMR Results for Year 2013

100% of our 24 Form 3 Sekolah Sri Utama students passed their PMR examinations! Additionally, many students were awarded multiple A grades. This outstanding result reflects their motivation and consistent effort, as well as the deep pedagogical content knowledge of the Malaysian Curriculum by their teachers, both in 2013 and during the years leading up to this important examination.

Please join us in congratulating the following students and their current teachers: En How Soon Leng, Pn Normariana, Pn Norita (2 subjects), Pn Mastura Pn Monica, Pn Siti Norbani and Pn Zainurain.

7 A’s!

6 A’s!

5 A’s!

4 A’s!

3 A’s!

2 A’s!

1 A!

AMIRUL FARHAN BIN FIRDAUSI

ADAM IBTISAM BIN HAULILAH

BISYARI BIN MOHAMED ROSLAN

NURERINA BINTI HANIZAM

SARA NABILA BT AZLAN

ANDREA MARISSA ANAK WILLIAM

CARMEN WONG KAH MUN

AQIL ALEXANDER ROSLI AMRAN

AINUL HAFIZ BIN JAAFAR

OMAR REZA BIN RAJA SHAH ZURIN

KHAIRUNNISA HANI BT HAMDAN

ARIF BUNAYYA BIN SYAHRUL

INANI NABILAH BINTI NORDIN

PUTRI ALYSSA BT ZUIKEFLEE

PRISHNATH MAHENDRAN

SARAH HANUM BT HOZE RIZAL

January 2014

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Discipline: Adding a ‘carrot’ to the ‘stick’

How can we recognize and reward the majority of our students, who are polite, responsible, respectful and caring young citizens? This term we will be trialling a system of ‘Merit Awards’ which aims to recognize every student, academic or non-academic, who demonstrates they know, understand and can show what the five Sri Utama School values look like in practice:

Respect for self, others and the environment Humility, appreciation and compassion Community spirit which understands diversity Aim to enhance individual skills and talents Determination, confidence and success

When students do the right thing, teachers of Secondary students will give them a small signed, dated card, which students should collect. Primary teachers will sign a form, with represents multiple cards, and be responsible for these records. The idea is that as the cards accumulate, they can be traded up to cards of higher level:

Stage Award Number 1 Merit award Any honourable behaviour Achievement 5 x Merits Excellence 5 more – 10 x Merits Year Award 5 more – 15 Merits Repeat stage 1 2* Student Affairs Leader Award 15 more – 30 Merits Repeat stages 1 & 2 to move to subsequent stages 3* Bronze Principal’s Award 45 Merits 4* Silver Principal’s Award 60 Merits 5* Gold Principal’s Award 75 Merits

*Stages 2-5 will be awarded at assemblies

At Sri Utama Schools we have long held a discipline system based around a system of reprimands, warning letters and more serious consequences if students behave inappropriately. You can be assured this discipline approach will continue to apply when students behave in undesirable ways, because it is working.

January 2014

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The advantages of this plan are:

• Any student who meets criteria can receive one, • The school’s values are continually re-enforced, and • The school’s recognize its most valuable citizens are transparent.

Annie Termaat and Nakhil Hassan PRIMARY NEWS! Congratulations to Benny Tan Yee Siang who had his work recognised in the 44th World School Children’s Art Exhibition. His international award, a Certificate of Merit was presented on 22nd September at the Primary Assembly.

January 2014

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Homework and assignments:

How much help should parents provide?

Sri Utama Schools has introduced an assessment system in which 30% of student term marks comes from assignment work they are given up to two weeks to complete, including at home. (Some very young students do some of this assignment work as projects in class.) This poses the question: how much help should parents provide, but still enable their children to achieve an outcome that is fair? First of all, let’s consider why this change in our assessment was introduced. With the development of media, the internet and improved communication over the past decades, the very nature of knowledge is changing. Many educators believe that assessing knowledge only by using tests does not show many skills and abilities students need to be successful in today’s world. These educators assert that students must be prepared to do more than memorize information and use algorithms to solve simple problems.

The focus of learning is now more towards being able to find, use, connect and apply information. All the assignments set by teachers at Sri Utama Schools are intended to help students develop the skills to do this. Of course it is difficult to learn to perform, complete a short investigation, or reflect on a case study (for example). As professionals who work with children, teachers know the standards and set our expectations for our students accordingly: the work should be challenging enough to help students grow but achievable enough for everyone to be proud of their effort. The key is allowing the child to practice. Skills are much more difficult to develop compared to rote learning information. Have you ever watched a baby learn to walk? Will he develop faster if you carry him? What about when she learns to speak? Obviously, there are no clear cut answers.

Here are some approaches that have been shown to help:

• Always praise effort, not the outcome. Persistence and resilience are the attributes of every successful adult on the planet. No one cares now what their writing was like when they were little, but there are plenty of child prodigies who failed to deliver, because misplaced praise drove them to make choices that were easy.

• Offer to proof-read, or help them find references/ materials. This kind of support shows your children you are interested in their education. But if they don’t want your help, respect that choice. Also, make it clear if they ever change their mind, you will be there help them.

• In performance subjects, listen to the practice. Suzuki’s instrumental music teaching works because parents are expected to engage. So if your child has an oral presentation, a dance or other skill, offer (be do not insist) to be a trial audience to help them develop confidence.

• Recognise it is ultimately the child’s responsibility to learn. Very occasionally parents ‘help’ by doing assignments for their child. Although the result may look incredible, students in this situation often present it with ‘ashamed’ or ‘embarrassed’ body language, because they have been asked to participate in a lie. Like all great life events, becoming educated is a personal journey.

At Sri Utama, marked work is stored in a portfolio which provides a long-term perspective on student improvement, which will be evident to everyone who has the opportunity to reflect over their work. Who knows where these skills will one day lead them?

January 2014

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UPSR Results for Year 2013

In many subjects, our Sekolah Sri Utama Primary 6 students achieved a 100% pass rate in their UPSR examinations! Additionally, many students were awarded multiple A grades. Once again, this reflects well on consistent teaching over the many years leading to this external examination.

Please join us in congratulating the following students and their current teachers: Pn Junaitha Abdul Majid, Pn Khairi Tahrim, Pn Rosemaih and Pn Noraini.

5 A’s!

4 A’s!

3 A’s!

2 A’s!

1 A!

ARIEF IMRAN AHMAD IZZ SHAH ADRENNA ROSE NOAH

AMIRUL HARITH SHAM RAJ REDDY

AIMAN SYAFIQ DANIA ERINA AIDA AQILAH ARAZI IMAN UNGKLI AIMAN SUAIMAN

NUR ADLIN SOFYA HANNAH LI-AN VICTORIA ELSA LON

NUR ASMARIENA ELLYANNA

NUR HIDAYAH

NOOR SYAFIQ KHAN NUR HANA SABURA

NUR JAZMEEN AMYRA

NUR AIN SOFYA AMIRUL HAIKAL

NUR SHAZLEEN

January 2014

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New canteen arrangements!

On Tuesday, 7th January 2014, Sri Utama Schools launched a new canteen. The addition of long tables and benches neatly arranged to accommodate the different lunch sessions and year levels, are now a fixture on school campus. The canteen area overlooks the basketball court and football field, which also serves convenience for front row seats to any school matches or games! By now, parents and children should have received the canteen menu handed out on the first day of school. The food menu shows the types of foods available for the whole term. It is of utmost importance that all students commit to the meals that they have chosen, as the canteen staff will prepare exactly what they have ordered for a particular day. A weekly checking system between teachers and students will take place to remind everyone of the foods chosen for the week. Weekly menus will be posted on bulletin boards to ensure every child is aware of their daily meals. The additional cost for the new canteen gives every child a quality meal and comfortable setting for break and lunch. Improving diets and providing a safe and hygienic environment is one of our priorities to nurturing well-rounded children. Sri Utama Schools would like to thank you for accommodating these changes. Stay tuned for more tasty foods coming your way!

Parent/ Student Handbook The Parent/ Student handbook was released on Monday 13th January 2014. The handbook outlines the schools policies and procedures, as well as including the responsibilities of school students and school parents. Parents and students are advised to read the handbook carefully, completing the Handbook Acknowledgment Form upon completion. This form must be submitted to the Students Class Teacher by Wednesday 15th January. If you would like to enquire about issues not covered in the handbook, please contact our School Front Office Monday-Friday.

January 2014

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Playground Area This term the school has replaced the Old Primary Playground

with some fantastic New Playground Equipment, including slides, sea saws, and climbing equipment. The play ground has

been positioned over thick rubber matting to comply with international safety standards. The School hopes that current

and future students gain much pleasure from the new equipment, and make the effort to take care for it and play

respectfully.

January 2014

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Important Dates to Remember for 2nd Term SSU and 3rd term UIS, 2014

Day Date Happening / Events / School & Public

Holidays

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Public Holiday – Prophet’s Muhammad

Birthday

Friday 17th January 2014 Public Holiday – Thaipusam

Tuesday 21st January 2014 1st Fire Drill

Thursday 24th January 2014 Parents-Teachers Meeting for UIS Term 1

Monday - Friday 27th – 31st Jan 2014 School Holiday – Chinese New Year

Friday & Saturday 31st January 2014 &

1st February 2014 Chinese New Year

Saturday 1st February 2014 Public Holiday – Federal Territory Day

(FTD)

Monday 3rd February 2014 Replacement School Holiday - FTD

Friday 7th February 2014 Prefects’ Installation

Tuesday 18th February 2014 Primary School Educational Trip

Tuesday 4th March 2014 School Sports Track Event

Saturday 8th March 2014 Annual School Sports Carnival

Monday 10th March 2014 Replacement School Holiday –

Annual School Sports Carnival

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Kindergarten Educational Trip

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Career’s Day

Monday Starting 31st March 2014 Term 1 SSU / Term 2 UIS / IGCSE Trial

Examination

Monday Starting 7th April 2014 End of Term School Holidays –

Term 1 SSU / Term 2 UIS

Monday -

Wednesday 7th – 9th April 2014 Annual School Camping

Tuesday 22nd April 2014 School starts for Term 2 SSU / Term 3 UIS

**Note: All the above dates are subject to amendments particularly the assessment and term examinations.