The Weekly Bulletin of Stonehill International SchoolVolume 6, Issue 93

2 March 2018

FEATURED STORIES

Stonehill Hackathon

On Monday, 26th February, Stonehill hosted its first inter-school Hackathon. A ‘Hackathon’ or a

‘Codeathon’ is an event where teams of developers get together to come up with solutions to

problems. These solutions include, but are not limited to, robots, machine learning algorithms,

mobile and web applications and websites. For the most part, there is only one constraint – time.

IMPORTANT DATES: MARCH

8th

M5 PERSONAL PROJECT

EXHIBITION

8th – 10th ISACI ROUND III - GIRLS

VOLLEYBALL AT THE BRITISH

SCHOOL, NEW DELHI

8th – 10th

ISACI ROUND III - BOYS

CRICKET AT INTERNATIONAL

SCHOOL OF HYDERABAD

14th PRIMARY CROSS COUNTRY RUN

16th P5 MUSICAL PRODUCTION

CONTENTS

01/ FEATURED STORIES

12/ WHOLE SCHOOL NEWS

17/ PRIMARY NEWS

18/ SECONDARY NEWS

22/ SPORTS NEWS

25/ MARCH MENU

HIGHLIGHTS Stonehill Hackathon

MYP Arts Showcase Places and Movement - IBDP

Art Exhibition 2018

Classical Strings in Stonehill

Innovating in Language &

Literature Class

P4 – P8 Swim Gala

THE

TIGER

Participants of the Stonehill Hackathon included students from six international schools in

Bangalore. The participating school included Bangalore international School (BIS); The International

School, Bangalore (TISB); Inventure Academy; Neev Academy; Oakridge International School; and

Indus International School. Twenty-one Secondary School students from SIS also participated in the

event. All participants were grouped into teams, with each team comprising of a minimum of two

and a maximum of five students.

The participants coded and created solutions to a variety of different challenges ranging from

medical technology to natural language interfaces. The participants had six hours to create solutions

by using any programming language of their choice.

The enthusiasm of the students was palpable while students worked on software and hardware

based projects. Students worked on a number of projects like an artificial intelligence based facial

recognition system, neural networking, computer games using Python, database projects,

messaging applications, Arduino/Raspberry Pi and Lego Mindstorms, to name few.

At the end of their allotted six hours, the teams had to present their projects to our panel of judges

and the rest of the Hackathon participants. Our distinguished panel of judges was comprised of Mr.

Dale Vaz of Amazon India and Mr. Nasser Ebrahim from IBM. Mr. Vaz is Head of Engineering and

Chief Technology Officer at Amazon India and Mr. Ebrahim is Senior Technical Mentor in the IBM

India Software Lab Machine Learning Hub.

The first prize was won by Team Robomatrix Indus International School who made a robot meant to

carry medicine to a destination. The team was awarded prize money of INR 15, 000/-

The second prize went to Team ETWAS of Oakridge International School, which made a home

automation system using an artificial intelligence based facial recognition. The team won prize

money of INR 10, 000/-

Neev Designers of Neev Academy walked away with the third prize. The team designed a prosthetic

arm using Lego EV3 and they won prize money of INR 5000/-

The event was an immense success and Stonehill plans to make this an annual event.

Mr. Mohammed Nassir

Secondary ICT Teacher

Places and Movement - IBDP Art Exhibition 2018

Every year, as a part of the IBDP Visual Arts course, the Visual Arts students get to curate and

exhibit their work. This year our team of three artists had an eloquent collection of work. As some

of the pieces were very large, the show was held in a professional gallery space at the prestigious

Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat.

For the past couple of months our student artists have spent endless hours polishing their curatorial

statements, art work and working on display techniques; a tremendous amount of hard work went

into this process. All the hard work paid off, as visitors to the show were awed by the work of our

young artists.

Here is what the three artists have to say about their work.

Nelly

The use of dance as well as movement as forms of communication is what I wanted to present in

this collection of art pieces. I attempted to show expressions of movement through different

messages.

Media, colour and the attempt to communicate energy play an important role in my collection. A

common point to be observed is that movement is different in all elements. Edgar Degas had a

passion for dancers and the way he used them to represent movement is what inspired me initially.

He represented ballerinas in frozen positions, but with the power of a few artistic strokes he gave

the impression of movement in the dancers.

I want to take my audience through a journey – one that starts from the different aspects of ballet

dancing and where it evolves into natural forms of movement related to the elements.

Polina

The relationship between extravagant architecture and religious influences worked as inspiration for

me to derive a connection between the visual appearances and contextual aspects of the work. The

message in my sculpture correlates with the rules which have been created by Christian followers in

the past and are still being followed in the 21st century.

I looked at artists such as Pieter Bruegel – the Elder and Agostino Tassi, who were two artists that

left a significant impression in history, along with their unique styles of paintings. I was inspired by

how these artists beautifully capture subtle differences in architecture.

The subject matter of religious architecture in their work inspired me to capture the magnitude of

emotions in my own work. I was influenced by their architectural depictions, use of colour, texture

and shading in their different pieces to convey space and mood.

Viniti

I specifically wanted to express the various aspects of nature such as

Natural disasters

Destruction of nature

Correlation of nature within humans

The overall theme to my collection was The Power of Nature. Using the three sub themes

mentioned above, I wanted my audience to experience a variety of emotional resonances.

The viewers got to experience artwork created in multiple media which included 2D paintings, 3D

sculptures and digital work. From the technical aspect abstraction, textures, colours and shapes

play a major role in my artwork.

Ms. Ranmali Hapugalle

HOD Creative Arts

WHOLE SCHOOL NEWS

Classical Strings in Stonehill

On February 24th, Stonehill hosted Ms. Marietheres Maier, Ms. Aya Goeorgieve, Ms. Irina Mitina and

Ms. Christina Schoftner from the Music University of Vienna. These accomplished musicians were

in India to perform with the India National Youth Orchestra and Chorus. The four of them are

trained in western classical string orchestra and played the violin, viola and cello.

The day began with the musicians from Vienna performing. They performed a variety of pieces to

allow us to experience their lowest and highest registers as well as all the sounds in between,

which the three string instruments can produce. After that, they performed Mozart’s Quartet, giving

the audience a brief glimpse of heaven.

After this wonderful experience, Stonehill Primary students, Iroha and Asaki, played Somewhere

over the Rainbow and Moon River on the violin.

Ms. Maier and Ms. Goeorgieve decided to join the duo. After the performance, the experienced

musicians gave our budding musicians feedback on their technique and played the pieces again with

them.

Stonehill Secondary students Jaeyoon, Aiisha and Gia performed on flutes and piano. Grade 12

student Aishwarya sang a jazz number, which got her an invitation to perform at the Associated

Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) high achievers concert in April!

To allow our guests to get a brief glimpse of classical Indian culture, Grade 9 student Shreya

performed a Bhartnatyam piece.

The delightful event ended with the Viennese quartet playing a beautiful rendition of a waltz by

Johann Strauss, inspiring the audience to get up and dance.

Ms. Evelyn Kelton

Secondary Music Teacher

Introductions

One of the most important jobs for leaders in international schools is the recruitment of high quality

teaching staff to replace the teachers who are moving on. We know that excellent teachers are a

school’s most valuable asset so we devote a great deal of time to getting this right. We are now

very close to completing our recruitment for the 2018-19 academic year. I would now like to take

this opportunity to introduce you to two more teachers who have now accepted positions at

Stonehill for August 2018.

Sylvia Gillett will be joining us as a PYP Homeroom Teacher.

She is originally from St. Helena, part of the British

Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. She is an

experienced IB educator, with a BEd from the University of

New England and an MEd from the New Zealand Tertiary

College. She has previously taught in Zambia, Egypt,

Malawi, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh and China. Sylvia

also taught at Stonehill between 2012 and 2015. We are

delighted to welcome her back.

Jonny Sanger will be joining us as a Secondary Drama

Teacher. He is a professionally trained actor from the UK.

He has worked as an actor with a number of different

theatre and film companies, including a six month Italian

tour of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, performed to over

100,000 college and university students. Jonny has a BA

(Hons) in Drama from John Moores University in Liverpool,

an NCDT Certified Diploma in Acting from Drama Studio

London and a PGCE in Secondary Drama from Goldsmiths

University. He has worked as a Secondary Drama Teacher in

culturally diverse schools in central London since 2014.

Jonny is looking forward to coming to Stonehill to promote

Drama as a serious, rigorous and rewarding academic choice

for our students.

Health, Safety and Security

The Stonehill Health, Safety and Security Committee meet each quarter to discuss and resolve

issues raised by members of the Stonehill community. The committee also ensures that the school

is compliant with Indian statutory and regulatory requirements as well as ensuring alignment with

the standards for international accreditation. The current committee comprises of the following

members:

● Simon McCloskey (Committee Chair)

● Rahul I - Buildings Manager

● Maitreyee Banerjee - Head of Science

● Kerstin Bender - PE

● Mark Howarth PE

● Glen Johnson - Acting Head of Boarding

● Jill Sudharsan - Parent Representative

● Charlette Macdonald - Head Nurse

● Shadab Javeed - Transport

● Craig Matthew - Secondary Teacher/Parent Representative

During this month’s meeting a parent concern about student data on the recently issued ID cards

was raised. The committee have now taken the decision to ensure that all replacement ID card will

have only:

● Name

● School ID Number

● PYP/MYP or DP

● Emergency contact number on the back of card

New cards and replacement cards will not include children’s photographs or date of birth. If you

would like you child to have an ID card with the new format. Please contact Ms. Nijika (Primary) or

Ms Saathi (Secondary).

Best regards,

Simon McCloskey

Deputy Head of School & Primary Principal

PRIMARY NEWS

P8 Poetry Café

P8 students have been immersed in exploring the different kinds of poetry as well as poetic

elements such as alliteration, personification, repetition, onomatopoeia, sensory images, similes and

metaphors. They have also been applying their understanding by writing their own creative poems.

The students shared their creativity on a special poetry performance afternoon 'The Poetry Cafe'.

Here are some pictures from the afternoon. We would like to thank all parents who were able to

attend.

Ms. Sarita Ngarden & Mr. Christopher Rea

P8 Class Teachers

Important Upcoming Primary Dates

● Wednesday 7th March - What is Inquiry? PYP Parent Workshop at 8:00am

● Friday 9th March - PYP Music Concert at 2:10pm

● Wednesday 14th March - Inter-House Cross Country

● Friday 16th March - P5 Production for parents

● Friday 23rd March - Talent Show

SECONDARY NEWS

D2 Parent-Teacher-Student conference

All D2 parents should have received an invitation to the Parent-Teacher-Student conference

scheduled for Wednesday, 7th March from 3:10 – 5:00pm; this will take place in the Drama Room

and ICT Lab. Parents and students will meet with the Diploma Coordinator, College Counsellor and

the respective subject teachers. The following points will be discussed:

The performance of your child in the Practice examination.

Status of completion of internal assessments in each subject.

Discuss action plan for improvement in the IBDP May 2018 examination.

Status of college admissions with the college counsellor

Kindly book your slots on the Google Form which was shared on Wednesday, 21st February.

Please remember that reservations are on a first come, first served basis.

Stonehill Hackathon

The Stonehill Hackathon was successfully organised on Monday, 26th February from 8:00am to

5:15pm. Six schools from Bangalore with forty-five students participated at the event.

Additionally, twenty-one Stonehill Secondary students also participated at the event. Thank you to

Mr. Mohammed for organising this event. Creativity and technological innovation were showcased

perfectly at the Hackathon, with all participants partaking of activities with enthusiasm. Our

students did a fantastic job and made us all proud.

IBDP Art Exhibition

The IBDP Art Exhibition by our D2 students Nelly, Viniti and Polina was presented at the Chitrakala

Parishath on Tuesday, 27th February. The opening ceremony witnessed a number of parents, staff

and students admiring an outstanding exhibition from our students. Thank you to all our D2 Visual

Art students and Ms. Ranmali for a magnificent show.

Book Week

Book week commenced on 26th February and ended on 1st March. Mr Martin Chatterton, a

celebrated author visited us during book week and conducted workshops with Secondary

students. Thank you to Mrs. Stalder for organising this extremely productive week.

www.worldofchatterton.com

Secondary Assembly

The Secondary assembly took place on Thursday. Students did presentations on their Trips Week

experiences. Details will follow next week.

Personal Project Exhibition

The Personal Project exhibition by the M5 students will take place on Thursday, 8th. Details will be

shared by email.

Staff Professional Development

Friday, 2nd March, is a Staff Professional Development day. Therefore, the school will be closed on

2nd March for all students.

In addition, IB regional workshops will be taking place at the school from 2nd – 4th March.

Seventeen IBDP workshops are being conducted where over 200 educators are attending from India

and the Asia Pacific region. Details will follow next week.

The school will re-open on Monday, 5th March for all students.

Issues or Concerns Regarding Your Child/Children

If your son/daughter has any problems at school, please contact (by email) their Homeroom Teacher

or the relevant Subject Teacher directly in the first instance, and then the Head of Department or

appropriate Coordinator (MYP or DP) if required. Please do not call on their personal mobile number

at home or during class time.

Early Leave and Late Return after School Holidays

There are several parents who are booking tickets and then informing the school that their child will

miss school due to flights. This is not acceptable and will be treated as unauthorised absence.

Parents are NOT encouraged to withdraw children during term-time for vacations. Parents are also

asked not to ‘leave early’ or ‘return late’ in order to extend scheduled school holidays. In cases

where students will miss routine classes because of voluntary absence, the school does not provide

extra work for them to take on vacation.

The school is sometimes asked to ‘authorise’ absences during school time for family vacations or

other trips. It is not the school’s policy to do so.

If a student’s attendance falls below 90% during the course of the year (without extenuating

circumstances), parents will be asked to attend a meeting with the relevant Principal. The school

reserves the right to request students to repeat the year if attendance is lower than 90% by the end

of Semester Two.

Warm regards,

Narendra Mehrotra

Secondary Principal

narendra.mehrotra@stonehill.in

Innovating in Language & Literature Class

Creativity and innovation go hand-in-hand with learning at Stonehill. Our M4 students, who are

currently studying Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, put their learning of the story so far

into a fun activity. They split themselves into two groups and created two board games based on

characters and the storyline of the classic novel. Students used a combination of 3D printing and

art supplies to create the games. Read on to learn the process that went into creating this by one

the M4B students.

English class is always an outlet of creativity for students. A perfect example of this are the board

games we designed and played in class. We were reading the ever so famous The Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer. We read and analysed The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale and The

Knight’s Tale. Based on these tales and the General Prologue, we created two board games.

Both of these games included lots of planning. We had to make sure we incorporated our

knowledge of the stories into the game while making it challenging and fun to play. The two groups

took very different paths to creating their games. The first group, which was the group I was in

chose to use a classic game to base our board game off of. We designed our own version of

Monopoly called ‘Canterpoly’. The rules are very similar to the original game of Monopoly, and it’s

easy to play and understand. We used our knowledge of the stories to create locations, models of

real estate, chance cards and questions.

The second group chose to create an original game. They also incorporated their knowledge of the

stories into their game. Their game is extremely fun to play, and such an original, creative idea, that

definitely needs to be checked out by everyone! It is called ‘Canterhurry’ with 3D models of the

Canterbury cathedral of St. Thomas Becket and characters from the story.

All in all, both the games are interesting in their own way, and required a lot of knowledge and

attention to design and execute correctly. I highly recommend going to Ms. Preethi’s classroom and

looking at our games! It took a lot of work and creativity, and I’m so happy with the way they

turned out.

Siya – M4B

SPORTS NEWS

PYP Inter-house Swim Gala

The main objective of the P4 – P8 Swim Gala was for all students to showcase their swimming

skills, be risk-takers and collaborate with others. It was great to see all students model good

sportsmanship in a fun and exciting environment.

All Primary students demonstrated courage by swimming in front of their peers and parents. It was

fantastic to see them opt to participate in really difficult events to win house points for their team.

Well done to everyone, you should all be very proud of your achievements!

The final results were:

1st Place

Chawla – 211

2nd Place

Gandhi – 168

3rd Place

Nehru – 160

4th Place

Bachendri – 145

Ms. Zoe Howarth

Primary Swimming Teacher

STONEHILL CAFETERIA MENU FOR NOVEMBER

5 March

(Monday)

6 March

(Tuesday)

7 March

(Wednesday)

8 March

(Thursday)

9 March

(Friday)

Meat balls

Baked

Vegetable

Vegetable

ratatouille

Mashed

potatoes

Grilled

vegetables

Chicken Stir

fried

Vegetable

Manchurian

Baked

Cauliflower

Sausage Rice

Steak, Roasted

Chicken

Vegetarian

Cannelloni,

Stuffed

Capsicum

Grilled

Vegetables,

Rice & Soup

Grilled Fish

Macaroni

backed

Mushroom &

tofu Chili

Steamed

Vegetables

Beef , chicken

or

Vegetable

burgers

French fries

12

March

(Monday)

13 March

(Tuesday)

14 March

(Wednesday)

15 March

(Thursday)

16 March

(Friday)

Pasta

Bolognese

Tomato sauce

Mushroom

cream sauce

Cheese sauce

Garlic bread

Fish Finger,

Stir fried Tofu

Crispy fry

Vegetables

Vegetable

noodle

Steamed

mixed

vegetables

Rice

Swiss Steak

Vegetable

Rollatini

Vegetable

Crepes

Grilled

vegetables

Mashed

Potatoes

Chicken and

vegetables

In sweet and

sour sauce

Hakka noodle

Steamed

French beans

Rice

Pizza -

assorted

19 March

(Monday)

20 March

(Tuesday)

21 March

(Wednesday)

22 March

(Thursday)

23 March

(Friday)

Stir fried

Chicken

Vegetable

Quiche

Ratatouille

Steamed

French beans

Rice

Steak, Roasted

Chicken

Potato wedge

Vegetarian

Cannelloni,

Grilled

Vegetables,

Rice

Chicken &

Vegetable

Lasagna,

Garlic Bread

Chicken

Wings,

Steamed

Vegetables

BBQ Chicken

Vegetable

kebab

Vegetable

Burritos

Sausage Rice

Grilled

vegetables

Rice

Chicken or

vegetable Hot

Dogs.

French fries

Steamed mix-

veggies

Do note, there is a salad bar, plain yoghurt, and fresh fruit available each day in

addition to the above meals.

Stonehill International School

Tarahunise Post Jala Hobli Contacting the School: Bangalore North 562157 India Admissions Ms. Rishika Ganapathy T + 91 8043418300 Primary School Ms. Nijika Bhardwaj + 91 8043418318 Secondary School Ms. Saathi Vinay M + 91 9008307684 Transport Mr. Rahul. I E info@stonehill.in Head Nurse Ms Charlette Macdonald