There is no planet B!

Upper Primary pupils are learning and experiencing many things during the new IPC unit “Weather and climate”. One of the most impressive events was when they participated in a climate march here in Ghent. Pupils didn’t know what to expect and before the march some of them were excited and a bit nervous, but afterwards they were amazed and shared how it felt to come together with lots of other people for a cause. After the march, they tried to capture their emotions in a personal drawing – and their drawings reflect so many aspects of the climate march. They show how it felt slowly moving through the city together with 3000 other people. They show lots of banners and posters, instruments and rhythms. They show people shouting slogans in Dutch and English. Pupils were happy, but exhausted, when they returned to school.

During IPC lessons, pupils for example learn correct scientific and geographic vocabulary to describe and interpret their surroundings. During Assembly, Upper Primary pupils shared facts about clouds and how cloud names themselves give us lots of information about how high up the sky they are and what type of weather they bring. Pupils have also learnt more about appropriate vocabulary for weather forecasts and they have written their own forecasts and drawn maps showing  this information. They start to know how to use words like isobars, air pressure, precipitation, isotherms etc. Pupils have also just started preparing their programming and coding task in IPC. One of the many things they will do during this unit, is to publish an online quiz using Scratch.

Pupils are working with persuasive texts in Literacy, they look at model texts and look at how to use both connectives and conjunctions, as well as persuasive words and phrases to improve their own texts. Different pupils in the class have different challenges during Literacy lessons, and all pupils work on a level that is appropriate for them.

In Numeracy, focus have been to both revisit topics to make sure pupils remember strategies and methods, and to introduce new topics as well. Year 6 pupils have learnt how to draw pie-charts and how to read and handle data in different ways. Year 5 pupils have started looking at how to convert Metric units to Imperial units when measuring, as well as multiplying fractions. Pupils discuss how some learning is something we can learn by heart (knowledge) and some learning we need to practise to improve (skills) and how we show understanding when all our learning comes together.

Upper Primary pupils celebrated Lujain’s birthday in December, before the Christmas holidays. They welcomed both Ally from Mongolia and Aarshi from India. Now in February, they also made Ms Jenny feel welcome back after her sick leave and Ms Hilde, Upper Primary teacher trainee, feel welcome in Upper Primary and at ISG!

During February, the Personal Value in focus is Thoughtfulness. Upper Primary pupils are thinking about how to show this value in action and they try to remember to link it to the other values we have worked with throughout the school year, Respect, Resilience, Co-operation and Morality. They show International Mindedness when learning more about eahc other's cultures, religions and traditions, like for example when Jood brought traditional Saudi Arabian clothes for her show-and-tell. By using all these values in interaction with others, pupils learn solve problems and choose the right behaviour in different situations. Pupils are aware of the fact that no-one is perfect and that we all can improve in different ways – and that helping each other making right decisions is one way of showing values learnt.

The last day before the Mid-term holidays, Friday 1^st March, is World Compliment Day, a perfect day to say something kind to each other. Let's spread thoughtfulness and kindness around us now! We end the blog with some photos from our Carnival party.