Message from the Principals 4/12/2024

Good morning, Hope Community!

1 - Important Reminders

2 - Curriculum Focus - Brain-based

3 - Learning Highlight - G5 Field trip

4 - House Points

5 - Photos of the week!

Important Reminders:

Summer school registration is OPEN (deadline June 2!!)
April 29 - Open School
2022-23 YearBook Order - FINAL CALL!
2024-25 School Year Calendar is here!
May 2 & 3 - Golden Week (NO SCHOOL)
May 24 - Celebration of Learning (more info coming soon!)
May 27 - Memorial Day (NO SCHOOL)
May 28 - Teacher's workday to prepare report cards (NO SCHOOL)

Curriculum Focus - Brain-based

Over the last two weeks, we have been sharing information on the blog about the types of pedagogies that inform the IPC and the IMYC. The four areas referred to as the “Progressive Pedagogies” are:

Constructivism
Metacognition
Brain-based
Experiential and active

In the last two blogs, we had the opportunity to dig deeper into the meaning and context of “metacognition” and “constructivism” in the Hope context.

This week, the Curriculum Focus will explore the thinking behind being a “brain-based” learner. Although all of these areas of pedagogy are informed by brain research, when we talk about being “brain-based” in the context of a Hope student, we view it in terms of the retention of knowledge, and how we can support the students in moving their learning from their working memory to their long term memory.

One way that teachers at Hope support their students in the “brain-based” element is through strategies to embed and retrieve information. This can be done through different forms of memory aid strategies, whether this be breaking down and chunking information, the use of mnemonics to support retention, flash cards to quickly learn and recall information, as well as tools such as a continued return to the “Knowledge Harvest” to bring back key information front and center. The use of this particular series of tools was on display at Hope this week during the “English Week” contests, such as the “Spelling Bee”.

As well as strategies to embed knowledge into long term memory, through the continued use of the structure of the unit (The Process to Facilitate Learning), students at Hope continue to repeat the same cycle of learning through different themes. Through the consistent use of the cycle, Hope students become more familiar and comfortable with the school’s learning process, which helps to make the progress and direction of learning clear to them. Through this developed comfort with The Process to Facilitate Learning, students know exactly what will come next in their unit, and eventually they will be aware of the process without conscious cognition.

Learning Highlight

Grade 5 had the opportunity to go on a field trip to the Okinawa Prefectural Museum. This was an exciting chance for the students to test and apply their knowledge, skills, and understanding of the goals linked to their current International Primary Curriculum unit, 'Being a Historian.’

They spent a full day becoming historians by familiarizing themselves with various primary and secondary sources across the different exhibitions. Immersing themselves in topics such as Natural History, Archeology, Folklore, and the Ryukyu Kingdom, the students gained a greater understanding of why History is important and the types of Historians who need to collaborate in piecing together information.

They used their skills of classifying events and societies chronologically in one of their tasks that involved an exciting scavenger hunt of different artifacts around the museum. They used their knowledge of time periods to decipher the visual clues, and were challenged to identify its time period, name and provide a short description of its function.