News
Primary School Home Languages Event
ICS teachers, students and parents took part in our Home Languages event on Thursday March 18th. Students focussed on translating the Learner Profile into their home language and also shared experiences of times when they displayed one or more of the Profile word.
>> More about the Primary School Home Language Event . . .
Helping the Homeless
As part of the ICS Community and Service programme, students have been working with a charity called "North London Action for the Homeless".
>> More about Helping the Homeless . . .
Year 3 visits Royal College of Music
This term students in Year 3 engaged in a challenging interdisciplinary theme ‘How do we express ourselves?’ The central idea for students to explore was that beliefs and cultures may be expressed in a variety of ways.
>> More about the visit to the Royal College of Music . . .
Home Languages Week
ICS Home Languages Programme is based on the belief that the native or mother tongue plays a very important part in a young people's identity and self-esteem. Furthermore, the mother tongue provides the basis for the student’s ability to learn. Therefore our ultimate goal is developing students’ bilingual identity and proficiency.
Here at ICS we share this vision with a wider global community and were happy to take part in UNESCO’s global celebration of the mother tongue language by marking 22nd February as the Home Language Day.
>> More about Home Language Week . . .
Paper free day at ICS
The fact 2.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK and It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper is something that calls for an action in opinion of ICS community. We decided to challenge ourselves by declaring the 26th January Paper-free day.
>> More about Paper Free Day . . .
The Soup Kitchen Challenge
As part of our Community Action module, Life Skills class decided to take part in the Salvation Army’s Soup Kitchen Challenge on the 27th of November. The Salvation Army is a charity that aims to help people in practical ways through its social service centres and community welfare programmes. Life Skills students worked extremely hard to make the event a success making fresh soup and bread and selling it to students and staff at lunch time.
This experience was an opportunity for our students to reach out to a community that has enriched the educational and social well-being of so many families in need; a societal ethic and accomplishment that Life Skills supports and works hard to sustain. Life Skills raised more £60.00 and they are very pleased with the support they received from the student body, faculty and staff.
Travel and Learn trip ‘The history and geography of ancient Egypt and the Nile’
This November ICS Secondary and Primary students went to a journey to discover the history and geography of ancient Egypt and Nile. As we combined learning with an expedition we visited ancient temples, saw Tutankhamen’s mummy, went inside a pyramid, rode camels, visited a school in a Nubian village and had time to take in all we saw whilst sailing down the Nile. Egypt has a fascinating history, and our guide Saleeb, an expert Archaeologist, was able to bring all the stories alive for us. Egypt proved to be an incredible country with an overwhelming history which made this Travel and Learn trip very special.
Eco-team update
Eco-team has had a very successful term and here are some of things they have achieved:
They have put ‘Hippo’ water saving devices in the cisterns of all the toilets in Primary School. This will significantly reduce the water being wasted every time we flush.
Another great achievement is that Eco Team has created an ICS Eco-Code and are proud to present it to the world.
The green team did an audit of which classes turn off their lights and which leave their lights on when students leave to go to break. They did audit before and after awareness was raised in an assembly. The team issued ‘Switch off’ stickers to the classes if they always turned their lights off. Their audit showed that now more classes are remembering to save energy.
Eco-team also entered their audit onto the ‘Join the pod’ and updated their blog with eco-teams progress and some photos. They have also added their eco-code, the schools environmental audit and their action plan to their homepage. Have a look at www.jointhepod.org and search for International Community School. In the plan for the next term Eco-team will monitor our waste and recycling and aim to improve biodiversity in our garden.
Walk on Wednesday
ICS Primary has started ‘Walk on Wednesday’ once a term in order to promote a healthy life style as well as helping our environment by reducing CO2 emissions. School buses drop students off at the top of Regent's park so the students accompanied by ICS teachers then walk to school. This activity supports the ICS Travel Plan (in co-ordination with Transport to London) to encourage more students to walk, not just to school, but in their daily lives.
Community and Service Day at ICS
ICS 15th of October 2009
Community and Service day is held annually and is one of the most important parts of the ICS Community and Service programme which encourages the development of the qualities of empathy, citizenship and responsibility amongst our students. The ICS Community and Service programme requires students to take part in activities which benefit and help their community and this is why one school day per year is devoted to projects of benefit to our school community.
This academic year the ICS Community and Service Day was held on Thursday 15th of October. Students participated in several projects which were of benefit to our whole school community such as preparing for the annual school production, reorganising classrooms and the resource centre, producing a school newsletter and making delicious desserts to feed the hungry workers!
Middle Years Foundation classes took upon themselves the project of translating general school information into the different languages spoken at ICS. By doing this, our ICS language pioneers helped not only linguistic diversity to flourish, but they also helped students whose English is not their first language.
Community and Service Day proved to be a great opportunity to give back to the community where students study and develop interpersonal skills. It was also a day when all school members worked as one big team.
The International Community School (ICS) Supports the Greening of Marylebone
Marylebone, 5 June 2009
Children from the International Community School recently joined local residents to celebrate the completion of the first phase of the W1W Tree Planting Initiative with the planting of forty chanticleer pear trees. The trees now line the entire length of Hallam Street up to the BBC’s new Broadcasting House facility. This success is the result of a partnership between Westminster City Council, Westminster Tree Trust, and local residents and businesses.
The occasion was marked by the unveiling of a commemorative plaque by Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor Alan Bradley and the ceremonial planting of a tree by Matthew Wright of Channel 5 TV and the BBC on Friday 5th of June. The planting was made with the help of children from the International Community School (ICS) before a large group of well wishers from the local area.
ICS students are well versed in environmental matters, a consistent curricular theme running throughout the school’s curriculum (the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme, IB PYP). Dr Caroline Fowler, the school’s Field Studies Officer who works tirelessly to provide local practical activities and experiences for the students, joined the children on this project. The children were very proud to take part in the tree planting event and to learn from Paul Akers, the borough’s chief tree specialist, about the type of trees that had been selected and the importance of this project from both a local and global perspective. As the children prepared the soil around the tree roots, they learned about the chanticleer pear trees which are well suited for their new home on Hallam Street as they have an excellent leaf retention span, retain their compact shape and do not encroach upon buildings.
ICS thanks Mr Mark Gazaleh for inviting the School to participate in this significant local environmental event and the children will visit the trees regularly to monitor their growth.
CONTACTS:
Mark Gazaleh
The W1W Tree Planting Initiative Co-ordinator
E-mail: w1w.trees@live.co.uk
Westminster Tree Trust
www.westmtreetrust.org
Julian Maslinski
Telephone: 020 7828 2161
E-mail: julianmaslinski@gmail.com
Westminster City Council
Paul Akers
Telephone: 020 7641 6096
E-mail: pakers@westminster.gov.uk
Outdoor School in Bawdsey
This May, ICS Secondary students had an opportunity to attend ‘classrooms without walls’ in the ICS outdoor campus in Bawdsey. We decided to make our own patches a stimulating laboratory for fun and learning. More about Outdoor School in Bawdsey . . .
The New Green Projects from the ICS Eco Team
Thanks to the good weather eco-club meetings take place in ICS green garden. Unlike other typical board members, our eco team got down to the action straight away and spent most of the time in the garden getting muddy! More about Green Projects . . .
International Day
Traditionally ICS Secondary annually dedicates a day to celebrate the internationalism and diversity, using our own experiences and knowledge as resources. This year International Day focused on exploring the theme of Identity. More about International Day . . .
Life Skills Pottery Exhibition
Life Skills Pottery Exhibition is the second major Life Skills exhibition this year which took place on Friday 19th of June, 2009. This event brought together not only secondary students but also the members of the whole ICS community- parents, teachers, former students , school leaders. More about Pottery Exhibition . . .
ICS takes part in the Big School Birdwatch!
ICS Secondary took part in the RSPB Big School Birdwatch at the Regent's Park Wildlife garden. This is an annual event that happens all over the UK to find out which bird species are increasing and which are decreasing. More about birdwaching . . .
EXCITE: Life Skills holds first photography exhibition
EXCITE is the first major photography exhibition ever to be held by the Life Skills Team. It takes a unique look at the journey of the life skills students. More about Photograpers . . .