1
To all in the Uplands Community,
Next week Mr. Craig
Skinner will be
completing his
contract and leaving
Uplands School after
8 years. Mr. Skinner
has been appointed
to a school in Perth and
will be relocating to Western Australia. It is not possible to list
all Mr. Skinner’s roles, achievements and accomplishments
whilst he has been at Uplands but there will be several
opportunities for us as school to thank him during the next
week. We wish Craig and Mel every success in their careers as
they start a new chapter in Perth.
Today we have also said goodbye to Ms.
Joyce Khoo, 3S’s Class Teaching Assistant.
Ms. Khoo has been with Uplands for over
16 years! Having worked at Kelawei
Road and in Batu Ferringhi she is one of
Uplands longest serving staff members
and has seen firsthand many changes in
Uplands. Ms. Khoo is moving to Kuala
Lumpur. We wish also wish her every success in her move.
Do keep in touch, we will miss you both!
Yours sincerely,
Matthew Bristow
Principal
Contents Message from the Principal Universities & Careers Drama Department ICT Department English Department Primary School News Uplands Roar CAS Action Geography Department DSS UPTA News Upcoming Events Academic Term Dates 2016-2017
2
Primary News
Today we said farewell to Ms Joyce Koo. After 16 years at Uplands, Ms Koo will be moving to
KL. Thank you Ms Koo and our best wishes go with you for the future.
This week we welcomed 2 new staff members in Primary – Ms Shobhanambigha Sivaguru,
Assistant in 3s and Ms Razlina Binti Abdul Rahim, Primary Library Assistant.
Congratulations to our Year 5 girls; Zephai Gabo, Karoline Hilkjaer and Vruksha Venkataramana
who represented Uplands in the MSSPP Swim Event on Wednesday.
On Thursday Year 3 children visited the Museum and Fort Cornwallis as part of their current
unit of inquiry.
Today and tomorrow a large number of Primary students have the opportunity to take part in a
multisport event with other International Schools in our area. Have fun and enjoy the event!
Primary Sharing Assembly: Our next sharing assembly will be on Monday 22nd February, hosted
by Year 4. The assembly begins promptly at 2:00pm in the foyer. Parents are invited to attend.
Year 5 KL Residential – There is much excitement amongst the Year 5 students as they prepare
for their KL residential trip next week. Staff attending – Ms Kaur, Ms Dang, Ms Nicholson, Mr.
Naidoo and Mr. Moore. We depart on Wednesday morning and return on Friday afternoon.
Learning Journeys – Today your child should have received a brochure detailing all about
Learning Journeys which are scheduled for Wednesday 9th March. Please return the last page of
the brochure to class teachers as early as possible so we can confirm your child’s Learning
Journey time. Learning Journeys will be held during the school day on Wednesday 9th March.
Please note that regular classes do not happen on this day. Parents will come to school with their
children at the scheduled time for their Learning Journey, which lasts approximately one hour.
Alison Nicholson
Head of Primary
3
University Visits
Inviting all parents and students in Year 10 to 13 to seminars from the following universities:
University of St Andrews
Tuesday, February 23, 12:30pm – 1:10pm
F206
University of Dundee
Thursday, February 25, 12:30pm – 1:20pm
B105
Hawaii Pacific University
Thursday, February 25, 12:30pm – 1:20pm
F206
Portland State University
Thu, February 25, 12:30pm – 1:10pm
C101
Arizona State University
Friday, February 26, 12:30pm – 1:20pm
F206
See you there!
Mr. Mitchell
UK University Fair in Penang
The annual British Council University Fair will be taking place at the G Hotel on Tuesday March
1st and is usually host to 30 + institutions.
On February 29th, a dozen of those universities will be available here at Uplands in the MPH for
questions from parents and students.
1200-1:30pm
MPH
See you there,
Bill Mitchell
Head of Pastoral and Universities & Careers
4
Parents, can you help us with Hosting?
“The International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA) is an international arts organisation. They are committed to providing high quality experiences that develop creative learning and internationalism through theatre. ISTA value diversity and collaboration, celebration and play, friendship and collegiality.”
Uplands have been chosen to host a Middle School ISTA Festival this coming April. Unlike FOBISIA events, we will be looking for families to host these students, and this is where your support would be greatly appreciated! There will be approximately 85 students arriving from six international schools. We are looking for families to host two overseas students for 3 nights from Wednesday 20th April until Saturday 23rd April. This is a fantastic intercultural opportunity, for your child to make new friends from other international schools within the region.
If you are able to help as a host for this event, please contact Daniel Naidoo, our Uplands ISTA Student Housing/Hosting Coordinator on [email protected] or Alison Hurst, Head of Drama on [email protected]
Drama Festival at Uplands…coming soon!
5
If you love Drama…
We are excited to announce a valuable opportunity for students to participate in the ISTA Middle School Festival here in Penang. There are limited places and the festival has already ‘sold out’ for overseas visitors! We now have 25 spaces available for our Uplands students.
The theme of our festival is ‘The Unknown’ Ernest Z’s Penang street art pops out from unexpected places, surprising you as you walk. From the ordinary to the unusual he brings the grey, worn walls of the streets to life with his quirky work. How can theatre make the ordinary extraordinary? How can we bring a spirit of adventure to the mundane? How do we look again at our lives and see them afresh, making them new through art? This festival will explore how theatre can make an audience think in new ways about things they have taken for granted or never even noticed. The cost of the three day festival is RM 980, which includes an out-and-about trip to Georgetown, festival t-shirt, student disco, all theatre workshops, lunches and snacks during the day, and two workshops with local theatre artists. Please contact Alison Hurst Festival Coordinator for an application letter. Find me in F208 or email [email protected]
Uplands Junior Excel Expert.
At Uplands school, students are required to learn new academic computing skills every year.
They develop skills in programming, spreadsheets, database management, web-authoring and
software integration.
Many students have demonstrated a high level of self-discipline and independent learning skills
while completing the Spreadsheet unit of work. They have completed all the tasks required for
their year group and beyond, and they have started to work on the spreadsheet features,
functions and formulae required by the Year 10 IGCSE ICT Syllabus. In particular, the following
students have achieved excellent outcomes:
Rishabh Ramesha SUVARNA (Year 7), Michael LIAO (Year 7), Tylor Park (Year 8), Yu Jia Phor
(Year 8), Tae Su KIM (Year 8), Tathagato Mukherjee (Year 9), Faustina Santhana Dass (Year 9),
Kaori Jasmine Weightman (Year 9), Daniel Jun Wei Giam (Year 9), Doris Fang Sin Chew (Year 9),
Dylan Huck Phin Ch’ng (Year 9), Desiree Li Yin Tan (Year 9), Emily Liao (Year 9)
Well done and keep up the good work!
Robin Liao
Head of ICT Department
7
Roar Sport
It has been a very busy past couple of weeks, with a huge number of our students representing
the school across a whole range of sport. First, we had the Senior Invitational Football/Basketball
Tournaments with schools from KL and Phuket travelling to Penang. Uplands performed
fantastically well to bring home all 4 trophies!
At the same time our Swimmers were over in Phuket for the FOBISIA Swim Meet, with Uplands
again showing that it is quality that counts and not how big your school is. Full results from both
of these events can be found on the Roar website.
This week our Swimmers took part in the Penang State MSSPP Meet held at the newly
refurbished Spice Arena in Bayan Baru, with Uplands having a great tradition of performing
particularly strongly in the relay events. Full results will follow next week.
Our Primary students have not been left out. 56 of our Year 3 to 6 students have been taking part
in an Inter-School Athletics meet this afternoon involving the other International Schools on the
island as well as the British School from KL. Tomorrow they will take part in Swimming, TBall
and Football, all of which will take place at Uplands.
For more information regarding our Roar Sports Programme please go to:
www.uplandsroarsport.webs.com
And for the most up-to-date information regarding things like pick up times, late cancellations
etc., please use our Roar Sport Twitter page at: @UplandsSport
Weekend Sports Programme
Remaining Term 2 sessions will take place on the following dates:
Sunday 21st & Sunday 28th March
Sunday 6th & Saturday 12th April
Dean Metcalfe
Head of PE Faculty
8
What’s up CAS? What is it exactly…? Good question! Let’s start with Creativity. Basically, we learn
and develop skills in the Arts and other areas that we want to know more about (all
the fun and exciting things, thinking outside the box to be creative in lots of different
ways!). For Activity the basic idea is to get physical, so get fit, be fit, and stay fit!
Service is generally composed of finding out what our local and school-based
communities need and working with them to help achieve it.
What’s been happening recently? Well, Term Two has started and CAS activities
are back up and running. Karate? Yoga? Football? Teaching at Laura’s school? Or
even acting in the new Blood Brothers production, our CAS activities cover it all.
So what’s the point? CAS is the part of IB that is the most fun. It may be a step back
from academics, but it’s a step forward to being open-minded, caring, and balanced
(and covers all the other sections of the IB Learner Profile too) outside of our
classrooms!
This Week’s Special
Mural, Deaf School Art Project and teaching at Laura’s School
Let’s start with our mural… One group of the Do Something Society (DSS) decided to bring a
little bit of Penang’s local culture inside our school walls. As international students we can all
agree that being internationally-minded includes knowing about our surroundings. The Penang-
themed mural in the canteen is still a work in progress, but, coming soon, a picture showing the
full potential of our artistic CAS students!
Next up we have the Deaf School… Every Tuesday after school, eight Year 12 students visit the
Deaf School in Tanjung Bungah to work on a joint Art Project with a group of deaf children aged
between 7 and 12 years old. Whilst developing their artistic creativity and learning about outer
space through designing and producing a big mural of the Solar System, the children are also
exposed to young people from different backgrounds who can hear. As boarders, the children
are very used to living in the deaf community, and their Head Teacher, Mr Norhisham, is keen
for them to have new experiences with new people in readiness for when they leave school.
Recent sessions have included making Star Wars – themed bookmarks, origami and learning
how to shade and colour.
9
Moving on to Laura’s School… The main objective for the twenty CAS students who are
working with local children four days a week at Laura’s School is to help teach English and
introduce them to the world outside of Batu Ferringi. Demand is high as the children at Laura’s
School love their lessons with Uplands students!
Report by Natalia Prendke and Selina Eshie
+
10
To all the dear Year 11 students who are still confused about whether or not to become IB
Geographers, refer to the link below:
http://www.thegeographeronline.net/why-should-i-study-ib-geography.html
Any further clarifications can obviously be sought during the IB information evening…..
See you in our IB Geography Class of 2016-2018! :)
Mr. Andy North Mrs. Ingur Shefalika
Head of Faculty- Humanities Head of Department- Geography
UPLANDS TALENT SHOW – Friday 11th March!
Uplanders!
The DSS will be organising a Talent Show to showcase our school’s rising stars. Do you have a
talent and want to show it off? This is your chance to come and be a star while supporting a
great cause! There are many categories that you can choose from to allow your talents to shine
including dancing, singing, magic, and anything else you can think of! For those who are
interested, sign-ups are available during break and lunch from the 22nd to 26th of February,
in front of the cafeteria, and there'll be an additional sign-up sheet on the DSS board as well.
Auditions will take place at lunch times in the music room and will be announced the following
week.
The Uplands Talent show will take place during Arts Week on the 11th of March 2016, in the
Multi-purpose Hall, from 5pm to 7pm. It will be a brilliant evening filled with surprises and
excitement. You will also be amazed by our selection of panel judges. On top of that,
scrumptious finger foods and thirst-quenching beverages will be sold for you to enjoy the show
at its best.
Parents and friends are welcome to support their loved ones! Tickets will be available in front of
the cafeteria at break and lunch times as well as on the night before walking in. Tickets will be
based on seating arrangements; the front 3 rows will be sold for RM10 while the rest of the seats
are sold for RM7 and funds raised will be donated to Crystal Family Home, a voluntary
organisation that provides residential care for children who need a home. Not only will your
contribution be for a good cause, but we assure you that it will be a memorable evening too!
Kyling Saw, Vanessa Gehrig and Eashan Sharma
DSS Leaders
11
Pizza Evening: Our next social gathering is now confirmed for a PIZZA EVENING at SIGI’s Bar and Restaurant@
Golden Sands Hotel on THURSDAY 25th February 6.00-8.00PM. This is more of a social event
compared to our Coffee mornings, and children are also welcomed. This is an open invitation
for Parents, Teachers, School Leadership Team and Governors to attend. There will be free pizza
and soft drinks for all, with access to extended happy hour prices. If you are able to make this
event it would be appreciated if you can RSVP to [email protected]
Clubs: All our Social and Sports clubs are back up and running for this term, as listed below. These clubs are open to all Parents and Staff of UPLANDS School. If you are interested in joining these clubs please email beforehand, to contacts below, to be added to their weekly mailing list. Additional clubs are in the process of being set up for next term. If you are interested in setting up a new club please contact [email protected]
Monday Football 8-9pm on the Astro Turf @UPLANDS- [email protected]
Tuesday Ultimate Frisbee 5.30-6.30pm on the Astro Turf @ UPLANDS- [email protected]
Wednesday Badminton 5.30pm-7.00pm in the Sport Hall @UPLANDS- [email protected]
Thursday Art & Craft 8.30am-11.30am in School Canteen @UPLANDS- [email protected]
Saturday Cycling 9.30am, meet outside UPLANDS- [email protected]
Community Privilege Programme:
Regarding our UPTA Community Privilege Programme list of vendors, please refer to last week’s newsletter or our Facebook page or our notice board in school. If there are any vendors you would like us to approach to extend our list of community suppliers please email [email protected] Minutes: Please note all the UPTA Committee meeting’s minutes are available to all its members on request at any point in the year, and will be summarised in an annual report for our AGM which will be made available to all our members. The annual AGM date will be announced for some time in April before the Easter Holidays. If you would like to receive any of our past minutes on request, please email [email protected]
If you are interested in the UPTA, it’s Committee, what we do, and ANY general help about life in PENANG, please email [email protected]
12
Parent Meeting, Year 5 Residential Trip
2:00pm, Year 5s classroom Friday, 19 February 2016
Primary Multisport Weekend 19 & 20 February 2016
Primary Multisport Weekend Friday, 9 & Saturday, 20 February 2016
Primary Sharing Assembly hosted by Year 4 Monday, 22 February 2016
Year 5 KL Residential Wednesday, 24th – Friday, 26th February
Inter-House Cross Country @ Penang
Botanical Gardens Saturday, 27th February 2016
KTJ Multisport Event in KL Friday 4th to Saturday 5th March 2016
PSAC U13 and O15 Basketball Tournaments Saturday 5th March
Primary Sharing Assembly hosted by Year 5 Monday, 7 March 2016
Primary Learning Journeys Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Year 6 Maths Challenge – KL – Nexus College Thursday, 17 & Friday 18 March 2016
U13 FOBISIA Games Thursday 17th to Sunday 20th March 2016
Primary Sharing Assembly hosted by
Reception and Year 1 Monday, 21 March 2016
Secondary Inter-House Swim Gala Tuesday 22nd March 2016
Primary Swim Gala, Year 4 sleep-over at Uplands Wednesday, 23 March 2016
Term 2 ends midday Thursday, 24 March 2016
FOR FULL INFORMATION PLEASE SEE SCHOOL CALENDAR
http://online.uplands.org/calendar/SitePages/Home.aspx
13
New Student Orientation Friday, 12th August 2016
Start of Term 1 Monday, 15th August 2016
Mid Term Break Monday-Friday, 17th-21st October
End of Term 1 Friday, 16th December 2016
New Student Orientations Monday, 9th January 2017
Start of Term 2 Tuesday, 10th January 2017
Mid Term Break Monday-Friday, 20th-24th February 2017
End of Term 2 Friday, 31st March 2017
Start of Term 3 Monday, 17th April 2017
End of Term 3 Friday, 23rd June 2017
New Student Orientation Friday, 11th August 2017
Start of Term 1 Monday, 14th August 2017