Professional learning

Dear Parents,
Establishing a Professional Learning Community is part of what we value as a PYP School.  The IB believe that students, parents and teachers are all life-long learners and that learning from one another never stops.
On Monday 27th January, we had our 4th Professional Development Day.  During this day, we have valuable time as colleagues to ensure that we are meeting the requirements of the programme.  On this particular day, we first celebrated our PYP Authorisation.
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​We then had experts come in to teach our teachers about First Aid and Child Safeguarding.  The afternoon was open for our colleagues to share their own professional learning with each other.
Teachers actively contribute to the learning of students and colleagues through collaborative practice. They take time to plan, assess and learn together—inquiring into the effectiveness of their teaching, and reflecting on its impact on learning. They ensure their professional dialogue is open and honest so that learning and teaching becomes the best it can be.
As a PYP school we have a range of professional learning opportunities for our staff, some of which include:

• Induction for new teachers
• Regular staff meetings
• Co-teaching opportunities
• Professional learning communities
• Action research teams
• Inclusive learning support teams
• Peer mentoring and peer coaching
• Professional development programmes
• Technology workshops

Some teachers recently attended Ron Richard's workshop on Cultures of thinking and are making sure the school community benefits from his expertise. We also have teachers taking the Havard course on Making thinking Visible.
One session on Monday was all about creating Cultures of Thinking:

Another afternoon session, run by teachers was regarding the PYP Exhibition.  As an authorised school we are expected to run an Exhibition for our Grade 5 students - this ideally is a culmination in all they have learnt during their time at OIS.  The date for our PYP Exhibition is May 27th.

During the month of February, we will be celebrating Readaloud Book month.  Kristen will be running some sessions for parents and we are welcoming parents into our library and classrooms to read to different classes.  Parents can read in their family language too!!

Dates for Diaries:

Wednesday 5th February:  International Day of Global Play - unstructured play day for all primary children
Monday, 10th February: Read aloud workshop: Primary Parents 
Thursday, 13th February:  IB PYP Maths in EY Presentation
Monday, 17th February: Read aloud workshop: EY parents 
Monday, 17th -19th February:  Yearbook photos
Monday, 2nd March: EY PSPE Showcase
Thursday, 5th March:  SLCs - Parents will be given a time to come into school
Tuesday, 10th March:  Holi - Holiday
Friday, 13th March:  Day of Freedom and Diversity (event committee)
14th-22nd March:  Spring break
Wednesday 25th March:  Gudi Padwa
Friday 10th April:  Good Friday
Thursday 23rd April:  World Book Day/Primary Book Club
Thursday, 30th April: Musical Production
Friday, 1st May:  Maharastra Day - holiday
Wednesday 27th May:  PYP Exhibition
Thursday 4th June:  Moving up Ceremony for Grade 5  


Many thanks for taking the time to read,


Miss Lisa