Yogyakarta International School

Because in Yogyakarta we are always at risk of volcanic eruption, earthquakes or possible security problems parents need to be sure that we at the school are well prepared. Safety of our students is paramount and each staff member needs to be trained and ready for any eventuality regarding the welfare of your children. 

To this end you will be noticing, or hearing about, changes to our operating procedures as the policies for our new school site become fine tuned. Your children may tell you about evacuation drills, and we also have telephone tree trials. Parents need to make sure if their contact details change they record them at the office. 

Each classroom in the school has emergency bags containing masks, safety equipment and first aid equipment. We have evacuation plans in place if necessary, plus fire fighting equipment and quick contact telephone connections to emergency services. 

Our security staff have been receiving training lately and their manuals are being updated. All school staff joined them for a two hour training session about security with the police. 

The School Board has a Security Committee containing myself, Ibu Lona and Pak Rizal. You can send letters or notes to us through the Board’s mailbox near the office door. 

I have written a new pamphlet, called “Security Guidelines for Parents” available at the front office if parents want a copy. If you have any questions about security at the school please contact me or a member of the committee directly. 

Derek Pugh 

Principal 

18^th November 2008 

Security: Parents will notice the school has an increased security presence currently. You can help by never leaving a bag unattended, or sending an unknown driver or other person to pick up your son – the satpams will be vigilant.

Halloween: The party was a great success. Many thanks to YISPA for their organisation and everyone who sent in the excellent food. Next school party is at Christmas time.

The EARCOS CONFERENCE

Recently I attended the EARCOS School Leaders Conference in Kota Kinabalu. Nearly 100 schools from across Asia were there. I found the networking with other schools, particularly other small Indonesian International Schools was valuable and I attended workshops on how kids learn, how other schools operate and on leadership of International Schools. There was much on modern theories of how the brain learns that will have direct affect on my teaching and mentoring for other teachers. I bought two books  - “Introduction to Brain Compatible Learning “ (Jensen) and “Brainy Parents, Brainy Kids” (Joseph) which parents can borrow from the front office.

I learned about the importance of sleep for learning, the effect of blue light, diet etc for the kids. Eg the blue light emitted by computers and video games has a direct influence on the pineal gland in the brain and it inhibits the production of hormones that lead to sleep. This is why you can play them all night and discos have blue lights. Night lights for kids sleeping need to be yellow rather than white (which contains blue) and everyone should refrain from using computers just before bed. Flashing lights such as on-standby lights or phone chargers etc can interrupt sleep patterns without us realising it. Sound can be used to block out distracting sounds – ie music without words can be good for memory retention. The Mozart Effect may be coming back into fashion.

Halloween greetings, 

On Friday the 31^st October, prepare for the party of the year. 

YIS and YISPA are hosting the YIS Halloween Party from 5-30 till 8.30 on Friday night. 

There are prizes for the best costumes and a marvellous pot-luck dinner provided by the parents. There’ll be shows and costumes and a bit of trick’n’treating. 

In order to prepare the school and not give anything away, YISPA have requested the kids go home at 12 pm, lunchtime. Everyone is asked to arrange to pick up their children at 12 pm, and return at 5.30. 

Parents are requested to drop off candy in the box at the front of the school to help feed the masses of ghouls and goblins expected to haunt the school on the night. 

YISPA parents and Ibu Wiwin have already put an enormous effort into this party so hold onto your hats and get ready to be scared….. 

See you there, and remember the school should be kid-free between 12 and 5.30. 

Pak Derek 

Thanks to everyone involved, it worked! Text messages were sent out at 10:45 with follow up phone calls starting 10 minutes later for those who had not replied. We had to go to a secondary phone number only once, and one parent was hard to contact because she was having a facial, but in the end all parents were contacted within an hour. More than half the parents had replied or been contacted within 20 minutes. In an emergency situation when we really had to contact parents it would be quicker because we’d have more people manning the phones. 

Note that in a real situation, if you yourself cannot pick up your child and you arrange for another parent or driver to do so, you must let us know. We will not allow children to leave the school with strangers.

Our next emergency drill will be for building evacuation. The kids need to know where to go for a roll call.

Derek Pugh 21/10/08

 All YIS parents have been placed on our telephone tree. This is designed to be a rapid way to contact all parents in an emergency situation.
It works like this:
·    1. In the case of an emergency the Principal may decide that all children need to leave the school so all parents need to be contacted as quickly as possible.
·    2. The Principal telephones or text messages those people directly in line on the telephone tree to inform them of the emergency situation.
·    3. Those people then contact the next people on the line and, if the message was by text, you need to contact the principal or the sender to say you have received the message.
Number 3 above is very important because we will then know that the telephone tree has worked and everyone has the message.
PRACTICE
We will have a practice run of this phone tree on Monday 20^th October.
When you receive a message please pass it on promptly and we’ll time how quickly the process takes.
Parents should have the numbers of the people they need to contact stored on their telephones.

Welcome back to school for the second term of the year.

This term is 11 weeks long and finishes on December 18th.

Please remember school fees are due on October 31st. Many thanks to everyone who paid so promptly last term, it saves many an administration headache.

A few things are worth reporting to you about.

The sports oval is now open. We’ve kept everybody off the grass for nearly a month now so that it can be well established before the onslaught of 60 pairs of running feet. Ibu Anggar will be pleased not to have to take her classes as far away as last term. YIS is a member of the East Asian Regional Council of Schools, EARCOS, and we have a supportive network of International Schools and their Principals from across the region and access to a number of professional development activities for the staff. I will be attending their annual leaders conference in Kota Kinabalu on the weekend of 1st November and am looking forward to garnering ideas from everyone there. It is my intention that YIS remains as up to date as possible in educational and management practices.

As the wet season starts we want to plant more trees – both shade trees and fruit trees, or better yet, trees that will do both. If you have any cashew trees, avocados or similar we could plant in the yard please let us know.

We’ll be running a couple of emergency drills in the next few weeks. If your kids come home with horror stories and you haven’t felt the earth shake and nor are they singed, then it was just practice. We’ll have a telephone tree trial also.

I hope everyone has a great term. I am looking forward to it.

See you in the school yard,

Derek Pugh

7th October 2008

Week 4, term 1

Open night this week – Tuesday 16^th.

Parents are invited to visit the school between  3.30 and 5:30 pm to talk to teachers and tour the classrooms. Staff will be available to answer any questions you have about your child’s program and their teaching philosophy.

This should be a general talk only, but if you want to have more specific indications of your child’s progress please make a personal appointment with the teacher. This term is only five weeks long so there will be no formal written report.