November 08
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.
