Counselor’s Corner: Cultivating Creative Minds for Student Success

Welcome back to a great school year! I am the new school counselor and I am very happy to be here and to work with you and your students. This will be my 9th year as a school counselor and I am excited to be working with all age groups and grade levels.  

Some tips and reminders to start the year off right!

✔ Make sure your children and teenagers are getting enough sleep.  

• Toddlers-11-14 hours
• Preschool-10-13
• School Age-9-11
• Teenagers-9-11

✔ Have routines for mornings, after school, homework, and bedtime. Kids do better when they know what to expect.

✔ Make sure your kids eat breakfast.

✔ Have a quiet, regular place for homework that is free from distractions.

✔ Limit screen time!! Too much screen time may affect learning and the brain, and sleep. 

Announcements for high school students and families!

• The University of Sydney is having an Open Day for students and families to learn more about the university.  It will be Saturday, September 7 from 13:00-16:00 at the Four Points Hotel by Sheraton in Surabaya.  Registration is required and you can register online at sydney.edu.au/indonesia-openday. 
• The University of Melbourne will be holding an Information Day on Sunday, September 8 from 13:00-17:30, also at the Four Points Hotel in Surabaya.  Registration is also required at go.unimelb.edu.au/w6xr. For any questions you may contact Ms. Emmy Amalia at emmy.amalia@unimelb.edu.au.   

Feel free to stop by or email me at asiniscalco@sis.sch.id if you have any questions or concerns about your student, or to say hi and introduce yourself.  I believe working with families is vital to student success (research also supports this as well!).

Ms. Alexis Siniscalco
SIS School Counselor

Activities Program: Channeling Creativity Through Extracurricular Engagement

SIS is abuzz and we are just on the second full week in to the school year. We celebrated the Indonesian Independence Day last August 17 with a Back to School Barbecue. It was a joyous day of food and games. It was great to see parents and students enjoying the different traditional games. Students earned points for their HOUSE by participating in different games. Congratulations to the Green Rhinos for garnering the most points in the first HOUSE event this year. 

The Soccer season started this week. We look forward to seeing our Cobras in action in the upcoming friendly games and tournaments. SIS will host our yearly PASS Soccer Tournament on October 3 – 5. Three weeks later, our teams will travel to Bandung to participate in IISSAC Soccer Tournament hosted by Bandung Alliance Independent School (BAIS).

The Volleyball season will start on August 26. Our spikers will participate in the first IISSAC Invitational Volleyball Tournament, hosted by Mountainview Christian School, on Oct. 11 – 12. The PASS Volleyball Tournament will be on Oct. 31 – Nov. 2. Please come and  support our teams!

The 1st term of the ASA will start next week. We have a good selection of activities lined up for this term. We have our regular offerings such as the Strings ASA and Capoeira, the popular Imagination Station, and the new Mindfun. Sign up will begin on August 23 at 6:00 pm and will close on August 25 at 6:00 pm. Sign up happens online. Watch for an email with the link from Dr. George Santiago, or sign up on Friday via the SIS website. Students need to sign up if they want to participate in any ASA. 

Secondary Scoop from the Secondary Principal 

Welcome to the 2019-2020 school year at SIS Secondary School! I am thrilled to be back in my second year as the Secondary Principal. It has been an exciting start to the school year. We welcomed four new staff members to Secondary: Ms. Alexis Siniscalco is our new Counselor, Mr. Dave Daily is our new High Social Studies/Business teacher, Ms. Lana Anderton is our new English teacher, and Ms. Allie Baldwin is our new Science teacher. We are looking forward to welcoming Mr. David Michael, our new Art teacher, soon. Ms. Aris Susana has been a huge asset to the Fine Arts department as she is teaching Mr. Michael’s Art and Yearbook classes until his arrival in a few weeks.

We also welcomed quite a few new students into both Middle School and High School this year. The addition of these new community members has been a wonderful way to start with great enthusiasm and fresh new ideas.

Our revamped Middle School and High School Orientation were both successful events, and students seemed to settle in and transition quickly during the first week of school. 

On August 13th, Ms. Pipit Andriani and Ms. Lana Anderton accompanied a team of twelve MS/HS students to the World Scholar’s Cup Global Round competition in Sydney, Australia for 6 days. There were more than 2,100 participants from 28 countries. Only 10% of the competitors qualified to make it to the Tournament of Champions at Yale University, in the United States. I am proud to say two of our teams qualified to attend this prestigious tournament. Way to go, Cobras! A very special thank you to our teacher sponsors for leading our students to victory!

We hosted a fun Back to School BBQ and Independence Day Celebration on Saturday, August 17th. Our High School students did a tremendous job of starting off the flag ceremony, along with our own Pak Purnomo. Students engaged in traditional Indonesian games, were able to get to meet new friends and enjoyed time in the pool. They also loved the hot dogs, salad and side dishes that were served by a dedicated team of volunteers. 

I know this will be a fantastic year at SIS! We look forward to seeing you at our various events, chatting about your children and welcoming you to partner with us to ensure your child’s success in Middle School and High School. Have a wonderful school year!

Elementary Extra from the ES Principal/PYPC

There is a special sort of feeling to the start of the school year.  I’m not sure there is a better expression of just how special the start of a new school year is than the mix of emotions we see on the faces of the children as they come back to school.  The expressions we see as students come onto campus in the first weeks of school are varied: confidence, confusion, excitement, exhaustion, fascination, and even a little fear.  For some students, adjusting to the new routines is easy.  For others, it takes a little more time and encouragement.  But as routines are established and friendships are made, a new energy develops; one of curiosity, inquiry, and engagement!

Elementary students have really started to settle into the classroom routines.  Classroom agreements have been established and students are actively engaged in learning.  During morning meeting, students continue to develop their classroom community through discussion and sharing.  To provide opportunity for all students to be involved in morning meeting, we ask that every effort is made to ensure that students arrive at school on time so that they are involved in all parts of the school day.

I am so happy to welcome our students back to another fantastic year at SIS.  We also have some great teachers to welcome to our elementary staff this year.  Ms Lidya comes to us from Medan and joins our EC 2 team.  Ms Lisa has also joined our EC team as our Early Childhood Coordinator.  Ms. Tracy will be working with students in grades K – 5 as our ELL specialist.  Finally, we welcome Ms Rajani our third grade teacher and Ms Jeni our first grade teacher to our ES team.  I look forward to a terrific year with our amazing elementary students, parents, and teacher!