News

29Nov 2019 by Damian Rentoule

The Crane, 29 November 2019

The Crane
Items: Congratulations to Sora; Amy & the Pope's Visit; Festive Eve - Wicked; Koto Workshop; Teacher/Parent/Student Volleyball; AED Machine; Water Bottle Filling Station; New Building Update; PTA Nominations. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you have all enjoyed your week. Just a reminder that we need a name written on all clothing that students wear to school, especially jumpers. Children take them off and leave them in all sorts of places as you can imagine. If they have names, they will find their way back. If not, they tend to gather in large, smelly piles in our lost property box. A simple name is a better option for all involved. Festive Eve is coming together. It has been an amazing effort so far. Thank you to Elin, Amy &…
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22Nov 2019 by Damian Rentoule

The Crane, 22 November 2019

The Crane
Items January Koto Workshop for HIS Parents; Festive Eve; Nominations for Parent-Teacher (PTA) Association Committee. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you all enjoyed your week. It has been getting a bit cooler and we are, as usual at this time of year, experiencing a rise in student absences due to various sicknesses. Please make sure you speak with your children about the importance of washing hands regularly during the day and if they are feeling sick, particularly if they have a temperature, please keep them at home to help prevent the spread of infections. Even if this is may feel inconvenient at the time, it is an important part of parenting all around the world so we appreciate your support. Today's TED Talk touches on a very important…
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16Nov 2019 by Damian Rentoule

The Crane, 15 November 2019

The Crane
Items Bento Order Form. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I spent Thursday-Saturday in New Delhi with a group of teachers from IB schools in India, working on the Approaches to Learning skills. These are the set of skills developed across all grade levels and all subjects in the IB programs; social skills, thinking skills, communication skills, research skills and self-management skills. These are a very important part of our curriculum model, helping students to become independent learners so it was a great opportunity to work with some colleagues from India to improve our teaching practice. We have a number of teachers at HIS who run workshops as part of the ongoing teacher training and collaboration among IB schools around the world. Thank you…
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08Nov 2019 by Damian Rentoule

The Crane, 8 November 2019

The Crane
Items: Alex at the Chugoku Youth Music Competition; Bonfire Night; Uniforms in Cambodia; UNICEF Stamp Raising Project; 'Go Blue' Promotion Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Today is the much-anticipated Bonfire Night where HIS joins the UK with a bonfire like those burnt on November 5th, 1605 to celebrate the safety of the English King after a plot to blow up Parliament with barrels of gunpowder was uncovered. One conspirator was caught in the Parliamentary cellars with the gunpowder and his name was Guy Fawkes. It is his effigy that is burnt on the bonfire. It is an unusual spectacle in Japan but we all love a good fire and delicious food, the two ingredients that form the basis of many festivals around the world. In another example of us doing the same thing…
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01Nov 2019 by Damian Rentoule

The Crane, 1 November 2019

The Crane
ITEMS: NO BENTO ON MONDAY; PARENT/TEACHER ASSOCIATION (PTA) MEETING RESCHEDULED; BONFIRE NIGHT; NEW BUILDING PROJECT - COMMUNITY IDEAS MEETING; MYP/DP INFORMATION SESSIONS HIS CALENDAR 2020/2021 PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE Dear HIS Community A usual, everyone had fun today all dressed up for Halloween. You can see some images on the Crane Video. I would like to recognize Kumi (a PYP parent) for all of the work supporting the Halloween event. Kumi organized a large group of parents who have been coming to school regularly. This all started a while ago now with the decorations going up and it is a great case of leading by example. We also have the Bonfire Night next Friday and Yumiko (an MYP parent) who has been working with Jackie (a DP parent) on the organization of…
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20Oct 2019 by Damian Rentoule

Critical Thinking in Translation/クリティカルシンキング – 批判的思考

Principal's Blog
Critical thinking is an interesting word when it appears in translation. It is commonly referred to as one of the key skills needed to prepare children for the 21st century, which seemed like such a long way away, but now happens to be nearly eighteen percent over. For this reason, we are no longer just preparing children for the 21st Century. We are living it and should actually be preparing for the 22nd Century. As part of this preparation for a rapidly changing world, we send our children to school to learn, but learn what? They learn content that is divided roughly into academic disciplines, but as a parent, it is not so much what your child is learning that should interest you, as most of it can be Googled,…
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18Oct 2019 by Damian Rentoule

The Crane, 18 October 2019

The Crane
ITEMS: Council of International Schools (CIS) Community Survey for Parents; MYP/DP Parent Information Session; PYP Parent Information Session Slides. PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE Dear HIS Community Thank you to all of the parents who attended the PYP parent information session. The IB curriculum model in all three of our programs is very different than what many of us may have experienced in our schooling as children, so these sessions are a great time to learn about your child's program. Thank you to Marisa (Ms V.) our PYP Coordinator for the great session. We had our Secondary Camp this week and you will see some images in the Crane Video. It was a great three days and with the Gr4/5 camp in September and the volleyball trips all finished, our major overnight activities…
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11Oct 2019 by Damian Rentoule

Three challenges when raising your child/子育てする上での3つの課題

Principal's Blog
A new-born child, unfortunately, is not accompanied by an instruction manual. In fact, we are lucky it doesn’t, as who would we trust with the authority to dictate such a deeply personal task as raising a child? Even if we were to find someone that we could trust with the directions, from the time the child is born to the time they leave home, much will have changed with the world and surely the child-rearing manual would be out of date. Can we use what we already know, from our experiences in our own lives to prepare our children for an uncertain future? In the absence of clear directions, we listen to a range of people to try and make the right choices for our children, for our families. I…
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11Oct 2019 by Damian Rentoule

The Crane, 11 October 2019

The Crane
ITEMS: Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences; American Scholastic Mathematics Association (ASMA) Contest 2019-2020. PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE Dear HIS Community We are not far away from the October Break and with the parent-student-teacher conferences on Monday, all Secondary students out on camp next week (Tuesday-Thursday) and both Boys and Girls Varsity Volleyball teams playing tournaments in Nagoya and Kobe on Friday and Saturday, it is a busy week to send us into the break. For this week's TED Talk, I really liked the ideas presented here by Elif Shafak and with our identity at HIS so closely tied to Diversity, Inclusion and Peace, it is very relevant to us. The speaker askes why we underestimate feelings and perceptions and this reinforced the importance of the Social, Emotional, Ethical (SEE) Learning program that we have been…
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08Oct 2019 by Damian Rentoule

Exploring deeper ideas of culture/目につかない文化

Principal's Blog
Despite our obvious cultural differences, we are more similar than we realize. In order to understand this, students need to learn to search for deep meaning, for aspects of their own identity that may not be readily apparent; aspects that may not be obvious; qualities beyond their awareness. Students need to search beyond the facts of themselves, their surface-level appearances. They need to search deeply for who they are as individuals and what they share with their fellow human beings. A need for such a search has far-reaching implications for how we approach teaching and learning in our schools and is a step toward a more peaceful and sustainable planet.  Culture can be understood as an iceberg, an often-used metaphor, where only a small percentage of what makes up the…
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