STMARKS NEWSLETTER 8 (13 MAY 2022)

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. Re-enrolment reply form has been sent out to parents this week. We would appreciate it if this form can be completed and sent back to the Office by Wednesday, 18 May either by email or via LINE

2. ATK Test Kits are now available for purchase at our Office. Kindly contact Ms. Joy via LINE for orders.

3. Provision of meal boxes during student examination

We would like to inform parents that during this upcoming examination period, we will switch to providing meal boxes to every student, as opposed to providing lunch in the canteen. This will enable our students to immediately leave school after their examinations and at the same time, observe the social distancing rules. Please be reminded that during the exam weeks, pick-up time for students will be from 11:30 am. Students on school buses will leave school at 11.30 am as well.
 
For your information, the Secondary examination will be held during 16-27 May, while the primary examination will be held during 20-27 May. The examination will take place from  8:30 to 11:30 am. Should you have any questions, please contact the School Office or via the School LINE  group. 

SUMMER SCHOOL PROGRAM

St. Mark’s will be offering Summer School this year from 15 June to 8 July. The program is open to all current students, as well as any outside family or friends who would like to experience the learning environment and opportunities being offered. The summer program will be full of fun-filled activities, while at the same time, the activities that we will provide, will aim at fulfilling students’ need for enjoyment, where our learning will be full of hands-on activities and experiments.

Primary 1-6 students will enjoy our one-day in a week camp activity, where students will learn to collaborate in a team and work on various challenging physical tasks to achieve a common goal for their team. On other days during the week, students get to learn English, Maths, Science, and Mandarin to secure their essential skills and be ready for the new academic year.

Secondary Summer Program involves learning that focuses on science: Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, where students will explore important science concepts through fun-filled and meaningful experiments. Learning through hands-on will help foster understanding, while students still enjoy the discovery of important science concepts. The program is carefully planned to ensure students will understand important science concepts essential for the preparation of the IGCSE exams.

PREP THAI: SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION

Our Thai curriculum focuses on laying a solid foundation in reading and writing.  In this video, students were required to collaborate, while learning how to construct meaningful sentences. 

Students were assigned in groups of 4, where they were given a set of words that were jumbled up.  Students analysed each word and assisted one another to rearrange them to make meaningful sentences. 

During this activity, students were given opportunities to master the reading of simple words.  Additionally, the activity helped foster collaboration among members of the class, which is a very important aspect of our program that we try to cultivate.         

YEAR 3 MATHS: PERIMETER

Year 3 students had an outdoor class activity in their Maths class. They went outside of the classroom to measure the perimeter of a given area within the school. They used a 1-metre yarn as a measuring tool and tallied their measurements.

YEAR 9 & 10 ENGLISH: E-MAIL WRITING

This lesson was practiced with Exercise 5 from the IGCSE exams, which is writing an email to a friend. Students had to brainstorm some appropriate language to use to fulfill the requirements of the question.

This can be tricky to do as the students need to write in a register that indicates familiarity and friendship while also keeping the language academic and appropriate for exams.

LIFE TALK

As a young child turns into an adult, there are many physical and emotional changes that the child has to go through, which affect the child’s perspective in seeing the world rationally. But if we keep in mind that these behaviors are part of our kids’ natural psychological development, we more easily can help them get through this stage as smoothly as possible. We may never totally understand why teenagers act the way they do. And as challenging as it can be to deal with frustrations, here are four frustrating traits that your teen should have.

1. Adolescents will argue about anything.

Adolescents’ cognitive abilities develop at different rates. Many teens have developed the ability to form an argument to support their opinion, but they have not fully developed the ability to view the world from other perspectives. This leads to frustration when our kids argue with us constantly yet don’t appear to listen. As frustrating as it may be, this is natural. Developing an argument is a skill necessary for adult life—a skill teens need to practice. They also need to continue to develop the ability to see other points of view.

How you can help the situation: Set rules of engagement. 

Encourage your kids to think about an opinion before stating it, to be respectful while expressing an opinion, and to listen to the other side with an open mind.

2. Adolescents find it very difficult to make decisions.

Our adolescent children have reached the stage where they have the ability to imagine hypothetical situations. This leads to idealized thoughts. When they are faced with a question, they believe there is an ideal answer. This leads to indecision as they constantly worry about making the wrong choices. To deal with this fear, they will often avoid making decisions.

How you can help the situation: Don’t get frustrated when teens struggle to make small decisions. 

Even a simple decision may cause teens more anxiety than we think it should. Help guide them with the big questions. Let them know you are available if they want to talk and be willing to listen and support them when they do.

3. Adolescents begin to see flaws in adults.

“Be willing to accept the fact that you aren’t perfect and that your kids are starting to realize it.”

Another effect of adolescents having idealized thoughts is their realization that we, their parents, are not the ideal parents. If we think back to when we were in school, we can probably find many more flaws in our high school teachers than in our elementary teachers. When we were young, we trusted adults and assumed they were always right. When we became adolescents, we started to realize that everyone is fallible and everyone has flaws. When our children become adolescents, they begin to realize we aren’t perfect—and they are right.

How you can help the situation: Don’t take it personally. 

Be willing to accept the fact that you aren’t perfect and that your kids are starting to realize it. But at the same time, keep striving to be the best you can be.

4. Adolescents rationalize their mistakes.

As the adolescent mind matures, teens begin to develop the ability to engage in abstract thought. When something goes wrong in a teen’s life, he or she is now able to think of various reasons why it happened. When they combine this with their need to maintain positive self-esteem, they will blame their mistakes on any of the many alternative reasons they can conceive to avoid admitting fault.

How you can help the situation: When your adolescent tries to blame the teacher for a bad test grade, a sibling for making him or her late, or homework for causing him or her to forget to take out the trash, assure your teen that everyone makes mistakes. 

But also remind your teen it’s important to accept responsibility and learn from the mistake.

Our Thursday Life Talk program is purposely designed to help our secondary students, who are teenagers to cope with their frustration in living an adolescent hood. Our program focuses on building confidence and putting purpose in their lives. Students learn to have self-worth and realised that they have significance in this place.

WINNERS OF OUR ARTS COMPETITION

This week we awarded the winners of our Arts Competition under the theme "Life After Lockdown". All our students produced fantastic art pieces which have inspired other students. We look forward to seeing more amazing artwork from our students in our next competition.

HORTICULTURE LEARNING CENTRE

Our school has recently acquired a plot of farmland on Rama 9 Road, located near to the school, to be used as a horticulture learning centre for our students. 

Starting from this new academic year, we plan to have our students experience the art of growing and cultivating plants to produce food, some of which will be used in the school for their lunches. We hope students will gain the knowledge outside of the classroom and get to participate in hands-on activities that are fun and at the same time, rewarding.

ST. MARK'S GOT TALENT

Mira (Prep) has shared her amazing talent by playing Fur Elise by Ludwig van Beethoven. Mira started playing Piano at an early age and continue to excel in the field. Recently she has won various awards from Music Singapore and London Young Musician :

1. Silver Prize - Young Talent Category (6 and Under - London Young Musician)
2. Bronze Prize London - Classical Category  ( London Young Musician)
3. Bronze Prize London - Modern Category  ( London Young Musician)
4. 2nd Prize Winner - Open Solo Category - Category A (Children - Music Singapore)