1Newsletter 11/2014 | © Berlin Metropolitan School

NewsDear BMS Families, Following a focused and eventful start to the new school year, I would hereby like to give you a short update on the Berlin Metropo-litan School’s current projects and provide you with insight into this school year’s strategic goals and challenges. The school year started off very successfully for our school. 850 stu-dents are learning at BMS this year. With this, we slightly surpassed our own goals and have, apart from a few individual school spots, reached our capacity in all grade levels. Based on this success, we can now address our extensive development projects, such as, for example, the development of our campus and the reworking and expansion of our IT infrastructure. We were delighted to note significant growth in our Secondary School this year, especially in the Grade 11 Diploma Programme, which started this year. Over the course of the next two years, we will lead 48 students from our first IB Diploma class to their IB Di-plomas. We contribute the high demand for school spots in the IB Programme to the design of our special subject course offerings. On the one hand, these course offerings reflect the entry require-ments outlined by German universities in accordance with the rules of the KMK (Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Federal States of the Federal Republic of Ger-many); on the other hand, they enable for our students to select an individual program from our extensive range of subjects and per-formance levels that corresponds with their interests, talents, and prospective goals. Due to this offering, BMS is very attractive for

November 2014Quarterly

UPCOMING EVENTS20.11.14 Prim. Parent Info: Maths in Primary

21.11.14 Secondary Disco Grade 6-8

05.12.14 Winter Market

10.12.14 Prim. Parent Info: Introduction to Sec.

18.12.14 Primary Winter Concert

22.12.14 - 02.01.15 Holiday Break; School closed

05.01. - 16.01.15 Secondary Exam Period

15.01.15 Prim. Parent Info: English in the Prim.

20.01.15 Secondary Parent Rep Meeting

21.01.15 Primary Rep Meeting

30.01.15 Report Cards

02.02. - 06.02.15 Winter Break

11.02.15 Roundtable: Language Acquisition

17.03.15 CCEP Carnival Celebration

18./19.02.15 Primary 3-way Conferences

25./26.02.15 Sec. Parent-Teacher Conferences

06.03.15 Prim. & ELC World Book Day

12.03.15 Prim. Parent Info: German in the Prim.

17.03.15 Early Learning Parent Rep Meeting

18.03.15 Sec. IB DP Subject & Selection Expo

20.03.15 Art Show

26.03. - 27.03.15 Professional Development

2Newsletter 11/2014 | © Berlin Metropolitan School

both German and international families. The umbrella organization of international schools in Germany (AGIS), of which BMS is a member, is currently in negotiation and consultation with the KMK in order to further simplify the admission qualifications for IB Diploma graduates in the future, thereby ensuring that all school students within the European Union are treated equally as per the conventions of the EU. BMS is represented within the AGIS board and is thus directly involved in all negotiations with the KMK. We will be sure to keep you informed of all progress. The feedback from this year’s Open House was thoroughly positive and the event was once again a suc-cess with the attendance of about 300 visitors. I hope several of you also used the opportunity to take a look “behind the scenes” and to inform yourselves about the programs and concepts of the continuing grade levels within BMS. We are particularly pleased that we were again able to increase the proportion of international families this year. With a percentage of close to 50% international families, we are meeting our strategic goal in accor-dance with our Admission Policy. Students of 52 different nationalities are learning at BMS and enhance both our school life and school culture. Our next goal is to offer our new families more individual onboar-ding support in Berlin and at BMS and also to make the cultural diversity of our community more acces-sible for BMS. To do so, we hope and have trust in a high level of involvement from our parents and the structures available to us – for example, the group “Friends of BMS” as well as our Parent Representatives. This year, there are 160 staff members looking after our students within the school’s various departments. We experienced substantial growth in the Secondary School this year due to the new special subject course offerings and the increasing number of students. A further strategic goal this year was to become stronger structurally in order to reach our quality objectives. As a result, we were able to welcome several new, experienced staff in newly created leadership positions and supporting roles. Following an intensive onboarding phase, our Leadership Team is now focusing on the consolidation of our curriculum and school program in order to move towards the implementation of our quality development concepts from this point forward. I would like to thank all of you for your trust and for the warm welcome that was exten-ded to our new colleagues in all areas of the school. Since the first parent-teachers meetings and learning conferences from Early Learning through Secondary that took, the feedback from both our staff as well as from many of our parents has been very positive. This is reason enough to look forward to a trusting and constructive cooperation that aims to ensure the best possible development of your children as well as the successful development of the BMS as an institution of learning.

Our School Calendar this year again provides various opportunities for collaboration and exchange. Many of the formats and events are surely already familiar to you. New this year is the format of the “Round Table”, which aims to bring us together to look at general themes, such as “Digital Citizenship”, “Langu-age Acquisition”, and also “Strategic School Development”; depending on the theme, we intend to invite external experts to these events in order to enrich discussion. The first major events as well as various smaller activities have already taken place. After the first school day, our first event was Einschulung, which we celebrated for the first time this year at Kino Babylon. This was an exciting day for 88 new first graders and their families as well as for our staff. We celebrated International Day, which, with great involvement from our international school community, offered a wide selection of country-specific specialties and activities; International Day is always an impressive example of a school event organized exclusively by parents. On Vimeo, you can view our contribution to the Inter-national Day of Peace, which followed our International Day. All BMS students gathered in the schoolyard and sang John Lennon’s song, “Imagine” – a very impressive moment that brought tears to the eyes of several of our colleagues as well as to the eyes of onlookers watching from beyond the schoolyard gates.

3Newsletter 11/2014 | © Berlin Metropolitan School

Please ask your class teachers for the passwords of our Vimeo account and see for yourself. Another very impressive moment for our students and employees was the ceremonial relocation of the Stolpersteine (memorial stones) for the Ert family. This experience and meeting the family will have an impact for a long time to come. We will incorporate the tragic story of the Ert family into our curriculum by means of interviews with contemporary witnesses as well as by forming a partnership with the family’s children and grandchildren; in turn, we will vividly make remembrance a subject of discussion as part of our culture within our school program and will also keep the memories alive.

The consolidation of our school program is the dominant issue for us this year and as such extends to all school areas and affects school-wide topics, such as language acquisition, assessment, and the transition between grade levels. This was also the theme of this year’s first Professional Development Day as well as the starting point for the work that is taking place over the next couple of months. For support of this work in the areas of curriculum, methodology, assessments, learning support, and resource management, we will be introducing the planning platform ManageBac school-wide. The first preliminary work has already begun. It is our goal to implement ManageBac by the end of the first semester and to create the mid-year report cards through this system. With this, we can ensure in future that a) all students’ learning results can be made available at any time in digital format and that the learning cycle of all students can be dis- played digitally over the entire course of students’ school time, b) that educational content from the required level of learning in the 10th as well as 11th/12th grades all the way to the preparation in the Early Learning Centre can be synchronized, and c) that teachers from all subject areas can exchange content information via the portal, further develop this content together, and share best practices. In a second implementation step, we will also enable parents to have access in order to thereby optimize the transpa-rency of your children’s learning outcomes for you. After 10 years of school development, the consolidation of our program is the current necessary step and is also the start of the next phase in our school’s development. The excellent results of our first MSA examinations and IGCSEs are our incentives to maintain and expand on these successes in order to establish the Berlin Metropolitan School long-term as a leader in quality for an international education in consideration of German education requirements and standards.

As a result, our measures do not only concentrate on the field of education, but also include the areas of IT and administration. The introduction of a school-wide planning platform and the associated transpa-rency and synchronization is one of the measures being taken. In addition, we are currently working on restructuring our IT backbone, implementing an effective filter software for the protection of our students, and on the conceptual design of further IT investments in order to heighten the effectiveness of learning amongst all age groups with the help of digital tools.

With the completion of the organic growth cycle of our school, we will also be aligning the school contracts and our general terms and conditions this year, simplifying the documentation for our families and at the same time increasing the quality of the necessary documentation for future school enrolments. The goals that we have set for ourselves over the next 5 years are made transparent for you through the published Strategic Plan. We are pursuing these goals consistently and determine the respective operative priorities for the school year.

A further defined strategic goal and priority for this year is the introduction of a new development program for our employees. BMS is in worldwide competition for the best talent. In order to achieve our objectives in terms of the quality of our program in the long run, BMS must be attractive to the best teachers and provide incentives so that our good teachers are committed to BMS long-term. Therefore, during the past

4Newsletter 11/2014 | © Berlin Metropolitan School

couple of months, we designed a modern development program for our employees that sets performance incentives and focuses on the professional development of the individual – in terms of our Mission State-ment. This program goes along with a salary increase, a scholarship program for further professional trai-ning, varied career paths, as well as a consistent mentoring program and professional exchange. This new model was presented within the context of Professional Development Days and is now being implemented in all school areas step-by-step.

Another strategic goal is the further development of our school campus and the ongoing improvement of the learning environment. Alongside the development of the school, we have also been actively conduc-ting property development since 2006 in order to create new space for classrooms, offices and commu-nity, and to qualitatively optimize existing rooms. Our current gymnasium modernization project is almost complete and is the last project for which we can take direct responsibility. Starting next school year, we will be concentrating internally exclusively on plans for the detailed quality improvement of individual room groups and will be putting the development of areas of growth into the hands of professionals.

For this, we have contracted the architecture firm Sauerbruch Hutton, which, over the course of the past weeks and months, has developed a general expansion and development plan for our building and school grounds. The development plan will generate new spaces for us by 4000sqm. We currently find ourselves in the final approval phase of our construction project and the implementation of the first building phase is one of this year’s priorities. We are using the approval phase in order to plan the construction measures in detail, to evaluate the restrictions on school operations, to find solutions for these restrictions, and to create schedules. The invitation to tender for the implementation of the construction work has also been initiated and we hope to be able to provide you with a concrete and detailed overview of our projects within the next weeks. In preparation for this school year, we have also evaluated the direction of our Afternoon Program and have evaluated feedback from both parents and students. The findings had a direct influence over the further development of our offerings; as such, of the 79 clubs and 15 projects available to our students this semester, many of the offerings are designed in such a way that they build upon each other, better address different learning and/or experience levels, and so students are enthused by topics in the long term. We are especially pleased to have 5 clubs and course offerings in our program this year that are developed and taught by our students. We are proud that students feel inspired to develop their own pro-jects and that students feel safe enough to suggest and to discuss their ideas with our staff so that these projects can be actively implemented with some support. We will use this spirit to motivate more students to take advantage of this opportunity with a small management lab.

We are also happy that we were able to facilitate several new collaborations that appeal to students of all age groups. As a result, we are part of the ALBA Berlin League this year and take part in weekly training sessions with trainers from ALBA Berlin. In the Secondary School, we are welcoming students from ESMT – European School of Management and Technology – on a weekly basis for exchange with our students. In an individual mentoring program, the ESMT students give our students insight into the world of university and practice, while at the same time giving advice and assistance for the optimal preparation for upcoming challenges. Thanks to parent involvement with the Max Born Institut, we are delighted that we will also be welcoming graduate students of the Sciences for a tutoring program in our Secondary School within the framework of an EU-supported project. Our joint goal is to promote interest in scientific work and possible careers in the field of sciences amongst our students, while at the same time supporting our students in preparing for their examinations. Over the past weeks, we were already able to welcome several representa-tives from universities worldwide to our school and have already arranged further visits for the next months in order to provide our students with suggestions and assistance for deciding upon their future paths.

5Newsletter 11/2014 | © Berlin Metropolitan School

In addition to the many projects and initiatives that we already support, we, as an institution, wish to sustainably embed social engagement in the school structure in order to share our potential with those to whom such opportunities are not available. As you probably already know, BMS created a scholarship fund with the support of parents. The consulting firm, McKinsey, has offered to develop a concept for the establishment of such a fund as part of a pro-bono project. The objective of the fund is to make it pos-sible for children from socially disadvantaged and underprivileged families to receive a quality education at BMS with the help of scholarships. To this end, the McKinsey team has interviewed parents from our school as well as representatives from business, science, and politics, has spoken to representatives and authorizing institutions, and has collected opinions, experience, requirements, and ideas. The concept provided to us reflects all agreed upon objectives and is thus the initial step for the activation of our BMS fund. We will now be planning a rollout together with our Leadership Team and Advisory Board and will continue to keep you informed.

All of these developments are accompanied by the Advisory Board, which will, in future, be taking on a stronger and more active roll in our school’s development. To make this possible, we will be revising the Advisory Board’s rules of procedure in order to better reflect the current situation of our school develop-ment in our policies and to align with the requirements of the CIS –Council of International Schools. In addition to the redefinition of the principles of the Board, the aim of our work this year in the Advisory Board – in which faculty, administration, as well as parent representatives work together – is the prepara-tion for accreditation through CIS, the expansion of the scholarship fund, as well as the preparation of a school-wide audit regarding the quality of the school program and BMS as an institution. We will keep you informed regarding these individual topics as well as about the Advisory Board’s other work.

As you can see, we have taken on a great deal in order to further develop the quality of our school in gene-ral and with that the quality of the program and the level of teaching. I hope that you can also see that we have created the necessary conditions required to successfully approach these next steps. “Inspiration” and “Growth” are the cornerstones of our Mission Statement and are thereby the central determinants for the further development and arrangement of our school. For this, “Inspiration” and “Growth” have many forms, but, in any case, our students and their respective learning success and learning enjoyment as part of a jointly supported school culture is the central focus. This value is carried by all of our staff members who try to implement it on a daily basis, through both small and large initiatives. I look forward to the coming weeks and months of collaboration and thank you for your trust on behalf our entire team. Finally, I would like to wish you all the best and kindest regards,

Silke Friedrich Executive Director