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In last week’s newsletter I mentioned about the start of our preparations for our 60th Anniversary Celebrations. Since the newsletter was published and we opened our Uplands Alumni Registration the amount of electronic communication has increased dramatically! 150 people registered online for the Alumni in the 1st 24 hours, 2,200 people viewed our Facebook pages and we received contact details of 587 Alumni via email. There are many, many people who are passionate about Uplands, are part of its unique history and want to be part of its continuing growth. We now have an “Anniversary Committee”. Thank you to all who volunteered, including an Ex-Uplander who was at the school in 1957 and now lives in America! We will keep you updated as the plans for the celebrations develop. The first two “Celebration Events” to be announced are “The Alumni Dinner” – Saturday 14th March 2014 and “Uplands Birthday Party” – Sunday 15th March 2015. Please put these dates in your diary. They are going to be two fantastic occasions! Your sincerely,

Matthew Bristow Principal @ispuplands

https://twitter.com/ispuplands

Contents Page No Message from the Principal 1 Secondary News 2 & 3 Primary News 4, 5, 6 & 7 Baseline Testing 8 The Good Start Learning Centre 8 UPTA News 9 School Calendar 10

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I was browsing the BBC News Website yesterday evening and came across an article titled, "Young people lack workplace skills, firms say in survey". The headline really caught my attention and as a result, I read on. The article refers to a survey that the British Chambers of Commerce did with 3000 firms in regards to the skills possessed by both school leavers and also university graduates. I was astonished by some of the results, which I have quoted below:

Nine out of ten firms thought school leavers were not ready for employment

More than half of the firms thought graduates were also not ready for employment

50% of the firms also stated that young people did not have even basic skills such as communication

Firms need young people that are resilient, good communicators and understand how to work as part of a team.

In last weeks newsletter I spoke about being involved in Extra Curricular Activities (ECAs) and the benefits students gain in doing so. It is quite ironic that I came across this article a week later. Here at Uplands we are very lucky to have such talented students, who demonstrate all the qualities I believe a firm would be looking for. This was clearly evident on Monday during our first Secondary Assembly, where we had students in every year level take the stage and confidently speak about their adventures of Retreat Week. We also had three very good musical pieces performed by Oliver Rose (Year 10) and Kelvin Yeoh (Year 11) both on the piano and by Patrick Lee (Year 11) playing the violin. Two of our students also received awards as part of the Monash University (Australia) Essay Competition: Jackson Carroll (Year 12) was runner up and Emmanuuel Tan was awarded an iPad for his winning entry. Another highlight saw our Year 13 student, Katherine Bowden-Brown, winning a scholarship worth USD 75,000 attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Katherine Bowden-Brown receiving her scholarship with our Careers Counsellor, Mr Bill Mitchell. A big congratulations to all of the students involved in the assembly on Monday and thank you to Mr. Driscoll for organising it.

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Progress Reports: The Secondary School Progress Reports will be distributed next Friday at the end of the School day. These reports will be addressed to parents and therefore students should be handing their parents / guardians a sealed envelope containing these grade sheets. Please note that these are a progress report and therefore only contain an attainment grade and an effort grade. A full comprehensive report, inclusive of written comments, are distributed to all students in Years 7 - 10 and also Year 12 on the last day of Term 1 Friday, 19th December 2014. Years 11 & 13 students will receive their full report after their Mock Exams on Tuesday 10 February 2015. Have a great weekend Craig Skinner Head of Secondary School craig.skinner@uplands.org http://blogs.uplands.org/hos/ Follow us on Twitter: @UplandsSecSch

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With only two weeks to go until mid-term break students in Primary are hard at work completing their first units of inquiry and still manage to find the energy to participate in a variety of musical, sporting and extra-curricular activities at the end of the school day. This week I had the pleasure of watching our swimmers take part in a swim meet with Dalat, SCIPS and Straits International Schools. The effort put in by all children was outstanding and I am sure some new Uplands swimming records were set. As our team travels to KL this afternoon to participate in a larger swim meet with other schools in the region, we wish them an enjoyable and successful competition.

Year Six have just completed their first unit of inquiry: “A person’s behaviour and how they choose to present themselves project aspects of their identity”. As part of their summative assessment, the students designed and created T-shirts to reflect how they want people to perceive who they really are. On Thursday they staged a fashion show that included video interviews, iMovies and poems. It was clearly evident the students thoroughly enjoyed the learning process.

Wushu: Congratulations to Lea Seidel, Maya Yamashita (Year 5) and Diamond Lee (Year 8) who represented Uplands at a recent Wushu competition. Lea was placed 4th overall gaining two 3rd placings and 1st in another. Maya was placed 1st in the Martial Spirit event. Diamond was 2nd overall in the secondary division receiving two 3rd placings and three 1st placings in the event. Overall our Uplands team was placed 3rd in the competition. Well done!

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2015 Calendar Art Competition: Children in Years 3 to 6 were given the opportunity to “Create a piece of art to show what you love about living in Malaysia. Allied Pickfords Malaysia is creating a 2015 desktop calendar whereby international schools in Kuala Lumpur and Penang were invited to submit entries. One piece of art from each participating school will be selected by the judging panel to be represented on the calendar. The quality of artwork submitted by our students was very creative and within our school we selected the work of two students from each class to be displayed on our notice-board (scanned and printed – the originals have been sent to KL along with all other entries from

Uplands). Congratulations to Sophie El Masry, Takeru Koji (Year 3i), Jessica Saxon, Izeral Marican (Year 3s), Jaemi Lee, Zephai Gabo (Year 4s), Maya Yamashita, Ritsuko Yoshida (Year 5i), Lily Chiu, Izdya Marican (Year 5s), Chelsea Choo, (Fern) Chadaporn Sunsirikul (Year 6i), Charlize Choo, Oliver Hojbjerb (Year 6s) whose pieces are on display!

An Introduction to the IB PYP: For those parents who are new to the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme, an introductory information session will be presented by Ms Zeynep Dincer, our PYP Coordinator, on the evening of Wednesday, 8 October. This will begin at 7:00pm in the Primary Drama on the first floor – E101. The session will last approximately one hour and be followed by light refreshments. We hope that parents who are new to Uplands will join us to learn more about our Primary Programme.

Primary Curriculum Evening: On Wednesday, 5 November all parents are invited to school to learn more about our programme and curriculum in your child’s class. Class teachers will plan these sessions beginning at 7:00pm. More detailed information will be sent to parents closer to the event.

Chelsea Choo

Maya Yamashita

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Primary Hallowe’en Party:

On Thursday, 30 October between 5:30pm and 7:30pm all Primary children and their parents are invited to our Hallowe’en Party. Children are to come dressed in a Hallowe’en theme or favourite character for the costume parade. Many children choose to design and create their own costumes, so if you have no plans for half-term break, this is a great opportunity to keep your children busy! Please join us for games, dancing, food and fun!

Qualified Primary Teachers:

If there are any experienced, qualified Primary teachers out there, we would love to hear from you. Please send your resume to alison.nicholson@uplands.org

Year 6 Visit: The Year 6s went on a trip to the Batik Factory in Teluk Bahang. The visit related to our inquiry: Fashion as a form of expression. We learnt how Malaysian culture is expressed through designs on fabric. We also created our own Batik. We had lots of fun and it was a great experience. Chelsea 6i and Charlize 6s Have a great weekend! Ali Nicholson Head of Primary

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Baseline Testing All Year 7 students have completed the MidYis CEM (Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring) computer adaptive baseline test. The results of these external tests represent one extremely valid assessment method of informing predicted grades for our students as they move through their Middle Years education. Students from each of the four Year 7 registration group quite enjoyed the challenge of completing skill-based questions in the areas of language and comprehension, mathematics and general understanding across a range of other disciplines. Results are presented to Uplands against national standards, providing meaningful insight into how students at our school compare to other students from other schools globally. More importantly, the data assists teachers in establishing baseline values for students in their classes to Key Stage 3 level, in part directing the teaching and learning that then will contribute to individual student improvement for subject-specific skills. That said, this sort of data informs, it does not replace the internal formative and summative assessment that continues to work concurrently with the subject-based learning objectives. In the coming weeks, our Year 8-11 students who do not currently have any baseline data recorded will be completing the MidYis (Yr7-9) and Yellis (Yr10-11) tests. The Yellis test is useful for informing IGCSE levels. Finally, all of our Year 12 students will be completing the ALIS test which informs IB Diploma scores. As a parent, if you have any questions about the nature of the CEM external testing conducted here at Uplands, please feel free to contact Mr Paul Rose in the Curriculum Office.

Can you help us ? Art Supply Donations for Start-up Refugee School Needed. We are four dedicated, considerate and keen IB students who plan to commence an Art class for Rohingya refugee children who are situated in 'The Good Start Learning Centre'. The Rohingya are an ethnic group of people who have had to flee from their home country of Myanmar. They are not recognised by the Malaysian government, they aren't allowed to work and their children aren’t entitled to receive formal education in Malaysia. Good Start will provide them with more opportunities in life. The art classes are a way for us to provide them with a creative outlet and in the process help them to improve their comprehension of English, in a fun and light way. As we intend to teach them, we need to provide supplies (e.g. coloured paper, paint brushes, paint, pens etc.), which is difficult as there are a large number of students. We have received some donations thanks to Mr McGill and other teachers at the school but we need your help to support us. We plan to organise a root-beer/coke float booth with the addition of cakes every Wednesday for two weeks. If you have any art equipment that you do not need anymore, it would be much appreciated. A donations box will also be set up during the coke/root-beer float event if you would like to donate money. Please support us - every donation counts, whether big or small. You will make a big difference to the lives of these children. Melika Nabipour Year 12

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School Closed – Hari Riya Monday 6th October Mid-term break – School is closed Monday 19 – 23 October. Classes resume - Monday, 27 October. Primary Sharing Assembly – Monday, 13 October, hosted by Year 5 Year 5 Excursion to Georgetown – Tuesday, 14 October (am) Year 6 Langkawi Residential – Saturday, 18 – Tuesday, 21 November Primary Christmas Concert – Wednesday, 17 December