ISM Newsletter Rosinka

1ROSINKA CAMPUS | SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

NEWSLETTERThe Internat iona l School of Moscow

ISSUE #03

A newsletter for parents, students and friends of our school 2015 - 2016

ROSINKACAMPUS

2 SCHOOL NEWSLETTER | ROSINKA CAMPUS

Headteacher’s MessageWelcome To The Summer Term At ISM Rosinka

Dear readers,

As we come towards the end of a very short but eventful term, it is incredible to think about how much we have achieved in such a short space of time since January. From Art Week to Year 1, 2 and 3 Productions to our huge successes at COBIS events and beyond, it has, as always, been an absolute pleasure to witness the enthusiasm, passion and determination to succeed that emanates from our students every day.

Last week, I spoke to students in assemblies about the recruitment process that we have already started in order to recruit and retain the very highest quality teachers at The International School of Moscow. With more and more British and international schools opening up around the world and fewer numbers of young people joining the teaching profession, it is becoming increasingly challenging to recruit high quality teaching staff.

A common question asked of me by potential new teachers at the end of interviews is: “What are you most proud of in your school?” Until this academic year, my answer has always been the same: “Our fantastic students, our dedicated staff and our supportive community.” This year, I have added a fourth element to my answer: “Our PGCE students.”

PGCE stands for ‘Postgraduate Certificate in Education’. It is a one-year course available to graduates who wish to become teachers.

In recent years, many of The International School of Moscow’s best teachers (Mr Chapman, Miss Danby, Mr Davis and Mrs Samarin) have been nurtured following success firstly as Assistant Teachers in our school and then as Assistant Teachers working side by side, on a daily basis, with Teacher Mentors to finely hone their skills on the University of Buckingham’s PGCE course.

This academic year, we have an unprecedented seven Assistant Teachers completing their University of Buckingham PGCEs in our school. This week ‘The Moscow Seven’ have been assessed by their Tutor Mr Peter Kelly. Their progress over the course of this academic year has been staggering. In Mr Thompson, Miss Bantick, Miss Ngcobo, Miss Nugent, Mr Graham, Mr Powell and Miss Reid, we have seven excellent teachers who stand head and shoulders above the majority of teachers who I interview. ‘The Moscow Seven’ will fit seamlessly into our school next academic year. They enjoy working in our school, know our systems and are committed to The International School of Moscow for many years to come.

As we look to offer the PGCE programme to other highly able Assistant Teachers next academic year, one thing is for sure, our students’ futures are very bright in the care of ‘The Moscow Seven’.

Paul Keach - Headteacher


Head of Rosinka’s Message

The Moscow Seven

Dear parents,

Although the winter often drags on in Moscow at this time of year, Term 2 has passed in the blink of an eye and before it draws to a close I’d like to thank students, parents and staff for some great memories from the January-March period.

Congratulations to the Year 1 and 2 students and teaching team for a wonderfully colourful, energetic and polished production of ‘Peter Pan’ that provided a fitting finale to the term. The productions this Tuesday and Wednesday represented the culmination of a superb team effort involving students, staff and parents, led by Miss Huot with the capable support of every member of the Year 1-2 team, as well as music teachers Dr Tkachenko, Mrs Serova and Miss Reid. Thank you to all for a truly wonderful show that showcased just how much Year 1 and 2 students have grown in maturity and confidence this year!

Our Secondary School COBIS Games team recently returned from Dubai having claimed 3rd place overall in a field of twenty competing schools. This prestigious sporting event occurs annually and is attended by many of the world’s leading international schools. A bronze medal finish was a massive achievement, made all the more impressive by the fact that all of the schools who feature in the top ten are very long established and have a much larger pupil body than ISM from which to select. Well done to competing ISM Rosinka Year 7 student Victoria Westman and an enormous ‘thank you’ to Mr McAndrews, Miss Sampaio and Mr Downey for their respective contributions to the team’s success.

Finally, well done to the ISM Rosinka Secondary school band ‘Sleep on It’. The celebrated rock four-piece added to the accolade of being joint winners of our February Talent Show by taking first place in the ‘Battle of the Bands’ at the British Schools Foundation’s recent Music Festival in Nanjing! Anna, Alexey, Jonas, Tim and Jad – you were complete and utter legends and owned the stage! Thanks also to Dr Tkachenko for ensuring that the band were meticulously prepared to shine!

Thank you for your continued support.

Raymond FinchHead of Rosinka Campus


Walking through the jungle. What can you see?

Pre-Nursery

By Roshini Mordani

Now that we are almost at the end of our second term, here in pre-nursery we are really beginning to stretch our imaginations and creativity incorporating everything we have learnt so far. This term the focus has been on learning and exploring everything about ‘Animals’, as you can imagine, this has caused great excitement and interest amongst all children and is definitely a favourite topic of theirs. In particular, the children enjoyed the Jungle role-play area, we used our imagination to see jungle animals and then even had the opportunity to be the animals - moving like the animals and making all their noises! To add some colour to the mix, we made lots of animal crafts to decorate our classroom.

Furthermore, we even enjoyed practicing animal yoga and let our inner jungle animal shine, bending and stretching in a whole lot of different positions! During art week, our ‘view from the window’ was a detailed jungle with tigers, leopards and toucans and we learnt lots of different techniques to achieve our masterpiece sponge painting and used templates to paint the different animals hiding in the forest. We then used our hands to print flowers, and leaves and sponges to paint our background to great success. We have had a roaring time this term in Pre-Nursery and can’t wait for next term!


Play dough gym sessions

Nursery

Children in nursery often come to school struggling to hold a pencil and cannot rec-ognise or write their own name. As these children are not developmentally ready to write, they need ‘Play Dough Gym’ to help strengthen the important core and hand muscles.

Play Dough Gym is a physical intervention that combines the use of large pieces of dough with a series of hand and finger ex-ercises. These strengthen and develop chil-dren’s fine and gross motor dexterity, hand-eye co-ordination, proprioception, balance, low load control, grip and most importantly, their self-esteem.

Each child is given a golden ticket and joins a group of four or five children at the table. The music used each week corresponds with the topic we are learning; during the topic of the beach we had a session in tune to the beach boys. It is fast-pace, good fun and done in time to music. Instructions are called out in which the children follow using their fingers, hands and/or dough.

Even though it is called ‘ Play Dough Gym’, it is about so much more than dough.

Alongside the development of their muscles, children also need to develop their sense of proprioception and balance. Proprioception is when the brain uses all sorts of information from different parts of the body to help it to move effectively within its given space. An essential part of this movement is being able to maintain balance whilst still and in motion. Large physical movements of the arms and upper body shift the centre of balance and also continually challenge the child’s sense

By Holly Roberts

of proprioception sometimes resulting in a child falling over or tripping over their own feet. Children need lots of practise at mov-ing around to help this development. One of the most valuable things you can do during Play Dough Gym is to make sure the children are standing up and have plenty of space. Children do not need to sit down when they are at the malleable materials table. In fact, it can be more detrimental to their develop-ment if they do.

The children really do love taking part in the sessions and we have seen a big improve-ment in the children’s pencil grip and gross motor skills. It really is so much fun at Play Dough Gym and you could even try it at home.


By Nathaniel Bateson

Fairytales And Nursery Rhymes Reception

This half term the children of Reception have been learning all about Traditional Nursery Rhymes and Fairytales.

We have been learning about The Gingerbread Man and Reception class has even created their very own salt dough figures as well as baked their own Gingerbread Man from scratch! This allowed the children to weigh and measure ingredients in order to create the edible delights. Yum Yum!

We then looked at Humpty Dumpty, where the children wrote about the characters in the Nursery Rhyme as well as acting the rhyme out. Some of the exciting activities that the children took part in, included putting broken eggs back together again which certainly proved a difficult, yet enjoyable, task. The children were also excited to investigate how we could land Humpty Dumpty on the ground without breaking him and this involved the children creating and developing their own protective holders as well as parachutes. After all the eggs had landed on the ground, we decided to look at our eggs and find out what was successful and what we needed to improve on.

Finally the children studied Jack and the Beanstalk, where they sequenced the events of the story, acted out the different characters and even hot seated the giant on how he felt when Jack stole his golden hen.

Overall, in Reception the children have had a fun, messy and hands on term and look forward to another fun filled final term with lots more excitement ahead.


Toy Joy – QR DiscoveryYear 1

By Year 1 Team

Year 1 learnt all about toys this term and enjoyed discovering different types of toys and having the opportunity to test them out! Both Year 1 classes set up a toy shop role play and toy museum areas in their classrooms to touch, hold, hear and play with a range of toys from across the years. Children enjoyed contributing to the shop with their own toys and the teach-ers contributed some older models to the delight of the fascinated children. Year 1 investigated the history of popular toys including teddy bears, yo-yos, robots and toy cars. We also played outside, racing with sledges and building igloos with the buckets and shovels. Year 1 became rescuers of stranded Lego men that had been frozen in the ice and, as part of a scientific enquiry lesson, they had to make the ice melt using different techniques and materials. We also tested out different materials to try and keep our class mascots dry and waterproof and learnt about the ‘push and pull’ forces that we can exert on toys and objects. One of the highlights of the topic was to go on a QR hunt around the school. Children, armed with an iPad each, would go and find QR codes. Once found, the children scanned the code onto their Ipad to open up a webpage, the webpage had lots of relevant information and gave them a clue to their next QR code. Teachers and children alike were reminded of the fun of toys and we look forward to our next topic.


By Miss Huot

Neverland To Broadway - The Magic Of Growing Up

Year 2

Public performance continues to be one of the biggest fears adults experience and there are few that thrive in front of an audience. Perhaps the theatrical world could be just a little bit better if children have more opportunities to face these fears early and explore their inner performer.

At the International School of Moscow, public performances are an important part of the curriculum. Children are given the tools and support to make the crucial first steps toward development of their public performance talents. Every child at ISM participates in their annual year group production, and every child is given a speaking role and their own chance of the spotlight.

This year, a promising group of ISM Rosinka Year 1 and 2 students dove into musical theatre through the unforgettably magical story of ‘Peter Pan’. A tale of rebellion, friendship and courage captured the imaginations of millions and was performed by an all star ISM student cast to a school audience and to their proud parents. Meticulous planning of this year’s production by ISM’s talented teaching staff ensured the students were fully immersed into the experience through costumes, original song variations and musical support from ISM’s own Dr.Tkachenko and Mrs. Serova.

Through a story of a boy who could not accept growing up, students learned about themselves, each other and the importance of teamwork. We were delighted to watch confidence grow and creativity flourish during rehearsals as students were encouraged to take risks in their dramatic performances. Even the children’s own expectations were surpassed as young actors discovered hidden talents through getting comfortable with being on stage.


Peter PanYear 1 & 2 Production

Year 1 and 2 have been working hard all term on their all singing, all dancing production of Peter Pan. We had Lost Boys, Indians, Pirates and, of course, Tinkerbell who learnt their parts brilliantly. The children had great fun performing and put on an excellent show for their parents, as evident in the pictures.


By Colm Rowan

Fun with Outdoor Mathematics!Year 3

Even the snow and ice could not stop year 3 in their quest to take their learning outdoors at the International School of Moscow. Out-door Learning is seen as an opportunity to practically use the skills we learn in the classroom and to a apply these in a ‘real-life’ setting.

One memorable opportunity for this hap-pened recently; the children looked for differ-ent shapes in the playground and measured their perimeter. Skills such as measuring carefully with rulers, metre sticks and trundle wheels have been practised throughout the year and the children put these to use to find the perimeter of the football pitch, picnic ta-bles and the steps on the entrance of the building. Some children even found out that when measuring the perimeter of a square or rectangle, you do not need to measure all the sides! The children’s estimation skills also improved as the activity went on; they began to learn from their errors and make gradual improvement!

Time is another topic that has practical uses. The children have been learning about the relationship between seconds, minutes and hours and they decided to come up with a series of activities that could be timed using stopwatches. These varied from running the perimeter of the football pitch, to how long it takes to put on their snowsuits! The children were then able to convert minutes and sec-onds into seconds only, allowing the results to be compared.

The objective of these lessons is to show the children that what we learn in school has practical purposes that can be used in a va-riety of situations. We are preparing the stu-dents for the future by providing first hand experiences and activities that will engage

and challenge them. As Albert Einstein fa-mously said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”


By Graham McClymont

Back To The Good Old Days?Year 4

On Tuesday 8th March, Year Four were transported back in time to the late Victorian era. Unlike the children of the time, these pupils were really looking forward to experiencing what it was like to be in a Victorian classroom. Dressed in their ‘authentic costumes’ they were greeted by two stern schoolmasters who quickly got them into the spirit of the day. Lining up in size order and separate genders, they marched silently into class and were amazed at the transformation.

Sitting in rows, with their rules fixed to the desk and a picture of Queen Victoria staring down at them from the wall, they began their day. First up was hand-writing (with chalk) on a slate-The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the subject text. Being asked to write perfectly and with no errors meant a lot of rubbing out before they were ‘expert’ enough to write in ink. Some lovely pieces of writing were produced!

Next they went for ‘drill’ with Miss Sampaio. She certainly put both classes ‘through the mill’ and by the end of the lesson there were some tired and complaining bodies. After a short break the children then had dictation. ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling was the chosen text and they had to listen carefully and write neatly on their slates. It was definitely challenging but they managed to make a great attempt with some new and challenging words.

At lunch they got to play with their Victorian toys before returning to class for arithmetic; chanting the twelve times table and learning about pounds, shillings and pennies. Object drawing of a plant was the next challenge and was undertaken with enthusiasm. To conclude the day, we had a Geography lesson in which they had to draw the outline of Great Britain and add on specific cities of importance at the time.

All these activities were undertaken in relative silence and ‘punishments’ meted out to those who would not abide by the rules. Everyone had the o3pportunity to experience the ‘Dunce’s Cap’ and a mock caning. A great day that was throughly enjoyed by the children but they all said they would not have liked to experience it for real!


by George Popovici

Moscow MetroYear 5

In Humanities this term, year 5 have been looking at a topic that, although extremely fasci-nating, you might not expect … the Moscow Metro.

We learnt all about it, from the very beginning of its invention to what the future has in store. In the first few weeks we studied the history and the many different lines and stations. We then conducted a survey of what people think about the Moscow Metro and how the Metro might look in the future, for example the expansion of some existing lines and the creation of completely new ones!

We continued our study by learning about the different stations and even created some fact-files with key information and fun facts, with every student researched a different sta-tion. The information about all the stations was displayed on the Metro map that we created outside our classroom for everyone to see as they walked passed. By connecting each sta-tion on our map and including the fact-files, we created a great tool that could be used by anybody who wants to learn about the Moscow Metro.

We furthered our learning even more by exploring the possibilities of the future Moscow Metro including how the stations might look and how people may use it. To do this, we de-signed a survey in which we asked our parents to answer questions. We asked things such as ‘Name 3 disadvantages of the Moscow metro’. The results were very useful and we used the results to decide upon some features we would include in our own designs of the trains and stations. The two features that appeared in everyone’s designs were toilets and bars in every carriage!

Looking at the past and the future of the Moscow Metro was both educational and fun for all of year 5 and we can’t wait to see if some of our designs are taken on board!


by Alex Dadd

Experimenting in ScienceYear 6

This term in year six we have been studying two topics, electricity and light. We conduct-ed a few interesting experiments on both topics, having a lot of fun learning and ex-ploring all the new science equipment.

We have had the opportunity to learn a lot in both topics and I think I am confident now in defining what electricity and light are, and also what they does and why they are im-portant. The definition of light is the bright-ness from the sun, a flame, a light bulb etc. that allows things to be seen. The definition of electricity is the power that is carried by wires, cables etc. and is used to provide light or heat to make machines and appliances work etc. As you can see, the two topics blend in nicely to each other and are closely related. This made my learning much easier and allowed me to put into context what we were talking about.

My favourite experiment to do with light was when we covered a partner’s eye with one hand. We could not let any light in through our hand and had the eye covered for one minute before we took away our hand. When we looked into our partner’s eye very close-ly, we watched as their pupil got smaller. This is because when it is very dark your pu-pil gets bigger so it can allow more light in, conversely when it is brighter your pupil gets smaller because it does not need as much light since there is more light available. We were able to observe this in our partner’s eye and I found this fascinating as it is something you don’t realise happening in yourself.

My favourite experiment to do with electrici-ty was to build a circuit and to see what hap-pens to it when you change the flow of the electricity. In pairs we made a simple circuit using one battery and one light bulb. Then

we added another light bulb to the circuit and both light bulbs became dimmer. This is because they have to share the electric-ity from the battery. Then we took away one light bulb but we changed the length of the wires. First we made them shorter and our result was that the light bulb was quite bright. Then we made the wires longer. The bulb didn’t go out completely, it just got a little bit dimmer. These differences were be-cause when the wire was longer, some of the electricity stayed in the wire, while the rest of it went into the light bulb. When the wire was shorter the same thing happened, some of the electricity stayed in the wire and the rest went into the light bulb, although this time the wire was shorter so less could stay inside it and more of it could go into the light bulb, making it brighter.

These were just some of my favourite exper-iments we did but of course we conducted other experiments which all helped me learn the topics while enjoying the practical work as well.


By Vadim Fridburg

Recycling - the how and whySecondary English

In this article, I will be outlining an idea for a school improvement that I came up with re-cently for an English classroom debate and persuasive writing. When I arrived at ISM, I was surprised to see that there is no recycling done in this school, because I come from a school where they teach you to recycle from a very young age and teach their students the importance of recycling. I felt strongly that I wanted to do something about this because I am used to recycling but also because it is an easy thing for everyone to do that can make a huge difference to the world we live in.

Firstly, what is recycling? Recycling is exactly the same as throwing all the rubbish away, but in a way that all the rubbish can be reused afterwards. This helps the environment because we can reuse the materials, leading to us using these materials less and preventing the ma-terials ending up in a landfill site. The other benefit of recycling is that it can be involved in the heating of houses. This method might not be known and used that much in Russia, but in other countries, which have been recycling for a while, it is fairly common practice. The heating is created by the recycled materials by being burned in special factories and then passed into people’s houses when the materials are already transformed into heat. This is just one way of using recycling for the better but there are endless possibilities for our re-cycled products. There are many benefits of recycling, to name but a few: less trees will be cut down, less money spent on waste and, most importantly, less pollution on our earth too.

Why does our school need to start recycling? Does our school actually need to recycle? We are fortunate enough to manage without recycling but it would certainly make our school an even better place if we could help the earth and nature by simply sorting our rubbish into a couple of coloured containers, or even just some bin bags. One thing for sure is that you will feel better knowing that you are saving your planet even if it is just because you throw your rubbish away correctly.

We only have one planet so lets reuse, reduce and recycle.


By Tim But

A Trip to MarsSecondary Science

Mankind has always wanted to explore space. Even back when telescopes weren’t around, people looked at the stars in awe and wondered: what’s up there? When the first telescopes were invented, many ques-tions were answered and we discovered that our solar system not only contains the moon, the sun, and the earth, but also 8 other planets that orbited our star. Later, in 1969, the first human stepped on the moon. We now have set our sights on Mars, and I would like to share how it may look, and maybe even predict how it will play out.

IntroductionA trip to Mars will need a lot of planning. The plans so far are as such:2020: a satellite is sent to mars to facilitate communications with future “Martians”.2022: a rover is launched towards Mars to find the perfect spot for a settlement.2024: six cargo missions are sent with all of the living units and life support systems. Ro-bots will construct these bases stations.2026-7: a four-man-mission is sent to the red planet.2028: a second-four-man mission will be sent to Mars.

PlanningThe Mars base will not only be a settlement, but also a lab to conduct tests and exper-iments. The settlers must be capable of sending the outcomes of those results back to earth, or else they will not be useful. That is why, in year 2020, a satellite will be sent to Mars to stabilize communications with the future inhabitants of the planet. Send-ing the satellite to Mars will cost at least $50,000,000, and will use just under 200 tons of rocket fuel.

Phase 1A colony on Mars will require the perfect location, preferably a flat area. A rover will be sent to Mars in the year 2022 to find a location for the future colony. The rover will send data back to earth, and by 2023 we will have the location. The cost for sending the rover to Mars will be similar to the cost of the satellite.

Phase 2Making a colony on Mars is probably the hardest thing that will happen in the next 50 years surely. In the year 2024, six cargo mis-sions will be sent to Mars, which will hold all of the living units and life support systems. To be constructed by robots, and be ready when the colonists arrive to the red planet.

Phase 3Settlement: When the colonists first arrive they will be busy setting up systems to keep themselves alive. For a start they will use more resources than they actually use. The colonists amongst other things will set up water purification systems, greenhouses, sewage, solar stations, recycling systems and mining operations.

Phase 4Self-sufficient like the Americans colonies many years ago, Mars will only be colonized when the colony can support the Mars pop-ulation without outside support. This will be difficult to achieve but must be done quickly because Earth is too far away to rely on for supplies.


Winter fun activities

Russian

By Tatiana Teplukhina

Year 5 have spent the term consolidating their knowledge of ‘types of speech’ and have said their final ‘goodbyes’ to winter!

The Russian native class have written an advanced style essay based on a picture. The children were tasked with placing themselves in the shoes of one of the children in the picture - how do they feel? What are they doing? Who are they with?

Before jumping straight into writing the essay, it was important for the children to make a plan of the main points of the essay. The children were given the opportunity to reflect on their knowledge of ‘weather’, ‘time of year’, ‘feelings’ and ‘activities’ vocabulary.After the plan was in place, the children came up with their own titles for the picture and, by the whole class voting, the most accurate one was chosen – “Winter Fun Activities”. Then, children worked with the words such as “activity”, “children” and “having fun”, and they tried to think of all possible synonyms, that they could use to avoid repetition in their essays. After this, they took part in a little competition in groups to match adjectives to the words “snowman”, “game” and “winter”. The team that found the highest number of adjectives won.

The final stage of preparation included reading and analyzing a good example of an essay, written by a pupil of their age. In this work the children paid attention to everything discussed before, summarizing the main vocabulary and the plan of the writing.

Finally, the students set about writing their very own essay. They followed their plans, added in their many adjectives and kept in mind the essay structure they had seen before.

The students did an exceptional job and succeeded in writing their own essays, going above and beyond teacher’s expectations and requirements. Great job year 5, keep on writing!


Taking French Online

French

By Elena Strombskaia

The students in the year 6 Upper - Continuers group have produced their very own web pages in French to showcase their experiences in their year 6 class and throughout the school. On the web page the students have presented themselves, talked about their teachers and given brief information about their likes and interests of school subjects and school life in general. This was a challenging project for our students that involved extensive preparation and various steps towards completion. They undertook the task with great determination and enthusiasm.

The students first had to learn the grammar and vocabulary required, master beautiful handwriting in the french language and add some creative drawings to attract readers. The students greatly enjoyed working together and completing this novel task.

The students were all keen to express some of their thoughts on their project and couldn’t wait to share it:

“It was interesting and very fun. I learned how to describe people even better. I especially liked drawing the portraits of our teachers”. - Sophie 6S.

“Our group worked very hard during the project, and we really enjoyed it. We worked hard, and now we hope that this project is going to become something that we could be proud of.” --Dasha 6S.


Sleep on ItMusic

By Paul Tkachenko‘Sleep On It’ is the name of Rosinka’s newest and most rocking band. The band got together to prepare for the British Schools’ Foundation music festival in Nanjing and they have already become winners of Rosinka’s Got Talent. Fronted with the powerhouse vocals of Y8 student Anna Nagy, their performance of the classic Guns n’ Roses song ‘Paradise City’ had everyone clapping and singing along. Backed by the lead guitar ‘shredding’ of Alexey Sharapanyuk (Y7) and the cool rhythm guitar stylings of Tim But they are a force to be reckoned with. The foundation of the group is the ‘dream team’ rhythm section of Joonas Honkanen and Jad Batrouny who already have a good track record of laying down the groove for school productions. Armed with a rousing version of the Kiss rock anthem ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You’ the band are ready for combat in the Battle of the Bands competition in Nanjing.


ISM At The COBIS GamesPE

By The PE TeamThis term saw the ISM Lions head for Dubai for the senior COBIS Games. A sporting event, which saw 20 Schools from around the globe compete in athletics, football and swimming in 3 days of excitement, skills and teamwork. Victoria Westman in Year 7 was a an important part of the ISM Lions squad and all her hard work of training, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, along with extra swimming and fitness work over weekends was put to the test. The trip started with a team bonding day, which saw the first thunderstorms in Dubai for 12 years but the Lions gelled together and made the best of the situation and a start of things to come. The first day of the games was swimming, in a 50M pool. The Lions showed high energy levels and were able to reach a few individual finals but the true highlight of the day was ISM reaching both the boys and girls finals in freestyle and medley relays. After day one ISM Lions were in 7th place. The second day of the games was athletics and this was a true Lions day. Gold medals were collected, records broken and again both boys and girls 4 x 100m relay finals reached. The yellow vests were all over the podium to share their success of the day in front of the grandstand. ISM Lions finished the day in 4th place, just outside the trophies. The final day of the games saw the Lions playing football. Some quick passing, hard tackling and fine shooting saw the boys and girls teams reach the quarter finals. Both teams would narrowly miss out on the semi-finals but some important points were collected towards the overall score of the Games. The gala dinner and closing ceremony showed just how many points ISM Lions had collected over the games, after it was announced they came 3rd overall! Tears, smiles and cheering were all part of the mix of emotions from the students and teachers alike, adding a new record finish for ISM at COBIS games. All the hours and hours of training, sweat, hard work and dedication had paid off! Well done, a true team effort to be proud of forever!


Art WeekArt Week at ISM Rosinka took the theme of ‘A View From the Window’. All classes across the school created a whole class piece alongside individual pieces. All art was displayed for parents to see during the Musical Recital Evening and really brightened up our school.


RecitalThe Recital Concert gave our musical students an opportunity to show off their talents in keyboard, violin, guitar and singing. Proud parents came to watch their children perform and, similarly, the children took great pride and enjoyment in being on stage, making all their practice worth it.


Open Mic NightTeachers, parents and children performed at the Rosinka Family Restaurant to a large group at our Open Mic Night. The great feature of the Open Mic Night is that anyone can turn up and perform anything they want - the stage is open to all!


Rosinka’s Got TalentOur recent talent show was a huge success with students, teachers and parents alike all thoroughly enjoying the performances and much anticipated results. We had two acts competing per year group that ranged from magic acts to Russian gypsy dancing. Have a look through our photos to see all the acts who performed.


ISM Introduces Book SwapStudent Council

By Joe McConnellTerm one saw the initial start up of the student council for the current academic year and with that came the start of some successful changes to our school. Term two has advanced on these successes by continuing some of our projects, including the playground buddy system and the introduction of new toys and structured games in the playground. We have also successfully began some new projects such as the introduction of a ‘Book Swap’ system in the school library. This ‘Book Swap’, alongside some parent helpers, will allow children to bring in their own books which they have finished and swap them for a book that another student has placed in the ‘Book Swap’ library. This was a great idea thought up by our student council and will have an impact on children across the school, increasing the types of books available in our school library. The student council also held a Valentine’s Day post for secret admirers to send each other messages.

Looking ahead into term 3, the process has already began to provide suggestions to the teachers on possible ASA clubs to run. There is no-one better to decide the ASA’s available than our elected student body who are, not only, going to be using the clubs themselves but will be well aware of what other children like and dislike.

Our student council is always open to ideas so make sure that you speak up and make your opinion heard so we can all work together to make these positive changes.


Staff Interview - Alexey Skanavi

One of our most interesting and dynamic members of staff here at ISM Rosinka is our piano teacher. Alexey Skanavi grew up in the capital of Russia, Moscow. Really, he grew up ‘beside a piano’ because every family member he visited throughout his childhood owned a grand piano and both his parents were accomplished musicians. When he was five years old he began playing the piano and Alexey thinks that starting early is necessary to play at a professional level later in life. Growing up, he had numerous inspirations like the great Russian pianists, most notably Rakhmanov Vladimir Horovich. These years of practice and performance in Alexey’s youth have well and truly prepared him for regular performances in Moscow and across Europe. Furthermore, he had the honor of playing in China and the USA. Mr Skanavi also presents two radio stations and says that he does not suffer from stage fright at all, even if performing in front of thousands of spectators.

Despite these outstanding professional successes, Alexey remains a family man at heart stating that his greatest achievements are his three children and wife. He has a daughter who is 25 years old who is an accomplished economist. Alexey’s son has followed in his father’s musical footsteps to play the cello. He has been performing throughout his schooling in regular concerts.His third child is another boy who is only 7 years old and does not play any instruments...yet! But I’m sure with a father like Alexey Skanavi, the musical world is his oyster.

Balancing both family and performing he finds time to also teach the children in ISM Rosinka. He adores seeing his students start at zero and improve so that after a few weeks they can already play some compositions. He has hope in all of his students and believes they can achieve well in music if they continue to practice consistently.

Mr. Skanavi states that: “I can teach the children how to play, however I can’t play for them”.

So students of Mr Skanavi, practice practice practice! And one day you too will be on stage performing to thousands.

By Mathias Decruyenaere - Year 7


Staff Training

Teaching English to ESL Students in the Mainstream ClassroomBy Daniel Frater

Over the course of this academic year, the teaching staff at ISM Rosinka have been undertaking the TESMC course, delivered by course tutors, Daniel Frater and Benjamin Mehrabian. The course is made up of nine modules, that are two and a half hours long each thus the course has given staff a thorough and in depth understanding in this subject.

Through the course, the staff have been learning a range of strategies to develop all children’s English language proficiency (speaking, reading & writing), by adopting a functional model to teaching language across the curriculum. Between module readings of highly regarded research papers have enhanced our teachers’ understanding and knowledge of matters related to learning language, while between module activities have given teachers opportunities to see how these ideas work in practice.

The most recent training session, module six, focused on pre-reading activities which activate and develop children’s language prior to reading a text, and during reading activities which help children develop an understanding of how texts are structured.

With six of the nine modules completed, we have now set up a working group to identify the best way to begin implementing many of the approaches learned during the course.

Over the coming year, we look forward to seeing the real impact on English language learning across the curriculum for all children at ISM Rosinka.


The InternationalSchool of Moscow

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