U15 FOBISSEA Games – Hosted by Dulwich College, Shanghai

26 students travelled to Shanghai (3^rd – 7^th November) to compete in the U15 FOBISSEA Games. This year was our first time in Group A2. The competition was tough throughout. However our students never gave up and worked tirelessly throughout. Once again they were great ambassadors for BIS HCMC.

Swimming: Sean Neo [10V]

If it was blisteringly hot last year, this year was the total opposite. The air was cool with the autumn wind outside, but thankfully the air in the ‘natatorium’ was warm enough for competition against a host of schools from different regions across Asia. As this was our first U15 FOBISSEA games in the A games, the opposition from the other schools was on a whole different level than the previous years, but nevertheless the swimmers of BIS HCMC bravely took the challenge head-on and swam their hearts out. By the end of the event, we came out in a close 4^th place with 14 medals as the hard-earned prizes of our physical endeavours. The entire team was exhausted after what seemed like a long morning, but we calmed our nerves and rested up for the Athletics event that would begin in a few hours’ time…

Athletics: Gabby Cullen [10S]

After a gruelling morning in the pool, we headed across the road to the athletics stadium. After coming 4^th in swimming, we were all nervous for the outcome of the athletics. However we started the morning off well with medals in all our long distance races. We also did very well in our field events, particularly the jumps, and in track the girls did well, placing in the top three for the majority of the events. The conditions were harsh for some, being much cooler than we were used to, but we persevered and came home with several medals and finished 5^th overall.

Girls Football: Trang Nguyen [11B]

Considering it was our first time in group A, we were all rather nervous. We knew for a fact that all the other school teams would be much harder and thus more challenging. We managed to push ourselves and give in our absolute best. As a team, we challenged our own abilities and our own skills as we used different methods of defence and offence that were appropriate to the strength of the other teams. Unfortunately we lost two of our matches but we didn’t stop there. It didn’t bring us down; it encouraged us and motivated us to try even harder. Little did we know, we’d end up playing in the finals with the winning team from the previous year.  At first, Dulwich College Beijing had beaten us 1-0 but we returned with a beautiful match of football winning us a victorious trophy and golden medals with 2-0. We were the underdogs but we were the champions.

Boys Football: Vincent Kwok [9I]

 

The boys competition this year in football was very tough; our competitors were very strong all round and we entered the competition knowing that we would have to try our hardest and very best. It was a very tough day, the weather was especially cold and we were not accustomed to it, as a result we played Dulwich Beijing first and lost a very tough match. We had not let our confidence down after losing the next two games without a goal. Then finally Jason slotted a goal that Charlie Dyer assisted and the crowd went wild as it was the first goal we scored. We would later lose all the other games and move on to the 5^th and 6^th playoff game. Very unfortunately despite playing our best game we lost and came 6^th place overall. It was disappointing but we held our heads high. As the boys know we tried our best and we can only get better from here on in.

 

Girls Basketball: Paula Trinh [10S]

 

Despite everyone being tired after our victory win in football, we played our hardest and were determined to take home the trophy for basketball as well. The first two matches were very tough. However in the third game we played very well against BISSPX. We finished the day with a third and fourth playoff match against BSM. This was a very close game ending with a 15-16 defeat leaving us with fourth place.

 
Boys Basketball: Vincent Kwok [9I]
 

This year the boys basketball team was made up of some amazing talents made up of mostly year 9’s and some year 10’s as we entered the competition in a confident manner. This was the first year in the Group A games and we knew we will have a tough day battling the other schools. Our first game was against BISSPX a new school that also recently joined the group A games. Unfortunately we were dominated by BISSPX as we tried our best and played our hearts out. BISSPX were to win the gold medal. As we learnt from defeat we tried even harder except we still lost against the next two teams; Jerudong International School and Dulwich College Beijing.  We were to have a chance to turn this losing streak over as we played the British School Manila; again unfortunately we lost in a very tight game. We would later lose all our other games and advance to the 5^th and 6^th playoff. We played for pride here except we also lost and finished in 6^th place in the competition.

 

Phil Drake

Director of Sports/Head of Physical Education

 

 

From The Head Teacher

Canteen Survey

This week secondary students have had the opportunity to give their views on the quality of the food and the service at the BIStro and the Underground.  We are seeking quick feedback in order to inform our caterers of the levels of satisfaction of our students.

It is important to get this feedback from as many students as we can.  If your child buys food at school, please encourage them to complete the survey if they haven’t done so already.  It takes five minutes on Studywiz.

 

KS3 Closure

Parents of students in Years 7, 8 & 9 will have received an email and letter before half term informing them that school will be closed to those year groups on Friday 9^th November.  Lessons continue as normal for years 10, 11, 12 & 13 so as not to interrupt classes headed towards external examinations. The closure is due to the FOBISSEA Music Festival 2012 which we are delighted to be hosting. This is a great honour as we will play host to some 250 students and teachers from 14 schools from around the SE Asia region for a festival of collaborative and individual music making.

As a member school of FOBISSEA (Federation of British International Schools in South East Asia and East Asia), our students benefit enormously from the opportunities for cross-school collaboration and competition in sports, mathematics and the arts.  Schools take turns to host the large scale events and this year it is our turn for music.  We have worked hard to minimise the impact on lessons but it is impossible to run an event of this scale in school without some changes.  We trust that you appreciate the reasons for the closure and thank you for your support and understanding.  

 

Two weeks in the life of BIS … 29 October – 9 November

Seoul Model United Nations; U15 FOBISSEA Games, Shanghai; BIS Phuket Football 7s; FOBISSEA Music Festival; Greek Myths productions; lessons and activities …

 

Richard Dyer

Head Teacher

Secondary

 

Sleeping and Learning

Napoleon Bonaparte, Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton and Margaret Thatcher all got by on less than 6 hours a night, but most people need more sleep.

Earlier this year IB students took part in a survey to help improve their teachers’ understanding of how and when they learn. One of the areas investigated was the amount of sleep sixth form students got each night.

The results indicate that over half of BIS sixth formers get no more than 6 hours sleep a night. A lucky 7% got 9 to 10 hours sleep. The finding raises many questions. Do students get too much homework? Are social networking sites and other means of communication too tempting for students? Is a lack of sleep simply due to a habit of staying up late? Can improving work practices create more time for sleep? Are our students sleep habits indicative of future leadership potential?

 

This is an important issue because there is a great deal of evidence to support the notion that sleep is vital for learning. In one such study researchers found that students who went to sleep shortly after memorising sets of word pairs had better recall of the information than those who didn't sleep for several hours. This indicates that students may benefit from reviewing their class notes on a daily or weekly basis, shortly before sleeping. This is also supported by neuroscience investigations into the importance of repetition to the formation of long term memory. In another study, children with obstructive sleep apnoea required more time and an increased number of learning opportunities to reach immediate and long-term recall performances that were reduced compared with controls. Thus, both acquisition and retention of newly learned material was shown to be compromised.

When we sleep our brains are alive with activity, like night skies filled with fireworks. Our neurons are frenetically active, perhaps forming the connections that link in the brain the web of understanding necessary for us to commit learning to long term memory. Evidence suggests that a lack of sleep harms working memory, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, motor dexterity and the ability to stay focused. There is also evidence that a siesta is a perfectly natural response to a biological need, helping us to stay alert for the rest of the day.

So, sleep is likely to be very important to learning. I encourage parents to check that their children are prioritising a good night sleep to help them commit the theories and concepts they encounter during a typical day to long term memory. Moreover, a 30 minute siesta may be just what is needed to power through the evening’s homework. What easier way can there be to learn?

In the coming weeks the issues raised by all the survey findings will be discussed with students and I look forward to reporting back to you the solutions that they have identified.

 

Richard Arch

IB coordinator

 

Sources:

L. Kheirandish-Gozal, M.R. De Jong, K. Spruyt, S.A.J. Chamuleau and D. Gozal Obstructive sleep apnoea is associated with impaired pictorial memory task acquisition and retention in children
http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/36/1/164.short
 

Payne JD, Tucker MA, Ellenbogen JM, Wamsley EJ, Walker MP, et al. (2012) Memory for Semantically Related and Unrelated Declarative Information: The Benefit of Sleep, the Cost of Wake. PLoS ONE 7(3): e33079. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033079   See: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0033079

International Day

 

Community

The Year 9s have been hard at work with their HFK campaigns this week. Despite the monitoring of helmet-wearing and the campaigns of the last 2 years, there are still students coming to school on bicycles and motorbikes without helmets. Year 9 recognised the importance of keeping the message alive during their ILS lessons and worked together to come up with some novel ideas to inspire people to put on their helmets. 9B kicked the week off with a thought-provoking display of a crash scene. We also saw poster campaigns, stickers, friendship bracelets being handed out and bake sales to raise funds for the Helmets for Kids campaigns. Look out for more details in next week’s Bisbuzz about the rest of the campaigns.

 

Emma Goodwin

Secondary Community Service Leader

 

Sport News

U15 FOBISSEA Games & Phuket 7’s

Good luck to both teams as they travel over the next 2 weeks.  The U15 FOBISSEA team travel to Dulwich College, Shanghai from 3^rd – 7^th November and the Phuket 7’s travel on 8^th – 11^th November. Results and photos will follow shortly!

 

The HCMC Terry Fox 16th Annual Run 2012 – Sunday 25th November

The British International School, Ho Chi Minh City will once again be taking part in the 2012 Terry Fox Run. This event is a 4 km run, walk or roller blade around the Crescent Plaza, Phu My Hung, District 7 to raise money for local cancer research in Vietnam. Last year the Terry Fox run had over 12,300 participants and raised more than VND 1,400,000,000 to support cancer research in Vietnam.

Details for the event are below:

Race starts: 8am (meet at 7.40am for a team photo)
Date:  Sunday 25th November 2012
Venue:  The Crescent, District 7 (between Crescent and Unilever building)
Rgistration Fee: 100,000 VND

For further details visit www.terryfoxrun.org

Letters were sent to parents this week which include a reply slip to return with your registration details.

 

Interhouse Secondary Athletics – Wednesday 28^th November

The Secondary School Inter-house Athletics Day will take place on Wednesday 28th November at Thong Nhat Athletics Stadium, 138A Dao Duy Tu, District 10.

The first events will begin at approximately 9.20am and students will return to school at approximately 3.45pm. Please organise collection of your son/daughter at BIS at approximately 3.45pm. Students who normally use school transport will be bused home accordingly. Parents are encouraged to come and support the students.

 

Under 13 FOBISSEA Games, 15th – 19th March 2013

Hosted by: Jerudong International School, Brunei (Group A2)

This year’s Under 13 FOBISSEA games will be hosted by Jerudong International School, Brunei.
Over the three days of competition students will participate in football, basketball, swimming and athletics.  It is strongly recommended that students represent the school in more than one sport.
If you would like your son/daughter to be considered for selection please can you return the reply slip to me as soon as possible but, no later than Monday 5th November 2012.

 

Phil Drake

Director of Sports/Head of Physical Education