ISSUE # 11

SY 20152016

MIDDLE SCHOOL
WEEK OF:

Friday Bulletin

Weekly Publication for Middle School Parents

OCTOBER 19 TO 23

Inside this issue:

Dear Parents,
Communication is an essential component of any school and, as I shared in my earlier email, the MS
Parent Bulletin is the primary communication pathway between the MS office and our parent community. This week marks the launch of some new sub-headings that are intended to help parents
easily access essential information quickly. We hope you find it helpful!

Filipiniana

Service Learning

After-School Activities

Athletics & Activities

Admissions & Advancement

ISM Upcoming Events

NEED TO KNOW:

Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Testing:

MAP testing has now concluded for the Fall testing season. We have a handful of students who
need to take retakes, due to absences, but we anticipate that these will be completed before the
October break. Parents will receive a MAP Student Progress Report on Friday, November 6th. This
report will be sent home in a sealed envelope and provides a summary of your childs results for
Math, Reading and Language usage for the Fall testing season 2015 (October). Returning ISM students will receive the MAP data in both graph and tabular formats. If your child is new to ISM, parents will only receive their childs results in a table.
Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTCs):
The MS has had one successful afternoon of PTCs and we look forward to our two additional afternoons which are scheduled for Monday, October 19th and Tuesday, October 20th. If you have yet
to sign up for the PTCs please do so via the online sign-up system. If you need a reminder about
how to do this, please refer to Parent Bulletin Issue 9: October 5th - 9th for step by step details. Parents looking for PTC tips can check out last weeks Parent Bulletin. The tips listed here are
a great way to frame your thinking in anticipation of the conferences.
Please note that we have a modified schedule on PTC days and students will be dismissed from
school at 12:00 noon.
Period 1 = 7:30 - 08:15
Period 2 = 8:20 - 9:05
Break = 9:05 - 09:20
Period 3 = 9:25 - 10:10
Period 4 = 10:15 - 11:00
Period 5 = 11:05 - 11:50
Dismissal = 12:00 noon
The school buses will be leaving ISM at 12:15. Please note that all MS students are expected to
leave campus after being dismissed from classes for the day. We are unfortunately unable to provide supervision as all teachers and TAs will be in conferences. We respectfully request that parents
make the necessary arrangements to have their child picked up from school in a timely fashion.
Filipiniana:
On Friday, October 23rd, ISM will be celebrating Filipiniana! For those parents who are new to ISM,
this is a program of events that has been carefully designed to honor and celebrate our wonderful
host culture of the Philippines. The specific schedule for the day is slightly different in ES, MS and
HS, however, there are some events that are common to all divisions such as the Filipiniana Parade. In the morning, MS students will operate on a shortened schedule so that the afternoon can
be dedicated to different cultural events and activities. The following is a snapshot of the MS student activities:

MS Upcoming Events:
SEPTEMBERNOVEMBER:
PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES
Wednesday, October 14
Monday & Tuesday, October 19 & 20
FILIPINIANA
Friday, October 23
SCHOOL BREAK
October 26 to November 2
MS YEARBOOK PHOTOSHOOT
November 9 to 12
ACADEMIC BOWL
Tuesday, November 10
ALL BANDS CONCERT
Tuesday, November 17
ART EXHIBIT
November 23 to 29

11:55 - 12:15 Filipiniana Parade

Students who wish to participate in the parade must wear
traditional Filipino attire or the Philippine Cultural Club (PCC)
t-shirt. PCC T-shirts are available for purchase at
school. Participation in the parade is optional and advisory
teachers will be discussing this event with students who are
interested in joining in the parade. Students who do not
wish to participate will be spectating and can either wear
Philippine attire, PCC t-shirts or their regular school uniform.

12:15 - 1:15 MS Filipiniana FAT Program

This MS event will feature MS band, strings, choir and dance
students showcasing traditional Filipino music, songs and
dances. All students from G5 - G8 will be in the audience
alongside their teachers. As the FAT can only seat 800 people, and the total number of students and faculty is approximately 800, parents will unfortunately not be able to attend
this event.

1:15 - 2:00 Barrio Fiesta Lunch

Parents of students in the Philippine Cultural Club will be
providing a wide range of traditional tasty treats that will be
available for purchase during lunch time. Students can purchase food tickets in 100 peso increments from the PCC
booth under the covered area by the MS plaza.

2:00 - 3:00 MS Rotating Activities

For the final hour of the school day, students will be organized by house teams and will rotate around 5 different activities that range from Filipino games and dances to making
paper parols.
Parents who would like to spend the afternoon at school and soak up
this cultural extravaganza are welcome to do so!
As part of Filipiniana, a bazaar will be held in front of the canteen from
Wednesday, October 21st through to Friday, October 23rd. A wide
variety of Filipino jewelry, textiles, Marikina shoes and home decor
items will be available for purchase. Parents are welcome to drop in
and see whats on offer!

be sure to make sure uniforms are clean each day and that you send a
comb or a hairbrush so students look their best in the photos!
Photo order forms and other related payment information will be given
to students during Advisory on Monday, October 19th. Please remember that your child needs to hand in the photo order form directly to
the photographer during his/her scheduled photo shoot. Please remind your child to ask for a receipt.
October Break:
Please remember that there is no school for students and faculty
from Monday, October 26th - Monday, November 2nd. During
the break the MS Office will be fully staffed if you have any questions.
Classes resume on Tuesday, November 3rd. Please make sure
your child has a restful sleep on Monday night so they are ready
for school the next day.

NICE TO KNOW:

Go Bearcats!
This week we have seen extremely high levels of community spirit as
ISM celebrated a double victory with the boys soccer team and girls
volleyball team both taking the gold in the recent IASAS tournament. The cross country teams were not to be out done with both
boys and girls taking the silver. The boys soccer victory is particularly
memorable as this is the first time in 30 years that ISM has won this
event. It was wonderful to see so many passionate supporters cheer
our boys on last Saturday. Go Bearcats!
Wed like to give a quick shout out to the MS teachers who dedicated
their time and effort over the duration of the first season to coach our
varsity teams: Jason Juteau and Jenna Child (Girls Volleyball), Erik Richardson (Girls Soccer) and Dennis and Angela Respecki (Cross Country). Thanks also go out to Dave Allen who was the Site Coordinator for
the Soccer tournament. Thanks for supporting and guiding the ISM
teams!

Yearbook Photographs:
Our official school photographer, Tino Ley, will be on campus the week PCA Cookbook Fundraiser:
of November 9th to take student photos for the ISM Yearbook and
individual photo packages. The individual photo packages will be deliv- The PCA would like to extend a personal invitation for everyone in the
ISM community to participate in the ISM Cooks! Cookbook Fundraisered to students in January after the three week vacation.
er. The PCAs goal is to collect at least 400 home-cooked family recipes
from our community. The published cookbook will be sold on campus
For those of you who are new to MS, ISM produces three separate
yearbooks:
and on the shelves at National Bookstore. The book will be decorated
with artwork from our ISM students. The funds raised will be used
High School = Kawayan
towards next school year's PCA and the events, student organizations
Middle School = Salinlahi
and service learning partners the PCA supports. The deadline to sub Elementary School = Alaala
mit is October 23rd. Please show your community spirit and submit
your favorite recipes to the PCA!
The yearbooks serve as a collection of memories for the given school
year and are given out at the end of each school year. The yearbooks
Kind Regards,
are free of charge!
Rachel Harrington, Middle School Principal
Amanda Pekin, Middle School Assistant Principal
The Yearbook photo shoot will take place in Room 1124 - this is the
classroom behind the AMR. Students will have their photos taken
during their Modern Language, EAP or SI instructional blocks. Please

October 10

PCF

November 7

La Mesa
Watershed
CCV

November 14

Tzu Chi
Foundation

November 21

CRIBS
Foundation
Papaya Academy

December 5

Love2Learn

ISM Boys Soccer Gold Medal

(1st Gold in boys soccer since 1985!)

ISM Girls Volleyball gold Medal

ISM Boys Cross Country Silver Medal

ISM Girls Cross Country Silver Medal

IASAS RESULTS:
Soccer:
Girls 6th, Boys Champions

Cross Country:
Boys Silver, Girls Silver

Volleyball:
Boys 4th, Girls Champions

McKenzie Kinsella
IASAS 5km Bronze Medalist (21:27:03)

Thank you to all ISM faculty, students and community members for supporting our athletes last weekend here in Manila
and in Bangkok. It was a fantastic atmosphere at the soccer
tournament with huge crowds out to support our teams.
Well done for our boys soccer for winning Gold this year at
home after a 30 year wait and also to the Girls Volleyball
team for a wonderful undefeated run in Bangkok to bring
home the Gold! Huge congrats to our XC boys and girls
teams for winning Silver medals in Bangkok. Our boys volleyball had a great run in the round robin but lost a nail biting
semi final to SAS and were not able to recover their form to
bring home a medal. Girls soccer battled hard and were
close in all games except the first of the tournament vs SAS.

ball Camp run by Filipino Basketball Academy FBA. See FBA

flyer for details. Flyer is also posted on notice boards around
school. Sign up quick as places will go fast.
Upcoming events:
Oct 15,16 and 21 MS S2 tryouts
Oct 17 ES boys and MS girls soccer festival finals at ISM
(for teams who qualified)
Oct 17 Rifa Boys soccer final ISM V FEU 3:30pm at Xavier Greenhills
Oct 18 8am MS boys festival finals at BSM (for team that
qualified)

ISM Climbing Team- The 3rd leg of the young, wild and free
climbing series happened at Power Up Centro Atletico last
sat with almost 60 competitors from all over the Philippines.
With 18 medals at stake ISM climbers had a great meet
and achieved 4 medals overall, with 2 silvers and 2 bronzes.
Congratulations to all our Bearcat athletes and to our faculty Congratulations to Emma Stephan, Ruitong Liu, Ethan Liu,
coaches for your hard work over the past 9 weeks.
Patrick Peterson and the rest of the climbing team! The
V'Ball- Jenna Child, Jason Juteau, Blair Berg, Ben Paulson
last leg of the young, wild and free competition will be a
Soccer- Erik Richardson, Steph Dodd, Steve Ayling, Frank
bouldering event on Nov 7 at ISM Climbing facility at our MS
MacInnes
gym.
Cross Country- Dennis Respecki, Angela Respecki, Dan Hall
For our Sailfish swim team program please check the Sailfish
blog for information. http://sailfish.ism-online.org/
A HUGE thanks to all our host families for housing our visiting soccer players, these tournaments cannot happen with- Please note the practice times for ATAC programs for SY 15out your support so on behalf of all the visiting players
16 are as follows: ATAC all year round teams- 3:15-4:30. See
THANK YOU.
schedule for our All year round teams program here
A very successful season 1 experience with 2 gold and 2 silver along with an individual Bronze medal for McKenzie Kinsella in the 5km cross country race. A fantastic race Kenzie!

To the ATAC staff, PCA, Bearcat Council, Student Ambassadors, Clinic, Security, IT,AV, Transportation and Custodial
staff a BIG thanks to all of you for all the behind the scenes
work that is done to make these events so very special.
With season one coming to a close soon Season 2 tryouts
have started this week. See the link for tryouts and practice
schedules. Season 2 sports are Basketball/Rugby/Touch/
Tennis and HS varsity swimming. MS/HS tryouts and practice
schedules

All HS seasonal teams practice from 3:05- 4:50pm each day.

MS seasonal teams practice 3:15-4:45pm. In order to clear
the campus prior to 5pm all after school programs will conclude by 4:50pm or earlier. The last bus is4:55pm this is due
to the ever increasing traffic concerns in our area.
Parents and students please take some time to peruse the
ATAC blog it has a wide variety of information and links to
our sports and activities program. If you have any questions
regarding the competitive program of sports at ISM after
reading the information on the blog please send an email
to pekinm@ismanila.org and I will endeavor to assist you as
best I can.

RIFA ES/MS soccer festival finals for teams that have qualified are onOct 17th. Finals venues are on notice boards and
via the ES/MS Festival ATAC blog pages. Please check carefully and If you are in doubt about whether the event will go Bearcat Den- drop by our fantastic spirit store. Bearcat Den
ahead due to heavy rain or extreme weather please follow
hours of operation- 7am-4pm Mon-Fri.
the procedure at this link. http://atac.ism-online.org/manilaweather-forecast/atac-event-cancelation-extreme-weather/ Best Regards,
Mark Pekin
ES RIFA festivals information and MS Rifa festivals inforDirector of Athletics and Activities
mation
This coming October break ISM will be hosting a Fall Basket-

Leaving ISM?
Please be reminded that parents are obliged to officially inform the School in writing through
a WITHDRAWAL NOTIFICATION FORM if their child will not be returning for the 2nd Semester
(January 2016 term). Families are encouraged to submit the Withdrawal Notification Form,
stating the student's final date of attendance, immediately. Failure to submit the form may lead
to a delay in the forwarding of your child's transcript to his/her new school.
The Withdrawal Notification Form can be obtained from the Admissions Office, by clicking the
link above, or directly from the ISM website under Admission > Re-Enrollment
& Withdrawal > Withdrawals
Please feel free to contact the Admissions Office at 840.8601 for questions or clarifications.

Dearest Parents,
You are cordially invited to Rock of Ages a fundraising social benefiting the Vicky SyCip Herrera
Filipino Scholarship at ISM.
Heres how you can help:
Purchase tickets on sale at the cashier for P1,500
and get a FREE limited Bearcat Shirt
Donate any work of art to Stephanie Dodd in Room
1169
All proceeds of the event support an additional Filipino Scholar to attend ISM. For more information
on the Philippine Scholarship please visit this LINK.
Please click HERE to register. Kindly drop by the
Alumni Office (P085) with the official/kiosk receipt
to claim your ticket and shirt.
Let's rock through the ages together with great music, food and drinks - all for a cause!

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