Here come the hoodies and patches

It has been almost three months since I sent out this message:

One thing the Athletics and Activities office has coordinated is ordering hoodies and other clothing for teams and activities.  In the interest of being environmentally responsible, inclusive to the community and building school spirit, we're switching to offering a "universal" hoodie that can still be customized.  This way students can order just one hoodie that may be used throughout the year and into future years.  We also recognize that staff might get chilly in a classroom and parents want to also show school spirit -- so this form can be used to order hoodies for anyone interested.  Students do not need to be involved in any teams or activities to order this hoodie.  But note that we will not be ordering hoodies for teams or activities this year -- just this option.

In order to get them in time for the ASIAC and SAISA tournaments in the weeks after fall break, this first order will be placed based on hoodie orders that have been placed by 10 AM on September 23rd.  If the form is completed after that we'll move the order into our second batch which will likely be delivered in late November.

To place an order, just complete this form.  Note that by doing so, you are committing to pay 1,200 INR for the hoodie -- payment information will be emailed after fall break to those that order.

So now you just need to decide... black or navy blue?  Zip or pullover?  What name do you want on the back?  Do you want a number?  

Well, I was overwhelmed with the response.  We had nearly 300 ordered and as a result we really missed the deadline for having them back in time for the first season.  There were some silver linings though.  First, the manufacturer agreed to embroider the Raptors logo on the front instead of printing it.  And second, bags that were made for the CHEMUN conference were rejected -- and we needed bags.  So the hoodies came in a muslin bag.  With plastic bags not in use in Chennai, most of us have found the need to have a collection of reusable bags around. 

A second batch of hoodies had more than 260 ordered.  They should arrive by this weekend and ready for pick up by Tuesday -- it will take some time to sort them.

The last bonus is that we've now had time to have some of the patches made that will go to participants in a variety of things.  SAISA and ASIAC sports, art and music festivals, MUN conferences, the plays and cabaret as well as the ES Vision Project week all have patches intended for the hoodies.

Air Quality's impact on our active youth

When my wife and I were considering the positions in Chennai the first question we had was about air quality.  Our son had spent four years in Shanghai and two years in Mongolia -- he had a nagging cough not unlike the cough my father had from more than 20 years of smoking.  Ensuring his health was important to us and that same importance applies to the work that I do at AISC.  With many of our programs involving strenuous activity -- sports practices, ASAs, PE classes, swim lessons and even play during lunch or recess -- we've had the luxury of not needing to pay too much attention to Chennai's air quality other than a few times of the year.  This week broke that blissful ignorance.

While a little off-balance in our reaction, we knew what we needed to do, and fortunately plenty of other schools have established guidelines that we could use to help us shape our policies.  We actually had draft procedures that were worked up over the past few years that just needed to be adopted and publicized.

Here are the air quality and use of outdoor facilities guidelines we'll use moving forward.  One important note is that parents can, at any time, opt their children out of activities if they are concerned about their child's health.  This week I did circulate a list of the students that have asthma to the PE teachers and coaches as a reminder that some of our students may be more susceptible to respiratory illness.

Please bear with us if next week causes further disruptions to our planned outdoor activities.  We're keeping your children's health in mind while still trying to ensure we have productive time.  We'll modify when we can, but at times there may be postponements or even cancellations of activities.

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Season 2 Elementary ASA registration form has closed.  On Thursday we mailed out the registrations, but walk ins and emailed change requests are fine for the next week.  We will email out the amounts due after the end of the first week of ASAs.  

Student Activity Profiles

Each year, towards the end of the school year for the past few years, a number of students have come to my office seeking what might be best described as an "activities transcript".  They want to be able to have a record of which school activities they participated in outside of their academic transcript.  Usually we ask them to provide the list and we attempt to confirm their list and then add their information to a document to be printed and signed.  It's inefficient, sometimes inaccurate, and needs a better approach. So we've developed a system that collects this information and then can generate a student activity profile report at any time.

Students that are club leaders take attendance that reflects on these profiles immediately.  Coaches/Directors/Advisors for many activities also take attendance that reflects here immediately.  The high school counselors have already started using these profiles to help them write recommendations.  

We're working to add the information for middle school students too.

At the end of the year we will send everyone a digital copy of their completed activity profile.  For those that need a printed and signed copy we will be able to provide it also.

Happy Diwali!

Diwali, the festival of light, is a time to celebrate the victory of good over evil and light over darkness.  Nobody is celebrating light over darkness at this time around my home in Alaska this time of year... the daylight is slipping, winter quickly approaching, and for many the associated emotional lull.  But on our campus things are buzzing and feel bright even amidst the NE monsoon's clouds and rains.

Credit: Sangjun Lee - Art in Varanasi

On Tuesday the High School had an assembly to recognize students.  There were awards and recognition for the Discover India photo contest, for the SAISA athletes, for recognizing Vision for an AISC Learner award recipients, and to announce the students that received recognition as National Merit Scholars.  Arts, athletics, academics and community all represented.  It felt like a nice slice of our student's lives.  See the slides from the assembly here.

Next week will be ASA Showcase Week for Season 1.  Please come join your children in their final ASA lesson.  Prepare to engage in learning activities with the students.  Students will be given the opportunity to share their learning from the activity and will be celebrated as learners.  

ASA Season 2 Program Descriptions and Registration

EY3 Descriptions

EY4 Descriptions

KG Descriptions

Grade 1 Descriptions

Grade 2 Descriptions

Grade 3 Descriptions

Grade 4 Descriptions

Grade 5 Descriptions

This pre-registration information will be used to fill classes, but submitting the form does not mean a definite spot.  We will email conformations the week of November 4th. Please note that students that were not in swim lessons during season 1 will have priority for lessons during season 2.  Click here to look up swim levels that students should enroll in. Here is the Registration Form. Payments for activities will be requested at the end of the second week of the ASA.  There is a fee for any ASA attended past the second week.

*Please note that those with outstanding balances from Season 1 ASAs will hold the enrollment processes for Season 2.  Payments can be made to the Cashier.

ASIAC Season 2 and the end of SAISA Season 1

What happened to Pep Rallies?

There will not be pep rallies held during class-time hours this year.  However, the Tuesday following SAISA there will be awards assemblies where students will receive their certificates in front of the entire HS.  In future seasons an optional pep rally will take place after school on the Friday before teams leave.  Middle School and Elementary School students as well as parents will be invited.  This will allow for not having a special pep rally schedule, recognition in front of peers, not forcing students to attend a pep rally if they don't want to, and hopefully encouraging higher attendance at the local game that follows the pep rally.  With the timing of DI, fall break and then the VLD last week those plans went out the window for the first season, but watch for a pep rally-like event on February 14th (Valentine's theme?) and perhaps April 17th (pep rally and then the HS play?).

ASIAC Season 1

The boys and girls ASIAC Soccer teams competed in New Delhi at the ASIAC Soccer tournament last week.  Both the boys and girls came in 5th and 6th place.  While I'm sure the teams were disappointed in their overall placement there is some very interesting data out of the overall team standings.  AES's teams came in 1st and 2nd for bot boys and girls.  ASB's teams came in 3rd and 4th for both their boys and girls teams.  What makes this particularly interesting is that this is the first year for ASIAC where all schools have agreed to split their teams equally and not have an A team and a B team.  So, in theory, either of the teams from our school could win a head-to-head match.  And as the results played out, each school did quite well with the composition of the teams.  This can be quite difficult when a school might have an outstanding goalkeeper or a fast striker.  But the Athletic Directors, Principals and most coaches felt that splitting teams this way is the best, developmentally, for our middle school students.

Hoodies!

I have a closet full of hoodies.  Or, more accurately, my son that is in college does.  The hoodies are hung up in his closet here where they will likely not ever get much use with him half way around the world.  I heard from other parents in the past few years that were a little frustrated by buying a hoodie for every team that their child made or sometimes even just tried out for.  With t-shirts offered for each event it seems that we've been creating a bit of excess clothing -- and items that are hard to give away when a student's name is on it.  Also, some students never make a team or don't even try out.  So in conjunction with last year's student Varsity Athletic Council we have launched the ability to order a universal, but custom hooded sweatshirt.  If you order one there is a choice between pull-over or zip, black or navy blue, a custom text on the back and choice of number and the option to have RAPTORS down one sleeve.  All hoodies will have a raptor logo on the chest.  Orders will be placed periodically.  The first order was made for 300 of them!  Unfortunately, this made the order take longer than we had hoped, but we've made a few slight upgrades to the hoodies, including having the school logo on one shoulder and the raptors logo will now be embroidered.  If you missed the first order and want to be on the second order, just complete this form.  The cost of the hoodies is 1,200 INR for each.   

ASIAC Season 2

Season 2 of ASIAC sports is basketball and table tennis.  Practices have begun, but it isn't too late to join!  Come to the gym at 6:30 AM on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays.  The main gym is basketball and the rec gym (the glass-walled gym) is the venue for table tennis.  The tournament this year is in Delhi on the first weekend of December.

SAISA Season 1

This week the SAISA Volleyball and Swimming teams will be competing.  Boys Volleyball will be in Oman, Girls Volleyball in Oman, and Swimming in Nepal.  Check out the SAISA League website for links to the schedule and live streaming for each.

SAISA Season 2

Watch the student bulletins for information about SAISA season 2 sports.  The seasons have changed from previous years.  Season 2 will be Boys Basketball, Girls Soccer and Track & Field.  Most SAISA sports are open only to high school students, but track is open to those that will be 10 years or older on the first day of the meet, which this year is on February 20, 2020.  These sports may have a soft-start the week of October 21st, but will expect everyone interested to be at practices beginning October 28th.

Return to school 2019-2020

This is an exciting year of activities and athletics at AISC.  We're hosting a number of events, from the annual Big Bad Blue swim meet in September and the annual CHEMUN (Model United Nations) conference in November through SAISA Boys Soccer in April.  February and early March are full of activities that we are hosting.  The first weekend we host a middle school theater festival for international schools as well as a math competition for international schools in the region.  The third week of February we host SAISA Track and Field.  The fourth weekend of February we host ASIAC Volleyball and Tennis.  The first weekend of March we host SAISA Tennis and the regional National History Day event for HS students.

Jack Bissonnette

Events on campus are not the only thing to have us excited.  We also have had some restructure of the Athletics & Activities Department.  Balagee Gingapalle, the Service Learning Coordinator at AISC has moved into our office (between the iHub and HS Commons) so he's more available to students and we can better collaborate with the service clubs and activities.  Also, Jack Bissonnette, one of the elementary PE teachers, now has part time responsibilities as the Associate Athletics and Activities Director.  He will have oversight of the elementary ASA program and the middle school ASIAC events.

And yet we still have more to be excited about around here.  Facility improvements over the summer include adding a lot more shade around the pool deck and enclosing the outdoor gym adjacent to the gymnasium.  Staff and students have been working to set up new routes on the climbing wall too.

Elementary ASAs have just completed their second week.  Changes may be made until the end of the second week but after that we must charge for the ASAs that students have participated in.  August 31st is the first Maker Saturday -- information is available here.

Middle school students have already had two weeks of ASIAC soccer practice.  SAISA swim team try-outs have wrapped up and the coach has short-listed the team.  We also have the middle school play already conducting rehearsals.  The middle school Model United Nations groups total over 90 students already.  Finally, we have pre-season activities prepping for ASIAC Basketball and Table Tennis.

In the high school, SAISA swimming and volleyball have started. This week students have submitted requests for continuation of and creation of clubs.  Next week we'll sort out details and the club and activities mela will take place on September 3rd. 

ASIAC Season 3, NHD, SAISA Music

Our middle school students on the ASIAC Tennis and Volleyball teams are in Delhi right now for the season 3 tournament.  Links to the schedule and results are available here.

We have high school students in Singapore right now for the National History Day regional competition.  Students attending were selected to compete based on their performances and projects presented at AISC.  Some may be selected to compete in the global rounds.

SAISA Music is in Kathmandu.  They will have a gala concert on Sunday.  The event information is available here. 

Upcoming is World Scholar's Cup for middle school students and high school students.  The Chennai Round is on April 6 and 7.  Information to join is available in the MS and HS daily bulletin to students.

SAISA Season 2 & Math Counts

Our middle school is represented in Mumbai at the regional Math Counts event.  Math Counts is a two-day intensive mathematics competition.  This year our region includes schools from India, Egypt, South Africa, Dubai, Jordan, and Sri Lanka.
 

This weekend we have our girls basketball team in Amman, Jordan for the SAISA championships. The boys soccer team is in Muscat, Oman.  And AISC is hosting badminton and tennis.  Follow along online using these links, or stop by to watch the action in the gym or on the courts at the school.

Badminton & Tennis
Soccer
Basketball

Middle school (ASIAC) volleyball and tennis has started.  The travel teams will be selected in the next two weeks.

The HS MUN Impact club had a cleanup that was featured on the international MUN website.  Read about the activity they did with the Oasis Club here.

ASA Pre-Registrations have closed and we'll be sending out confirmations for the activities in the next few days.

We're already seeking hosts for the SAISA Track & Field meet that we'll host in April.  If you are able. please consider helping with hosting.  Sign up for that here.