IB Asia Pacific Newsletter

Quarter Two, 2008

Networks and Associations

IB Networks in Australasia

The PYP Inclusive network in Victoria and beyond continues to

perform an incredibly complementary and supportive role for

PYP schools. (Contact the Sydney Office if you have not

received their latest Newsletter).

PYP networks have recently been established in SA, NSW/ACT

and NZ and are becoming more active.

There is a new MYP Eastern Network (MYPEN) group which has

formed in Victoria, The South Australian MYP network (SAMYP)

continues to offer quality PD for MYP teachers and schools.

There are also active DP Coordinators groups in NSW/ACT, VIC,

SA, QLD and now in NZ. Add to these Heads Networks,

Librarians, teachers of   Chinese and IBAP regional and in

-school workshops are well complemented by these support

groups as are authorised, candidate and interested schools.

The Association of Australasian IB Schools (AAIBS) is

developing mail boxes in its www.aaibs.org website so that all

networks can post their agendas, minutes, newsletters and

support information to benefit and communicate with all IB

schools.

LIS (Library Information Specialists)

Latest updates on our committee

Anthony Tilke, Japan will be moving on from Japan to Bangkok

Patana School, Thailand in June as Head of the Resource

Centre. Bangkok Patana School conducts the IB Diploma

program. Anthony will then represent Thailand for IBAP LIS.

Anthony is also completing his PhD.

New appointments

Hanna Lattuputty, Indonesia has been appointed as one of two

Co-Chairs of IASL (International Association of School

Librarianship) International Focus-Special Interest Group.  

Jane Viner, Australia has recently been elected as one of three

ALIA (Australian Library Information Association)

representatives on the ALIA / ASLA (Australian School Library

Association) Policy Advisory Group for school libraries.

Australasia

Jane Viner requested a comprehensive list of the Library

co-ordinators in IB program schools in Australasia. This area

includes Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.   A big thank you to

Stefanie Sandford and the support of Greg Valentine, Regional

Representative Australasia.  We hope this updated list will

enable IBAP LIS to ensure that school libraries in Australasia

are included in any relevant IBO correspondence. If library staff

change in your school, please update the details with the AAIBS

Head office in Sydney.

Australia
Methodist Ladies’ College, Kew, Victoria celebrated World Book/

Literature Day with a Year 8 Forum of 150 students. The

literature activities were organised by two MLC teacher

librarians – Amanda Lucas and Clare Vella. The event flowed

along extremely well and was thoroughly enjoyed by students

and staff.            

- Jane Viner, Director of MLC Libraries, Kew

The International Baccalaureate South Australia Teacher-

Librarian Network first meeting of 2008 was held on 28 February

at Stradbroke Schools.  Maryann Pearson of Woodcroft College

shared ideas on pedagogy and inquiry inspired by a Ross Todd

workshop.
- Alison Hicks, Teacher Librarian, IBSAT Facilitator, Gilles St

Primary School, Adelaide

India
Sharad Pawar International School, Pune celebrated World

Maths Day on 5 March. Students were motivated to register for

the online Mental Maths and games on the eve of World Maths

Day. The Library and computer labs were busy due to the

students playing Maths games online.

- Mr Sharat Pawate, Head Librarian

Choithram International School, Madhya Pradesh, Central India

celebrated ‘World Book Day’ with great enthusiasm. A special

morning assembly on ‘Reading’ with a number of activities

including storytelling, DEAR (Drop everything and read)

program and a talk on Plagiarism for Senior Students.        

- Ms Naaz Kirmani, Librarian / IB Co Co-ordinator

Delhi Public School, Dharuheda, Haryana, Northern India World

Book Day was celebrated with a Special Assembly focus on

‘Reading’ with a range of activities - Grades V-VIII: Poster

making on ‘Read’; students created Art showing children reading

in a variety of situations and Grades IX-XII: Quiz on author and

characters.                             

- Mr Anurudh Kumar, Librarian

Indus International School, Bangluru, South India celebrated an

elaborate World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April, 2008 with

a special assembly created by the Librarians. A few lines quoted

by the Head Librarian are: “23 April: is a symbolic date for

world literature, for on this date and in the same year of 1616,

Shakespeare died. It is also the date of birth or death of other

prominent authors”. The day was marked with many

competitions which were conducted with great enthusiasm.

- Ms Lamiya Bharmal, Head Librarian

Exciting, enriching, inspiring and innovative were the months of

March-April this year. We networked, shared, learned,

appreciated, associated and grew better professionally. G.D.

Goenka World School, Haryana, Northern India celebrated

World Book Day with a very special assembly designed for all

grade levels. The day was marked with the lighting of a candle

on a book and an inspiring anecdote by the teacher librarian

who motivated the student community to apply their reading

retention and win spot prizes These prizes were bookmarks

specially made for Goenka by Shipley School, California, USA

students as part of International School Libraries Day 2007.

Einstein has stated, “Reading is the most complex task that man

has ever devised for himself.

- Madhu Bhargava, Dean of Libraries

Indonesia
IB DP Meeting in Jakarta - Discussions at this meeting included:

IBAP LIS (copy and distribution of the newsletter); how to

develop a new IB library; Extended Essays; Academic honesty

and malpractice and Inter library visits.  IB coordinators have

been emailed about issues such as IB acknowledgement for

local IB librarian meeting; qualifications for IB DP; possibility to

have IB Diploma training occur in Indonesia and the opportunity

to have informal meeting with EE supervisors.  Information

literacy workshop - The Association of Indonesian School

Professional (APISI) with full funding support from IFLA’s Core

Programme ALP will be having a five day workshop on

Information Literacy.  This regional event is part of the APISI

program which is promoting information literacy around the

Indonesian archipelago. The event will take place in Bogor from

7 – 11 July 2008. The goal of this workshop is to establish an

information literacy module of one subject for each level from

elementary, junior and senior high school to be given out to the

Indonesian Ministry of Education and National Library as part of

our contribution to education development and especially school

librarianship in Indonesia.

- Hanna Latuputty, Senior Librarian, The British International

School, Tangerang, Indonesia

Japan

Various contacts are made especially with librarians in schools

new to IB curricula, sometimes through email, responding on

OCC, etc. As a committee member I represent Japan and

Korea. However, I will be moving to a school in Thailand, which

does DP, in the summer, so in the short term, there isn't anyone

to represent this association. However, librarians are

encouraged to log onto OCC and post suggestions or email Jane

Viner with expressions of interest.        

- Anthony Tilke, Yokohama International School, Japan

Singapore
International schools with IBO programmes in Singapore

continue to grow in number and size. Of the fourteen schools

that belong to the International Schools of Singapore - Library

Network (ISS-LN) eleven schools will be offering at least one of

the three programmes - PYP, MYP, or DP - by August 2008.  See

our wiki: http://silcsing.wikispaces.com/        

ISS-LN is in the process of planning a one-day professional

development conference called "Hands On Literacy: in the

classroom and library" on 15 November 2008, at the Australian

International School of Singapore.  The idea is to run this every

two years, in alternation with the successful biennial Teach-IT

conference http://teachit2007.wetpaint.com, organized by the IT

directors of the various international schools.  The need for

more opportunities for IBO officially accredited professional

development for teacher-librarians is recognized by all of

us. We have arranged an open meeting in early June with Mario

Gauci, one of the PYP associate managers in the IB Asia Pacific

office in Singapore, to discuss the issue.  Mario is a

teacher-librarian himself and used to work at Overseas Family

School, Singapore, so we have high hopes of understanding and

progress in this area. 

- Katie Day, PYP Teacher-Librarian, United World College of SE

Asia, Singapore

AAIBS

The Association of Australasian IB Schools held its annual

Conference in Sydney at Monte Sant Angelo School in

mid-April.  Around 250 delegates heard keynote addresses

focused around the theme “knowing the heart, knowing the

mind”.   Indigenous themes were a major feature of the

conference with keynote addresses from Professor Frank

Brennan SJ, Dame Carol Kidu, Eva Cox and Professor Larissa

Behrendt.

Judith Guy, IB Asia Pacific Regional Director spoke to update

delegates on IB global and Regional developments.  Other key

IB Regional office staff including Ed Lawless, Professional

Development manager, Nigel Forbes Harper, DP Regional

Manager, Curtis Beaverford, MYP Associate Regional Manager,

Tania Lattanzio, PYP Associate Regional  Manager and Greg

Valentine, Regional Representative attended the conference and

led pre-conference sessions dealing with current issues in their

respective areas of responsibility.

At the Conference AAIBS holds its AGM and new members were

elected or co-opted for a year and a new Chair was elected as

the previous Chair, Antony Mayrhofer’s term had ended.

The new Chair is Chris Rebbeck of Blackwood High School.

Chris has been teaching for over 30 years and is currently the

IB MYP Co-ordinator at Blackwood High School, part of the

Mitcham Hills Education Cluster in South Australia (the largest in

the world comprising a high school and 6 partner Primary

schools). In his role at Blackwood High Chris teaches Science

and Mathematics and is part of the team responsible for the

implementation of the MYP across the cluster. Chris has

coordinated the authorisation and evaluation process of the

IBMYP at two schools and has previously held the position of

IBMYP Co-ordinator at two other schools.  Chris is an accredited

IB Asia Pacific MYP Mathematics work shop leader and has

presented at numerous IB MYP workshops throughout Asia

Pacific as well as State, National and International conferences.

He has presented whole school IB MYP pre-authorisation training

and has been part of evaluation and authorisation teams for the

IB. Chris is currently a member of the Personal Project

curriculum review committee. In South Australia Chris is the

secretary of the SAMYP Coordinator group which meets

regularly to plan sharing good practice sessions and developing

support networks for new schools.

Here is the AAIBS Standing Committee for 2008-2009.

Antony Mayrhofer

Association of IB Schools in Japan and Korea Update    

AIBSJK information is available on our website:

http://www.senri.ed.jp/ib/aibsjk/index.htm. General information

is posted on this site, plus there is a password protected section

for member schools.

The long awaited AIBSJK AGM is currently underway, making

use of e-mail, wikis and an online survey tool. The virtual

meeting was necessary after we were unable to find a time

where member Heads were able to meet. Heads are

encouraged to participate in the wiki discussions, or allocate

another administrator or coordinator to do so on their behalf.

Information for participating has been sent to all members, as

well as being posted on our association homepage.

Since the last IBAP newsletter, PYP and MYP affiliate programme

groups held their spring meetings at Osaka International School

(PYP) and Katoh Gakuen (MYP). Group members will have

received minutes from these meetings via their group chairs,

however, if anyone else is interested, they can either write to

the group chair or refer to the programme group webpage for

details. The DP coordinators group are holding their spring

meeting on May 26th at Fukuoka International School.

PYP East Asia Network Group:

http://www.senri.ed.jp/ib/pypeang/index.htm

MYP East Asia Network Group:

http://www.senri.ed.jp/ib/mypeang/index.htm

The next programme group meeting times and contact details

are as follows:

PYP Network Group meeting – 10 Oct 2008 @ Hiroshima

International School (To be confirmed)

   (Clarence Coombs, ccoombs@senri.ed.jp PYP Network Group

Chair)

MYP East Asia Network Group meeting  30 Oct. 2008 @ K

International School, Tokyo (To be confirmed)

   (Gwyn Underwood, gunderwood@senri.ed.jp, MYP East Asia

Network Group Chair)

DP Coordinators Group meeting – (To be decided on at spring

meeting)

   (Peter Heimer, pheimer@senri.ed.jp, AIBSJK Vice-Chair)

I wish you all a restful summer break, and thanks to all

supportive members of the association as we at OIS complete

our 2-year rotation as Chair. The school to take over the Chair

position for the next two years will be announced to members

after the AGM voting in June.

Gwyn Underwood (Chair) gunderwood@senri.ed.jp

Peter Heimer (Co-chair) pheimer@senri.ed.jp