BFS Monthly Wave ISSUE 3 DECEMBER’13 A Message from The Director BUSAN FOREIGN SCHOOL Embracing Diversity, Striving for Excellence Dear Families and Friends of BFS, As we near the beginning of our winter break, I would like to take this opportunity to thank parents, teachers, and friends for supporting the work of our school during the first four months of the school year. A great deal of enthusiasm and effort has been shown by all to help support our students, and you have played a vital role in ensuring that our school continues to grow stronger. The changes of BFS are indeed visible this year and our school spirit is on the rise. In adding a full time music specialist, a certified and experienced PE teacher and bringing the Shark mascot back, BFS school spirit is stronger than ever. Teachers in a Flash Mob entertained all of us in our first athletic pepfest in November. Students, in uniform, or their "shark" shirts are enthusiastically embracing and building all school spirit. The secondary school advisories have been prominent in promoting all school events and our thanks goes out to those staff and students for all they are doing. Our first hosted basketball tournament, complete with a PTO sponsored concession stand was a huge school-wide success. Spirit Week was extremely spirited! School memories were made and won't be forgotten. Whether it be the annual BIWA Christmas gathering, our own annual Christmas Pageant at Shinsegae, or the hosting of athletic events, all of the BFS community seems inspired this year. I thank you for promoting our school and espousing our mission – and especially thank those of you volunteering as members of our very active PTO. I wish all students, staff, and families a safe, restful winter break and an enjoyable New Year. Go Sharks! Yours Faithfully, R.R. Haddon, Director Newsletter Content Director’s Address 1 Thanksgiving 2 Christmas Pageant 3 Department Updates 4 Sports 7 Teachers 9 Counselor’s corner 9 PTO Update 10 Classifieds 11 School Calendar 12 “Building Dreams through Bold Moves” Mr. Haddon exchanged his suit jacket for a sous chef jacket to serve food during Thanksgiving Happy Holidays!
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BFS
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ISSUE 3 DECEMBER’13
A Message from The Director
BUSAN FOREIGN SCHOOLEmbracing Diversity, Striving for Excellence
Dear Families and Friends of BFS,
As we near the beginning of our winter break, I would like to take this opportunity to thank parents, teachers, and friends for supporting the work of our school during the first four months of the school year. A great deal of enthusiasm and effort has been shown by all to help support our students, and you have played a vital role in ensuring that our school continues to grow stronger.
The changes of BFS are indeed visible this year and our school spirit is on the rise. In adding a full time music specialist, a certified and experienced PE teacher and bringing the Shark mascot back, BFS school spirit is stronger than ever. Teachers in a Flash Mob entertained all of us in our first athletic pepfest in November. Students, in uniform, or their
"shark" shirts are enthusiastically embracing and building all school spirit. The secondary school advisories have been prominent in promoting all school events and our thanks goes out to those staff and students for all they are doing. Our first hosted basketball tournament, complete with a PTO sponsored concession stand was a huge school-wide success. Spirit Week was extremely spirited! School memories were made and won't be forgotten.
Whether it be the annual BIWA Christmas gathering, our own annual Christmas Pageant at Shinsegae, or the hosting of athletic events, all of the BFS community seems inspired this year. I thank you for promoting our school and espousing our mission – and especially thank those of you volunteering as members of our very active PTO.
I wish all students, staff, and families a safe, restful winter break and an enjoyable New Year.
Go Sharks! Yours Faithfully, R.R. Haddon, Director
Mr. Haddon exchanged his suit jacket for a sous chef jacket to serve food during Thanksgiving
Happy Holidays!
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated at Busan Foreign School with a Thanksgiving lunch. This year the PTO and the school’s catering company, Pulmone, teamed up to provide teachers, students and admin staff with a grand feast: turkey, gravy, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, nut pie, tangerines. We are grateful to all parents who donated deserts and helped serve the students making this day extra special! Furthermore ... our school Principal, Ms. Lund, was surprised by her husband with the delivery of a HUGE bouquet of flowers to commemorate their 27th wedding anniversary. Once again history is made at Busan Foreign School!!!!
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Christmas Pageant
Once a year, just before the Christmas break, BFS elementary students perform in front of parents and grandparents by singing a variety of Christmas carols and other. This year’s performance took place at the Shinsegae Culture Hall and was complemented by concerts by the BFS Jazz band and the BFS Orchestra.
One hour and half of pure delight!
Note: parents will be able to purchase the pictures that our invited photographer took during the event during the month of January 2014.
A captured audience ...
Second grader’s “Sounds of Santa”
Early Childhood and “Rudolf”The unparalleled BFS String Ensemble
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Early Childhood (EC) PreK-3, Kinder-4 & 5 "Run, run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me I'm the little Gingerbread man" This is what the gingerbread man said after he ran away! We read the story about the little gingerbread boy and then we made the cookies. Just when we thought we could eat them --- they disappeared! We followed the clues all over the school looking for him. He was just too fast for us!
PreK3, K4 and K5 have been very busy making gingerbread cookies, looking for them and then finally getting to eat them. Yummy!
Elementary
Elementary Student of the Month We will be having our November Student of the Month assembly on December 13th. We are awarding two to three students per classroom a certificate for demonstrating skills in the Emotional ESLR’s. This means they show others they are kind and understanding. They learn and show respect to
Upcoming birthdays December & January
Dec. 4th Park, Andrew (G12) Dec. 10th Chun, Eugene (K5) Dec. 12th Elliott, Yena (K4) Dec 13th Cho, Sunny (G11) Dec 14th Hodgkins, Brianna (K3)
Dec 15th Kawana, Keisei (G4) Dec 17th Kim, Gene (G8) Lee, Sylvia (G12) Dec 18th Kim, Tae Hyeon (G3) Dec 19th Kwon, Christine (G4) Dec 21st
Pya, Kostya (G8) Dec 24th Shrestha, Zenith (G7) Dec 25th Elliott, Kylen (G1) Sviridov, Danil (G6) Dec 28th Myakon'kova, Aleksandra (G9) Jan 1st Han, Justin (k5)
Bae, Geong Yeon (Terra) (G10) Jan 4th Slootweg, Amber (K4) Jan 7th Abad, Sophia (G4) Choi, ChanYoung (G9) Kim, Heenha (G11) Jan 8th Kim, SuMin (G12) Jan 13th Lee, Andrew John (G6) Choi, haram (G6) Jan 15th Chang, Hyeon Bin (G11) Jan 17th Lysenko, Nikita (G3) Jan 22nd Kim, Sol (Louis) (G12) Jan 23rd Kim, Ilya (G7) Son, Den Khi (Diana) (G9)
Jan 24th Kim, Timothy (k4) Park, Sona (G2) Khan, Arina (G6) Cho, Hyun Woo (G11) Jan 26th Jang, Ju Yeun (Millie) (G12) Jan 29th Kim, Iris Sung-Ha (G3) Lee, Sae Weon James (G11) Jan 30th Choi, Dong Won (Jake) (G7) Jan 31st Jung, Yeon Ho (Alex) (G3) Lee, Sangheon (G10)
Department Updates
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other cultures. Finally, they gain confidence and learn from their experiences! Congratulations to the winners! Field Trip On Thursday, December 12th, first and second graders went on a field trip to the Busan Aquarium. We learned about aquatic life and seeing the creatures under the sea! Spelling Bee Check Middle school for news on the elementary Spelling Bee results!!!
Middle School
Spelling Bee News from the Scripps National Spelling Bee (SKAC) on December 3rd. a t K w a n g j u F o r e i g n School BFS Representatives at the 2013 SKAC Spelling Bee 1st Grade: Alexander Kang, Claire Jung, 2nd Grade: Dowon Kim, Jinsoo Park, 3rd Grade: Michael Choi, Dylan Kim, 4th Grade: Pauline Chalopin and Christine Kown, 5th Grade: Amy Jung and Jin Kim 6th Grade: Bini Lee and Harry Lee 7th Grade: Andy Kwon and Jake Choi 8th Grade: Daeun Jeong and Jihong Lee All of our winners from our individual classroom spelling bees arrived at school at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 2nd to leave for the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Kwangju. After a three-hour bus ride we arrived at Kwangju Foreign School ready to compete. All of our class representatives did a fantastic job! Most of them spelled
all of their grade level words correctly and made it to at least the first round of the secret word list. They tried using the strategies we practiced leading up to the event, such as breaking down words by identifying root words, prefixes, and suffixes. They also used the context of the example sentences that the words were put in to search for further clues. We had two winners from our school! Third
grader Dylan Kim and fifth grader Jin Kim! Make sure that you congratu late these students when you see them around BFS! High School
Mass- Media & Journalism The first edition of the school n e w s p a p e r , S h a r k Bytes, came out last month. It featured
news from elementary through high school. MMJ students wrote the articles and created some graphic design, and MMJ2 students did design as well as constructing the paper itself. They made the paper look so professional. Look out for the next edition after winter break.
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The second episode of our TV news show, the Shark Tank, will be out later in December. This next episode is looking to be better than the first. Great work MMJ2 students. Model United Nations The BFS Model UN team DOMINATED at SKAC once again! This was our best year ever. On Tuesday, December 3rd they competed in the annual SKAC Model UN competition amongst 6 total schools. There were 4 different groups that debated several global issues. Each committee awarded the 2 top debaters. So out of a total of 8 possible awards to be won, and keep in mind there were 6 total teams, a decent team should be expected to win 1 or 2 awards. The BFS team won 6 out of 8 top delegate awards! We won at least one award in all 4 committees. This was an unprecedented achievement for our kids and our school. Harry Cho took home the top delegate award in Security Council. Louis Kim took home the top delegate award in ECOSOC. Celine Kim won honorable mention in ECOSOC. Jaewon Lee won top delegate in the Human Rights committee - and this was her first year in Model UN!
Spring Hwang won honorable m e n t i o n i n Human Rights. Freshman Malkin C h o b r o u g h t h o m e a n h o n o r a b l e mention award f o r G e n e r a l Assembly. A l s o p l e a s e c o n g r a t u l a t e Syliva Lee who served as the best Committee Cha i r i n BFS history, without her we would not have dominated. She basically acted as a judge / moderator of debates and helped coach the team at every practice. And of course all the other competitors did an amazing job! GO SHARKS!
STUDENT OF THE MONTH - NOVEMBER
pk3- Brianna Hodgkins (Intellect ESLR) k4- Ethan Kang (Intellect ESLR) K5- Eugene Chun, Tristan Park (Intellect ESLR) 1st grade- Tanvi Kumar, Meerae Phillips (Intellect ESLR) 2nd grade - David Park, Kennedy Edwards (Intellect ESLR) 3rd grade - Dylan Kim, Jena Kim (Intellect ESLR) 4th grade- Christine Kwon, Brian Cho (Intellect ESLR)
5th grade- Claire Bae, Juhee Han, Irene Kim (Intellect ESLR) 6th grade - Aaron Lossiah (Emotional ESLR) 7th grade - Cathy Kim (Emotional ESLR) 8th grade - Soo Mi Lee (Emotional ESLR) 9th grade - Maria Dovidovich (Social ESLR) 10th grade - Adam Lossiah (Social ESLR) 11th grade - Sunny Cho (Social ESLR) 12th grade - Cameron Beck (Social ESLR)
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HS&MS Cross Country wins t h e S K A C c h a m p i o n s h i p . . . AGAIN!!!! Congratulations to the BFS Cross Country teams. The MS & HS Girls team just won their fourth championship in a row. Congratulations to Sylvia Lee and Hemie Choi in grade 12 for being a part of all 4 of those award winning teams. Congratulations to Jihong Lee for getting first place individually in BOTH races this year. She is an 8th grader competing against seniors in high school. Alex Kim and Alex (Sasha) Tyan both finished 2nd and 3rd place again in the MS & HS Boys division, just like the first race. Their placing plus better running from the rest of the boys helped them all win the SKAC conference by only one point and bring home the trophy again.
This was their second year in a row to win the SKAC conference. The elementary cross country team finished up their first season ever this year with great results. Elementary Cross-Country Our final SKAC race was held at Handong International school. Every one of our BFS runners was able to improve their times dramatically since the beginning of the season. Finishing first for BFS was Mike Choi (3rd Grade), second was Thao Ta Phuong (5th Grade) and Hidaya Mansour (5th Grade) was third.
Sportsba
sket
ball Moving up the ladder
On Saturday, Nov. 22nd both the high school boys and girls participated in the annual SKAC (South Korea Athletic Conference) Championships. Seven teams, Busan Foreign School, Daegu International School, Handong International School, Global Prodigy Academy, Kwangju Foreign School, Busan International Foreign School, and Gyeongnam International Foreign School all gathered in Busan for the big, one day event. The boys tournament was played at BIFS and the girls tournament at BFS. The boys played under harsh conditions, having to play a cold, 'outside game' at 9 am, and then having to play another
game immediately afterward indoors. They finished the tournament 1-2 and tied for the 4th seed but lost out due to a very close tiebreaker system. The girls played in a very electric BFS environment and finished as the 3rd seed after finishing 2-1. In the semi final game vs. eventual tournament winner BIFS, the girls played a tough defensive game but could not persevere. Yuliya So was voted to the All Tournament Defensive Team and Anne Lee the All Tournament MVP Team.
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Middle School Soccer The Middle School soccer team finished the season strong at the Ulsan Soccer Tornament on Saturday, Nov. 2. Although they were 1-3, they allowed only 5 goals in 4 games. Jake Choi was selected as the BFS representative for the Tournament MVP Team and Team Captain Gene Kim the BFS representative for the Tournament Defensive Team. On Nov. 5th the middle school team played the BFS staff as well as some very soccer savvy parents! The middle school team fought hard but lost 12-8. Overall, it was a good season and Coach Wojcik and Coach Saunders were very proud of the team.
End of Season of the Elementary Soccer The Elementary Soccer Team h a s finished the season having played 2 tournaments in Busan and 1 tournament in Ulsan. Keisei Kawana scored 6 goals, Hidaya Mansour scored 2 goals, Nikita Lysenko scored 2 goals, and Caryi Edwards scored 1 goal.
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Coming up: Soon after Christmas break, elementary and middle school basketball will start. High school soccer will begin in the spring of 2014. Lastly, depending on gym availability, volleyball club may resume, and badminton and circus clubs will begin.
What is Circus Club? Learn to juggle, ride a unicycle, stilt walk, gymnastics, team jump rope, and even clown if you desire! The more original the better!
Results of the internal Standing Jump competition During the month of November Mr. Wojcik has been measuring children and staff performance on the standing long jump... check the results below!
Metric Conversion Guide6 feet = 183 cm 6'6" = 198 cm
7 feet = 213 cm 7'6" = 228 cm
8 feet = 244 cm 8'6" = 259 cm
High School Middle School Teachers
Name Grade cms Boys 1. Alex Kim 10 269 2. Sy Lee 10 253 3. Min Joon Jung 9 248 Girls 1. Ann Lee 10 204 2. Jeong Min Park 10 202 3. Elina Yun 9 178
Name Grade cms Boys 1. Sasha Tyan 8 218 2. Jeong Min Park 8 203 3. Min Joon Jung 7 192 Girls 1. Jordyn Johnson 8 218 2. Angelina Brays 8 207 3. Ji Hong lee 8 184
Name Grade cms Boys 1. Mr. Gates Not old 260 2. Mr. Chu 젊은 Jeol Mun 235 3. Mr. Naegeli yg md old 229
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PSAT and ReadyStep PSAT and Readistep scores will be available after winter break. There will be a parent meeting for all grade 9, 10 and 11 students and families at BFS the first week of January to review the results of the PSAT and how best to prepare for the SAT Reasoning Test and SAT Subject Tests. There will also be a parent meeting for 8th grade students and parents later in January to review the results of the Readistep test.
College Applications Our seniors are really on the ball this year and they've submitted over 70 applications already to universities in USA, Canada and Hong Kong. Not too bad for a senior class of only 13 students! Let's keep our fingers crossed as decisions will begin rolling in soon. Glenn Saunders - Academic Counselor
Counselor’s Corner
Teachers and Instruction
As we do every school year, all teachers at Busan Foreign School continue to work at becoming stronger instructors through a variety of staff development opportunities. Most recently, our staff conducted mini-instructional seminars for each other, sharing best practice teaching ideas. In addition, all of our teachers are encouraged to continue their professional studies while employed with BFS and several have taken advantage of that this fall. We have had four of our staff attend specialized workshops in Seoul to improve our literacy instruction. Our new music teacher, Mr. Chapa, attended a weekend workshop in Thailand with other international music teachers. As an administration, we continue to look for opportunities to have our staff attend or participate in professional settings throughout the world.
Also, every teacher - from Early Childhood up through 12th grade - has created a professional growth plan. In working with me, all staff design a unique and specific instructional goal to better serve all students. This work leads to professional discussions throughout the year and allows BFS to use resources effectively and efficiently to support strong teaching methodology.
As to what our teachers are actually teaching, the administration is moving all instructors into the documentation of their work through a newly contracted world class curriculum mapping software product, Rubicon Atlas. This highly acclaimed teacher tool will continue to allow BFS to streamline our instruction - identifying specific learning goals at each grade level and integrate our teaching across subjects and grade levels.
Even as Principal Lund, Vice Principal Saunders and I start thinking about our annual re-staffing requirements for the 2014-2015 school year, we know that we have established a strong framework for all teachers to work in. And, putting the best teachers into the best teaching system is a way that all students will be learning what they need to learn to live a happy and productive life. That is our goal.
Happy Holidays!
Jon Lund - Director of Curriculum and Instruction
NEW
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PTO keeps the BFS Spirit!!!
End of November and beginning of December are our busiest months ever! Helping students look pretty during the Yearbook photo sessions, making crafts and selling them at the BIWA Bazaar, serving Thanksgiving, holding concession stands during BFS hosted sport events to ensure no one is left hungry or thirsty ... wow!!! we are looking forward to the winter break! Support for all of the above events has been unparalleled and much has been accomplished. We have put an order for new books focusing on the High School and Middle School demands and the PTO accounts are as healthy as they have ever been: so much to look for in 2014! Mark Your Calendars! • The January PTO meeting will be cancelled due to Winter holidays. The next PTO meeting will take place on Friday,
February 7th at 11:30 am. This will be followed by a luncheon at a location yet to be announced.
• The next event co-ordinated by the PTO will be the Valentine’s bingo. Come to the PTO meeting first week of February to know more!
For more information on PTO sponsored events or if you want to become an active member write us at [email protected], the PTO communication media of choice.
PTO Update
A collection of the crafts that were hand made by BFS Moms and Dads sold at this year’s BIWA Christmas Bazaar
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Classifieds
Dear Parents, The National Honor Society of Busan Foreign School has agreed to provide babysitting for parents. M o n e y e a r n e d t h r o u g h babysitting will be used towards the Society’s project for the year: a donation to UNICEF for the children of Syria. Parents who wish to hire a babysitter should contact the students below. The cost is 8000 won per hour. Money (and any additional donation) should be paid by the student to NHS; the s t u d e n t w i l l a l s o r e c e i v e volunteer hours.
Monday 4:00-6:00pmCan you recognize them???? The answers to the riddle of our last Newsletter is ... Above from left to right: Mr. Brennan, Gates, Lipsky Below: Mr. Saunders
The picture was chosen no. 1 from a series of pictures made in Mr. OJ kwon’s Computer’s class.
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Ms. Jones, Ms. Goldman, Mr. Kwon, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lipsky, Mr Lund, Ms. Naegeli, Mr. Naegeli, MS. Nicholson, Mr. Payan, Mr. Saunders, Ms. Slootweg Allepuz, Mr. Slootweg, Ms. Smith-Lossiah, Mr. Smith-Lossiah, Mr. Wojcik.
Special thanks to this Newsletter contributors
Our next Newsletter will be issued during the first week of February 2014 and will cover January updates
Calendar of Events
Main school events are summarized below: print the calendar and keep it for future reference!
