We had a decent turn-out at the DigCit Parent Session on Tuesday morning with 21 primary and secondary parents attending - some great initial discussions! 

This was the first of several sessions where our focus was to share tech challenges and successes, AISM's approach to Digital Citizenship, the importance of home/school partnerships especially in this area & sharing parent-friendly practical suggestions and resources. One of the main aims was to involve parents in deciding other possible foci for future sessions.

This truly is an area where community involvement - students, teachers and parents -  is needed in order for us to navigate successfully! Here are the resources, presentation and handouts that we included - looking forward to sharing further in future sessions - more information to come!

The focus of AISM is always focused on achieving our mission to pursue excellence by empowering learners to achieve mastery of self, advance their communities, and flourish in an ever-changing world while living out our core values to: Celebrate Humanity, Cultivate Grit, Inspire Curiosity, and Embody Integrity. The spirit of our mission and core values are intertwined with our new strategic priorities:

• AISM will implement educational practices and technologies that challenge and enable all students to fulfill their academic potential.
• AISM will integrate effective social-emotional learning and support to enhance student and staff well-being.
• AISM will cultivate opportunities for students to collaborate with diverse communities in Mozambique to create positive outcomes.

In short, our priorities are to ensure that we have school programs that are CHALLENGING, CARING, and CONNECTED! I look forward to using this space to share details about the steps we are taking to support our strategic priorities.

We are excited to launch a new journalism initiative at the school, where a team of student journalists are creating and curating news stories from around our community, both inside and outside the school gates.  We have titled our online magazine 'The Buffalo Blog' and our first AISM core journalism team is made up of this exceptional group of students from grades 7-10: 

• Tendai
• Alexandre 
• Atharv 
• Shailee 
• Danae 
• Gaia 
• Cora 
• Felix 

I am heading up the project on the teacher’s side, meeting with the student journalists on Mondays and liaising with them throughout the week. As we move forward, we are also excited about other students using this opportunity to express themselves and develop valuable communication skills, be it a focus on journalistic writing, photography, or video editing to name a few.  Estelle and Ryan from Grade 6 will be adding a music story soon, whilst Grade 9 students Laia and Polly are also planning on getting involved to bring in travel tales and health warnings! 

In the meantime, check out the latest stories about our new MUN leadership (Felix), our volleyball teams (Alex), a unique Grade 8 Shakespeare project (Ashton and Connie), and a Grade 6 creative ATL project (Mr Rui). 

Heating up on the press are further exciting articles on our scuba diving ASA (Cora), the effects of music on the brain while studying (Atharv), Mozambique’s first professional surfer (Tendai), and bullying in school environments (Gaia). 

Do you have any ideas for other exciting content for the site? If so, please get in touch with me at [email protected] or the PTA representatives. 

Rui da Silva

RULER Approach
At AISM, we employ the RULER Approach, developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, to guide our teaching and learning in Advisory classes. Additionally, we adhere to the SHAPE standards to guide instruction on essential topics such as Puberty and Adolescent Sexual Development, Gender Identity & Expression, Sexual Orientation & Identity, Sexual Health, Consent & Healthy Relationships, and Interpersonal Violence. Click here for the Middle School and High School RULER Unit Overviews.

Advisory
Advisory is a regularly scheduled class within our Secondary School, aimed at facilitating regular meetings for small groups of students. These sessions foster relationships beyond the academic realm and provide a platform for learning directly related to their well-being. Advisors, who are responsible for planning and facilitating these classes, collaborate with the Social Emotional Counselor to offer targeted workshops on health and well-being topics. Advisory is a weekly fixture in all Secondary School grades, spanning from Grades 6 to 12.

Please see presentation below.