Tarbiyah Academy

“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Shout out to the Sunshine Cup chefs! Your ingenuity, teamwork, and exquisite culinary skills made for a tasty delight during last week's TOP TA Chef cook-off! Way to gooooo!!!!!

Shout out to Ms. ElKordy for ensuring that students exited the front entrance quickly and quietly during last week's fire drill. The entire building completely evacuated in a little over 3 minutes. In shaa Allah, during the next emergency drill, we can reduce that number. Teachers and staff thank you for being attentive to students and taking attendance and accounting for all students during the drill. In the event of any emergency, our goal is to maintain a safe and orderly environment.

TA Gala- It's almost time for our annual Tarbiyah Academy Gala! Each staff member will receive two complimentary tickets for the gala, January 24, 2020.

Schoolwide Spelling Bee- January 23, 2020! The Spelling Bee will begin at 10:00AM. An announcement will be made attending classes. Students in grades 1-3 will attend the Bumble Bee. Students in 4-8, will attend the Spelling Bee. Classes that are not attending the Spelling Bee are to follow their regular schedule. Lunch and Recess will be announced should the Spelling Bee carry over into the 11:55 lunch and recess block.

Arabic Spelling Bee- The Arabic Spelling Bee is a fantastic opportunity for students to showcase their learning and build Arabic phonemic during the School-wide Arabic Bee. The Arabic Spelling Bee takes place in March. Please remind students and families.

Exhibition- Coming Soon

Staff if you have an events or Action projects to share please email them to me directly to include in Weekly updates.

Term II Document <available in Sharepoint>

Upcoming PD Days:

This week starts Week 5 within the PYP UOI's

Middle School Students' unit calendars vary across content areas.

January 20: MLK Day-No School

January 28: Discovery Day

January 31: Intent to Return/Resign Forms due

February 17:PDD No School For Students

March 17:PDD No School For Students

What components are needed to make inquiry-based learning work?

While inquiry-based learning is a dynamic approach that can be adapted for almost any learning environment, there are several components that need to be put in place to make the teaching style successful for everyone involved. A few of these critical components are:

A culture of inquiry: According to Inquiry-based Learning: On Transforming Wonder into Knowledge, establishing a culture in which students are encouraged to express their thoughts and challenge one another’s ideas is an essential first step in the inquiry process. When students feel comfortable and encouraged to share what they are thinking, they are much more likely to contribute to a classroom discussion amongst their peers.

External support (for teachers): Dr. Friesen explained that unless a curriculum has been designed to require a deep understanding of a few critical ideas central to the subject disciplines understudy, teachers need to spend a significant amount of time interpreting and reconfiguring the guidelines to make them coherent and applicable to the inquiry-based learning approach.

Educator guidance and support (for students): Even though a significant component of inquiry-based learning revolves around students, the success of the approach depends on the guidance provided by teachers. According to the Canadian Education Association’s research resource Is Inquiry-Based Learning Effective?, “teachers should guide students to develop a good question for investigation, monitor their inquiry process, and provide guidance when they encounter difficulties.” Dr. Edmunds agreed with this, explaining that while students learn great from other students, the teacher needs to guide them, so they discover the proper knowledge.

This requires thinking through possible student misconceptions, designing scaffolds, preplanning supports and extensions. Enter each lesson, planned for in depth student inquiry.

Teacher must do: Post all Learning Objectives Daily on write board or PPT where it is visible for students and during classroom observations.

The organization of the classroom is essential and a component of student learning. This environment should be content rich, organized with walls that talk! Student learning should extend in the classroom environment.

Update classroom doors and post student work the 5th of each month! Our physical environment has a direct impact on how we feell, organize and approach learning.

PYP Classroom Checklist

• School Mission
• IB mission Statement
• Flexible Seating
• Cool down space
• Print in English, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Spanish, Swahili, Igbo, Yoruba (Incorporate language from a variety of cultures and places)
• Minimal/no use of factory generated posters
• Center/front & back of classroom
• Teacher space/storage
• Small group table
• Accessible Materials
• Classroom Library
• Book Bins for Daily 5
• Whole group gathering space
• CAFE Wall
• Essential Agreements
• Learner Profile
• Shared Inquiry Board:
• · Theme
• · Central Idea
• · Lines of Inquiry
• · Inquiry Cycle
• · Action Wall/Action Cycle
• · Running vocabulary list/Word Wall
• · Wonder Wall/Student Questions
• · Key Concepts

Middle School Checklist

• School Mission
• Evidence of guiding/essential questions
• Flexible Seating
• Cool down space
• Print in English, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Spanish, Swahili, Igbo, Yoruba (Incorporate language from a variety of cultures and places)
• Minimal/no use of factory generated posters
• Center/front & back of classroom
• Teacher space/storage
• Small group table
• Accessible Materials
• Classroom Library
• Class set -up designed for collaborative and Small group instruction
• Whole group gathering space
• Essential Agreements
• Learner Profile
• Shared Inquiry Board:

· Unit title

· Global context

· Statement of Inquiry

· Key concepts

· Related Concepts

· Lines of Inquiry

· Action Wall/Action Cycle/design cycle

· Running vocabulary list/Word Wall

· Wonder Wall/Student Questions

· Student work on current unit of inquiry

Transitions: Transitions throughout the day are structured. Students are to transition with an adult quickly, quietly swiftly/orderly. Please ensure that students do not enter the classroom without an adult. Students should be supervised at all times.

Salah: Alhumdulillah, last week, we had our first student to call the adhan over the intercom! Many students began to transition to prayer with their teachers. Thank teachers for protecting this time and teaching students how to enter the gym/prayer space ready to pray, and redirecting their attention to this essential time in our day. To make the salah transition more efficient, please implement the following:

1. Begin lining students up quickly and quietly. Remind students to enter the gym with their right foot, dhikr, make two rak'at prayer, read Qur'an. Students should avoid from talking and distracting behaviors.

2. Teachers do not leave students unsupervised without alerting another adult to watch your students while making wudu.

3. Give students a line order when entering the prayer space.

4. Middle School students who are not praying may sit quietly or support an elementary school classroom if given the okay to do so by an adult.

5. If you see something, say something. We are all responsible for our school culture. Thank you all for supporting students.

6. Middle School students should make wudu during the last few minutes of class to minimize the " jam" in the girls' wudu stations.

Indoor Lunch and Recess: Indoor Recess and Lunch is structured time as non- indoor recess and lunch. With that said, adhere to a routine and schedule that is developmentally appropriate for your grade level. Students are not to play and eat. Instead, students should eat in their seats and as a class. Once indoor recess has ended, students may transition to indoor recess. Indoor recess is not a time for students to use devices. Instead, use collaborative games for students to engage in safe play. Avoid students playing on devices during indoor recess.

Inclement Weather Procedures: During indoor recess procedure, refer to the inclement weather schedule posted in Share point for review.

See Ms. Aboubakr for PYP updates this week. Collab schedule is modified this week.

AQI Teachers, planning meetings this week will be shared by Ms. Ibrahim.

• Middle School Assembly this Tuesday at 2.45. Please be prompt to attend, insha Allah.
• Huge shout-out to Ms. Hankton for leading the first MS Restorative Circle last week, as well as all teachers who attended and participated!
• For this week’s collab, please bring a work sample from all students in the 8th grade classroom. This can be an exit ticket, class activity or an assessment. Also identify the standard and objective related to the task.
• Friendly reminder to update MB weekly with tasks and comments in the gradebook. Student feedback should be timely and meaningful to the student and parent, especially as we prepare our students to organize themselves as they work towards high school. Please continue to reference the Term 2 document to plan around upcoming deadlines.
• The MS Bulletin board area is coming together. A friendly reminder to teachers to add student work to the area.
  

This Month, 4th and 5th Teachers will be leading morning assembly for two weeks. All Grade level Teachers join in and support. During Assembly, students are to arrive in uniform, demonstrating essentials and participatory in shaa Allah. Actively monitor and support students during assembly. We will begin promptly at 8:40, all classes must be present and on time.

MAP Testing- Coming Soon.

• January 21: Video Promo Filming continues

• January 22: Middle School and 2nd- 3rd Grade VisArts Field Trip

• January 23: School-Wide Spelling Bee

• January 24: Annual Gala < RSVP for complimentary tickets>
  

• March: Arabic Spelling BEE

• Raising Amazing Boys: Coming Soon

• Restaurant Night:Coming Soon