The Comet

The New sletter of K. International School Tokyo
Volume 17 | Issue 3 | March 2014

In this issue...
Elementary Hosts School Visits…p. 3

Basketball Success…p. 11

“Word Work” Discoveries…p. 5

Middle School Brain Bowl…p. 13

School Calendar…p. 6

MUN Conference…p. 17

Ryuun Wins Award…p. 7

Athletics Adventures…p. 20

Wall of Honor…p. 9

Internet Safety...p. 23

Japanese New Year Party…p. 10

Alumnus Report…p. 24

From the Head of School

DATES TO REMEMBER

The plum trees in the school grounds have started to blossom, and although it
is still a little cold, it is beginning to feel like spring is in the air. There are only 2months left until the Grade 12 DP final examinations and I wish all ourstudents the best.
As we continue working towards raising the level of education at KIST in orderto reach our school’s mission, we are currently planning a number of new
initiatives for the upcoming school year; one of which is to raise the level ofEnglish and mathematics at the school, subjects which are important learning
tools for all subjects.
Since June last year, KIST has adopted the British Key Stage and IGCSE,
curricula which are well-suited to the DP, for its math diagnostic testing in
Grades 3 through 11. As a result, we are now better able to understand the
expectations for each individual grade, enabling us to analyze students’ current
levels, and implement appropriate educational structures that address thegrade level objectives. Furthermore, we are offering supplementary
mathematics classes in the elementary school and streamed classes in thesecondary school to provide necessary individual support for our students. I
am very happy to note that although the Key Stage and IGCSE math testinghas been in place for little under a year, a large number of students have madegreat strides in improving their mathematical ability.
In addition to mathematics, we are also planning to implement Key Stagediagnostic testing in English from June for Grade 3 and above. Initially, wewere planning to offer the test during February only to those who wished to doit, and we informed the community of such, but since then we have decided tomake it available to all students in the eligible grade levels. The results of thesetests will enable us to further build the necessary support structures for ourstudents.
An explanation session is being planned for the day of the student-led
conferences (Friday, March 21) to explain what support structures will be put inplace and also to introduce the other new initiatives being planned. I hope to
see you there.
Yoshishige Komaki
School Director/Head of School
KIST Learning for Life KIST Learning for Life KIST Learning for Life

March 2014
14 (K1-K3) Kindergarten concert(*Morning)
14 (G1-G12) Clubs program ends
21 Student-led conferences
21 Spring college fair
22-30 Spring break
31 (W) School resumes for all
students

April 2014
4 Last day of quarter 3
7 (G1-G12) Clubs program
resumes
11 (G10) DP subject options
evening
14 School photographs (New andabsent students)
23 (G7-G12) Math field day (Hosted
at Yokota)
24-25 (G5) PYP exhibition
29 (G12) Last day of classes
29 School day

May 2014
3-6 Golden Week vacation
5-23 (G12) DP examinations
14 (W) Free dress day
23 (G12) Semester 2 reports issued
26-28 (G9-G11) Semester 2
examinations
28 PTA annual general meeting

KIST is an
IB World
School2“ T h e Co m e t ”

Elementary School News
Making learning authentic and purposeful
What is authentic and purposeful learning? In the IB document
titled “Making the PYP Happen”, it says that students will
become more enduringly skillful when the learning is authentic
and in context. This means that in order for students to movefrom their current level of understanding to a new and deeper
level of understanding students should be exploring,questioning, experimenting, researching and making
connections.
Recently I was afforded the opportunity to work with the K2 andK3 students to deepen their understanding of their Units ofInquiry in authentic, relevant, and purposeful ways.
As many of you may remember, a few months ago during atyphoon we had a tree fall in the kindergarten playground. As itturns out, K2 were learning about different materials at thattime. We were lucky enough to have the workers who were
removing the tree to cut us two slices of the tree for the children
to see and touch.
When the tree fell it damaged one of the wooden decks which
needed to be repaired. This seemed like a great opportunity towork with the K3 students who were inquiring into simple
machines. In demonstrating the deck repair the students used ameasuring tape and saw how a handsaw, electric saw,
screwdriver and electric could be used. As these students use
this playground every day at school they seemed to takeownership over the repair.
Inquiry and wonder are all around us; explorations that open up
new questions and possibilities. Almost every experience wehave can be a learning opportunity for us and our children, let’s
use these and embrace the wonder. As Benjamin Franklin said,“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involveme and I learn.”
Kevin Yoshihara
Elementary School Principal

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V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4

Elementary Hosts School Visits
The end of 2013 and the start of 2014 were busy times not only for the
students and teachers but also for our elementary school principal and
the PYP coordinator. Three schools scheduled visits in order to learn
about the International Baccalaureate PYP curriculum at our school.
Participants came from as far away as Gifu prefecture and the Chinesecity of Zhongshan to have a look at our teaching practices and methods.
Such visits give our school administrators a chance to showcase ourabilities while considering our own practice. Schools ask tough questions which demand an inward reflection
regarding the way in which we teach and how we strive for and set the school’s learning goals.
The schools that took part in the information tours included Sunnyside International Kindergarten in Gifu, Majestic
Garden Kindergarten from Zhongshan City, China, and Kaichi Comprehensive School in Saitama. All visitors
expressed amazement at our school’s ability to provide a warm, engaging and challenging atmosphere whilebalancing the tenets of the IB with the needs of both the students as well as the teaching staff. Many compliments
were generated in reaction to the colourful, artistic interpretation that theclasses have produced through their inquiries. The creative joined withthe academic seems to have burst out into the hallways from each room.
The visitor’s compliments and thought provoking questions left Mr
Yoshihara and myself with a deep sense of pride that surely should beshared with all elementary staff members.
Clay Bradley
PYP Coordinator

K3 Trip to Fukagawa Fire Station
In one of our units, How the World Works, K3 students have been
exploring different simple machines and understanding that simple
machines help people do work easier. It is a fun unit where learning
quickly comes alive and the students are able to discover the different
simple machines that are around them.
The students visited Fukagawa fire station on February 24 as part of thisunit on simple machines. Even before we got there, the students wereshouting out the different simple machines they saw on the bus and out
the window: “There’s a screw on the chair! The bus has wheel and axels!
There’s a ramp!” In less than ten minutes, our school bus had neared thefire station and we were greeted by five shiny red fire trucks, two fire
motorcycles, and firefighters in their uniform!
The chief firefighter, Mr Koike led us around the fire station to show us
the different equipment and vehicles a firefighter uses. The students
were given the opportunity to observe firefighters training to rescue
people from a three-story burning home and even have a turn at sitting in
one of the fire trucks!
Students were able to apply their knowledge about simple machines at
the fire station: “There’s a pulley in the ladder!” Saku exclaimed as heclosely observed the three-story tall ladder laid on the ground for the
students to see. We took a group photo with Mr Koike at the entrance ofthe fire station and thanked him for inviting us. He told us that we could
visit again if we wanted. We had a great day!
Christie Chung
K3B Teacher3

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K2 Sharing the Planet
As our new unit of inquiry is about living things, we have beenlearning what living things are. To begin our unit, I asked the K2
students what they thought a living thing was and we discussed
their prior knowledge of living things. Most of the students’ answers
were bedroom, living room, spoon, fork, bathroom, etc. David
answered that a living thing is a place where we stay and sleep.
Aina said, “ It is a place where we can take a bath, too” . I read abook about living things and when they learned that plants, animals
and people are living things; things which move, grow and change,
their mouths opened with surprise and many questions arose.
David asked “ A tree doesn’t move, why is it a living thing?”
Lisa said, “A popcorn is a living thing because it pops”. Yuma said,“A tsunami is a living thing because it moves up and down”. Fuwa
asked, “Why animal move?” Max told us that he was scared ofliving things because he thought they would eat him up.
Each student brought their own plant to the classroom to water andtake care of. K2 students will also plant seeds to see how plants
grow and they will use their journal to draw and write about what
they observe as their seeds grow into plants. We have some pets inthe classroom which are terrapin turtles, shrimps and goldfish. The
students feed their pets in the classroom as part of their
responsibility to take care of living things so that they grow and stayhealthy.
One of our G1 friends donated a giant daikon radish. As daikonplants are living things, we talked about how it grows and changes.
They were amazed to see that this daikon was unusually round, as
daikon are often long in shape. In mathematics, the K2s arelearning about the measurement of weight. We took items from theclassroom and paired the items to discover which items wereheavier than others. We also compared our own weights with the
daikon to see the difference in weight. We found out that the daikon
weighs 15.5 kilograms and discovered that some of our K2 friends
are lighter than the daikon!
Claire Yoneyama
K2 Teacher

Signs of Spring
Although the cold weather is not quite over, nature is showing
us various signs of spring around the school campus.

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V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4“Word Work” Discoveries“Word work” is a small group activity many of ourstudents do across the grades to focus on vocabulary
meanings and the spelling pattern-sound connections
within sets of words. For example, think about thesewords: feather, creature, indeed, weather, steady andextreme. What do they have in common? What do they
have different? How would you sort them into
categories? (Hint: the long versus short “e” sound. Ask
Grade 4 if you’re still unsure.) Let’s take anotherexample, and think about what these words have incommon: shorten, summarize, clarify, harmonize,
visualize, sweeten. Not sure? They all have suffixes
with the same meaning, “to make something ___(short, a summary, clear, etc)”. But why three different
suffixes for the same meaning? A wonder question toinvestigate further. These are brief examples of themany explorations of words, their patterns and their
meanings that our students lead each week. Such
explorations
develop spellingknowledge,
pronunciation,
concepts, andalso the breadthof vocabulary
each child has attheir disposal toinclude in theirwriting anddiscussions.

Furthermore,conversations that
we have with ourstudents during
word work often
reinforce ourbilingual or
trilingual
education. Here’s a recent example from Grade 4, one
which also illustrates how you can jump in toconsolidate this education at home. We were starting asession on “aw” and “au” words, one of which was“dawn”. At the start, all students were unsure of which
picture to match this word with. Then someone had theidea to match it with the picture of the pretty pink sky
because this is what the sky looks like when the sungoes “down”. “Down” indeed looks similar to “dawn”!
Good guess, and a perfect opportunity to discuss thedifferent pronunciations of the two words, and tocontrast the meanings—dawn is actually just before thesun comes up. We finished with the question, “What is“dawn” in the other languages you know?” Hmmm…wewished you’d been there to help us out on the spot, but
you can always answer our questions later at home.
Ask your child what their “word work” questions are andhelp us double or triple the new words we learn.
Rachel Parkinson
Elementary ELS Coordinator

Grade 3 Flash Mob
G3 performs KIST’s first flash mob!
“Everybody dance now!” At least that’s what the Grade
3 students did during morning recess on Friday,
February 28, performing the first flash mob in thehistory of KIST. That’s right – at approximately 10:20
a.m., the loud speaker blasted out the lyrics to C&C
Music Factory’s 1990s hit “Gonna Make You Sweat(Everybody Dance Now)” while forty-five G3 students
took the stage – or, in this case, the field.
The flash mob was performed as part of G3’s “How We
Express Ourselves” unit which focuses on how cultures
express themselves through art, music, and of course,

dance. The flash mob was a huge success, receiving
cheers and applause from both elementary andsecondary students, teachers and office staff, as well
as from visiting parents, excited to watch their children
perform.
If you witnessed this spectacular performance,
consider yourself lucky – there may not be anotherflash mob at KIST for years to come!
Julia Lupone
G3A Teacher

56

V ol u me 17 | I s s ue 3 | M arc h 20 14“ T h e Co m e t ”

Art Snap Shot

Grade 3 have been working on their
Pop Art paintings for some weeks now.
In their final piece of artwork, students
used a viewfinder to zoom in on a partof their shoe; they used this study as
the basis for a painting inspired by Pop
artist Andy Warhol.
Students had to be thinkers when
applying new painting skill techniques
as they worked through the process.
They were encouraged to reflect upon
their knowledge of the complementary
pairs of colours and how, whenthese colours are placed next to eachother, they can make a piece ofartwork even more eye catching!
Helen Campbell
PYP Art Teacher

School Calendar
To assist families planning overseas trips, the dates ofschool vacation periods for the 2014-2015 school year are
listed below. Families are asked to make arrangements
accordingly to ensure that students are back in Japan readyto start school after each vacation period on the correct date.
The complete calendar will be distributed in June.
 First day of school: August 18, 20142014-2015
school year
Please also note that the Parent Welcome
Nights held at the beginning of the school
year will be organized a little differently next
year as follows: KISTival: October 25, 2014
 Autumn break: October 26 – November 2, 2014
 Winter vacation: December 13, 2014 – January 5, 2015
 Student-led conferences: March 21, 2015
 Spring break: March 22 – 29, 2015
 Golden Week: May 3 – 6, 2015
 Last day of school: June 10, 2015

 K1/K2/K3 Parent Welcome Night:
Thursday, August 14, 2014
 G1-G5 Parent Welcome Night:
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
 G6-G12 Parent Welcome Night:
Friday, August 29, 2014

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V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4

Ryuun Wins Award
Further to our participation last year, there were three
entries from KIST’s Elementary School in this year’s
National Book Essay Contest for Young Readers:
Yudai (G3A), Ryuun (G4A) and Den (G5B). Fromthese entries, Ryuun’s essay progressed to theselection committee where it was awarded a prize; anhonor only awarded to 534 out of 270,000 entries fromchildren in the metropolitan area.
Ryuun said on his award: “Being my first entry, I amvery happy with the result but I would have liked tohave finished top. Next time I want to try and get ahigher award.”
On his achievement, Ms Torikai, Ryuun’s Japaneseteacher, had this to say: “Well done on your success!
Ryuun always makes sure to explain his reasoning andthinking, and to draw on his own experiences when
discussing his ideas. My image of him is someone who
is always trying to learn from books and I hope that hecontinues to read lots of Japanese books in the future.”
The National Book Essay Contest for Young Readers
is held annually during the summer vacation. In

Ryuun wrote his
essay about thisbook.

addition, there will
be a Sakura Medalbook essay
contest for
Elementary
students in February. Further details will be distributed
to students during their Japanese classes.
For more information about the National Book Essay
Contest for Young Readers is available at the link
below:
http://www.dokusyokansoubun.jp/

Grade 1 Inquiry
Grade 1 has just finished our fourth Unit of Inquiry,‘How the World Works’. The central idea was ‘People
use natural resources in different ways’. Together,teachers and students considered the different ways
we use natural resources, and how the small and big
choices we make in our lives impacts the world aroundus. As a class, we took action by making personal
resolutions to change the way we use natural
resources in our daily lives.
For the summative assessment, the Grade 1 students
chose both a natural resource and a presentation
medium for their student-centered personal project.
They researched their natural resource at home, andused their research to complete a write-up at school.
Students then conferenced with the teacher to re-readand improve their writing before moving on tocomplete their book, poster, or presentation materials.
Finally, we presented our projects in an exhibition,
inviting teachers and Grade 4 as our student mentors.
The students were so excited to share their learningwith people from their school community. They loved
reading the feedback that was left for them by the
many people who visited our exhibition!
At KIST, we believe even the youngest students arecapable of making a difference in our world, and weunderstand our students are the future of our planet.
We hope our Grade 1 students will take their new
understanding of the importance of our natural

resources with them andbegin a lifetime of making a
difference in caring for ourplanet!
Jennifer Campbell
Grade 1B Teacher

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Secondary School NewsOne thing parents and students will
notice in this edition of The Comet
are the increased articles written
by students. As Principal, I cannot
think of a better way for ourcommunity to learn about the many
student centered events happening
at our school.

Lunch time concert series
Our Secondary Student
Representative Council (SRC) isvery keen to start new traditions at
our school. ‘For students by
students’ certainly rings true with avery new initiative sponsored by
the SRC. The Secondary Lunch
Time Concert Series began taking
place in January. Each month thestudents are performing during
lunch recess on average twice
monthly to the enjoyment ofSecondary students. One or two
acts are performed in front of anappreciative crowd which seems togrow in each succeeding
performance. These performances
are open to all students in
Secondary in which a simple
application is made through the
SRC. It is hoped this venue will
help students try new things out
and also help with our End of Year
Concert performances in general.
The Lunch Time Concert Series
are an excellent example ofstudents acquiring the IB Learner
Profile attributes of being risktakers and caring. It is events like
this, in which students participate
voluntarily and take initiative inwhich the teachers or supervisors
only act as advisors that truly
exemplify intrinsic action. I
certainly hope this effort continues
throughout the school year.
As I write this article, anotherimpressive student initiative isabout to take place. Grade 10 MYP
students will be celebrating theirlearning by hosting the G10
Personal Project Exhibition on
Friday, March 7. This year student
representatives created a video
that has been playing on the TV
monitor at the reception counter.
Students have been given general
guidelines but as with the Lunch

Time Concert
Series, more andmore we areseeing students
take onleadership rolesand doing astupendous job!
This is not acoincidence but
rather the
positiveenvironment ourSecondary lunch time concert series, February 2014
school culture continues
to help nurture in line with ourconvenient access to all families.
school mission.
Family Day is scheduled for
Saturday, May 31 this school year.

Textbook exchange 2014

In 2012, we began the textbook
exchange and will continue once
again this year. The basic idea is
to offer an opportunity wherestudents moving on to higher
grade levels or graduating can sell
their textbooks to other students
moving up grade levels at a usedmarket rate. This will be of interest
to students moving from Grade 5
to Grade 6 and subsequent
movement between grades and ofcourse students entering the
Diploma Programme. The school
developed a suggested pricing
scheme, but all sales will continue
to be between the seller and buyer
in which the school does not takeany responsibility. Last year, thebook exchange was conducted on
Family Day. We plan to dosomething similar to ensure

The 2014-2015 Textbook/Digital
Supply List will be updated by the
middle of May and this will be
distributed to all families via ECommunications before the actual
textbook exchange. It is importantfor families to check the updated
textbook lists as they are subject tochange. Even if a particular
textbook is no longer being used,parents may still find value in older
textbooks for additional support asappropriate. All sales will be final inwhich the school is not involved
directly with any purchases
between parties taking part. Pleasestay tuned for moredetails.
Stephen Rothkopf
Secondary School

New Faces
Since the last issue of The Comet, we have welcomed a number of new
staff members to our team. On behalf of the school community, we wish
you all the best and hope that you enjoy your time with us.

Michael Davignon
LEAP Instructor /Relief Teacher

Jonathan Homewood
MYP Science /DP Biology

Nomingerel Ulzii
Systems Engineer

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KIST Spelling Bee
On January 27, the 3rd Annual KIST Spelling Bee took place in the gym.
The Grade 6 competitors were Jun Hyuk, GaOn and Ayian. The Grade
7 competitors were Won Tae, Jin Il and Gautham. The Grade 8
competitors were Ayaka, Lae Eun and Selena.
The competitors from each English class were chosen throughpreliminary rounds held in each English class. Since November, thecompetitors have been practicing every day in class, at home and with
their friends who helped practice for the final competition. When the timecame for the KIST Spelling Bee to be held, all the students from Grade 6
to 8 were supporting their classmates enthusiastically. The teachers aswell as parents were invited to attend and there was a positivecompetitive environment in the gym.
After 19 rounds of spelling, Gautham (G7B) was declared the winner ofthe 3rd Annual KIST Spelling Bee 2013-2014. However, every
participant was celebrated and all the competitors received a certificate
of participation. The final three contestants: Jun Hyuk, Gautham and Lae
Eun received gift certificates. The winner received a subscription forEncyclopedia Britannica and the opportunity to participate in The Japan
Times Spelling Bee on March 22, 2014. The student who wins The
Japan Times Spelling Bee will earn the opportunity to go to the US
where representatives from different schools will compete to become the2014 National Scripps Spelling Bee Champion.
Every participant did well, especially Gautham who spelt difficult
dictionary words such as dodecahedron and gravitational to win. We arelooking forward to seeing Gautham participate and represent KIST in
The Japan Times Spelling Bee. Good luck, Gautham!
Keina (G7A), Tom (G7A) and Tae Won (G7A)

Wall of Honor
In the Secondary School, the wall next to theoffice has been used to celebrate students
showing learner profile attributes in their daily
lives. This wall has been named the “Wall of Honor”. Students in
Grades 6 to 8 have been nominating classmates that demonstratelearner profile attributes in their daily interactions with teachersand classmates in class as well as outside of class.
When students nominate a fellow classmate they have to explain
how the student has represented a learner profile with examples of
behavior that they have shown. Once students have been
nominated, Grade 6 to 8 teachers discuss nominations and decide
who will be awarded a Wall of Honor certificate. That student gets to paint their handprint on the wall tocommemorate the occasion. The handprints are done in different colors and have the name of the student, thelearner profile attribute and the date in which the certificate was awarded written underneath each handprint.
It is a great way to congratulate our classmates in an anonymous way. Although it is not 100% guaranteed that theperson you nominate will be chosen, a lot of the time they will have an opportunity to be considered for the Wall of
Honor in the next academic quarter. If any of the students from Grades 6 to 8 see someone demonstrating a learnerprofile attribute in school, we recommend that you write a nomination for that student. The nomination slips can befound in each Grade 6 to 8 homeroom. It’s free and it’s quick!
Sophia (G7A)

910V ol u me 17 | I s s ue 3 | M arc h 20 14“ T h e Co m e t ”Japanese New Year Party
The Japanese New Year Celebration on January 29 was, as it isevery year, an entertaining event. Strategising with friends to win ourfight against the sumo wrestlers was especially fun – this year, myfriends and I did a short battle dance and chant to intimidate thesumo wrestler before we began so we could win the fight, and wedid! Now, we can go around telling people that we danced our way
to a win in a battle against a sumo wrestler. I am grateful to all theparents and staff who made this day possible.

Angela (G10A)
Thank you for annually coming to our school to celebrate New Yearwith us. Our country Korea also has similar New Year party asJapan like eating rice cakes, but we are very glad to experience
Japanese New Year celebration and we truly felt how beautiful
Japanese culture is. Especially, we are really glad to see sumo rightin front of us. Thank you so much.

Sae Lim (G10B) and Ji Ye (G10B)
The whole experience of fighting, meeting and playing the sumo
wrestlers was an amazing experience. A lot of people enjoyedphysically playing with the sumo, and for the people who didn’t get
to play, thoroughly enjoyed watching the sumo fight and everyone
left the gym with a smile. We laughed until our stomachs hurt. Afterthe memorable experience, we got to pound the rice and got theopportunity to eat different types of mochi. This included, soy sauce
and seaweed, sesame and more. To be honest, we had a lot of
assignments pending and this event really was mind diverting.

Anisha (G10B) and Muskan (G10A)
There was a New Year's party at school on January 29. We wereable to fight the sumo wrestlers, pound rice cakes and eat as manyrice cakes as they had, at this party. When the teachers andstudents fought with sumo, even though everyone was trying theirbest, the sumo wrestlers looked like they did not have to try at all.
When we pounded the rice cake, everyone was shouting “Yoisho”
which made the atmosphere fun. There were four flavors of the ricecakes which were black sesame, bean paste, kinako and soy sauce
and they were all delicious. We cannot wait for the next New Year’s
party!

Megan (G10B) and Misol (G10A)
The New Year party was very fun. A lot of sumos came to ourschool during the day and we were able to wrestle with them insmall groups of 3. Even though there were 3 people in a group wewere not able to win. Also some of the teachers volunteered but
were no match for the sumos. The best part of the New Year party iswhen we were able to make the mochi (sticky rice) and then later
enjoy it. The mochi was very tasty because they were all kinds offlavors.

Ryu (G10A)
The New Year party is something I really look forward to every year
because of the sumos and the mochi. I have always thought that theparents and the sumos were amazing because they are always
working hard to either pound the mocha or distributing them. I reallylove eating the shoyu mochi, and I really love the fact that its taste
does not change. Every year I look forward to eating the shoyu
mochi.

Kwan Woo (G10A)

Sumo wrestling on Japanese New Year’s Day at KIST was a very
fun experience. Students got to have a first hand experience withthe tradition Japanese Sumo Wrestlers. The Sumos also poundedmochi (Japanese Rice Cakes) with the students. It was a great way
to have some time-off from school and have fun with teachers andstudents.

Aditya (G10B) and Azzam (G10A)
In the New Year’s festival, we had sumo wrestlers, mochitsuki, andate mochi. They were all fun but first, we started with the wrestlingwith the sumo wrestlers. With Hamish, I wrestled a sumo wrestler.
Hamish was pushed back in an instant but using my legs, I endured
all the pushing attacks and kept pushing him. However, the wrestler
was calm and he lifted my left leg and slammed me to the ground. I
was a bit disappointed in my loss. Later on, after the wrestling, we
hit the mochi with hammer and ate mochi after that. There were 5
flavors of mochi and they were good.

Hee Dae (G10A)
During this annual event, the signature culture of sumo in Japanvisited our small family, KIST. We had a blast by training with thesumo wrestlers, and afterwards, taking years of revenge by fighting
back with them. We were able to express 5 years of stress andanger from MYP. After that, we went for the regular mochi pounding,putting all our strength right in the hot steaming rice in the marble
bowl. Lastly, we had a great time by eating many different types ofoishii mochi too. Another fun memorable moment of our lives!

Raghav (G10A) and Raj (G10B)
On January 29, we had a New Year’s Party at our school, where
professional sumos came, and where mochi was pounded. There
were four types of mochi; kinako, sesame, soy sauce with seaweed
and red beans. All four were really delicious, as they were made bysumos, and were pounded by the students, with the help of the PTA
mothers. Boys and girls ran towards the line for their second helping
as the mochi was very tasty. Mochi competitions between thestudents were the main part of the party, since every student wanted
to eat more than the others. The sumo wrestling was also very
fascinating since teachers and students fought against sumos andwere thrown off the mat. Overall, the New Year Celebration wasvery fun because we got to eat mochi and we got to see the sumo
wrestling!

Aashvi (G10B) and Ji Eun (G10A)
On January 29, 2014, KIST participated in the New Year’s event.
Firstly, we went to the gym to have a wrestling match with thesumos. We all tried hard to beat them; however they were too strong
for us! Next, we went outside to the gym, and we smelled something
delicious in the air. It was the smell of mochi. To eat them, we firstly
pounded them with the sumos. Lastly, we were awarded with mochi
of many different flavors. It was a very enjoyable day!

Saya (G10B) and Yu Jin (G10B)

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V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4

Basketball SuccessTo cap off a successful season, the middle school boys’basketball team headed off to The British School in Tokyo totake part in the ISTAA basketball tournament on Saturday,
March 1.
Unfortunately, due to other commitments that day, we were
missing a few of our players. Nevertheless, we went to thetournament ready to do our best.
Our first game was against CIS who pushed us hard but wemanaged to scrape through and get a win. We then went on
to play TIS. They also proved to be tough opponents andafter a period of overtime we were able to win the game.
Our next game was against KAIS, who were very
competitive but we were able to pull away from them in thesecond half to get the win.

(L>R) Mr Grant, Michael (G6B), Won Tae (G7A), Moe Min (G8B),
Deniz (G5B), Ke Yi (G8B), Kenzo (G6A), Jovonne (G7A)

Our final game was against BST, who were also unbeaten. The winner of this game would ultimately become thetournament champions. We were able to build a good lead from the beginning but got into foul trouble early.
However, the rest of the team stepped up and played some great defence against a determined BST team. With
great delight, we were able to hang on and get the all-important victory and become the ISTAA Basketball Middle
School Champions of 2014.
Well done, Comets!

English Day
Thank you everyone for supporting English Day at K this year.
Although we had many difficulties like heavy snow, the datechanging and finding volunteers, the day finished successfully.
Our initial target for the day was 160 applications as we started toannounce the event earlier than last year. Unfortunately we did notreach this number, but we had more applicants than last June.
Furthermore, due to the date change, we had 13 cancellations. In theend, a total of 84 children enjoyed the event. We were pleased tohave those children attend.
This year, due to the number of volunteers, we were able to take rests in turn and thishelped the operation of the day proceed more smoothly. All the secondary and elementary
student volunteers worked very hard. In particular, because of the secondary volunteers,
the children who attended were able to enjoy the event happily and safely. We were very
lucky to have such wonderful volunteers. We also appreciate the assistance provided bymany teachers, students and parents.
I would like to thank all those who supported English Day at K, especially Mitsuko
Morooka and Emiko Menon. We could not have held this event without their support.
Thank you again to everyone. We really appreciate your support.
Kaori Meguro
PTA Events Committee

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Spotlight on Clubs
Performance arts club
The Elementary Performance Arts Club allows Grade 4
and 5 students to explore different ways of expressing
themselves through fun drama and music exercises.
Students work together in groups as well as individually
to build performance pieces that will be showcasedduring assemblies and school concerts. Students in theperformance club also assist with the kindergarten
concert, undertaking different performance andMC duties. Any student with an interest in
performing or just developing new skills is
welcome to join. Please contact Mr Robert ifinterested.

Forensics mystery chamber clubStudents in the Secondary Forensics Mystery Chamber
Club are given the opportunity to explore questionablecircumstances that help to invoke their critical thinking
skills. Some examples include the Mayan civilization andtheir disappearance, the Yonaguni monument, and thepyramids on Mars, as well as mysteries in the subjects ofpaleontology and oceanography.
There are also many hands on tools that students use toacquire evidence necessary to solve a mystery. Spy
glasses, invisible ink decoders, and detective disguises
allow the students to immerse themselves andexperience realistic investigation situations. Theseexperiences are valuable because they help thestudents learn to analyze their environment and pay
attention to information that can help them makeinformed decisions.

Summer Program
Applications for KIST’S LEAP
Summer Programs 2014 are now
being accepted. This year, thefollowing programs will be offered:
June 16 (Monday) - June 27 (Friday)
1. Summer Day Camp[For students entering K2 to G2]This program is designed for students to develop
inquiry skills through enjoyable experiences.
July 28 (Monday) - August 8 (Friday)
2. Summer Academic Program[For students entering K2 to G1]
This program is based on the British Key Stage 1
mathematics and English curricula and is designed forstudents to improve their English skills and develop anunderstanding of mathematics while learning inenjoyable ways.

3. Summer Academic Program[For students entering G2 to G5]This program is based on the Key Stage 1 and 2 mathand English curricula and is designed to develop
students’ math and English skills.
4. Summer Intensive Program[For students entering G6 to G9]This program is based on the British Key Stage 3 andInternational GCSE math and English curricula.
5. Summer Intensive Program[For students entering G10 to G12]This program is based on the International GCSE and
IB Diploma mathematics curricula and is designed tohelp students develop necessary skills in mathematics
for the DP.
More information about the summer programs isavailable at:
http://www.k-leap.jp/node/summer-program-2014

V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4“ T h e Co m et ”

13

Middle School Brain Bowl
On Wednesday, February 12, 2014, we attended the Middle
School Brain Bowl which was hosted at Aoba-Japan
International School (AJIS) in Hikarigaoka. The MS Brain
Bowl is an event where students from G6 to G8 gather froma total of twelve international schools to participate in thisevent. We were separated into groups including 4 students,
varying in school and age. First, we were required to comeup with a unique name for our group and to create a bannerfor our own team. After that, there were three rounds
including the general quiz round, the buzzer round and thenovelty quiz round.

I was in Team U; Team Unity. My teammates and I had a hard time to introduce ourselves because
everyone was waiting and relying on each other to break the ice first. All of my teammates weregood in different areas. I knew quite a lot about Greek mythology, a different teammate was goodin history and capitals, another was knowledgeable in sports, another was quite flexible in
instruments.
This was my first participation in MS Brain Bowl so I had no idea how things worked. However, myteammates were very nice and explained things to me. The more I followed the crowd, the more I understood
better. We did very well in the writing round, as for the buzzer round, I couldn’t push the buzzer even once! All
the questions had answers that I did not know of or I wasn’t sure. I could have given a go but I did not want tobadly affect my team and it was better to be safe than sorry. The novelty quiz rounds were quite hard sincesome were unexpected. By the end of the rounds, I put my head down on the table, feeling as if my brain
would split up.
Overall, I’m glad I went and it was a great experience for me. It was not only about moving those gears in yourbrain but also being able to be good in team work. In this event, Brain Bowl, you won’t get anywhere if you
aren’t working well as a team. If I would give advice to people who want to participate in the Brain Bowl event,
it would be, keep it light, have a good attitude and enjoy. If you dwell on things and have a bad attitude, itwould make it harder for your teammates. I realized, as soon as the first round was on, team work was very
important. Team Unity lastly came in 9th for the whole competition.
Marlinah G6A

I was in Team Gamma which is one of the alternative teams. Everybody in my team was reallycooperative and fun to be with. We struggled at some of the questions in round one. However, we
all became good friends in about 10 minutes from when we first met.
We did not participate in the second round—the buzzer round—since we were one of thealternative teams. Although we could not participate, we had fun observing the other teams
competing. Round three was probably my favorite round. I really enjoyed putting the Disney
movies into a timeline because you could slowly tell the minor changes of Disney movies as the years went by.
The question about Japanese cuisine was probably the most challenging question as it required us to match
Japanese food names to their descriptions.
This was my first time participating in some event like this which is probably why I was very nervous. I think thiswas a good experience and I would love to volunteer to be part of next year’s MS Brain Bowl.
Katherine G6B

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The IB Educator’s Network

IT News

As you may know, the IB mission is about taking action
towards making the world a better place to be. The
KIST mission shares this objective and through service
and other programming, KIST students participate inefforts that better our local community and beyond. As
an institution, KIST also makes significant effort tosupport attainment of the IB mission through direct
involvement with the IB itself.

Individual student laptop requirement forG9 in 2014-2015

One such way we contribute is by opening our doors to
observations from other schools in our region. As Mr
Bradley described on page 3, we recently hosted
observations and professional development
opportunities for schools from within Japan and also
from China. Another way we support the IB is throughthe IB Educator’s Network (IBEN), a network of IB
practitioners that work with the IB to provide IB services
to current and prospective IB schools. A relatively large
proportion of the teachers at KIST are involved with
IBEN in ways such as leading workshops, marking DP
exams, visiting schools for authorization or
accreditation, as authorization consultants, or bymoderating assessment samples. This support isessential to the IB as without it the IB could not support
school development to current levels nor sustain
growth of IB programmes.
Recently, Mr Cowe and I were invited to participate infurther IBEN training. This was our first opportunity tovisit the new IB Asia Pacific Office in Singapore.
Having heard that the new office was beautiful and in abuilding that resembled one from Batman’s Gotham
City, in addition to the training opportunity itself, as I
headed to Singapore I was also looking forward toseeing the office itself and to learning more about
exactly where it is that all the IB staff we communicate
with regularly actually spend their days.
As expected the training was exceptional. It was also
insightful as it allowed us a glimpse into upcoming
initiatives and services aimed at further improving the
support offered to schools in providing IB education.
Although the training occurred on a weekend, it wasalso nice to have many of the IB office support staff on
hand to finally meet thepeople that I am often intouch with by email. The
building itself was fantastic
as well and very much
lived up to its reputation of
having a ‘Gotham City’
resemblance, so much sothat it is apparently
affectionately referred to as‘Gotham Building’ by
many.
Jeffrey Jones
Director of Education

IB Asia Pacific Office Building
Photo by Anja van der Vorts(www.curlytraveller.com)

Over the past 1.5 years, KIST has introduced a student
laptop requirement for all students in Grades 10
through 12. We are pleased to announce that we areable to expand our 1:1 Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
program to include students from Grade 9 through 12
from the 2014-2015 school year. Therefore, we are
requiring that all students entering Grade 9 from 20142015 bring a laptop to school. This will be arequirement of enrollment at the school.
At KIST, we use Microsoft Windows,
Microsoft Office and SharePoint Online
exclusively. We believe that unifying thecomputer environment that teachers andstudents use will serve our community
best, both from a teaching and learning perspective
and better support the needs of students and teachers.

Students who bring their personal laptop to school
must ensure their computer meets the published KIST
Student Laptop Requirements. For computers thatmeet these specifications, one device per student will
be eligible for laptop registration which is necessary toconnect to the school Wi-Fi network. Students musthave Microsoft Office 2013 (with minimum Word, Excel,
PowerPoint and OneNote installed. Outlook, Publisher
and Access are also preferred).
Please note that Microsoft Office software is available
for purchase at an educational discount price throughan arrangement between the school and Microsoft.
Further details will be provided at a later date regarding
software and hardware requirements.
Before making a computer purchase for your child, we
ask that families seriously consider that technicalsupport for non-Windows computers (Apple productsetc.) is not provided by the school.
Should you have any questions or concerns about
computer hardware or software matters, pleasecontact: robert.whittaker@kist.ed.jp
Robert Whittaker
IT Software/Hardware
Coordinator
KIST IT OfficeV o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4“ T h e Co m et ”

Grade 8 Language A English
Making connections
Our task for Grade 8 English A consisted of composing factional text based on a true story of individuals who haveexperienced discrimination in their lives. The challenge was that we had to actually make real connections withthose people. The options we had to present our factional text were, a scrapbook, e-book, or a video. This states
our experiences we went through in order to complete this task.

F

ascinated by the history of Mr Arn Chorn Pond, a victim and survivor of the Cambodian
genocide, I composed an e-book titled “My Life, My Music”. It consisted of two stories—
one about my process and feelings while I was working on this assignment, and another of thelife of Mr Arn Chorn Pond, before, during and after the tragedy caused by acts committed by the
Khmer Rouge. Gaining support from Ms Frances
Rudgard, one of the staff of the Cambodian Living Arts, I wasable to conduct a Skype interview with Mr Arn Chorn Pond
about his survival story and hardships he faced during the
genocide. During this interview, which lasted for approximately
30 minutes, there were moments where Arn got emotional while
he was telling his story. Through this meeting, I was able toappreciate the importance of direct contacts, where I canactually listen to my interviewee’s feelings and experiences
firsthand. My goal right now is to publish my e-book in a finalized
form. Composing a whole book was really challenging, requiring
skills and commitment. I had sleepless nights and had to
overcome many issues. But this task allowed me to realize andre-confirm my passion towards English, so I believe it was areally valuable experience.
Aska (G8A)

A

s a student, it was a very adventurous experience for me that I got to interview Mr
Michel Chikwanine who has lived through the years of hardships as a child soldier
during the Congo wars. I think the most significant consequence of interviewing was that you
could feel their emotion towards the incident. I could only manage to communicate by email, but
I sensed the dynamic feelings from the words. This was very precious since you can receive
the information from their own perspective and it is notrevised like most secondary sources. I was very movedby the feeling that he did not want to answer myquestions half-heartedly. The experience of contacting
an individual from the other side of the world was very
thrilling. My thoughts before had been completely
reversed after the interview. It is a chance where you
could learn how to comprehend things in a different pointof view. I can say that it was a priceless experience. I am
sure that if anyone could step out a little with confidence,
it would be a treasured resource for future tasks.
Ibuki (G8A)

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Library News
Celebrating cultural diversity and supportof mother languages
The 3rd International
Mother Language Day
at KIST on February 21
was even more exciting
than the previous two
years. The KIST
Libraries, in partnershipwith the PTA Library and
Events Committees,
aimed for this event to bea student-centered activity to promote culturalawareness in the school. Starting the celebration with anational costume parade in the morning, theelementary students wore colorful traditional costumes
and waved national flags on the field.
Secondary students led by
Jeanine (G11A) together
with Min Woo, Emani andMichiru (G6B) sang “ A
Better World,” followed by
Mr Leroy performing the“Waka, Waka” dance with
Grades 2 to 5. The MPR
Exhibition was filled withartworks created by thestudents. The exhibition
showcased originaliCapture Digital
Photography entries andPowerPoint shows ofdifferent countries madeby secondary students.

the 1500 yen iTunes cards for the iCapture Challenge
winners.

iCapture Challenge winners: Emily (G6A), Jeanine (G11A),
Hana (G6A), Jiaying (G10A) and Erika (G12A)

Students really enjoyed connecting with their own andother’s languages, and celebrating cultural diversity at
KIST. You can see the pictures of the national costume
parade, MPR exhibition and parent-storytelling on the
Elementary Library and LMC Moodle pages.

DEAR “Guess Who?” winners
Congratulations to our Drop Everything And Read
(DEAR) Guess Who? winners! Eanya (G3B), Miku
(G4B), Yoo Mee (G4A), Kishore (G4A), Armaan (G4B),
Nimit (G6B), Max (G6B), Meng Ting (G7A), Dong
Wook (G7B) and Yohdai (G7B) were the lucky raffle
winners from our Guess Who? game. They received
500 yen gift coupons sponsored by the PTA Library
Committee. Thank you to everyone who participated,
and a special thank you to our teachers who modeled
for the posters.

Sakura Medal 2014
Students are invited to participate in the Sakura Medal
Book Challenge and Sakura Book Trailers again thisyear. These contests are organized by the librarians
and teachers from many international schools in Japan.
If you are interested in joining these activities, pleasecontact the Japanese teachers and the librarians formore information.

Meanwhile, we also had an overwhelming response
from parents who volunteered to read stories using
their mother-tongue to the children. The parent
storytellers shared their favorite stories in French,
Tamil, Korean and Spanish. Karuta games were held in
the LMC and mostly participated by the Japanese
Department. The “Global Showcase”, a fashion show ofnational costumes coordinated by the SRC was held in
the gym. The secondary dance in the evening was also
named “Global Hearts” in line with this event.
Again, many thanks to the PTA Cultural Connections
Committee, parents, secondary students and staff who
volunteered their time to help out with this great event.
And a big “thank you” to our PTA Library Committee foralways supporting the library activities and sponsoring

We need you to help the International School Librariansof Japan choose this year’s Sakura Medal books! A
team of librarians choose the nominees, but it’s up to
students to pick the best book! How
can you help us? By reading fivebooks (three for MYP and DP
students) and voting on your favorites.
Students who complete a Sakura
Medal booklet must submit theirentries on or before April 11. Sakura
Medal books and voting booklets areavailable at the circulation desk of the
LMC and Elementary Library. Winners
will be announced on April 18.
The KIST Libraries Team“ T h e Co m et ”

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17

KIST Hosts Successful MUN Conference
On a cold morning early in January, 60 KIST students—delegates, student officers and administrative staff—were
joined by students from Yokohama International School, the British School in Tokyo, and Tamagawa Academy forthe 7th annual Near East Model United Nations Scrimmage.
This year’s conference was chaired by two Grade 12 students, Moyu (G12B) and Abhi (G12B), who acted as
Secretaries-General. They opened the day by interviewing the press spokesperson for the Israeli embassy, Mr
Ronen Medzini. The discussion was lively and engaging, and all of the students gained valuable insights into therole of diplomacy and the role of Israel in the world.
The rest of the day was spent incommittees dealing with the issues of
the conference. Eun Ji (G12B), Keerti(G11B) and Jiaying (G10A) served ascommittee chairs during the conference.
The day was spent in debate on issues
ranging from the use of drone warfare to
the prevention of violence against
women. One of the delegates shares
her experience below.

M

UN couldvery well
be one ofthe best experiences—as well the mostanxious situations—I
ever went through. I neverparticipated in something similar to
MUN before, so I was struck with
abundant butterflies in mystomach. After preparing for MUN
over the course of three months,
the debate day had alreadyarrived.
MUN first started off with aninterview with a diplomat from
Israel. This was exceptionallyinspiring to hear, as he was young
and yet was placed in such animperative position. After this, we
broke off into committees andstarted our first topic. Being in the
Human Rights community, the firstdebate my partner, Sara (G10A),
and I had was about the humanrights in Syria. This was apassionate topic; however, I was
more comfortable with the second
topic. After having lunch, we
moved on to “Domestic violenceagainst women in India.” At first, I
was tremendously worried as I
was the first country to speak
regarding this topic. I started off
with an opening speech regarding
my country, Kenya, and continued
to raise awareness about domestic
violence against women in India.
After this, numerous countries
came to me to inform me of theircountry ideas for a resolution
during the un-moderated caucus.
It was motivating to meet new
people from other schools, talking
to them about the issue, andworking together to create asolution to the problem. During thistime, I was able to develop a
resolution that other countries
could vote on. After a long timespent talking about the resolution,
we soon voted to have it passed. I

was ecstatic. At the end, with afew minutes left, we all voted onsuperlatives. I was voted best
speaker and debater; I could
hardly keep my elation. Although it
was the first MUN I participated in,
I was given such amazing titles by
my fellow students and I truly
appreciated it.
MUN was a way for me to improve
many aspects of myself. MUN not
only helped me in developing myskills as a debater, but also
allowed me to become moreaware about global issues while
meeting new people. I can strongly
say that after participating in MUN,
I have grown significantly as aperson and I am more comfortablewith speaking in front of myaudience. I strongly recommend
for students to participate if theywish to develop as a speaker.
Aika (G10B)

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V ol u me 17 | I s s ue 3 | M arc h 20 14

Elementary SRC
The Elementary School Student Council (ESRC) meetsonce a week to discuss various issues, make important
decisions, and help to solve and raise awareness of
relevant issues in the Elementary School. The ESRC classrepresentatives deliver messages to and from theirclassrooms to ensure that all voices around the school areheard. So far, the ESRC has decided the theme for Free
Dress Day by surveying all the classes. We also discussed
how to use the funds raised by surveying and interviewing
all the teachers about their needs, and decided to help buy
a set of guided readers for the school. The
ESRC is currently working to make a new school-wide hallway behavior control system. Many classes
use the same stairway to go outside for recess and come back the same way when they returned totheir classrooms. This system is to encourage responsible and sensible behaviors when walking in theschool building. It is soon to be introduced and implemented.

Secondary SRC
New SRC logo
When I began thinking of designs for the SRC logo, my firstidea was to somehow incorporate the school mascot, thecomet, since it has been our mascot for a few years now.
So, I decided to put a comet shape in the centre, with
fourteen points to represent each of the fourteen homeroom
classes represented in the Secondary School SRC. Anothermajor component is behind the comet: the centre circle
made up of four different coloured sectors. Used in thecentre are the four house colours of KIST, all of which are
represented by the SRC. A logo with the school’s mascot and house colours
may, in meaning, seem to represent the whole of KIST instead of just the SRC. However, I believe that these twocomponents unite us as students, and a large part of the SRC is about uniting the fourteen different homeroom
classes and thus also uniting the student body, so I think this logo is metaphorically resonant to the organization it
represents. My hope for the logo henceforth is that it reminds the student body of everything the SRC stands for,and therefore increase our visibility to them so we can help make our school an even better place.
Angela (G10A)

SRC Global Showcase
On February 21, the SRC hosted the Global Showcase
as part of the annual International Mother Language
Day. We organized this event in order to promote anddisplay cultural diversity among our student body, andalso to provide an opportunity for students to explore thebeauty of ethnic costumes. We are proud to report that
we were successful in that aspect, with 31 students fromall grade levels representing 11 countries across theworld. Thank you for all who demonstrated their courageand creativity by participating in the event, and we hopethat all of you who attended the event enjoyed it. We areplanning to make this event an annual tradition, and wehope to see you all next year!
Kouta (G11B)

“ T h e Co m et ”

V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4

Staff 10!

Office Updates

In this month’s Staff 10!, weare pleased to present
Robert Whittaker whojoined the KIST office in
2003. He is currently the IT
Software/Hardware
Coordinator.

School lunch orders Tell us something
Mr Whittaker at his desk in themain school office.
interesting about yourhometown.
I am from North Narrabeen, Sydney, Australia.
Narrabeen is the most famous Sydney beach north of
Manly due to its appearance in the Beach Boys’ song
Surfin’ USA and the holding of professional surfing
events. It was also used to film parts of the Australian
movie Muriel’s Wedding!
 What is your favorite place in the world?
Probably where ever home is—you can’t relax like you
can at home. For now, Japan is home.
 Who would you like to meet if you had the chance
and why?
Probably Justin Hawkins from the band “The Darkness.”
He has unbelievable vocals.
 Do you have any special skills or talents?
I write songs on the piano, but it has been a while.
 Please share a little known fact about yourself.
The first concert I went to see was Gloria Estefan.
 What is your most prized possession?
There is nothing more important to me than my wife andfamily in Australia.
 What words would you use to describe yourself?
Quiet and tenacious. I am a different person at workand home.
 If you could live your life again, would you doanything differently?
I would learn more languages from a younger age, theidea that I can have a similar kind of language andcultural experience like I have had in Japan in anothercountry, another language is very appealing.
 Is there anything you are trying to learn/improveabout yourself at the moment?
Software and application development for use within
KIST, trying to improve the channels of communication
between the school, parents, students and teachers andmake them as efficient as possible. The school isconstantly improving and it is always challenging to stayahead of the needs of the school.
 Do you have any special message for your fans?
Never underestimate the complexity of simplicity.
Working in IT, many people have a tendency to think
just click, here, here and here and you’re done. There isa hidden beauty in making acomplex process look so simple.
With this in mind, I hope to be able
to improve on the systems wehave in place for the KIST
community and make IT at KIST
an enjoyable experience. Any
feedback is always welcomed.

19

Changes to lunch days or cancellations
to lunch orders for the March 31 to June
11 period should be made by Friday,
March 21 by submitting the School
Lunch Order Form to the office. The form isavailable at http://www.kist.ed.jp/node/5.

Custom-made uniform items
As previously announced, we are now able
to offer custom-made and larger sizes forall official school uniform items—with the
exception of the long gray trousers forsecondary boys—at an increase of just 200
yen in price over the standard sizes.
Subsequently, in accordance with thischange, students who were previously
permitted to wear non-uniform clothes toschool will be required to wear the official
items from August 2014.
Fitting for custom-made items is carried out by the
uniform company, and it is a requirement for parents tobe present. To arrange a fitting, please go to the school
reception counter. Please bear in mind when placing
your order that custom-made sizes may takeapproximately 1.5 months to arrive.

School uniform—socks
We are pleased to note that most students
are wearing their uniform correctly and indoing so are being wonderfulrepresentatives for the school. Thank you
for your cooperation. We would like toremind families, however, that the uniform
requirements stipulated that socks must be
BLACK only. Furthermore, ankle socks are notpermitted. Black socks are now available to purchasefrom the reception counter for just 200 yen. Students
not wearing the correct socks will be required topurchase a pair to change into.

Student withdrawals
If you are planning to withdraw yourchild from KIST this year, please be
sure to submit the Student
Withdrawal Form (available on
the school website Community >>Forms page) as far as possible in advance of the final
date of attendance. In addition to submitting theform, please: Return your parent ID card and your child’s ID card
to the reception counter.
 Return any library resources borrowed to theappropriate library.
 Ensure that any outstanding fee payments are paid.
 Arrange to complete any remaining School Support
Program (SSP) duties. A fee of 25,000 yen per duty
applies to duties not completed.

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Athletics Adventures
The KIST 2013-14 athletics season started with abang as our girls U18 volleyball team successfullycompleted a three-peat, capturing the ISTAAChampionship trophy for the third consecutive year.
Congratulations to Mr Lee, Mr Hori and all the girls.

Some of our athletes modelling the new basketball andvolleyball kits.
L>R: Motoi (G10A): boys volleyball (gray) / Tyson (G10B):
basketball (reversible blue) / Erika (G12A): girls volleyball /Miku (G12B): basketball (reversible white).

who made this possible.
Next issue: ISTAA basketball/futsal updates
and PYP sport news.
GO COMETS!!

2013 ISTAA U18 girls volleyball champions—
3rd consecutive title!

Jay Leroy
Athletics Director / PYP/MYP PE Teacher

PTA Bellmark Committee
Thank you for supporting the PTA Bellmark Committee!
Recently, the amount of Tetra Pak cartons collected
has increased significantly. As a result, we in thecommittee get together regularly to sort out and packthe Tetra Pak cartons into boxes to send to the
Bellmark Foundation.

Girls’ team captain, Miku (G12B) returning thetrophy to its rightful home.

Before bringing Tetra Pak cartons to school, pleaserinse them out and cut them open. This helps us a lot!
You will find the collection box in the foyer of the West
(Elementary) Building. Thank you for your cooperationand keep up the good work!

Our U18 boys played in the ISTAA final match but
lost a close decision to KAIS. The U14 girls ‘A’ and‘B’ teams, most of whom have not played volleyballbefore, worked hard this season developing theirskills and getting better with every match. Well done
everyone!!

So far, we havecollected Bellmark
points worth 52,945 yen,
and we have started to
discuss purchasingsome school supplies
with these points.

In other news, our long wait is over! All ourfundraising efforts (student athletes, PE staff and thePTA) have finally paid off! Our new sport uniforms
have arrived!! Now we can all represent our schoolwith confidence and pride while showcasing our
teamwork and sportsmanship. A big thank you to all

Please continue tocollect and bring in
Bellmarks for the benefitof KIST and ourchildren!

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V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4

Nurse’s Notes
Food allergy diagnosis
On January 28, I attended a lecture by Dr Takanori Imai of the Department ofPediatrics, Faculty of Medicine at Showa University, on the issue of food allergies
at schools. It was a short 2-hour lecture, but it proved a valuable opportunity torefresh my knowledge and to get myself up-to-date with the latest information andtechniques. I would like to introduce you to a short extract from the information
given out.

Diagnosis, Treatment and Resistance of Food Allergies
The standard way in which a food allergy iswheat which count for 50% of all allergies among
diagnosed is through a food intolerance test.
3-year-olds and 80% among 6-year-olds.
Food intolerance testing basically involves eatinga certain food and recording any
There has been an increasing trend for doctors
negative reactions. Previously, foodand parents to argue against eatingallergies were mostly determined by...the only true way various foods which you may be
the results of an IgE blood test, butallergic to, “just to be safe” orto find out if athis method has since proved“because it’s a worry.” However,person is allergic to ainconsistent; the only true way to findduring tragic occurrences like theparticular food is toout if a person is allergic to a particular actually eat the food.
Great East Japan Earthquake,food is to actually eat the food.
food allergies become a huge
Therefore, an intolerance test is recommended atissue for those involved with distributing food aid.
least once if you have been diagnosed as having
Of course, if there are foods that you can’t eat,a particular food allergy. Additionally, as they get
this doesn’t change even in an emergency;
older a lot of people find that they are now able tohowever; if you refuse to eat something without
eat the foods they once were allergic to. Food
any real basis or testing, this can result in moretypes most notorious for this are eggs, milk andstress for parents and children during a crisis.

“”

In summary, skin and blood tests (IgE) are no longer considered sufficient methods of determining whether a foodallergy truly exists, and intolerance testing is acknowledged as the only true way. Furthermore, while there arecases of people developing a rash upon coming into contact with anallergen, it is not uncommon for people toexperience zero side effects after eating. Regardless, please do not act on your own judgment and force children
to eat something they may be allergic to as there is a chance of triggering an anaphylactic shock which is highly
dangerous and difficult to treat alone. It is therefore important that you seek out a qualified allergy specialist when
undertaking an intolerance test.
Maki Whittaker
School Nurse

PTA Library Committee
IMLD
A big thank you to all of the parents who came in to read a book in theirmother language. and who donated books and helped with preparations,and events as part of our International Mother Language Day celebration.
Another event sponsored by the PTA was the Rakugo and Karuta class heldin the Japanese classroom in the secondary school. Students were able toenjoy a taste of Japanese culture and a great time was had by all.

Book clubThank you to all the parents who purchased books in thesecond round of Book Club. Cataloguing, separating anddistribution of the books is being handled by the Library
Committee. Please direct any questions to the PTA
Library Committee at pta.library@family.kist.ed.jp.
Additionally, we are now accepting orders for the 3rdround of Book Club so don’t forget to get your orders in!
PTA Library Committee

21

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CAS and Community and Service at KIST
Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) andCommunity and Service (C&S) are successive
programs of the IB DP and MYP. The spirit of bothprograms aims to guide students toward selfawareness in ways they may be agents of positivechange in their communities and their own lives. C&S
places an emphasis on MYP students collaborating
and initiating service oriented activities in theircommunities. This is an introduction to service learningthat is expanded upon in CAS in the DP. CAS goes
further to include Action and Creative activities that areoften minimal or unavailable to DP students dependingon their course choices and time management.
Ultimately, students gain an appreciation for theopportunities afforded them by their respective
communities, and gain insight into their own strengths
and abilities.

At KIST, evidence reveals both programs have a strong
influence on students’ lives, and the people theyinteract with while participating in program activities.
Below are a sample of some of the great work ourstudents are doing. I have included examples of how
students ‘reflect’ and ‘record evidence’ in hopes ofinspiring peers to take similar action and approaches
toward their program. Thank you all for taking such a
principled and caring attitude toward your service
learning programs.
Daryl Bates
C&S/CAS Coordinator

Maria (G12B)

CAS

Activity: Prepare balloon art decorations for birthday party at infant hospital
Learning Outcomes: Collaboration, Ethics
Working collaboratively with others:
By having multiple people helping out in the activity, we were able to make more balloon art in a shorter periodof time. If a person didn’t know how to do something, we were able teach each other how to make balloons forpeople who forgot them or didn’t know how to.
Consider ethical implications:
Infants living in the hospital are all orphans. Either because their parents have passed away or they are
imprisoned. Holding monthly birthday parties is very significant to an orphan in the hospital for being celebrated
a key event that certifies their existence would increase the meaning to why they are living and why they haveto live. (For the orphans are in the positions that were rejected, abandoned etc.) A huge emotional support canbe gain by the orphan by having these parties.
Increasing number of irresponsible young parents abandoning their children makes me feel like I have to be a
responsible adult when I grow up.

William (G7B)

C&S

Activity: Tutoring
Learning Outcomes: Awareness, Challenge, Collaboration, Initiative, New Skills
My tutoring helped the community because people can learn English and they can go to other countries andspeak to people from foreign countries. I also give a benefit to the teacher because she will get money fromtutoring and I get a benefit of C&S points.
It also helps the students’ parents because the kids can teach their parents English and the parent might tell his
or her friends to join the English lesson.

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V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4

23Internet Safety
The Internet plays an indispensable role in today’s
information-oriented society. You have probably seen
your child doing research or homework at home using
the Internet. Also, the number of young children who
have their own mobile or smartphone is increasing
nowadays. The Internet makes a child’s life andlearning more convenient; however, there are potential
dangers as well. Below are some examples of dangers
children can encounter on the Internet.







Involvement with crime (e.g. sex related crimes,
drug offences, blackmail)Online bullying or harassment
Poor physical condition/Internet addiction due tooveruse of computers/smartphones
Inappropriate disclosure of personal information
Access to inappropriate images or content such as
pornographic websites
Inappropriate comments/slanderThis article will hopefully provide you with some useful
incite on what you can do as parents to protect children
from becoming involved in any illegal activity.
Children use SNS sites such as Facebook, Twitter andInstagram and/or free calling and messaging
applications such as Skype and LINE as tools forcommunication. These sites and applications not only
allow children to communicate with their classmatesand friends, who they met outside of school, but also tomeet and communicate with people who they havenever met in real life. Some children may even give
personal information such as their name, address andschool, or arrange to meet these strangers. Not
everyone they meet online is a criminal or has bad
motives but it is true that there are some people who
use SNS sites or applications with criminal intentions
such as to commit sexual offences, sell and buy illegal
drugs, and to threaten people.
Recently, the number of children who are becoming
involved in criminal through SNS sites and applications
is increasing. Below are some tips that you may use to
avoid these dangers.
Know what kinds of SNS sites or free calling andmessaging applications your children use. Find out
what these sites or applications are like and see ifthey have age limits. For example, Twitter andFacebook prohibit children under 13.
Teach your children the danger of posting personal
information such as their full name, address andphone number or giving this information tostrangers. Giving personal information may help
strangers find you and eventually harass or stalkyou. Also remind them not to post photos ofthemselves on sites that can be accessed byanybody or send photos to people they meet
online.

Tell children not to communicate with strangers or
arrange to meet strangers in real life. Strangers
who approach children online aren’t always whothey say they are. Permit “instant message” accessonly with family or friends they already know offline.
It is also useful to make yourself familiar with theprivacy settings to check who can view theirprofiles.
Make sure that your children use the Internet in anarea where parents can supervise. Try and check
what your children are doing online. It is also usefulto restrict mobile/smartphone access to times when
parents can supervise. This would help minimizerisks such as children communicating withstrangers, accessing hazardous sites and havinglack of sleep due to overuse of smartphones.

In order to protect children from crimes, it is importantfor parents to understand what kinds of dangers there
are online. Parents can then make appropriate rules forusing the Internet at home and make sure that children
follow them.
Please do not hesitate to contact me atnanami.komaki@kist.ed.jp if you have any
questions or concerns.
Nanami Komaki
Student Welfare Counselor

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V ol u me 17 | I s s ue 3 | M arc h 20 14“ T h e Co m e t ”

Alumnus Report
Katina Kang is an alumnus of KIST’s “Class of 2010.” She majoredin biology at the University of Miami and will commence work at
one of the top pharmaceutical companies in Japan this April.
Hello everyone! I am Katina Kang, amember of the KIST class of 2010.
In December of 2013, I completed
my Bachelor of Science in Biology at
the University of Miami. After
graduating from KIST, I was very
anxious and nervous about
attending a university in the UnitedStates, but now that I have finished
my studies there, I am excited forthe future. My life in Miami wasabsolutely amazing! I am sure somestudents, especially those who are
doing the DP, feel equally anxious
about their college choices, and may
also be thinking about attending aschool in America. For their sake, I
would like to share my experiencesof living and studying in an
American university.
First I would like to give some
information on the school that I
attended. The University of Miami(UM) was ranked at #38 of the best
schools in the US in 2012, and is
known as the best university in thestate of Florida. As the namesuggests, it is located in Miami, thewarmest city in the US, with anaverage temperature throughout theyear of 25 degrees Celsius.
Including both undergraduate andgraduate students, UM has acampus population of approximately
15,000. The campus itself is very
scenic, with palm trees, a lake and avariety of native birds and animals
surrounding the sophisticatedbuildings.
In general, there are three main
points that I believe differentiate
American colleges from those ofother countries. The first is thatstudents are allowed to challengethemselves if they choose to. In myfirst year, I chose to take anadvanced level biochemistry course.
The material was very difficult, and I
often spoke to the professor afterclass in order to better understandthe course. However, he eventuallyinvited me to conduct research in his
lab at the medical campus, as wellas to participate in an academic
poster competition as arepresentative of his lab. As a
freshman who had just begun tolearn about biochemistry, it was anunbelievable opportunity for me towork with the professor andgraduate students. In addition, if you
are willing to take more classes persemester or over the summer, you
can graduate early. As long as you
wish to challenge yourself, theuniversity will support you as muchas possible.
Secondly, there are many
opportunities to experience learning
outside of the classroom. UM often
invited insightful people, including
Richard Dawkins, President Barack
Obama, and the Dalai Lama to givepresentations to the students. Thisis common at most other American
schools as well. There is also acareer center on campus that
supports students’ job hunting –they often invite local companies forrecruitment events, and also havespeakers who talk about the job
hunting process. Many classes, too,
invite outside speakers to give
relevant presentation. The mostmemorable one for me was in mySociology of Drug Abuse class,when a former drug addict gave aspeech about his life story.
Finally, the system of double
majoring is very interesting. You canmajor in two (or more) completely
different fields. As long as yourschedule allows for it, you canchoose whatever majors you’d like.
For example, a Chemistry student
could also major in Political Science,or even Art. Furthermore, you areable to take classes from all the
departments, even if you are notmajoring in any of those fields. Even
though I was a science major, I wasable to take several music classes
that I was interested in!
For those of you who are currently
enrolled in the DP, or are planningto participate in it, be sure to study
well and get good grades! If you
manage to earn a 5 or higher (6 and
7 in some higher ranked colleges) inyour HL subjects, you will be able toreceive college credits for theseclasses. That way you will havemore freedom to take your required

courses at your own pace, or takeelective classes outside of yourmajor. This is especially helpful if
you want graduate early, which cansave you a lot of tuition money. If
you are having trouble studying, I
would suggest creating your own
review sheet for the subject matter
you need to learn. As you read yourtextbook or source material, rewrite
key concepts in your own words andin a way that makes sense to you –don’t just copy what is written in thebook. You can also try forming a
study group with other students; agood way to learn something to
explain it others.
If you do choose to attend an
American university, and areinterested in finding a job in Japanafter college, there is an amazing
event called the Boston Career
Forum. It is the biggest job fair in
the world for Japanese/English
bilinguals, and is held in Boston for
3 days in winter. Over 100 wellknown companies attend every
year. This event is a really great
opportunity; if you are an
outstanding student, it is not
impossible to receive a job offer inthose 3 days!
I have experienced a lot in college. I
believe that many of the things that I
have accomplished and learned
would have been impossible if I had
not attended an American university.
This precious experience has mademe stronger as a person, and I will
never forgot my time there. My hopeis that this article has helped at least
some of you with your life decisions,even if it is only by one tiny bit.
Thank you very much for reading!
Katina KangKIST Alumnus “Class of 2010”

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V o l u me 1 7 | I s s u e 3 | M a rc h 2 0 1 4

25

College Guidance NewsKIST acceptances and offers
Good news (and some bad news) has been coming in fromcurrent G12 students who sent their applications to UK, US,
Canadian and some Japanese universities. There are still many
students who are waiting for their results and/or are applying touniversities with a rolling admission or late deadlines. The list of
acceptances and offers for this year will be released on KIST’s
Family Day. Congratulations G12s and keep working toward yourfinal DP exams in May!

KIST alumni talks
George Brova (KIST“Class of 2008”)
visited KIST and
conducted apresentation for theentire secondary
students on January
7 during the Tuesday
Advisory period in thegym. He spoke about
his experiences at
KIST and Boston
University where he received a full scholarship for four full years
and earned a master and bachelor degree in computer science
within that period of time. Currently he is in a PhD program incomputer science at the University of Illinois (one of the top
schools in this field), again with a full scholarship. It is worth
mentioning that even the youngest students who sat on the floor
in front seemed excited and enjoyed his talk.
Katina Kang (KIST“Class of 2010”)
was invited to the
G11 Tuesday
Advisory class on
February 18 to share
her experiences ofher two years at KIST
as a DP student andUniversity of Miami
where she graduatedrecently with a major
in biology after only 3.5 years. (Please read her article on page
24.)
Many thanks to George and Katina and best wishes for yourcontinuing success in the future!

G11 college guidance
Thank you again to all of the G11 families for attending the G11
College Night on the evening of Friday, February 28. We hope
this information night gave you a general idea of the college
application process which the current Grade11 students andparents will follow within a couple of months. During semester 1
G11 Tuesday Advisory classes, students learned about higher
education systems in major countries and explored career andmajor options based on their interest surveys. Semester 2 G11
Tuesday Advisory classes are focused on individual college
searching and application preparation, including personalstatement/college essay writing workshops conducted by Mr
Hughes and Mr Cowe. A booklet called My Post-KIST Plan wasgiven to students to help them organize activities and includes aself-survey of their interests, interview questions to be completed
for an individual interview with Mrs Okude and Mr Hiro Komaki,
and space for university lists and summer action plans. We would
like to ask parents to take a look at this booklet and assist yourchildren to complete activities with them.

College visits and college fairs
There are a number of events during spring including college

presentations at KIST and college fairs in Tokyo. Please makeuse of these valuable opportunities to learn more about higher
education around the world.
College presentations at KIST:
Parents are welcome to attend these events in the KIST LMC.
 Monday, March 17, 3:40-4:40 p.m. UBC (University of British
Columbia) (Canada) Tuesday, April 1, 2:40-3:40 p.m. City University London;Goldsmiths University of London (UK)
 Thursday, April 3, 3:40-4:40 p.m. McGill University (Canada) Tuesday, April 7, 1:40-2:40 p.m. George Washington University(USA) Friday, April 18, 1:00-2:00 p.m. The Cooper Union, NY (USA) Thursday, April 24, 3:40-4:40 p.m. Ecole Hoteliere Lausanne(Switzerland)
KIST Spring College Fair 2014:
Friday, March 21, 2:00-4:00 p.m. in the KIST gymnasium
More than 25 universities from Japan, UK, US and Australia will
participate in this event. Please come to see the representatives
from major universities around the world, as well as recent KIST
graduates who will represent the university they are attending!
This event is open to the whole KIST community. Please see thelist of universities below.
Participating universities (as of March 13):
Akita International University, British Council, Columbia University,
Cornell University, Doshisha University, George Washington
University, Harvard College, Hokkaido University, International
Christian University, Josai International University, Juntendo
University Medical School, Keio University GIGA, Lakeland
University, Meiji Gakuin University, Melbourne Education Center(Melbourne University), Nagoya University, Okayama University,
Otemae University, Regents University London, Ritsumeikan
University, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Sophia University,
Tama University, Tamagawa University, Temple University Japan,
Tokyo International University, Tsukuba University, University ofKent, University of Miami, Waseda University SILS, Waseda
University EDESSA, Waseda University FSE, Wellesley College,
Yale-NUS College, Yokohama National University
External college fairs (open to the public):
Please see the web links below for more details.

 Thursday, March 20 – Friday, March 21 at the CanadianEmbassy, Study in Canada Fair Spring 2014
http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/japan-japon/studyetudie/events-evenements.aspx?lang=eng

 Saturday, March 29 in Shinjuku L Tower, Beo Study Abroad
Fair
http://www.beo.co.jp/fair/english/index.html
Monday, March 31 at the British Council, Education UK Fair 2014
Springhttp://www.educationuk.org/japan/articles/edukfair2014spring
If you have any questions or concerns regarding your child’s
college and career options, please feel free to contact me at the e-mail address below to make an appointment.
Mrs Keiko Okude MBA
College Guidance Counselor
Office hours: Monday, Tuesday,Thursday, Friday 10:00-17:00
keiko.okude@kist.ed.jp