The morning of the Exhibition! Final touches are put to the displays. I was rather proud of the kids today as they presented at their stands. They presented at an Assembly to parents and other invited guests, with scripts that gave some information from what they had learned in this unit. They sang Mad World to begin with and We Are The World with a harmony to conclude. Some people, including this one, had tears in their eyes at the end.

These grade 5 kids are surveying people, testing their questions, graphing and analysing results, interviewing people and researching issues around the world. Did do you much of that when you were in grade 5? In addition they present their learning at stands for 2 and a bit days to various groups that come to visit, from pre-schoolers to parents. I reckon it’s all rather impressive.

Sadly there’s one more unit to go after this.

The large rental display boards arrived. Sadly our order for purchasing a new set from last December was vetoed and then another order was also cancelled this year, so they had to hire some instead. Crazy logic.

Our display must be good as one student was overheard to say, “The teacher display is seriously awesome!”

We have a holiday today. The ex-Soviet realm is celebrating Victory Day. This is from Wikipedia:

Victory Day marks the end of World War II in Europe, specifically the capitulation of NaziAllies (the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, the United States and other principal Allied nations) on May 8, 1945. It is celebrated in the successor states to the Soviet Union on May 9, because when the German Instrument of Surrender actually entered into force (May 8, 1945 at 23:01 CET), it was already May 9 in the USSR and Eastern Europe.

Democracy is a funny thing here. The minister for internal affairs here reckons that democracy doesn’t allow groups to meet of their own free will. He wears a military uniform. You can make your own conclusions.

Michael and I had 30 mins with them along with the two ex P8 (Grade 5) teachers from last year. The assessment was that the Exhibition is very well organised, well developed and has a high quality. Michael made the comment that the sample Exhibitions listed on the PYP website were very light and not at all organised. It seems that the material has not been updated for some years and the concept has developed somewhat in the last few years.

It was made clear however that in P8 there should be 5 units of inquiry AND the Exhibition. (The authorising body for IB schools has a well-developed philosophy and a well-developed list of requirements.) For the last two years the school has doubled the length of the Exhibition, thereby reducing the number of units. We had been wondering if that was a good idea, as the expectations on students just grew and grew during our teaching of skills. I understand that the Exhibition always involves some pressure but in our case maybe we exacerbated the situation. Anyway, the challenge for next year is to achieve the same quality within a shorter timespan. We still have the option of having a longer unit, as long as we cut the length of some others.

I’ve requested an interactive white board (IWB) for next year but don’t know whether it will happen. I’ve been researching popular opinion on whether Smart Board or Promethean is better – seems there’s no consensus with some strong opinions on both sides. Then there’s the cheap option of using an electronic pad instead of the large IWB, and the possibility of the ultra cheap version of using a Wii Remote to do the same thing. There is even Kindlelab open source software to go with it.

We are a well-established school so there are only two of them but I understand that four is more common. They have meetings all day for three days, including the P8 team for the Exhibition (that’s Michael and me) as well as a group of six of our students in a separate meeting. We only have 30 mins with them. I’m not worried by the event as we have done enormous planning for this 11 week Unit of Inquiry. Michael is an experienced Exhibition teacher and I feel that my practice is better than it’s ever been as well.

After school I had a short meeting with two others as members of the School Philosophy self-study group. Our job was to report back as school reps on our self-appraisal by all school staff on matters of school philosophy. As a result of our conversation I’m guessing that there may be something in their recommendations about the need for PD in further integrating maths in the Units. They also hinted that maybe it might be good to have further sessions for new staff after the initial term of familiarisation meetings were over.

The kids’ art continues to take shape before our eyes. While not all of it was planned adequately, it shows great enthusiasm. We’ve rolled a wide sheet of coloured plastic down the corridor which gives them plenty of working space, but we do have to face the issues of bright paint splattering onto the carpet.

Wednesday 14th May is the big day for the Assembly for parents and other invited guests. Each of the 12 groups presents 2 or 3 minutes on their topic and we do a song or two as well, hopefully including We Are The World.

After the Exhibition we start on the next unit called Waves, on sound and light. This is a science unit, which will be a lot of fun and a relief from the pressure of the last few weeks.