By Nathaniel Atherton, Primary Principal
This week's Spotlight shines brightly on the corridor of our main building where you will find an incredibly powerful representation of our Grade 1 students' learning, through their 'Humans of ICS' project.
The project, connected to the unit Where We Are in Place and Time, saw our Grade 1 students acting as historians, collecting stories from people across ICS to better understand the past and the lived experience of those around them.
A glimpse into the lives of others helped our learners cultivate empathy, respect, understanding, and connection. Throughout the transdisciplinary unit our learners developed questioning/interview techniques and communication/ multimedia skills working with local experts.
Ultimately, our Grade 1's 'Humans of ICS' project illuminates what makes ICS so special, our collective sense of community.
Community isn't just built by proxy or by affiliation. It's dynamic and built on shared identity, purpose, interests/ passions, beliefs, and behaviors. To achieve this sense of community these elements must be embedded with intent.
Since ski week alone, there have been a diverse range of moments, experiences, and events that purposefully have worked to further develop our collective sense of community. In learning spaces across the school, teachers and tutors have worked with our learners to foster connection and a sense of belonging through morning meetings and secondary PDP meetings. As a staff community, we have gathered to explore the reflections and potential pathways forward as part of the joint accreditation between NEASC and the IBO. We had the second of two PA conversations supported by Alison Ochs, where parents as learners developed a deeper understanding of how we might support our young people in an ever-changing digital landscape. In each of these instances whether student, staff, or parent there has been a shared intentionality for each community member to learn and to grow.
As March rolls on in the Primary, our Student Wellbeing Committee has organized 3 Fridays of Spirit days (Animal day | March 3, Important Person/ Famous day | March 17, and International Spirit day | March 31). These days, when students dress up and engage in collective activities such as sharing vegetarian lunch, purposefully create a shared sense of pride and enthusiasm. The Primary Wellbeing Committee would be thrilled to have you join them in dressing up on these upcoming days and spreading a little joy.
As a school community, we are also bound by our traditions. Traditions define who we are and what values we hold. They provide a shared sense of history and culture, creating a sense of belonging and connection. For example, the ICS PA Quiz Night, taking place this evening, and the PYP Exhibition on 28-29 March are two community-wide events that help us build tradition and thus connection.
Internally, we too, seek to deepen these connections through the careful design of rituals that bind us together. Primary assemblies are a key place where this transpires. They are a place where new traditions have been introduced to create syncopated moments of connection. For example, this year, our students, working in conjunction with our Performing Arts teacher Paul Fowler, have composed a school song, The ICS Spirit Song, which encapsulates the spirit of our learners and is sung regularly at assemblies.
Our community at ICS is multifaceted and as a result, has many different levels of relationship that if mapped on a social gram would be near impossible to capture.
Our supportive and enriching relationships between one another is vital but our relationships with our wider community of Zumikon, Switzerland and the World is no less important. Our inspiring visit this week from Shirley Blair, from SMD, has intensified our global relationship with Nepal. While locally the Primary School continued to build strong bonds by visiting the Zumikon Gemeinde Salle for a workshop with the Zumikon music school. These connections between the school and our local/global communities allow our ICS community to feel firmly embedded and engaged with both the local and global context.
Each of these events, moments, rituals, and traditions support and reinforce social norms and expectations. They speak to our collective interests/passions, beliefs, and behaviors and ultimately our shared purpose and identity as a community of learners.
A community doesn't just exist, it's sewn and nurtured and through that process, it flourishes. There is intentionality around bringing us together to celebrate who we are as individuals and who we are as a collective.
The Grade 1 Humans of ICS project depicts that sense of community perfectly. It highlights the individuals that make our community strong and celebrates their differences and commonalities in a way that unites us all.
The Humans of ICS project will be on display in the Main Building Corridor until March 17.