WHAT'S HAPPENING IN IB AT WEST?
December Parent Newsletter
MIDDLE YEARS PROGRAMME NEWS
PERSONAL PROJECT: Changes are coming to increase student support in the Personal Project process. A new timeline will be released and rolled out after the Holiday Break. Students should continue to work on their Personal Project product and paper revisions over the break.
CAREER-RELATED PROGRAMME NEWS
CAREER-RELATED CANDIDACY STATEMENT
MIDDLE YEARS PROGRAMME & ADVISORY
10th graders will continue work on researching their chosen Personal Project topic. Please ask your child about their project and please know that the new Personal Project timeline will be distributed to students through advisory when we return from the Winter Break.
FROM THE STUDENT SERVICES OFFICE
LIBRARY NEWS
Yoga in library classroom Monday, 12/10; Wed 12/12; and Friday 12/14 during lunch!
Calming centering yoga instruction is being led by Sarah Bast!
She will lead the class through gentle stretches and focus on mindfulness
TRANSFERS FOR 2019-20 SCHOOL YEAR
Jan 9
Feb 7
Feb 20
Mar 7
All screening sessions will be held in the West High library. Once a family submits an application for transfer to the Transfer Office, a list of transfer applicants is sent to Mrs. Siebe every 2-3 weeks. Mrs. Siebe emails each family, so please be sure that the email submitted on the transfer application is correct and that it is an email you check often.
Due to increased enrollment, West High School will be accepting transfers for 50 rising freshmen, 5 rising 10th graders and 5 rising 11th graders.
IB YEAR 1 CLASSES AND NEW UNIFORM GRADING POLICY
IB EXAM NEWS
If a student chooses to cancel an exam, they may do so and receive the $119 exam fee refund BEFORE JANUARY 15. However, the $172 registration fee is non-refundable at this point. After January 15, no refunds can be given.
Please also remember that if a student does not sit for the IB exam, they will not receive the 5-point bump to his/her final grade in May.
DECEMBER IB DIPLOMA COURSE HAPPENINGS
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about English SL Year 1 coursework.
SL:
YEAR 2: Individual Oral Commentaries will take place the week of December 10.
HL:
ASSESSMENTS:
YEAR 1: NONE
YEAR 2: IOCs! See below.
PROJECTS:
YEAR 1: NONE
YEAR 2: NONE
READINGS:
YEAR 1: NONE
YEAR 2: Students need to secure a copy of The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway as they will read it over Winter break.
NEWS:
YEAR 1: IOP grades will be in Aspen by the end of the week. The first text for next semester is Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Students will need it when they return. Refer to the syllabus for the other 2 texts.
YEAR 2: IOCs (Independent Oral Commentaries) are the week of December 10th through December 14th. Students should be preparing poems and discussions for this, the last oral exam, of their year.
While students take their IOCs, in the classroom they will be revising their Works in Translation essays from last year. Please encourage them to take this seriously, as this score is 25% of their final IB grade.
SPANISH
First and foremost, super proud of how hard the students have worked this semester! I have seen them grow already within the language, and hope they are feeling as confident as they should. For the midterm, students will be taking a past IB exam as a benchmark. This will hopefully show the students how much they have grown throughout the semester since we took another IB exam in August. Encourage your students to continue to study the variety of vocabulary that we have been learning this year along with transition words. The Paper 1 (reading comprehension) will be on the exam review day for their class, and the Paper 2 (writing) and speaking components will be on the actual midterm date for their class.
EXAM: 12/17/18: IB Practice Exam
FRENCH
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
EXTRA IB SPANISH DUE DATE NEWS FOR YEAR 2!!!
GERMAN
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
HISTORY OF EUROPE
TEST:
YEAR 1: Unit 5 Test (Midterm) on 12/19
YEAR 2: Unit 2 Test (Midterm) on 12/17
3rd Period test on Dec. 19
PROJECTS:
YEAR 1: NONE
YEAR 2: NONE
NEWS:
Follow your daily calendar for reading assignments
PSYCHOLOGY
IA Paper due 12/20/2018
NEWS:
Students are currently working in their IA paper. This is 25% of their IB grade and 20% of their grade for the class. It also serves as their final grade for the class in lieu of taking a separate final for me.
PLEASE NOTE: I will not take IA papers late. Dec. 20th is the last day to turn it in. The students started the paper Nov. 26th, so they have plenty of time to complete it.
WORLD RELIGIONS
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
BIOLOGY
KREBS:
YEAR 2:
PROJECT: IB Biology II IA's are due December 20
KREBS YEAR 1 CALENDAR LINK:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A3ktv9nEPtlRFhdREhvFuuw6KOWI-STwiMz7qZXvbjs/edit?usp=sharing
KREBS YEAR 2 CALENDAR LINK: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p-bgxrg-5d76WlORteEtSxSDb2hTfC327t2CQPzNstY/edit?usp=sharing
BELL: Class calendar: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hj0enKTST8JfyePN733dKbV4aaczps1VbehK8pYzQXY/edit?usp=sharing
CHEMISTRY
Year 1: Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
YEAR 2 Class calendar: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16n1q1BW75ffrrYjnlg2zA9VtV732Pkt5EPplx6I2554/edit?usp=sharing
PHYSICS
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
ESS
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
MATH STUDIES
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
MATH SL
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
MATH HL
EXAM: 12/13/18 on Vector Lines and Planes
December 17th and 19th will be IA work days. The rough draft is due when we return January 8th.
IB ART
IB THEATRE
ASSESSMENTS/PROJECTS:
1/8/19: Director's Notebook Due
READINGS: Student's need to read their chosen play at least three times. They also need to research and read as many sources as possible to allow them to complete this project.
NEWS:
Students are to turn in a draft for me on DEC 11. This is the one feedback that they are allowed from the IB. If this is not on time, they are not guaranteed feedback before their final is due.
IB MUSIC
Please contact teacher or course syllabus for questions about December work.
TOK
TOK Year 1 - Next semester we will begin examining the Areas of Knowing. TOK Year 2 - In our last semester together we will be working on our TOK Presentations and TOK Essays.
These two assessments are how TOK is scored for the IB Full-Diploma.