H.I.S. wishes everybody a wonderful summer break!
Monthly Archives: June 2018
Retirement Celebration
It was an occasion of mixed emotions when the H.I.S. community gathered with Lori Novak to celebrate her retirement on Friday 15th June 2018.
Lori started volunteering in the school office while we were based in Karlsruhe. She moved with us to Heidelberg and continued as a classroom assistant before as Admissions Counsellor she supported every family into our school community.
As a fitting tribute, as well as words from staff and a parent, the primary students provided art work for the event and a selection of secondary school students delighted us with beautiful musical performances.
Lori’s commitment to every aspect of the school and every student, parent and colleague has been consistent throughout her H.I.S. career.
She leaves with our very best wishes for a long and happy retirement.
text: KM photos: Iñigo
Sports Day 2018
What a wonderful day out of school we had on Tuesday! At the annual H.I.S. Sports Day all students and teachers headed for the Sports field. Sun lotion, water and caps were essential items brought along.
While Primary students took part in a number of fun sport games, Secondary students were busy at the long jump, high jump, shot put and races. Later in the day, the Primary students did their races while Secondary students enjoyed basektball and football games.
Thanks to our fantastic parents we had a feast of fresh fruit and vegetables for the students who helped themselves to some vitamins whenever they needed a boost of energy.
When the final scores showed that all teams had done really well. Congratulations to the Green Team for collecting the highest number of points.
Many thanks to Mr. Knowles and Mr. Raw for organising the Sports Day! Thank you also to Grade 11 students and all supporting staff members.
text & photos AS
Young Biologists on The Way!
German AGP students explore the meadow
Over the last few weeks the German AGP group in Grade 1 inquired into the habitat meadow. By looking at plants and animals that can be found in and on meadows they found out that a meadow is a very rich and colourful habitat full of flowers and grasses and a great variety of insects and other animals.
By observing the meadow at the back of our school they came up with some interesting questions e.g.: Why is a meadow important for us? Why have flowers different colours? What is a meadow actually? What is the difference between a bee and a wasp, a beetle and a bug?
Looking through the “eyes” of an insect, students were able to get an idea why it is so important for the flowers to have very distinctive colours. 
While describing the differences of bees and wasps students also discussed the importance of bees and how important bees are for us. Overall, it was amazing to see how observant and caring our “young biologists” were while exploring the plants and animals on a meadow.
Albert Einstein would have been proud of you: “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better! “
Text and photos: SH
Cooking For (And With) Refugees
Last week on Thursday, the German B Diploma class continued the now four-year-old tradition at H.I.S. We did our best to attenuate the hardship endured by refugees by cooking a dinner together for them.
After gathering the necessary funding from a bake sale, a menu was established, then a corresponding shopping list, and subsequently the ingredients were acquired.
The students Mikkeline, Parth, Remus and teacher Herr Handwerk then travelled to Kirchheim, where Murat, the organizer, kindly let us in. There, we set up in the small (but decked!) kitchen, and put together our masterpiece: Pasta with pesto and beans, Poha (an Indian rice-based dish), Guacamole and finally Quark cream with berries.
The guests consisting of people of various ages, nationalities, genders, and even some families with kids showed up early on, and some even helped us by slicing the veggies. Soon enough, we were all ready to feast, and we put together the buffet. Everybody had an amazingly good mood, and the atmosphere was filled with laughter and storytelling.
To our bewilderment, we could feed around 25 people and even have some leftovers! In our best effort not to waste food, we took some with us for later consumption.
Text: Remus
Habitat For Humanity
The Last Day - A Remarkable One
The 22nd of June was undoubtedly a remarkable day. Although it was the last day everybody performed their highest effort on getting the required work done.
A few people continued plastering the walls, where windows will soon be placed by another group of volunteers. Others worked on getting metal bars installed on the roof, so the next stage of building can start.
After the construction work was done a little ceremony was held. Everybody received their certificates and the families’ appreciation thanks to our hard work. The members of Habitat For Humanity told us that they were really happy with the progress we had done so far and that we made enough progress which was expected within the week. This progress is due to the collaborative work of the group members and the division of equal amount of work.
Once the ceremony was finished we went back to Warsaw. We were given free time, which was a nice chance to explore the city some more and have an amazing dinner that we all deserved after an exhausting week of hard work. The 23rd of June was our last day in Warsaw. Most of the people went to the escape room while a few others stayed in the city center. The Escape Room was a very fun but challenging experience. Each room had its own theme, one group tried solving the riddles for the Greek Gods, while another went on an adventure in outer space.
After the Escape Room we split up into small groups and explored the city as well as its beautiful mall. The day ended with a farewell dinner for our host coordinator Magda, she was given a small token of our appreciation.
Aykut and Mica
PYP Summer Performance
A big Thank You to all students in the Primary School. You managed to entertain your audience brilliantly at the PYP Summer Performance. It was so much fun to listen to you and to watch you act, sing and dance. 
Many thanks also to Mr Lopez and the Primary teachers for preparing the students and getting them ready to perform on stage.
M.A.D. Nights 2018
Choose your dentist well and seek your wife’s advice when you discover you have an axe in your head….Grade 10’s performance of individual scenes was spectacular and highly entertaining.
The M.A.D. Nights 2018 were a huge success – many thanks to students of Grade 6-10 for their performances and their Art Work. We are very proud of you!
Grade 6 students performed “The Snow Queen” on the first evening and although it was a hot summer evening the audience felt the chill when the Queen’s anger was rising.
Art work from Grade 7 and 9 was on display outside the MPR. It was a fantastic experience to walk through the open air exhibition. Angry pigeons watching over their bread, wire structures, reflective portraits, flowers, colours – the range of topics and techniques was very interesting.
Grade 8 students performed “13.5 reasons why it sucks to be a teenager “. They had written the script themselves and demonstrated a fantastic sense of humour with their ideas.
At the end of the second M.A.D. Night students thanked their Art teachers for their support and sang & said their goodbyes to Mrs. Mottram who is moving back to Great Britain.
Thank you to all MYP students, to Mrs Bhattacharya and Mrs. Mottram and to the Grade 11 students who supported the performances working the lights and sounds.
text & photos: AS
Klangforscher Projekt 2018
"Ein Chaotisch Harmonischer Morgen" Wins Prize
Congratulations to Giulio, Ishikaa, Leoni, Mercy, Michael, Nahila, Pascal and Tyra-Ashley. The students took part in the Klang.Forscher! project organised by “Stiftung Zuhören” and won a prize in the category “Music” for their Sound Composition “Ein Chaotisch Harmonischer Morgen“. 
After planning their composition and working on it with the help of a media coach in May, the students travelled to Munich for one day this week to take part in the celebration ceremony at the Bavarian 
Radiostation (Bayrischer Rundfunk).
10 Schools from all over Germany took part in the competition “Klang.Forscher!”. The students created a sound composition about the topic “Audioselfie”. A very challenging task: imagine having to do a self-portrait using only sounds!
A media coach visited H.I.S. for 3 days to support the students who decided to record the way to school of two very different students, both heading for H.I.S.
If you listen closely you will hear that one of the students is relaxed, enjoys the walk to school and takes her time, whereas the other student is running late, takes the tram and is not a morning person at all. Both students experience a typical morning, meet at school and enter the classroom. The sound composition ends with the teacher greeting one of the students… who do think this teacher is…? Listen and find out!
Ein Chaotisch Harmonischer Morgen
The students presented their composition to the students of all participating schools and were interviewed by a representative of the Bavarian Radio Station.
This is what the Jury says about the sound composition “Ein Chaotisch Harmonischer Morgen”:
Follow the link below to find out more about the competition and photos of our Klangforscher Team.
http://www.klang-forscher.de/wettbewerb
text & photos: AS
Schultüten And Some Happy Faces!
EP2 students receive "Schultüten" from Grade 4 AGP German students
In German class the AGP students have been learning about “Rites of Passage”. A traditional rite of passage in Germany is handing out a “Schultüte” for children that are in the last of year of kindergarten.
These children are old enough now to start their first year in school. Since this is a big change in their lives, there is a German tradition that should help them with starting school. This tradition started over 100 years ago. At the beginning the children were told that there was a magic tree that grows “Schultüten”.
Inside those bags were sweets, school materials or Brezels. Grade 4 decided to carry on with this tradition. They prepared “Schultüten” and packed them with sweets, toys and other things. Then this Friday during assembly the Gr. 4 AGP students had a little “Schultüten” ceremony where they explained the tradition behind it and gave out one Schultüten per EP 2 child.
EP 2 seemed excited and wanted to know when they can open them. There was no decision made, however the suggestions were to either wait until the first day in Grade 1 or the last day in EP 2.
“This is great tradition. It makes EP 2 students excited to start Grade 1! We recommend to Grade 4 next year to continue this tradition!”, said Jesús and Pablo.
Written by: Jesús and Pablo (in behalf of -Grade 4 AGP group)