Weekly School Updates

Dear Waterview Community:

Another week has flown by with plenty of fun, challenging events for Math Week/La emaine des Maths, and many other activities to keep your children learning and growing as global citizens and leaders, exercising their academic ambition.

Math Week/La Semaine des mathématiques - March 13-17

Our students attended two different assemblies led by Mr. Reese, our IB Coordinator and math teacher, and learned all about pi - its history and the philosophy behind it. They were asked to think about whether a perfect circle really exists and were challenged to see how many decimal places of pi they can remember by May 15! 

Students from Mu Alpha Theta, the Math Honor Society, transformed the Dance Room into an Escape Room, and the students from 5th to 12th grade worked hard to solve all the riddles in order to escape. 

All week, everyone had fun with Math à la carte !  5th to 7th grade students participated in Le Kangourou des mathématiques, which is a global French math contest with more than six million students in 77 countries participating. Also, 5th to 10th graders competed against other schools in North America (AEFE) in a mental calculation competition. We hope some students will make it to the 2nd round soon. 

Our 6th graders are in the process of creating a map of the world by assembling sets of triangles, showing their skills in geometry. 12th FB “Maths expertes” students worked on the Four Color Theorem in Graph Theory, and will display their work on the 3rd floor.

Combining skills in Math and French, our 6th graders are also competing with North America (AEFE) schools in the Défis photo-mathons ​2023 contest. We will send a link to the website featuring the best solutions at a later date. 

Last but not least, a group of eight 11th FB students worked hard for four hours yesterday - one part individually, the other in pairs of mixed genders - to solve challenging questions during the Olympiades de mathématiques. This competition encourages a different approach to mathematical problems and emphasizes the link between mathematics and other sciences.

So as you can see, there were many different mathematics-related activities happening all week here on our campus, making sure our budding mathematicians practiced their skills.

Science Department News

Last Saturday, two of our 12FB students, Nicolas Hernández and Triya Shah, participated in the Olympiades nationales de la chimie. For three hours, they worked on benzoic acid, an organic compound used as a preservative in cosmetics. This test evaluates many skills since the students must carry out the experimental synthesis of the compound. They had to write a laboratory report to answer many questions. They also had an oral presentation to communicate their results. This constituted the second phase of the Olympiades since they had already taken a written exam a few weeks earlier. Many thanks to Barbara and Gilles Burtz who spent hours in the lab preparing for this competition.

Also in Science, a group of 10FB students - Anna Der Sakissian, Camille Dubost, Maya Mbiene and Emilie Pine - participated in a Hackathon Challenge: Water4Future. They were selected by the University of Montpellier for their innovative concept, “SkyWater.” For three days they benefited from professional coaching online by a group of entrepreneurs. They created an innovative way to bring water to countries where it is needed with the help of a “cloudcatcher” made of recycled plastics. This cloudcatcher not only filters water, but moves it directly into tanks for people to access. Their goal was to use no energy and to make it eco-friendly. Congratulations to these students for this impactful initiative and to Mme Delleniaux and the other teachers who came to encourage them!

MLF Training - March 14/15

One of our MLF Pedagogical Advisors, Marjorie Decriem, came to Waterview for the second session of training with our Cycle Three (4th-6th grade) teachers. The focus was on “Translanguaging in the Multilingual Classroom,” and our teachers worked on ways to enhance students’ ability to make connections between different languages, transferring skills in the process. This was enriching for our teachers, who came away with practical insights and inspiration.  

Waterview Parent Representatives Meeting - Wednesday

A big thank you to our two School Council parent representatives, Amaranta Rivas and María Vargas, for giving so generously of their time on Wednesday afternoon. It is always a pleasure to have a chance to hear directly from parents and we thank you all for your feedback. The next School Council meeting will be held on March 22. 

11th Grade College Essay Workshop - Thursday

Sophia Peña, our Director of College Counseling, spent some quality time with our 11th graders this week, guiding them through the process of writing a great college essay in order to show admissions committees who they really are. These essays are a crucial part of the application process, so we are grateful that our students receive all the guidance they need. 

Academic Ambition Committee Meeting - Thursday

On Thursday afternoon, our Academic Ambition Committee met to discuss important aspects of our programs here at DIS. We’re rolling out our new Teachers’ Reflection and Growth Plan, and taking a close look at the newly written guidelines for our assemblies and cafés-philo, and class trips and exchanges. Next week’s Semaine de la francophonie requires a lot of planning, so that was on our agenda, and the UNICEF World Day for Cultural Diversity is something that we’re discussing, too. All are exciting, enriching opportunities for your children and our teachers. 

12th Grade Mid-Term Meetings - Friday

Our seniors in IB and FB are nearing the end of their educational journey here at DIS, and their third quarter meetings on Friday gave the team a chance to check in on their progress together. Exams are coming quickly and everyone is working hard.

St. Patrick’s Day - Friday

Green was the color of the day on Friday! It is the Year of Ireland after all, so our students and colleagues donned their green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. And we hope everyone has a wonderful evening at the Gala na Gaeilge tomorrow night. A lot of work and preparation has gone into this major event and we acknowledge all the countless hours of volunteering from our community to make this happen.

Enjoy your weekend, and we’ll be back next week to keep you updated on what’s going on here on the Waterview Campus.

Warm regards,

Patty