Writing the Next Chapter of Alice Smith for Student Agency: Reaffirming Our Purpose Part II

In this week's blog our Head of School Ms. Sian May shares some more about why she feels the new Purpose statementis important to our school's future.

Why purpose? 

"The world is changing"

"What is not debatable is that we are experiencing the rapid growth and influence of new technologies on all our communities offering new and creative solutions to existing challenges and..

Writing the Next Chapter of Alice Smith for Student Agency: Reaffirming Our Purpose Part I

Over the last few weeks our Head of School, Sian May, has been introducing the KLASS Community to our new school Purpose statement. In this week's blog Ms. May answers some of the questions we have about why we should have a purpose statement and what it means for the school going forwards. 

What do you think of Alice Smith’s history and standing in the region? 

"Alice Smith..

Inspiring Must-Read Books for Expatriates

As you know, moving abroad is both an exciting and daunting experience. 

It's exhilarating exploring a new place with your family, but it can also create quite a few questions in the mind of an expatriate. 

How can I help make the transition easier for our family? What is it like being a parent as well as an expatriate? How will living as an expatriate affect me and my..

Secondary Weekly Highlight: Restorative Approaches at EP

Learning is a multi-layered experience: through immersion in a learning environment, our own experiences and interactions we acquire knowledge and skills, which develop into competencies and dispositions. Some of this learning relates to specific ‘subject’ areas, some - arguably the most important - relates to our growth of self and how we understand and navigate the world. We..

How Service Learning Can Benefit Your Child

Some would argue that examination results are the most important outcome of a child’s schooling, giving them the best possible opportunity to get into university. In many ways this is true, but we believe that learning goes way beyond subjects and grades.

Service learning can be a great tool to provide a strong foundation for children’s development and life beyond school.

What's the Difference between Selective and Non-Selective Schools?

For many parents, selecting a school for their child can be a minefield – international or not? Academically-led, or vocational? Boarding or day school? One of these choices is selective versus non-selective schools. But what is the difference, and which one is better for your child? 

What is a selective school?

Selective schools are schools that offer their places based on a..

Eight Ways To Help Your Child Revise

Exam season can be stressful and nerve-wracking for children and for their parents. You might find yourself struggling to help your child through their exams, or feel like you could be doing more to help. Here are some tips on how you can better support your child through their exams and help them with their revision.

1. Give them a dedicated study space at home A dedicated..

Early Years: Alice & Smith - Benefits of Learning Music

Did you know that music is one of the few activities that uses both the logical and creative sides of the brain? Music has the ability to strengthen the connection between the body and brain to work together as a team.

Music and movement comes naturally to children of all ages. Even infants will bounce, sway, smile or wave their hands along to their favourite tunes. It is..

Early Years: Alice & Smith Develop Skills Through Juicing

Who doesn’t love a freshly squeezed glass of juice to cool down? This is a great activity to do with your child who will get so much more from it than a healthy refreshing juice.

When you get the fruit and juicer out, ask your child 'What do you think we are going to do?' and 'What could we do?'. This questioning will develop your child’s communication and language skills...

Early Years: Alice & Smith Early Years PE Lessons

The Physical Education (PE) department is passionate and dedicated to our provision for Early Years children and feel that your child’s experiences in their PE lessons build the foundations for happy, healthy and active lives. We deliver a programme which has been carefully considered for our Alice Smith students using Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS).

Your child will..

The Role of the Council of Governors 2022

Every strategic decision made by Council is guided by our vision for the Alice Smith School: To lead the pursuit of excellence in learning through nurturing, inspiring and enriching the lives and characters of young people. And, as a not-for-profit school, all our resources are focused on our students’ success and wellbeing. Our role as the Council of Governors is to function..

Early Years: Alice & Smith wash the windows!

Our students love playing with water and they like doing things that grown ups do too. So when our Reception Classes washed the windows it was tremendous fun!

They experimented with how hard they needed to squeeze..

Why should I pay for my child to play?

The play based approach is core to our Early Years philosophy here at Alice Smith. Our teachers provide support and challenge as our children learn through play. This creates a highly personalised and tailored environment, which is appropriately challenging for each individual child.

Our aim is to ensure high levels of emotional wellbeing and involvement. This is..

Early Years: Alice & Smith make their own perfume

Our students had a wonderful time making perfume and, although they didn’t realise it, they were working on their core skills for maths and literacy, developing their fine motor skills and using their imaginations at the same time! 

Like all good projects, let's start with an..

We ❤️Alice & Smith!

If you have been to the Primary School you have probably already met Alice and Smith - they are our friendly teddy bears who can often be found sat in Reception. They make regular appearances at our school assemblies and on our social media feeds. They are a fun loving pair who enjoy school and seeing what our children get up to every day! So we thought why not let them join..

🎼Young Musician of the Year 2022

Term 2 has seen the second year of our ‘Young Musician of the Year’ competition. Being back in school has created more excitement for the competition with an amazing 66 entries being submitted. The standard of performances were excellent and we were pleased to announce our winners at the end of term Commendation Assemblies.

There were two categories, Year 7-9 and Year 10-13..

The Theory of Happenstance

Have you heard of the Theory of Happenstance? Our Year 12's have been exploring the Career Decision Theory of Happenstance in their Higher Education lessons and have made some great videos to help us understand more about it.

What is the Theory of Happenstance?

This theory believes the biggest influences on a person's career choice is actually unpredictable social factors,..

Secondary Weekly Highlights: A Sustainable Future at EP 🌏💚

We are delighted to announce that we have recently been awarded the Eco-Schools Bronze Award, in partnership with WWF Malaysia. This is our first big step in our journey towards becoming a Green Flag School and is truly a testament to our students’ hard work, resilience and determination. In this week’s KLASS Blog, our Eco-Coordinator, Hannah Richardson, tells us more about..

AIMS Virtual Olympics

Competitive sport brings excitement, collaboration and connection, so come and join in!On Monday 13 September The AIMS Virtual Olympics was officially launched across over 40 Malaysian international schools and is a fantastic opportunity for our students to compete, connect and collaborate through physical activity whilst we are Distance Learning.The AIMS Sports Virtual..

AIMS Percussion Masterclass🎶

On Tuesday afternoon some of our talented percussion students were involved in an online Association of International Malaysian Schools (AIMS) Percussion Masterclass, taught by Joshua Vonderheide of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ahead of the workshop students were asked to prepare different rhythmic patterns so they were able to contribute to the workshop. Two of our..

What is careers guidance?

Over the last few years, there has been nothing short of a revolution taking place in the world of careers guidance. This change is mostly being driven by the phenomenon known as the 4th Industrial revolution, a process where technological developments and global developments, are introducing, eroding and changing the workplace at a rate simply unprecedented in previous..

KLASS Journal - A Student Led Webpage

In an age when you are bombarded with information and stimuli wherever you look, taught what you need to know and shown how you need to appear, it can be difficult to find a space where you can discover what you really believe. It doesn’t help that Generation Z is often stereotyped as “apathetic”, when really, it becomes increasingly difficult to speak your mind amidst..

KLASS MEDS: Applying to Medical School

During the MCO our KLASS MEDS team arranged on line sessions for our aspiring doctors and life scientists. Although we are now back on campus the team has continued to connect our would-be medical students with KLASS Alumni who are now studying to be Doctors.

Firstly we welcomed Hong Yau, a year 3 medical student at the University of Leicester, UK.

Hong Yau was able to give..

Webinar: Preparing students for a successful international future

The world is changing rapidly and many jobs of the 20th Century will not exist by 2025 and the remaining industries will see massive changes. Our students will have careers that we have not yet even thought of and even the traditional professions, such as medicine and engineering, will not look as they do today.

We were delighted to cohost a virtual roundtable event with our..

🎼Ivan and Soo Jeong are Our Young Musicians of the Year

This week we reached the exciting crescendo of our Young Musician of the Year Competition. Following a rigorous judging process by our guest judge, Mr Kevin Field, our Junior and Senior winners were announced at this week’s Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 and Sixth Form Commendation Ceremonies. Congratulations to our Junior winner, Ivan (Year8), whose performance of a piano piece..

Primary Weekly Highlight: Year 6 New Skill Presentations

To achieve success one must sometimes fail. To learn one has to often struggle. Failure and struggle can be discouraging for some but not for our Year 6 students. A major highlight this week has been the new skill presentations as part of the Year 6 Challenge Award. As part of this challenge, students must identify a new skill and attempt to develop it. The learning experience..

#BuildKindness: Product Showcase & Celebration Day

As we move into March, with all students back on our campuses and vaccination happening globally, there is cause for optimism and a recovery from the pandemic. The challenges of the pandemic has not prevented our community from supporting needy urban families in Kuala Lumpur through our giving.

Cross-Curricular Learning in Action: The Hook

For their new topic our Year 6's were treated to inspirational messages from two very special guests connected with their new cross-curricular unit - Professor Peter Frankopan and Joanna Lumley OBE FRGS.

In Key Stage 2 our Primary curriculum approach uses flexible, well planned cross-curricular units to encourage students to make sense of their learning by creating links..

🎼Young Musician of the Year

In Term 2, the EP community were looking forward to our annual ‘Celebration of Music’ concert. With school closure in response to the pandemic, we have had to think a little differently about this. In its place, the EP Music Department is running an online performance competition to find our ‘Young Musician of the Year.’ The competition is an opportunity to motivate our..

What is Futurescope?

Futurescope was born in the 2016/17 academic year. The brainchild of Jake Lynn, who at the time was Head of Media Studies at Alice Smith, Futurescope was initially a teaching and learning project wherein students from Years 10-13 volunteered to research, prepare and deliver a TED-style talk of around ten minutes on a topic of their choice.Although staff were available for..

The School Library in the age of Virtual Learning

In this week's blog our Head of Libraries, Rob George, looks at the how Alice Smith School library has responded to the challenges of the pandemic.

"Like all aspects of educational provision the school library has not been spared from significant challenges as Covid 19 forced a rapid transition to virtual learning. We pride ourselves on having an amazing library that..

Careers and Skills for the 21st Century

The world is changing rapidly and many jobs of the 20th Century will not exist by 2025 and the remaining industries will see massive changes according to a Gartner Report. New positions, that didn't exist at the turn of the century have taken over as the most lucrative jobs in the world. Such changes have direct impacts on the future jobs of graduates, no matter which industry..

KLASS MEDS: Do you want to be a Doctor?

During the MCO our KLASS MEDS team has been arranging on line sessions for our aspiring doctors and life scientists. During January they have heard from three great doctors who have talked passionately about their careers in medicine and particular specialties.

In the first week of term we welcomed Dr. Ryan Ponnudurai of Prince Court Hospital (PCH), who spoke to our KS4 and 5..

Year 2 learning during the MCO

Alice Smith wins at the ISAs!

UPDATE Jan 2021: We are delighted to have won the Inclusion category at the International School Awards 2021 with our initiative, 'KLASS Student-Support Programme: empowering students to lead on in-class support'. Congratulations to our Personalised Learning Faculty for the recognition of their great work!

November 2020

We're so honoured to announce that we have been..

What is a Virtual TeachMeet?

Even during these uncertain times and during online learning, our teachers are still continuing to collaborate and develop professionally. Ensuring they maintain the highest levels of professional practice to deliver the best learning and teaching experience for our students.

A TeachMeet is an informal gathering of teachers where we share good practice, innovation and..

New Chromebooks for our Year 5's

Our Year 5's are excited to receive their new Chromebooks this week! They are the first year group to benefit from the change as the Primary campus transitions to Chromebooks from iPads over the next two years. This change combines the very best features of a traditional laptop and an iPad into one device. Starting this term, the incoming Year 5 students have received ..

Our Teaching Assistants Graduate

Congratulations to our 23 Teaching Assistants at the Primary School who have successfully completed the COBIS Diploma for International Teaching Assistants (DITA) and to our Lead Teaching Assistant, Jennifer, who successfully completed the COBIS Diploma for International Lead Teaching Assistants (DILTA). 

In a wonderful, physically distanced, graduation event in the main hall..

Student Support Programme

The Student Support Programme (SSP) is a scheme that allows our older students to help other students in their academic studies and it has continued and developed even during virtual learning. The 'regular' scheme involves volunteers from Year 12 and 13 offering support to students in the lower year groups in a subject of their choice. These choices are then matched with..

No Exams But Lots Of Learning

Our Year 11 and 13 students, left without the traditional Summer Term exams, have been engaging with our enrichment and extension programmes and in doing so they have shown great resilience, independence and a real passion for learning in its truest sense.

Year 13

Our Year 13's have been following bespoke programmes chosen from over 30 in-school courses (including biomedical..

PE & Sport: How we're adapting our teaching during the MCO

Staff in the EP PE & Sport Department have been working hard to provide students with quality online learning during these difficult and challenging circumstances. We have created a series of videos and resources via our online portal, provided live lessons via google meet and developed further academic and enrichment learning opportunities for our older students. Read more..

Using Learning Technology to Enhance Assessment

In recent articles on virtual learning at EP we have introduced some of the technologies our teachers use to improve the learning experience for Alice Smith students. In this update our Lead Learning Coach, James Collinson shares some of the ways teachers are using technology and innovative teaching strategies specifically to improve the quality and impact of teacher-student..

What Makes Distance Learning in Primary School Excellent?

Primary school teachers at The Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur are learning new skills daily to provide the best distance learning programme possible for students in these challenging circumstances. 

While older students in Secondary school are enjoying a full virtual timetable, ensuring the outstanding learning and teaching continues for our younger students needs a..

Life of a Distance Learning Teacher in Kuala Lumpur

Alice Smith School faculty have been working hard to ensure we are providing our quality learning and teaching online. 

Innovating in our delivery methods to ensure learning continues for all our students. With the MCO extended into Term 3 it will be a little longer before we get back onto campus but learning will continue across the school.

Read on to see how distance..

More about VL @ KLASS

Our Les Misérables performance may be postponed but we'd still like to celebrate the student team behind it!

Update May 12th: The 'Les Misérables in Concert' team have been working hard to beat the challenge of the MCO and we're pleased to be able to bring you the first of several 'Virtual' performances the team have recorded. Enjoy 'At the End of the Day' here.

"For this week's blog post we had spoken to students Falk and Shuewen about what was to be our forthcoming student-led..

So what is a 'Wider Learning Day'?

Our Secondary campus holds Wider Learning Days (WLDs) three times a year and on these days, the timetable is collapsed and students participate in learning beyond the syllabus. This often takes the form of working in teams, learning about our place in the world or applying skills in an unusual aspect of life. Have a read below to find out more about our most recent WLD.

Year..

A Splendid residency!

We were delighted to welcome Kerry Frampton, Artistic Director of Splendid Productions, the award-winning UK theatre company, back to Alice Smith School to deliver a theatre-making residency to our KS4 and KS5 Drama students in the mid term break.

Splendid Productions are the UK’s foremost education theatre company. Led by Artistic Director, Kerry Frampton, they tour sell-out..

Women in STEAM

How many famous scientists can you name? Try it

Maybe your list includes Einstein, Hawking, Newton, Darwin, Fahrenheit, Boyle, Turing, Edison, Bohr, Tesla… but how many in your list were women?

Perhaps you named Ada Lovelace, Rosalind Franklin or Marie Curie? Well done if you did!

Fantastic results for our EPQ students

Results day is in August right? Mostly, but not for our Year 13 EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) students who have been patiently waiting for their grades since their presentations last June. It was worth the wait though - an amazing 10 students were awarded an A* and overall 82% of students achieved A*-B. Huge congratulations to all the students on their achievements.

The..