The Triannual Newsletter
Mission Statement - To provide stimulating, engaging academics integrated with enhanced opportunities for Technological Innovation, Sports and the Arts.
Volume 11, Issue 3, May, 2022
- Head of School Message
- Perspectives from the Primary School
- Perspectives from the Secondary School
- Boarding Focus
Welcome to our third Triannual Newsletter for the academic year 2021 - 22. This edition will look at how the Arts is integrated within the academic curriculum throughout the PYP, MYP, and DP programmes.
Through the Arts, Stonehill aims to help students creatively grow and develop while helping them become knowledgeable, caring, confident and responsible global citizens.
The creative arts are integral to learning at Stonehill and they offer a wide range of opportunities to ensure students are stimulated to think and articulate creatively.
Furthermore, our facilities have been designed to support our mission. The Arts Centre is significant to the ethos of our School’s mission of providing stimulating, engaging academics integrated with enhanced opportunities for technological innovation, sports and the arts. It is aesthetically designed and features a black box drama studio, purpose built music rooms and art studios.
I hope you will enjoy this edition.
Dr. Brian Brumsickle
Head of School
The last time I wrote about the Arts in the Triannual newsletter, we were waiting on the completion of our Arts Centre.
That same centre recently hosted the PYPX (The culminating inquiry for students completing the PYP).
The beautiful blue, grey and orange decor showcased learning whilst excited students elaborated on their journey of understanding.
The programmes have alignment, teachers are collaborating and there is a sense of camaraderie within.
Whilst the Arts in the PYP are considered core subjects, they are not taught traditionally like other programmes. Inquiry is the mode of instruction and connecting to the homeroom unit of inquiry is a major focus called transdisciplinarity.
The students are given opportunities to utilise the Design Cycle within their process of constructing meaning through the Arts. That does not mean that stand-alone units are not taught in order to meet the musical, dramatic and physical needs of our students.
The teachers utilise this learning to map student progress utilising SOLO taxonomy and our management app, Toddle.
As a school, Stonehill represents learning in and outside of the classroom with performances and exhibitions for our community. The Arts building is humming and our students are thriving.
Primary School Principal
The Arts are integral to the Primary Years Programme (PYP) at Stonehill. They are a powerful mode of communication through which our learners explore and construct a sense of self and develop an understanding of the world around them. The Arts provide our learners with a wide range of opportunities to respond to their experiences and engage with historical, social and cultural perspectives. Our PYP learners are stimulated to think and articulate their thoughts in new ways through a variety of media and technologies.
Learning about and through the Arts is fundamental to the development of the whole self, promoting creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving skills and social interactions.
In the PYP at Stonehill, the Arts are identified as Visual Arts and Performing Arts, including dance, drama and music. Each of these arts are a significant discipline in their own right, but the transdisciplinary nature of the arts gives them relevance throughout the curriculum. They provide a unique vehicle to enhance the understanding of the transdisciplinary themes by providing the learners with a range of mediums with which to access the units of inquiry. The Arts support the acquisition of essential knowledge and skills, the development of conceptual understanding and the demonstration of the IB Learner Profile attributes.
Stonehill’s programme of inquiry provides a relevant and authentic context for learners to create and respond to the Arts. Wherever possible, the Arts are taught through the units of inquiry to support students’ inquiries. Our learners are guided to make explicit connections between different aspects of their learning and identify and reflect on “big ideas” within the arts strands, the programme of inquiry, and other subjects.
The Arts engage learners in a creative process through which they explore and experiment in a continual process of action and reflection. From an early age, our learners have the opportunity to develop genuine interests, to give careful consideration to their learning and to become self-critical and reflective. Reflecting on and evaluating their own learning and the learning of others is vital, and empowers them to take intellectual risks. Exposure to and experience with the Arts opens doors to questions about life and learning. The process of making and appreciating the Arts is gratifying and encourages learners to continue creating throughout their lives.
The Integration of Arts in the Homeroom
Our learners have been exploring the Arts in a myriad of ways. This includes dance, drama, music, literature, storytelling, film, craft, design, digital arts, media and photography.
While inquiring into our year-long unit of inquiry, ‘How We Express Ourselves’, our learners have explored the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity. An internationally minded learner thinks and reflects critically about opportunities and challenges. The Arts offers our learners opportunities to express themselves by ‘reaching out’ and ‘reaching in’. ‘Reaching out’ to consider how we interact with others and ‘reaching in’ to understand ourselves in relation to others. The integration of the Arts offers opportunities to construct meaning, make connections and demonstrate understanding.
During the Primary Litfest Week, our learners presented their stories through drama, songs, dance, storytelling and design by being actively involved in the learning community and showing commitment to contributing as individuals and members of a group. Through the Arts, they identified and addressed challenges and opportunities in innovative, resourceful and sustainable ways.
Our learners investigated how living things adapt to meet their needs within different environments. They got an opportunity to explore media and photography.
P3 Homeroom Teacher
I was showing P6 how to make clay pots, using the slightly laborious technique of cross-hatching muddy strips with water in order to build slightly wonky (not necessarily a bad thing, artistically) pots. Our helper, Mr Anand was with us, taking down a display and helping as needed. As our creations gradually rise from the ooze, I catch a glimpse of the pottery wheel in the corner and mentally kick myself for not realising that a perfect opportunity exists to show the class that artists aren’t always the stereotype of the moody recluse or flamboyant extrovert and that being an artisan like Anand, exceptionally good at one thing, is often a greater achievement than being sort-of-good at a few things.
Picasso is said to have created 45,000 pieces of work - an impressive tally - but if a master's legacy depends on the total number of works, then Anand has probably already overtaken Uncle Pablo and left him in the dust. It makes me wonder how many other master artisans there are like Anand, each one an opportunity to integrate the Arts and provide a valuable grassroots perspective on their craft. Certainly more valuable than wonky pots, anyway.
Five minutes later, Anand is seated at the wheel, wonky pots set aside and the class sits, as transfixed as I, watching him masterfully shape and form spinning bowls of near-perfect symmetry from a lump of clay.
There are gasps of wonder usually only reserved for Gandalf-types and heartfelt applause worthy of Pavarotti. He deftly separates the finished bowls and places them into one of the many outstretched hands, eager to take possession of his creations.
They cradle them like bird’s nests as they carry them to a rapidly growing collection of bowls, vases and cups.
The queue that forms when Anand offers to help each learner have a turn on the wheel reminds me of die-hard fans queuing for tickets to rock concerts.
Nervous excitement turns to intense concentration as small hands pull a bowl from the spinning clay. The slightly dazed wonder that follows, as they step away with the result, is priceless.
Picasso is said to have created 45,000 pieces of work - an impressive tally - but if a master's legacy depends on the total number of works, then Anand has probably already overtaken Uncle Pablo and left him in the dust.
It makes me wonder how many other master artisans there are like Anand, each one an opportunity to integrate the Arts and provide a valuable grassroots perspective on their craft. Certainly more valuable than wonky pots, anyway.
Visual Arts Teacher
The Extended Music Programme (EMP) offers personalised assistance to students who want to specialise in learning instruments or vocals. The Arts Centre is where all the action happens. In the seemingly quiet rooms on the ground floor, the students are being trained in different instruments and vocals. When you take a walk into the centre, don’t be surprised if you hear a P4 student playing the guitar and singing ‘Keep On Rockin’ in The Free World’. You might hear a DP student singing a beautiful rendition of an Adele song, maybe another student passionately drumming ‘We Will Rock You’ or a soulful rendition of Beethoven on the violin. All the rooms are purposefully built but no sound proofed room can contain the exuberance of the students.
The enthusiasm of the students to learn music was evident once the school resumed learning on campus in November 2021. The students flocked to the Arts Centre to sign up for lessons. With the number of students going up by over 400%, there are currently one hundred and thirty-five students across the school, learning various musical instruments, proving that music is an integral part of their lives when combined with academics and sports. The increase in new student sign-ups has also proven that offline learning is the need of the hour. The slots are currently full and there are some students on the waiting list too.
To smoothen the transition from online learning and to introduce the programme to newcomers, the teachers from the EMP had short performances in the classrooms. They also collaborated with the homeroom teachers to help students understand certain concepts through music. The music teachers also performed during break times to a small but very enthusiastic set of frequent visitors who’d enjoy these performances, proving that the Arts creates a sense of belonging.
Gamification was introduced in classrooms to make learning more fun. Piano grand prix being one of the games, where the students were asked to find a specific note on the piano as soon as the note was called out.
The After School Activities had a lot of signups from across the school, in the form of student choirs and rock bands. The student choir also had the opportunity to learn about recording vocals and a brief introduction to music production. Hannah (M1) and Malina (D1) participated in Xanadu ‘21, the Bangalore International School Inter School Performing Arts Fest. It was a proud moment to watch our students take complete responsibility to practise and perform for this fest.
When asked about how the lessons made them feel, the students mentioned that learning music is a lot of fun, relaxing and has given them better focus.
The EMP is also working with the Boarding community to make the programme more accessible to the boarders after school hours. We hope to continue inspiring and motivating the young learners to hone their skills on the instruments and see them perform on the big stage someday!
The Extended Music Team
One of the main characteristics that distinguishes the Stonehill Secondary School from other international schools in Bangalore is our meaningful integration of the Arts into our academic programme for all students. Very often, when I look at report cards from students who have been at other schools, I see the ‘core’ subjects of English, Maths, Science and Humanities listed at the top with important grades attached, and then subjects like the Arts and Physical Education tagged on at the bottom as though they are an inconvenient afterthought.
The IB curriculum model for the MYP treats the ‘Arts’ as a subject group equivalent in value to all others. In order to adhere to this philosophical approach, we ensure that all the students from M1-M3 receive as many hours of instruction in the Arts as any other subject. The M1-M3 students rotate through trimesters of Visual Art, Drama and Music in each year so that they are exposed to as wide a range of artistic endeavours as possible. When a student reaches M4, they are encouraged to select one or two of these arts to continue studying it for the next two years, culminating in their ePortfolio as part of their MYP Certificate. Ultimately, the aim is to get as many students as possible to select either Drama or Visual Art in the DP.
The MYP Arts courses are designed to take students through a cycle of objectives and assessment criteria in a holistic approach to the subject. The students begin by (a) developing their understanding of a particular art form. This is followed by (b) opportunities to develop skills, (c) a requirement to ‘think creatively’, and then (d) produce a personal response to a particular work of art. This approach ensures that it’s not enough to simply be a talented artist, and it doesn’t exclude students who struggle with the practical side of a particular art form. The holistic approach allows more students to engage with the subject and to appreciate the Arts as an important aspect of their learning in general.
I am also sure that there are many parents in our community who have talents and experience in a variety of arts. It would be great next year to run workshops with visiting parents to help inspire our students to make art an integral part of their lives.
Secondary School Principal
Performance and Exhibition of the Arts in the Secondary School
The Stonehill Arts programme nurtures our students to be knowledgeable, caring, confident and responsible global citizens.
The Arts develops subject specific skills and cultivates empathy, vulnerability, bravery and self-sufficiency through performance and exhibition opportunities.
Whilst reflecting on this aspect of our Arts programme, a quote from American photographer Seph Lawless comes to mind, “Art is not complete until it is shared”
Although art can certainly be made for one's personal enjoyment, at Stonehill we encourage students to share their artwork with the community. Not only does art appreciation allow our students to consider their peers' perspectives, but it also allows them to share their own understandings of the world around them through an artistic medium. In the words of Henry Matisse, “creativity takes courage”. Our students are regularly asked to be brave and take up opportunities to present their creative expressions to our Stonehill family.
We are looking forward to a MYP and DP production next year as well as many more music concerts, art exhibits and talent shows. We love the Arts at Stonehill and have the drive to ensure our Tigers develop their voices with bravery through creativity.
Claire Cotton, HOD Arts and MYP Drama Teacher
Theatre in the Diploma Programme
The IB Diploma Theatre course is an academically rigorous programme that requires extensive research, critical and creative thinking as well as excellent collaborative skills. The experience and skills acquired during the programme truly align with the IB Approaches to Learning and are transferable, not only to other subject disciplines, but key life skills that will benefit students in their chosen career path.
The students chose French Farce, Victorian melodrama, Kabuki, Noh theatre and Korean Talchum Mask Dance. Extensive research into the history and context of these traditions were presented, along with a performance of an element of these theatre traditions.
The students chose from a variety of influential theatre practitioners such as Brecht, Laban, Grotowski and Meisner.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic performances was a reworking of a Juliet speech from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Grotowski was interested in performers experimenting with voice, language and raw emotions.
Liv Kärreby’s performance helped the audience gain a greater understanding of Shakespeare’s language and meaning.
In Theory of Knowledge (ToK), the Arts as an area of knowledge is studied in order to gain a perspective and critical understanding of the importance of artistic expression. Societies, cultures and individuals are highly influenced by the Arts, whether they be visual, literary or performance based. They bring humanity together and connect us emotionally and creatively. They help us gain a better understanding of perspectives and contexts, and bridge the gaps between individuals of different nationalities and cultures. At Stonehill, we consider the Arts to be an important part of our students’ education.
Jennifer Browne, Head of Language and Literature and IB Drama
In order to align with Stonehill’s vision and mission, there has been a ceaseless effort to create a learning environment with enhanced opportunities in the Arts by the boarding community.
The House Parents have played a crucial role in retaining the spirit of our learners during online learning by teaching them different art forms.
At the Boarding House, there has been an increased participation in extracurricular activities, particularly in Arts and Music. Glenda, a fantastic macramé artist, kept a lot of students engaged by teaching them the art of knotting techniques by using strings to create decorative pieces of art. This intricate art form is a great way to develop focus and a huge stress buster while bringing out the creative side of our students. Melanie, a trained singer, helped the students learn carols, and the choir put up a stellar performance during the annual Christmas dinner.