Dear ISB Families & Friends,

First of all, we wish you all the best in 2023; a lot of happiness, fun and satisfaction in both your professional and personal lives.

The staff at ISB truly hopes that 2023 will be a year of peace, respect, hard work and fun for the entire world.

At this point in the new year, we would like to share with you an important update about our school’s development:

ISB has decided to become an IB World Continuum school. This means that in addition to offering the Primary Years and Diploma Programmes, we will deliver the Middle Years Programme (MYP) to our students in Years 7 through 11. As a school, we feel that the IB teaching and learning framework is most in line with modern educational trends and research. It best prepares students to navigate the ever-changing modern world as strong individuals who are connected to people, places and ideas.

Thank you for your ongoing support and cooperation.
Jan Švihálek - Head of School

Our Early Years students learned about traditional Czech Christmas activities that included making little boats out of walnut shells and placing small burning candles into them to find out what the next year will bring. They also prepared Christmas butter cookies for their Christmas class party. Students combined their knowledge of patterns and shapes, all while making delicious cookies.

A child builds their reading skills by learning how to identify CVC words (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant). These little learners worked together as a team to build the three letter words that they have been working on. From the look of determination and accomplishment on their faces, they were able to successfully identify all of the CVC words.

The Primary division took action this holiday season by helping make a child in the Czech Republic smile on Christmas day. Each year level was responsible for gathering small gifts for a child in a specific age category to place in a shoe box. Some of the gifts included were: markers, puzzles, paint, notebooks, candies, toys plus so much more. Our primary students also created handmade cards to wish the children a Merry Christmas!

Year 6 students completed their business unit with a successful class business project ‘Candy Royalty’. They organized the sale of Holiday Candy Grams for the whole school, which allowed students to buy and send little sweet treats to their friends and teachers. The Year 6 business made a little over 3500 Kč that they will donate to a local charity in Brno. 

It’s always an adventure looking into a microscope. There’s something very special about looking at a real cell. It makes the textbook diagram really come alive. The Year 7s have been learning how to use the microscopes so they can investigate all that’s very small.

The ISB Black Goats continue to entertain audiences. They recently put on a great show at the annual Christmas concert, playing some old classics from Radiohead and the Cranberries. We are extremely proud of their hard work, dedication and the team spirit that they bring to their music. For them, it is a very valuable learning experience as they get to explore leadership and group dynamics in addition to their musical development.

One of the central ideas of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is that constant, mindless distractions prevent people from developing authentic relationships and suppress deep thought. 

As part of our unit on Social Media, ISB students did a little social experiment. While they were working at their desks, they had to quietly move to the board and make a tally mark each time they got a notification on their phone. The grand total in 30 minutes was 97 notifications. That’s 97 interruptions to learning caused by mobile phones. 
Hmmm...

The lab is where theory meets the real world, where we use our senses to observe how things work. We can also learn about how these senses work. Year 11s were recently checking the coordination and response between the nervous system and sense organs by performing some cranial nerve tests.

12. 01 - Primary and Early Years Coffee Hour with Ms. Berry
17 - 21. 01 - Ski & Snowboard Trip