HEADMASTER MESSAGE

2/12/2010

SUPPORT LE JARDIN AND EARN SCHOLARSHIPS FOR OUR SENIORS

Each year, Shop for Higher Education, Foodland's annual scholarship program, awards (100) $2,000 scholarships to high school seniors across the state. Since the program's inception in 2006, a total of 427 scholarships have been awarded, totaling $854,000. In 2009, $222,000 in scholarships were awarded to 111 high school seniors from Oahu, Maui, Hawaii, Kauai, Molokai and Lanai.

During February and March each year, Maika`i members are invited to help support our college bound seniors by designating a participating school at any Foodland or Sack N Save store statewide. By designating your Maika`i points to your favorite high school, you'll help them earn more points towards receiving scholarships while continuing to earn rewards for yourself. The more points a school earns, the more scholarships it will receive.

Last year, this program awarded a total of 111 scholarships . The point in mentioning this is that while it’s not guaranteed, there may be more than 100 scholarships awarded. So smaller schools are encouraged to give it their best effort. Also, both Molokai and Lanai High Schools have each earned scholarships for the past several years …. neither school has a Foodland on their island!!

School Code
The school code for Le Jardin Academy School is 7605.

Program will run for 6 weeks from February 10, 2010 through March 23, 2010.

• Maika`i Members must designate their favorite high school at checkout by using the school code(s).
• Maika`i Members earn Maika`i Points for themselves and their designated school(s) during the 6 weeks of the program.
• The more Maika`i Points a school earns, the more scholarships it will receive.

Awards

• (100) $2,000 scholarships will be awarded.
• Scholarships will be awarded based on a ranking system. We will rank schools based on the number of Maika`i Points earned in the program.
• Schools will be required to earn a minimum of 20,000 Maika`i Points to be eligible for the ranking.
• Ranking system:
  Top (5) schools will receive (5) $2,000 scholarships each.
  Next (10) schools will receive (3) $2,000 scholarships each.
  Next (10) schools will receive (2) $2,000 scholarships each.
  Next (25) schools will receive (1) $2,000 scholarship each.

Headmaster's Message

February 10, 2010

IB STUDENTS SOUGHT BY COLLEGES

Last night, we were privileged to have a presentation by Michele Sandlin, Director of Admission at Oregon State University. She began by letting us know that the IB was the fastest growing program in the USA and that Korea was in the process of making the IB their national program. Le Jardin Academy, she said, had made the right decision at just the right time to allow its students to benefit from this internationally acclaimed program. This program would place LJA in a completely different category when its students were being considered for admission by colleges, by raising to new heights the credibility of our students’ ability to perform at college. During her presentation, she stressed the high regard that colleges and universities have for the students who have taken the IB program. She pointed out that while SAT scores and GPAs (because of its grade inflation) were terribly weak predictors of success in colleges, whereas examining the level of challenge of a student’s course load in grade 11 and 12 was a good indicator. With this in mind, students who had taken the IB were highly sought after by US colleges. Colleges tried to entice these students to their campuses by giving genuine college credit (up to sophomore status with associated savings in tuition), awarding IB specific scholarships (just having an IB diploma without applying automatically resulted in you getting a 3000 dollar scholarship every year in Oregon), allotting housing preferences, giving course sign-up privileges and even allocating free on-campus parking. She indicated that the concerns that parents had about the recognition of the grading system for IB were unfounded, for all colleges were familiar with the IB grading system. She spoke eloquently about the importance of ensuring, as a parent, not just that their student was accepted by a college but also that they were able to be successful at the college and would complete the course. IB students had the best record in completing college. She said that IB students at Oregon, who had completed just one or two parts of the IB Diploma, had GPAs upon graduating of 3.07, while students with the full diploma had GPAs of 3.67. These scores were significantly better than the average for all other students, which was 2.85. Next year, there will be a special list being created where the names of all students involved in the IB can be located by colleges that wish to find these students. She said Le Jardin Academy can start to look forward to a long line of college recruiters trying to get our students to join their colleges in the years to come.

January 19, 2010

This was a very special day for Le Jardin Academy.

Le Jardin Academy joined 2,815 schools in 138 countries as an IB world school. Our students will be graduating in future not only as LJA alumni by with 60,000 other students from the International Baccalaureate Programmes all around the world.

In the latest poll of the top one hundred high schools in the nation, 39 of them were IB schools. This is more impressive, when one remembers that IB high schools make up less than 2 percent of all high schools in the nation.

In 2011/12, we will complete the third phase of our effort by becoming a PK through Grade 12 IB World School. This will make Le Jardin Academy one of only 8 schools in the nation to have the full program.

So today, we celebrated the completion of phases 1 and 2 of Le Jardin Academy’s vision for providing an educational program for our students to prepare them for college and work in the 21st century.

In our 2000 strategic plan for the school, the Administration and the Trustees took not only the bold decision to create a High School for Le Jardin Academy, but also to become a World School and a member of the International Baccalaureate Programme.

At that time, the importance and potency of this program for preparing students for success in the college and the world of work was not nearly as well appreciated. It speaks volumes to the Trustees’ commitment and vision that they were willing to take this challenge on.

Since that decision, the Trustees have committed to developing this campus using well in excess of 35 million dollars to build a facility worth of delivering this high quality program to the students on the Windward side of the island.

But perhaps even more impressive, was their willingness to fund over 6,000 hours of professional development for the school’s faculty to prepare them to use the best current educational practices for the delivery of the program. They did this by infusing the school’s professional development budget with an additional 600,000 dollars over the past 2 ½ years for that purpose.

I want to go on record as say how proud I am of the faculty for embracing the challenge of change which this program brought. They have given up many hours of their time beyond the regular work day to prepare themselves to deliver effectively this program. Change is always a challenge and hard work and they have shown that they have the desire to make Le Jardin an educational leader in this state.

What are some of the things about the International Baccalaureate Program that have resulted in it being recognized around the world as a leader in educating students?

The I.B. is a program that understands the importance of learning readiness. It understands that asking questions about what you want to know prepares the brain to receive information which makes recalling what you learned easier. For this purpose, the program begins all units through developing a list of student questions.

It recognizes the need to integrate student learning by linking what is being learned and providing a unified learning experience for the students’ day.

It recognizes the need to learn to work in groups effectively. Very few jobs are done in isolation and being an effective team worker is a critical skill for success at work. Yes, EQ is as important as IQ.

It emphasizes the need to spend time reflecting upon what you have done to see if you could do it better. In the past, this has been a much under valued skill in schools.

It requires students not only to learn but to put into practice in their lives what they have learned.

It prepares students to be open-minded, tolerate and caring world citizens as a result of its global perspective and commitment to learning a foreign language.

This process has not only applied to our students but has become a part of our faculty culture too.

We have been fortunate as a private school to have had the freedom to be able to fully implement the IB program and link its curriculum with national standards and international standards.

Dear Parents and Students,

First let me wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year. We are returning after the winter vacation at the start of 2010, with a new and exciting phase in the development of Le Jardin Academy. The first decade of this millennium was all about expansion and improvement of the school’s enrollment and facilities. The arrival of the long awaited High School and the addition of several new important buildings, in particular the gymnasium, has provided the school with a strong base upon which to build its reputation. These facilities, along with our uniquely beautiful campus, have created a physical environment for our students that are beyond comparison. We regularly have visitors to the school who are absolutely amazed by what they find at our school’s campus.

The next decade is about establishing our school’s academic credentials. In the past, Le Jardin has always had a solid academic program and this has been borne out by the number of our students who not only gain entry to the top downtown schools, but then go on to excel in them. However, things are about to change with the arrival of the International Baccalaureate Programmes (PYP and MYP) here at LJA.

Our commitment to these top drawer educational programs mean that we are about to enter a phase where the education offered by little nurturing Le Jardin Academy is going to be recognized as being superior to those of our major competitors. We are offering programs that are specifically designed to take advantage of the best current educational practices, are designed to meet the needs of students that are going to successfully take their places in the 21^st century and which are proven to be the most effective in motivating students to take charge of their own learning.

Le Jardin Academy is offering an experience that not only recognizes the importance of having a global perspective, but is actually a part of a global educational community of World Schools. IB World Schools are located in over 135 different countries around the globe and have real strategies to ensure a successful, positive outcome for students. The arrival of the International Baccalaureate Programme gives LJA an opportunity to grade itself not just in terms of its own standards as the current HAIS accreditation system permits, but to compare itself to several thousand of the top schools around the world. Parents who have wondered if the school can really stand up to comparison with the other top schools in the state will be able to see that Le Jardin Academy truly is a competitor in the Hawaiian private schools market. What will the program offer our graduates? It will mean that when students graduate, they will be that much more competitive into colleges worldwide.

All recent research has shown that your student’s chances of gaining entry into almost any US college are greater if they have successfully completed an education in an International Baccalaureate school. Additionally, your student’s chances of graduating successfully from that college are also greater. Lastly, every year 55,000 students in the IB family will be graduating with your student from all over the world. Your child becomes not only an alumnus of Le Jardin Academy, but also an alumnus of all the IB World Schools with a strong network of fellow graduates on this island and worldwide. Le Jardin Academy students will be amongst the graduates of the IB schools who have successfully become presidents, business leaders, musicians and the movers and shakers of the global community and nations around the world.

Adrian Allan

Headmaster

To learn more about the IB Programme, log on to: www.IBO.org

A Note from the Headmaster

Friday, November 20, 2009

Dear Parents,

This is a quick note to let you know that Le Jardin Academy will be holding two gala type events this year. The school has elected to have an event run by the PFA which is specifically targeted at you, the parents and friends of Le Jardin Academy.

This party, “Moonlight in the Garden,” will be more casual than previous soiree events and held at the lovely Pacific Club on February 20, 2010. The cost will include drinks, food and dancing, but this event will not be a formal sit-down dinner. Tickets will be $75, which is half the price of last year’s event. There will be live music followed by a DJ. It will be an opportunity for Le Jardin parents to enjoy a relaxed, fun evening together.

“Moonlight in the Garden” will have both a live and silent auction. The proceeds will go to the school through the PFA. If you would like to volunteer to help the PFA with this event, please contact PFA President Heather Shank at hallenshank@yahoo.com.

There will be a second event, to be held on May 8, 2010, targeted more at the corporate world. It will be sponsored in majority by the sale of tables. Its aim is to involve more people who are not necessarily directly connected to Le Jardin Academy in supporting the school. The event will be organized by the school’s Development Office and Trustees. Funds raised by this event will go directly to the school. It is intended that this event will have a few high-end auction items, rather than a wide range of items.

It is hoped that through this new strategy, the school will be able to raise more funds for its programs, scholarships and buildings, and in this way, benefit even more of our students.

Sincerely,

Adrian Allan

Headmaster

WHY THE INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE IS RIGHT FOR THE CHILDREN OF HAWAII

There have been several articles recently about schools, such as Le Jardin Academy, that are intending to adopt the International Baccalaureate Programme (I.B.). There must be many of you, who are still unfamiliar with this program and are perhaps wondering what all the fuss is about. Why are there several schools both in the private sector and the public sector on our island willing to invest considerable funds to retrain their teachers to deliver this new program?

The first misconception is that the program is a new one. The International Baccalaureate Programme (I.B.) has been in existence for over 50 years. It was started initially with the intention of providing ex-patriot students from many nations with a high school diploma that would be qualify them for entry into universities and colleges in their home countries. The rigor of the program had to be such that over 157 different countries from all parts of the globe including the US would endorse it as meeting their colleges’ matriculation requirements. The need to meet the requirements and standards of such a diversity of nations resulted in the program adopting a global perspective to all that was taught in its courses. In other words, a founding tenet of the program was that it should prepare its students to live, work and thrive within a truly global society.

With the growth of multi-national companies and the ever increasing interconnectivity of our world, the need for the next generation of students to be able to communicate effectively with peoples from different backgrounds and cultures could not be more critical for this nation’s success. No where could this be more important than Hawaii located at the very center of the Pacific Rim community, which is growing daily in economic importance. Most schools here in Hawaii have recognized this need and have added tack-on courses, activities and out of school clubs to promote the ideals of internationalism and having a global perspective. However, few have really managed to integrate this program into their whole curriculum in the consistent and structured manner that the I.B. Programme has achieved. The International Baccalaureate’s insistence on exposing students to foreign language from pre-kindergarten all the way through grade 12 in high school is just one of many very tangible examples of this commitment.

Schools like Le Jardin Academy that have decided to become full I.B. schools offering the program from PK through Grade 12 are also required to adopt a specific approach to the way that their students are instructed. The I.B. approach stresses 21^st century needs requiring that students be taught through the process of inquiry. This approach says that the manner in which students are prepared to receive information is a critical component in their learning. An illustration of this point in our own daily lives would be that despite being exposed to a deluge of information most of it is forgotten and slides out of our memory like water from a duck’s back. What makes some information stick in our heads is that it resonates a chord within us. It finds a hook to hang itself upon within our mental schema. The information that sticks, we would describe as be relevant to our lives. When we realize that the information available to our children will have grown exponentially and the ways to access this information will have improved beyond our wildest imagination. Then as never before, the ability to ask the right questions will be all important. Einstein said, being able to generate the right question is 90 percent of the way to knowing the answer. The I.B. Programme creates relevance within the classroom by making the students ask questions before they begin each unit of study. The questions ask though cannot be simply questions like: How tall? How heavy? When? These are questions simple about factual information and these types of questions provide a hook for only one specific piece of information answer. They need to be questions that ask about process like: How was it made? Why did it happen? These types of questions provide a host of hooks to capture a whole thread of ideas and information. These kinds of questions are much harder for students to generate and they need to be taught how to produce these kinds of complex questions from an early age.

Another way that the program achieves this kind of relevance is through the integration of traditionally separated courses within the school curriculum. No longer can language arts be taught in isolation from math, music, art and science. It is only when these courses are taught in a unified and integrated manner that the students can find the relevance that they seek in order to facilitate their own understanding and learning. This process in I.B. is achieved through what are called units of inquiry in the Lower School (Primary Years Programme) of which there are 6 per grade level. In the Middle School and High School Grade 6 -10 (Middle Years Programme) the different subject areas are required to make frequent links between what they are teaching and other subjects and contemporary issues.

The last major area where the I.B. program differs significantly from other traditional school programs is the manner in which it treats assessment. In the traditional programs student assessment is the result of collecting large amounts of marks from the beginning of a marking period until the end and then averaging them to calculate a final grade. This is so standard in the US that almost all commercially available grading programs for schools cannot handle any other method of calculating final grades. In the I.B. program the teachers are asked to distinguish clearly between marks given on what are called “formative assessments”, those given to the student during the period in which the student is acquiring the skills and used to provide feedback to the learner and “summative assessments”, those given after the student has learned the skills and used to demonstrate the level of final acquisition. The results can be quite different in describing a student’s performance. Consider the marks awarded to two imaginary students A and B.

A B

Home work week 1 8 2

Homework week 2 6 6

Class work week 3 6 10

Final Assessment week 4 6 10

Totals: 32 28

Student A in the traditional marking scheme would be awarded a higher grade than student B. However, it is fairly clear that student B despite a rocky start during the learning phase has a much greater level of mastery of the material than student A by the end of the course. The I.B. would require the teachers to discard the homework grades because these would be considered to be a part of the learning process (formative) and not a true measure of what the student can ultimately do. In real life and work situations few would consider it appropriate to evaluate performance on how a valued goal was reached as long as it was ultimately achieved.

There are many other valid reasons for schools here in Hawaii to be looking to be involved in the I.B. Programme and if you would like to know more I would encourage you to explore www.IBO.org. Take a moment to visit an I.B. school. There you will find engaged students involved in exploration and excited by their daily assignments. The classroom looks much more like the real world of work with students self motivated and actively engaged in their own learning in a way that is quite different from the traditional school setting.

Adrian Allan, Headmaster

Le Jardin Academy