St.

M ary' s International School

New sletter
Headmaster' s M essage | September 2016

Welcome to St. Mary?s International School

and the start of a new school year! As we
of the importance of understanding others and
begin this journey, realize the many ways in
their situations, to encourage a deeper
which this adventure can be viewed. Similar
comprehension of
to the recent summer Olympics, participants
compassion and empathy,
are from around the world, ready to perform,
and to learn to listen without
and full of enthusiasm, energy and zeal. The
rushing to judgment. One of
school has rings of influence that go beyond
our goals at the school is ?to
the here and now, and, as alumni continue to
instruct, to educate and
visit and reconnect with the past, express a
impart Christian values.?
desire to help those who are here today.
Have a great school year, and
Students, families and staff today are setting
welcome back!
the foundation for the future, and this is one
reason why ?M er cy ? has been chosen for our Saburo Kagei - Headmaster
theme this school year: to remind each of us

New sletter | September 2016

SMAA and friends gather at President
Class of '75 holds court in
Paul Kuo's ('80) house
Shinagawa
Class of '95 invades Titanville

Ms. Nagakura's second graders

Seniors ('17) figure out college
look to the future
applications Class of '76 pose after touring the new
campus

New sletter | September 2016

SM A President' s M essage
On behalf of the St. Mary?s
Association, I would like to
welcome you to the 2016-2017
school year at St. Mary?s
International School. As we
embark upon the new school
year with the theme of ?Mercy?,
we look forward to actively
supporting this theme by way of
SMA sponsored events.
The SMA has just successfully
held the ?Welcome Tables? and
?Welcome Tea? for the start of the sma@smis.ac.jp
new school year. I want to thank
our dynamic Hospitality Team ?
Mrs. Any Marrero and Mrs.
Yoshiko Silong ? for organizing
these important events at the
beginning of the school year.
We are in full swing preparing
for our first fundraiser event, the St. Mary?s Families Mailing List in
?Bingo Bake Sale? and ?Bingo-GO?
which will be held on October
21st. Our experienced Bingo
Committee - Mrs. Mineko Inoue
and Mrs. Bunsei Tanaka ? and the
Room Parent Coordinators ? Mrs.
Kayoko Pang and Mrs. Sabine
order to receive information
Steck - are planning and
from the school and updates
organizing this fun family
gathering. We will need lots of from the SMA. You can sign
volunteers to assist them. If you up here:
would like to get involved in this http://families.smis.ac.jp/.
event, please fill out a Volunteer
Like our Facebook Page ?St.
Sign-up sheet, or contact us at
Mary?s Association?.
Should you have any
Throughout the year the SMA
inquiries or suggestions,
will send you regular updates on
please let us know. We are
our various events, volunteer
looking forward to having a
opportunities, donations needed
fabulous and exciting year!
and social outings.
Cristina Platzer
I would like to remind you that
all parents should sign up for the SMA President
sma@smis.ac.jp
New sletter | September 2016

We still have a few positions
vacant! Please contact us at
sma@smis.ac.jp, if you are
interested to learn more
about becoming a board
member.
In t r odu cin g t h e m em ber s of t h e SM A Boar d f or 2016-17.
Advisor: Saburo Kagei
President: Cristina Platzer
Vice President: Christine Bagui
Secretary: Therese Adachi
Treasurer: Rika Atobe
Assistant Treasurer: Kiyomi Kunita
Nominations: Katrin Boltze
Bingo Chairperson: Mineko Inoue
Bingo Co-Chairperson: Bunsei Tanaka
Carnival Chairperson: vacant
Carnival Co-Chairperson: Angela Long
Donations Chairperson: Lia Kumar
Donations Co-Chairperson: vacant
Hospitality Chairperson: Any Marrero
Hospitality Co-Chairperson: Yoshiko Silong
International Ball Chairperson: Yukari Ko
International Ball Co-Chairperson: Nidarshi Fernando
Japanese Speaking Support Group Chairperson: Risa Osawa
Japanese speaking Support Group Co-Chairperson: Moemi Matsubayashi
Newsletter Editor: Carmen Goff
Publicity Chairperson: Aya Iwamoto
Publicity Co-Chairperson: vacant
Raffle Chairperson: Aileen Ishii
Raffle Co-Chairperson: Yuko Hayashi
Recycled Uniform Chairperson: Urara Utagawa
Recycled Uniform Co-Chair: Kikue Saito
Room Parent Coordinator: Kayoko Pang
Room Parent Co-Coordinator: Sabine Steck
New sletter | September 2016
 W hat is the SM A?

St. Mary?s Association (SMA) is the school

parents?organization and our mission is to
promote the welfare of all our students at St.
Mary?s. Click on the above picture to open a slide show
As early as 1955, our group was called ?The
Mothers?Club?. ?The Mothers?Club? planned Backed up with a fantastic teamwork, who organizes
funding and organized events at school. Some events, raises funds and solicits generous donations,
of the tasks of this group included organization allowing SMA to enhance our school resources by
of BINGO, The International Ball (which was the enriching and supporting educational opportunities
social highlights in Tokyo) and Carnival. In 1985, for our students.
the ?Mothers?Club? then evolved into The St.
Thanks to all this support, SMA can facilitate a series
Mary?s Mothers?Association (SMMA). From
of funding requests from the Athletics department, the
1989 to present, the SMMA became the St.
Fine Arts department, libraries, and to provide
Mary?s Association.
subsidies towards Elementary and Middle School
Volunteering for SMA will give you wonderful student?s field trips and High School student?s retreats.
opportunities to experience a great community
Supporting academics, athletics and fine arts
spirit, get involved in the daily life of our
programs, is indispensable to the school?s overall
children, and support this great school.
success and reputation.

New sletter | September 2016

 From the High School Principal
As students approach the
end of their summer break
their thoughts often turn to
the school year ahead;
sometimes with nervous
anticipation. A key focus for
them will be their final grades.
Juniors and seniors are only
too well aware of the merits of
positive grades and the pitfalls
of lower grades. Teaching
professionals also approach
the end of summer with a
combination of anticipation
and apprehension, asking,
?how will my students perform
this year??
The subject of grading and
assessment has been
examined many times over the
years. In my tenure as an
educator I have seen the trend
switch from a far more academic achievement on
arbitrary approach to grading assignments, tests and exams?
whereby students were often
This year our high school
awarded grades based on
teachers spent their first
somewhat intangible
professional development day
structures such as attitude,
examining a 2011 article by
neatness and participation
Thomas Guskey, Five Obstacles
combined with more tangible
to Grading Reform, in which he
structures such as homework
outlines five ?myths? about
completion, punctuality and
grading. Teachers were divided
attendance. All these areas
into groups and a ?jigsaw?
represent good habits and
learning activity was used to
learning skills that all
enable teachers to engage in
students should possess, but
some rich professional
do they actually assess
conversations about these
learning or student progress
obstacles and to start
from an academic
examining their own
perspective? Have we been
assessment practices.
doing our students a
disservice by combining the As the year moves forward
?grades? from these learning our professional development
skills with grades from actual o pportunities will focus on
New sletter | September 2016
 From the High School Principal - continued
Rethinking Grading, (2015) by
Cathy Vatterott. Teachers will
examine various aspects of
assessing standards based
learning and how we can
examine our students?academic
progress with a more focused
examination of academic growth
rather than basing grading on a
combination of learning skills,
behaviors and academic growth.
One of the immediate red
flags that comes up when
professional discourse takes
place is that of ?doesn?t
homework count for anything??
This is a key question and the
answer is ?of course it does.?
We must keep in mind, however,
that homework should not be
assessed and graded as we
would a test since we have our educational direction as a
very little proof of whether high school.
the work was done
As life long learners we are
independently. In addition,
all, students and staff alike,
homework that may be
somewhere on a continuum.
educationally beneficial to
Our goal is to move along that
one student may not be
continuum, improving our
beneficial to the next
practice. As the year moves
student. All of the above
on, St. Mary?s staff and
mentioned learning
behaviors and skills are
students grow together.
critical to student success Here?s wishing all of you a
and should be assessed but wonderful school year.
not graded and reported on
in a numerical fashion
blended with academic Simon Faulkner
progress. With that in mind
High School Principal
we must turn our thoughts
to a modified reporting
process in the future and
that will ultimately be part of
New sletter | September 2016
 From the M iddle School Principal

Dear Parents:
It has been a great start to the year with lots of engaging
learning going on in each classroom at the middle school. I trust
that your son is sharing what he gfff
is learning on a regular basis so
that you have a chance to get a sense of what are emerging as
some of his passions in his life regarding his education.
It is not uncommon for your middle school son to be quite
minimalistic about what he shares related to his school
experiences. Following are a few suggestions about¥ how you
might encourage him to share more about his learning, about his
friends and about his thinking regarding a range of topics.
1. Plan to have a family meal on a regular, if not daily, basis.
Make sure that mealtime is device free and that the TV is shut off.
2. Instead of asking yes/no questions or questions that can be
answered with one word, ask open-ended questions that Click on the above
require/encourage the need to share specific information. picture to open a slide
Instead of asking ?How was your day at school?? ask ?Tell me two show
things you really were excited about or learned today.?
New sletter | September 2016
3. Don?t allow your son to run off after finishing eating. Expect
them to stick around for conversation and make this an
 " Have you filled your bucket
today?"

From the Elementary School Principal

Allow me to take this opportunity to

welcome you all once again to the
2016-2017 school year. We are honored
that you have entrusted your sons to our
care, and we promise to do everything we
can to ensure that each one of them can
succeed to the best of his ability. To
accomplish this task, we place qualified New sletter | September 2016
and dedicated teachers in the
 JAPANESE SPEAKING SUPPORT GROUP
(JSSG)
English Conversation Class
Class meets every Tuesday *
8:45 to 9:45 am
JSSG organized an English Conversation
Class for non-native English speaking
parents with the help of Brother Michel
as the instructor. The class started on
September 20th with many students
returning plus 30 new students. Thank For more information contact:
you to Brother Michel for his time and Risa Osawa
passion to teach his students. Moemi Matsubayashi
JSSG Chairpersons
* n o class f or 4 w eek s jssgsma@gmail.com
class w ill r econ ven e on Oct ober 25t h

New sletter | September 2016

 Dear St. Mary's Families,
October 21st kicks off the year with
BINGO GO, our first fundraiser for the
year.
The Entrance Fee is ¥1,200 at the door.
SM A Pre-sale tickets will be sold for ¥1,000
Pancak e during the Elementary Sports Day and
Sal e the three days leading up to the event.
Stop b y th e For any inquiries please contact the
caf eteri a on Bingo Committee at
Th ursday, smis.bingo2016@gmail.com.

October 20th Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Thank you,
f rom 7:00 am
Bunsei Tanaka
unti l 10:00 am
Mineko Inoue Fun for the
Pri ce: Bingo Committee Chairs whole family !!
¥ 200

New sletter | September 2016

BINGO BAKE SALE
2016
Friday, October 21st
Cafeteria - 8 am to 1 pm
Your room parents and class
liaisons will be contacting you soon
to ask for your help staffing the Bake
Sale and for lots of yummy
donations.
Wh at do boys love t o eat ?
Brownies, cupcakes, cookies,
sandwiches, onigiri, samosas,
kimbap, and international sweets
from your country.
* Please list main ingredients,
especially if nuts or dairy ingredients
are used. We are going to create an
allergy table
* Please use disposable containers
and individually wrapped portions
Questions - Please contact Room
Parent Coordinators
rpc.st.marys@gmail.com
New sletter | September 2016
 The St. Mary?s Association (SMA), Donations Committee
M essage f r om t h e is at present focused on the SMA?s first big fundraising
Don at ion s event of the year ?BINGO GO?.

Com m it t ee A big ?Thank You? to the families who have already

graciously donated money and goods!
But we still need many more prizes! Please check the
Bingo Wish List. We are accepting donations until Friday,
"Please h elp
October 14th in the school office. When you drop off your
donation, please fill out the Donations Form available u s r each ou r
below, so that we can acknowledge your contribution. f u n dr aisin g
Your valuable contribution will put many smiles on the
goal f or t h e
faces of our students, parents and faculty!
2016-2017
Please help us reach our fundraising goal for the
2016-2017 school year of ¥18,000,000! These funds will sch ool year
directly benefit student programs in the fine arts and of
athletic departments, subsidize field trips, support school ¥18,000,000! "
libraries etc..
Please feel free to contact us at
smassociation@smis.ac.jp with any questions or
feedback.

DONATIONS
Lia Kumar
NEEDED Donations Chairperson
St. Mary?s Association

New sletter | September 2016

A w ord from the
SM A Treasury
SMA fundraisers contribute to many
student programs. Field trips, overseas
trips, athletics, fine arts, library,
cannot reach our goal without each one
after-school activities, etc. The list gets
of your contributions. Please help us, in
longer each year.
any way you can, so we can collectively
To support our expanding list of achieve our goals. We look forward to
activities, we will target to raise ¥18 working with you all for another
Million again this year. It is not an easy rewarding year!
task but it is certainly reachable. SMA
Rika Atobe, Treasurer
event chairs and other board members
Kiyomi Kunita, Assistant Treasurer
are working creatively to keep our costs
down but our revenues high. But the
biggest ingredient to success is YOU. We smatreasury@gmail.com

New sletter | September 2016

SM A Par en t Classes
 The event was well involved in the
attended by both new activities organized
St. Mary's parents and veteran by the SMA
Association parents. At this throughout the
gathering, new families school year.
2016 were welcomed to the Everyone had a
Welcome school community. It good time and we
Tea was a great opportunity would like to thank
for everyone to get to you for supporting
know our headmaster, this event.
September 14 Mr. Kagei, the principals
of the school and the The Hospitality
counselors. In addition, Team
the board members of Any Marrero
the SMA introduced Yoshiko Silong Click on the above picture to
themselves and briefly open a slide show
described their roles in
the organization. All hospitality.sma@gmail.com
parents can get

New sletter | September 2016

 Please donate cleaned
or dry-cleaned used
uniform items in the
Main Office anytime.
Thank you!! "Drop off
The following items clean,
are collected: blazers, used
pants (long and short), uniform
Recycled shirts (long and short),
items at
sweaters, vests, polo
Uniform Sale shirts, PE pants, RP the main
Upcom in g sales: sweatshirts, neckties, office"
Decem ber 10t h buttons, emblems,
Apr il 12t h and hooded
Urara Utagawa & Kikue Saito sweatshirts.

recycleduniforms.SMIS@gmail.com

New sletter | September 2016

 Save the Date

St . M ar y 's In t er n at ion al Ball

Mark your calendars for March 17, 2017 for the St. Mary's
International Ball to be held at the ANA InterContinental Hotel.
 New s f r om t h e Fin e Ar t s Depar t m en t
Con cession s
After school concessions are
once again open from
3:15-5:00 in the concession
booth on the first floor of the
south campus (next to the
gymnasium). Popular snacks
include hot dogs and
quesadillas, as well as chips,
granola bars, rice krispie
treats, soft drinks, and water.
Please be sure to support the
music department and other
departments!
Passepar t ou t
Pian o Du o
Enjoy performances M ast er class
Ref u gees
by St. Mary?s Bell On September 3,
In t er n at ion al Choir and Varsity 2016, St. Mary?s was
of Japan Ensemble, as well as honored to have
groups from Seisen 2007 St. Mary?s
Con cer t and the British graduate Nathan
Mark your School in Japan. Tinker and his wife
Tickets will be ¥3000
calendars for Alexandra Zlatior
Novem ber 10, for per adult and ¥1500 gave a Passepartout
it is the date of the per student/child. Piano masterclass to
Refugees They will be pianists from St.
International available after Mary?s and Seisen.
Charity Concert, October 1. Please
which will be held ask Mrs. Stenson at
in the MPH at St. stensonra@smis.ac.jp
Mary?s. for more
information.
New sletter | September 2016
 From the High
School Counselors
Last year we had over 100 universities
from around the world visit St. Mary's. This
year our juniors and seniors started off
the new school year by participating in the
Kanto Plain College Fair at ASIJ. These
visits, events, and presentations are a school students and parents) for the
great way to learn more about various college visit schedule. For our college
programs available at universities, matriculation list from the class of
university student life, and more. Parents 2014-2016, please see our high school
are always welcome to join us. Please profile available on the SMIS website.
continue to look at the SMIS calendar (link
Ms. Callon and Ms. Kobayashi
below the main calendar), high school
student bulletin, and Naviance (for high High School Counselors Grade 11 & 12

New sletter | September 2016

 Elementary School Library
- Summer Reading
After a restful and fun-filled
summer, our Elementary School
Readers have definitely found their
reading force and are off to an
exciting start.
Our ?Aw aken the Force-Read
Summer Reading Challenge was a
fun way for our students and their
families to read together and even
take several Star Wars Scene
photos. Luckily for us, the fun
hasn?t finished yet. New St. Mary?s
students have also joined the fun
with the Sept em ber Readin g
Ch allen ge and will return their
reading logs on September 30.
To celebrate all our reading
accomplishments, we will hold our
annual Readin g Celebr at ion Day
on Oct ober 14. As many of you
know, we set a goal each year. This
year we hope to have read 600,000
pages for the entire elementary
" Did
school. Did we read enough? I
think so. Do I know the grand we
total? Not yet. We?ll all be r ead
surprised on October 14 and en ou gh ?"
maybe we?ll have a surprise or two
for our young readers.
Thank you to all our families for
the many fantastic Star Wars Scene
Photos you submitted to the
annual photo contest. The photos
will be student judged in each
grade level in the next couple of
weeks. Winners will be announced
during Reading Celebration Day. In
my opinion, all the photos are
winners!
New sletter | September 2016
Elem en t ar y Sch ool Libr ar y
- u pcom in g pr ogr am s
Students in the RP to Grade 2
will participate in the annual St.
Mary?s Book Award (SMBA)
program beginning in October.
The SMBA, a children?s choice
award, is an important part of our
library program. Students will
hear the five short-listed titles
during their library classes and
will vote for their favorite at the
end of the program. They are
encouraged to evaluate the books
for both the story?s content, as
well as the illustrations. Last year ?s
winner was Dojo Daycare by Chris
Tougas. We?re still chanting the
Dojo master ?s words, ?honor,
kindness, and respect.?
Grades 3, 4 and 5 will
begin the Sakura Medal
Book Award Reading
Program in October. This
year, thanks to a generous
grant from the St. Mary?s
Association, they will get to
read from the English
Chapter Book and Graphic
Novel lists and also from
the Japanese Chapter and
Picture Book lists. Grade 2
will join the fun in January.
Again, thank you SMA!
The 4th and 5th grade
Sakura Medal Book Bowl
teams are currently being
formed. In all, we will have
60 students participating
and have 12 teams
competing in our four
internal Book Bowls. The
top two scoring teams will
represent St. Mary?s in the
All-Japan Sakura Book Bowl
in April.
New sletter | September 2016
 Elementary I would like to take Remember to take
School Library this opportunity to time out from your
invite all parents busy schedules to
Open spend time reading
who have not
Monday to Friday together as a family.
registered to use the
8:10 am to 4:15 pm. ES Library to stop by Just a few minutes a
Occasionally the library to register. It only day can really make a
will be closed after school. takes a few minutes difference toward Af t er sch ool policies:
We will do our best to
and will allow you to your son?s academic complete homework,
inform you of any closures finish research projects
checkout up to 20 achievements and can
in advance
books. Once foster a love of or simply enjoy some
registered you will reading that will help quiet reading time. RP
Parents are
welcome to use the also have the added him reach his students may use the
library before and benefit of being able potential. Plus all the library with an
after school. to check out books memories you will accompanying parent.
from the MS/HS make. First grade students
Library which has a and up may use the
Ms. Twohig and I look
Students may use superb collection of library without their
forward to seeing you
the library when parenting books and parent as long as they
in the ES Library!
library classes are can work without
so many more
not in session. Tammy Hays disturbing others.
treasures to find!
Elementary School Librarian

New sletter | September 2016

 Parents please feel free
to come and make an
account and then borrow
books and magazines .
We are in the process of
updating our magazines. "Parents
Please take a look at, and can
fill out the form telling us borrow
if there are magazines
that we have that you
books and
enjoy reading. You can magazines
The Learning Commons make suggestions for from the
magazines you wish we library."
Welcome back to another
had and we will take that
school year. The learning into consideration as we
commons is here to serve renew our subscriptions.
the whole St. Mary?s
community.

New sletter | September 2016

 Fr om t h e
M S/ HS
Libr ar y
Students are encouraged to
join the Global Read Aloud in
the Learning Commons! The
idea behind this is simple;
teachers or librarians around
the world read the same book
aloud to their students at the
same time and then we use
technology to share the
experience with these other
classrooms. It is a free project
being offered by the Learning
Commons staff.
During the project, we will
be reading Orbiting Jupiter to
the middle school boys about
a family who takes in a
troubled foster boy. The
high school boys are
invited to come and listen
to All American Boys which
is a timely book on the
racism and police issues in
the U.S. and other
countries. We will use tools
such as Edmodo and
Padlet to facilitate
connections and
conversations.
Th e pr ogr am st ar t s t h e
w eek of Oct ober 3r d an d
r u n s f or six w eek s. We
are trying to accommodate
as many boys?schedules as
we can so the form will
allow the boys to tell us which
day works best for them.
For t h e m iddle sch ool, t h e
pr ogr am w ill r u n f r om 3:30
? 4:30. For t h e h igh sch ool
boys w e w ill t ak e in t o
con sider at ion t h eir
sch edu le.
Middle school boys can sign
up on the Google doc here.
High school boys can sign
up here on this Google doc.
Sign up on or before Sept.
27th. I look forward to
starting this exciting project
with your child as well as see
the connections we will make.
New sletter | September 2016
UPCOM ING EVENTS
Oct ober 10
No School - National Holiday
Oct ober 19
End of First Quarter
Oct ober 21
Bingo
Oct ober 26 - 28
Autumn Holidays
Novem ber 3
No School - Parent Teacher Conference Day

New sletter | September 2016

 O u t
So l d

Con t act M in ek o In ou e at m agan dm im i@gm ail.com .

 Calendars are
for sale in the
school
bookstore

School Pocket Calendars - ¥500

New sletter | September 2016

The Smiling
Faces of the
SMA
St. Mary?s International School
1-6-19 Seta, Setagaya-ku,
Tokyo 158-8668
www.smis.ac.jp
(03) 3709-3411

The St. Mary?s Association Newsletter is published periodically throughout the school year
(September through June), distributed through the Families Mailing List to all registered e-mail
addresses, and posted on the St. Mary?s website.
If you have any questions or comments regarding an article you read here, or would like to
submit an article that pertains to St. Mary?s International School academic and extra-curricular
programs and student services, or fundraising activities and events of the St. Mary?s Association,
please e-mail smis.newslettereditor@gmail.com.
Carmen Goff, Newsletter Editor