JUNIOR SCHOOL

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the Crescent International Lower and Junior Schools.  We offer admission to students in Lower School, Years 1-5 (ages 5-10), and into Junior School, Years 6-9 (ages 11-14). 

As our school mission states, we are committed to academic excellence and the empowerment of principled global citizens and critical thinkers.  In order to achieve this mission, we provide our students with a rigorous education through creative and innovative learning opportunities that will prepare them for a successful future in the ever-changing 21st century. 

Our highly qualified teachers take a holistic approach in working with our students in order to meet each and every child’s social, emotional, and academic needs.  All students are provided access to superior curricula in a very inclusive and caring environment.  Each day we strive to enhance the potential of each learner through the variety of courses and extracurricular opportunities that are offered.   At CIS Primary, all students become inspired young leaders, creative and critical thinkers, and productive citizens of our community.

Years 1-9 Curriculum

Crescent’s Lower and Junior School Programmes follow the Edexcel International Curriculum wherever possible. For subjects that do not have a specific curriculum in either of these, we have worked as a team to adapt a variety of international curricula to create a CIS International Curriculum that best suits the needs of our students.

We take an integrated approach to delivering curriculum content related to each subject. Our Y1-9 students have lessons in the following subjects: 

English

Science

Mathematics

Computers

Social Studies

Arabic Language

Thai Language & Culture

Islamic Studies (Muslim Students)

PE/Swim

Art

Quran (Muslim Students)

Music (Y1-2 & N.Muslim to Y8)

Student Daily Routine

Drop Off – Students may come to school via school van or parent drop-off by 7:30 each morning to begin the day. They are welcomed by the home room teacher and follow the routine of unpacking their things and greeting their teachers and classmates. 

 

Assembly (Y1-13) – The day is started with a short prayer. Junior. The national anthem is then played. The children are expected to observe respectfully. On Fridays, the Lower, Junior, and Senior students meet separately for a full 30 minute assembly lead by various teachers and leaders, and consisting of different thematic material from PSHE lessons, spirit days for house teams, or award ceremonies.

 

Advisory PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education) – The children have a lesson each Monday to Thursday morning for 25 minutes that is focused on promoting positive moral development, good citizenship, and global issues that will prepare them to be successful international community members. Each week has a different theme and students are encouraged to contribute to discussions, debates and complete a related product each week to show their understanding. This time is also utilised for building Student Portfolios, which will be used to set annual targets and goals for student achievement progress, and will be presented to parents during Student Led Conferences 2 times per year.

Lessons – Students begin their first of 7 periods of the day. There are two 45 minute lessons before break for Y1-6, and three for Y7 and up. The children usually receive approximately 20-25 minutes direct instruction, followed by independent work based on the learning concept. 

All year levels take the majority of lessons in their homeroom, with teachers coming to them to teach. For Computers, P.E and Foreign Languages, students are collected from their homerooms by their subject teacher and brought to their Specialty classroom. 

Break – Students go to the garden area and cafeteria for their daily 20 minute break time. The school shop provides snacks to purchase. Alternatively, students may bring their own healthy snack from home. Break times are separated for Y1-6, and Y7-13.

After break – All students will have two more lessons before lunch. 

Lunch  – Lunch is served in the Cafeteria and is scheduled in alternate shifts. Y1-5 students sit together with their homeroom teacher who is on hand to help students with any difficulties they encounter and promote good table manners. Y6 and up are supervised by two teachers on duty.

Afternoon – Students complete their classes for the day – Y1-6 have three, and Y7-9 have two. This followed by end of day Homerooms to gather their things, or to receive any important announcements.

Dismissal – After Homeroom at 3:05, Y1-6 students taking school vans are escorted to the basketball court by their homeroom teachers, and those doing after-school activities are dropped in the supervised Art Room until activities begin at 3:30. Students being collected by parents are also dropped off at the Year 1 Classroom to await the vans’ departure before being released to parents’ care. Y7 and up students head to vans on their own, and those being collected or making their own ways home, wait on the first floor of the Senior School until vans have all departed.

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the Crescent International Lower and Junior Schools.  We offer admission to students in Lower School, Years 1-5 (ages 5-10), and into Junior School, Years 6-9 (ages 11-14). 

As our school mission states, we are committed to academic excellence and the empowerment of principled global citizens and critical thinkers.  In order to achieve this mission, we provide our students with a rigorous education through creative and innovative learning opportunities that will prepare them for a successful future in the ever-changing 21st century. 

Our highly qualified teachers take a holistic approach in working with our students in order to meet each and every child’s social, emotional, and academic needs.  All students are provided access to superior curricula in a very inclusive and caring environment.  Each day we strive to enhance the potential of each learner through the variety of courses and extracurricular opportunities that are offered.   At CIS Primary, all students become inspired young leaders, creative and critical thinkers, and productive citizens of our community.

Years 1-9 Curriculum

Crescent’s Lower and Junior School Programmes follow the Edexcel International Curriculum wherever possible. For subjects that do not have a specific curriculum in either of these, we have worked as a team to adapt a variety of international curricula to create a CIS International Curriculum that best suits the needs of our students.

We take an integrated approach to delivering curriculum content related to each subject. Our Y1-9 students have lessons in the following subjects: 

English

Science

Mathematics

Computers

Social Studies

Arabic Language

Thai Language & Culture

Islamic Studies (Muslim Students)

PE/Swim

Art

Quran (Muslim Students)

Music (Y1-2 & N.Muslim to Y8)

Student Daily Routine

Drop Off – Students may come to school via school van or parent drop-off by 7:30 each morning to begin the day. They are welcomed by the home room teacher and follow the routine of unpacking their things and greeting their teachers and classmates. 

 

Assembly (Y1-13) – The day is started with a short prayer. Junior. The national anthem is then played. The children are expected to observe respectfully. On Fridays, the Lower, Junior, and Senior students meet separately for a full 30 minute assembly lead by various teachers and leaders, and consisting of different thematic material from PSHE lessons, spirit days for house teams, or award ceremonies.

 

Advisory PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education) – The children have a lesson each Monday to Thursday morning for 25 minutes that is focused on promoting positive moral development, good citizenship, and global issues that will prepare them to be successful international community members. Each week has a different theme and students are encouraged to contribute to discussions, debates and complete a related product each week to show their understanding. This time is also utilised for building Student Portfolios, which will be used to set annual targets and goals for student achievement progress, and will be presented to parents during Student Led Conferences 2 times per year.

Lessons – Students begin their first of 7 periods of the day. There are two 45 minute lessons before break for Y1-6, and three for Y7 and up. The children usually receive approximately 20-25 minutes direct instruction, followed by independent work based on the learning concept. 

All year levels take the majority of lessons in their homeroom, with teachers coming to them to teach. For Computers, P.E and Foreign Languages, students are collected from their homerooms by their subject teacher and brought to their Specialty classroom. 

Break – Students go to the garden area and cafeteria for their daily 20 minute break time. The school shop provides snacks to purchase. Alternatively, students may bring their own healthy snack from home. Break times are separated for Y1-6, and Y7-13.

After break – All students will have two more lessons before lunch. 

Lunch  – Lunch is served in the Cafeteria and is scheduled in alternate shifts. Y1-5 students sit together with their homeroom teacher who is on hand to help students with any difficulties they encounter and promote good table manners. Y6 and up are supervised by two teachers on duty.

Afternoon – Students complete their classes for the day – Y1-6 have three, and Y7-9 have two. This followed by end of day Homerooms to gather their things, or to receive any important announcements.

Dismissal – After Homeroom at 3:05, Y1-6 students taking school vans are escorted to the basketball court by their homeroom teachers, and those doing after-school activities are dropped in the supervised Art Room until activities begin at 3:30. Students being collected by parents are also dropped off at the Year 1 Classroom to await the vans’ departure before being released to parents’ care. Y7 and up students head to vans on their own, and those being collected or making their own ways home, wait on the first floor of the Senior School until vans have all departed.

Years 1 & 2

 

At Crescent International School (CIS) we are committed to providing Key Stage 1 students with a stimulating and positive experience, which will set them on the best learning trajectory possible. We follow the English KS1 Curriculum programme, and work towards enabling every child to make continuous progress towards mastering the expected skills set out in the iPrimary curriculum by the end of Year 2. 

 

Our teachers and learning assistants are committed to supporting our students to become active and engaged learners. By valuing every student and taking advantage of every learning opportunity, the children attending the CIS KS1 programme will be provided with stimulating resources, rich learning opportunities and playful teaching. Each class in Y1-2 also has a dedicated teaching assistant to help support the children.

We combine traditional classes with a weekly free flow session each Friday afternoon. This ensures students have a variation of teaching methods and are getting the best out of their learning. During free flow, each individual child is able to make free choices of what they want to do next. They can choose any of the many learning centers set up in the classroom. The benefit of this part of their week is that the children become independent, critical and creative thinkers. Moving between the different learning centers gives them the opportunity to develop at their own pace, and embrace the skills they have been learning for that week.

During lessons students are challenged through practical activities that help them to develop their thinking with open-ended questions, collaborative exploration of concepts and sharing their ideas for solving problems.

Assessment

Core Subjects – Tapestry – We will use this learning journal platform to log assessments regularly. Each parent will receive a Tapestry login and be able to track their child’s progress.

Core & Specialist Subjects – Gradebooks tracked on PlusPortal – Overall grades and test scores can be accessed via the grade books platform. Each parent will receive a login and user guide.

Core subject skill columns within the grade books platform are informed by Tapestry assessments and will be updated at the end of each unit of study as required.

Years 3-5

Years 3-5, as part of the 1-8 programme, follow the Mastery-based assessment system. This means that rather than focusing solely on knowledge-based testing and classwork, the students are taught a series of Power Skills throughout each 6-week unit meant to prepare them to move up to the next level, and must demonstrate both knowledge and application to be awarded a mastery level for a skill.

Student progress through the mastery-based system is tracked and recorded using Growth Pieces and a final Performance Task, in addition to the traditional end of unit Unit Test. Growth pieces are assessed using a Mastery Rubric which details 2-3 skills using descriptive language on a scale of 0-5. After each Growth piece, students receive quality feedback in their notebooks from the teacher, detailing 2 stars (two things they did very well) and a wish (something on which they must work to improve). Then students fix and resubmit the work to show they have learned and improved. TheMastery Rubric is given on the first day of each unit and stuck into notebooks so that students and parents can quickly reference it throughout the unit for guidance on what to study and how to improve. 

On each report at the end of a Trimester, students will be awarded a 0-5 Mastery score for each strand across their subjects:

*A ZERO is only given when a child has not demonstrated enough understanding through application to achieve a level 1 on the rubric. This represents a 49% and below.

Years 6-9

In addition to using the Mastery-based system detailed above in the Y3-5 section, our Junior School students also focus largely on strategies for academic success – increased accountability and responsibility – and the social aspects of learning and development that will aid them in becoming independent and successful members of the global community.

At Crescent, our primary goal is to meet the learning needs of every child. With children coming from such diverse backgrounds and educational experiences, it is no wonder that when they enroll at CIS, they possess a variety of academic achievement levels upon admission. In order to ensure all students achieve the highest possible standards, we offer learning support services to any student performing more than a year level below their international expected level for admission. 

Learning Support 1-3

 Our LS (Learning Support) 1-3 classes are designed for students in our Y1-8 programme who do not yet possess the English comprehension skills required to succeed in our mainstream core subject classrooms. The LS teachers have designed a programme that combines class work, projects, group work and individual homework focusing in the Key areas of Grammar, Phonics, Vocabulary, Writing, Reading Comprehension, and Conversation skills, to most quickly fill any learning gaps required to get our students caught up and ready to join the mainstream. In addition to the English coursework, LS students also learn Math, Science, Computer Science, Art and PE as a cohort. 

L1 caters to beginner level students and cover the mainstream curriculum requirements of Year 1 – this means learning phonics and all of the basics for a strong foundation in English. L2 focuses on the expectations of Y2-4 curriculum level, though this will vary slightly depending on the group of students enrolled. L3 strives to prepare students to sit the Y6 Achievement Test, so utilises the curriculum and main skills from Y4-6.

Regardless of age, the admissions process and assessments are used to place a student in the LS Class that best suits their English proficiency level. By eliminating a few of the elective courses – modern foreign languages, Islamic, and Quran – it allows the students to nearly triple the number of English lessons provided (14 rather than 5) and to grow and progress far more quickly than in the mainstream classroom. The placement level of their other core subjects – math, science, and computer science – will vary depending on the make up of the cohort each year, so again there is greater flexibility to meet their needs than in the mainstream class.

LS also allows the flexibility to move between the levels during the academic year in October, January, or April at key assessment times, so this means that student growth is truly reliant on each student’s personal effort and the time and support put into their growth.

In-Class English Learning Support

As an international school, we are aware that our students come from numerous backgrounds and nations, many of which do not have English as a first language. To ensure that the English curriculum is fully accessible to all of our Primary students, we offer English Support in the Year 3-6 classroom twice weekly. The support teacher works closely with our English teachers to plan the best support for the students who need assistance during her time in the classroom.