Sekolah Bogor Raya is Bogor’s leading centre for international standard education. As a national plus school, we offer a mix of international curricula including the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (PYP), the International GCSE program, and the GAC university entrance program. Our students also work on the Indonesian national curriculum and achieve considerable success each year in their National Examinations.

Sekolah Bogor Raya is currently seeking expatriate candidates for the following position;

Science Teacher (High School)

Teaching in the high school, the Science teacher will be responsible for teaching a variety of high school level classes.

Required

-          S1 degree minimum

-          Good standard of English

-          Experience teaching at primary and high school level

-          Good communication skills and a positive and caring approach

-          Respect for diversity

-          Experience of using English as the medium of instruction

Desirable Traits

-          Experience with IB PYP, IGCSE, or GAC curricula

-          A proven track record of training students for success in science competitions

Please send your CV and a recent photo to admissions@sekolahbogorraya.com We apologise, but only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Their conclusion was that disfluency; actively making things harder to learn, improved long term learning and reflection.

There is strong theoretical justification to believe that disfluency could lead to improved retention and classroom performance. Disfluency has been shown to lead people to process information more deeply, more abstractly, more carefully, and yield better comprehension, all of which are critical to effective learning.

The students retention in English, Physics, U.S. History and Chemistry was then tested and a significant improvement was found in those who had learnt from materials with fonts that were more difficult to read.

This study demonstrated that student retention of material across a wide range of subjects (science and humanities classes) and difficulty levels (regular, Honors and Advanced Placement) can be significantly improved in naturalistic settings by presenting reading material in a format that is slightly harder to read…. The potential for improving educational practicesthrough cognitive interventions is immense.

Worth trying out before the next testing cycle?

Via Wired

Mindmaps, with their brain-friendly combination of images, colours, and information mimic the way the brain works. Data in a mind map is connected in a messy network of interlinked branches rather than the bullet point approach normally used in note-taking.

These are some great free tools online that make mindmapping easy;

Mind42.com is a free online web app that allows you to collaborate with multiple users in real time.

Spinscape.com is a new mindmapping tool that is simple and easy to use. It allows you to add content from the web to your mindmap.

Slatebox.com allows you to easily turn your mind map into a presentation that zooms from concept to concept.

Gerald Donovan

Great Results in the ICAS Computer competition; one gold medal for Vina and silver medals for Aditya, Denia and Annisya.

Our Cinema Advertisement is now showing in Botani Square screens 2 and 3 for the rest of December. Many thanks to all the students and teachers who were involved in making and feature in this commercial.

Congratulations to our Grade 5 and 6 Artists Adinda, Sthevan, Vida, and Kezya for winning first place in the BiNus poster competition. Congratulations also to Astri and Alba; 1st place in the Solo vocal competition and 3rd place for  in the acoustic guitar competition respectively. Well done!

A strong showing from our kids at the EF Bogor Spelling Bee. 1st place for Nashwa. 3rd place for Donna. Raihan, Aninda, and Michael made it to the national finals also.

Gerald Donovan

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Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, the ability to feel what other people are feeling and understand the perspective of those who are different from us.

Our PG, TK, SD, SMP, and SMA students showed great empathy last month with their fundraising projects for the victims of the disasters in Merapi, Mentawai, and Wasior. After learning about the tragedies that had befallen people – many of them children – as a result of natural disasters, our students were motivated to act and to raise funds to help those most in need.

We decided that our program should not simply be based on our students requesting money from their parents. Instead, we asked our students to complete a challenge and to make a personal effort to raise funds. These personal efforts ranged from sponsored book readings and preparing food for sale to  donating toys and books from home.

In total, from Playgroup to Senior High School, we raised over Rp50 million which was shared between the Indonesian Red Cross, SBI Kroyo near Merapi, and TV-One’s disaster appeal. The school would like to thank the POM, the parents, and the organizers of this event, but most of all we would like to thank our students for demonstrating the true meaning of empathy.

Gerald Donovan

Many parents also asked for links to some of the resources I mentioned. I have tried to provide the key sites below; please bear in mind that these are best used if you have a young child who will have unsupervised internet time. At Sekolah Bogor Raya, we recommend unfiltered internet access at home so that children can search for information to support their learning, but we realize that some parents might like to have a degree of control over their children’s internet access – especially if their children will be using the internet in an unsupervised environment.

KidRocket

KidRocket doesn’t let the browser have access to the whole internet, instead, it blocks out the whole internet and only allows access to top-quality, child friendly sites. It also has some handy parent monitoring tools and a timer you can set to lock your child’s computerif they have been using it too long.

If you want to get KidRocket for your computer, you can download and install from here; http://kidrocket.org/download.php

KidZui

KidZui is an internet browser for kids, something that will make parents at ease while their kids browse the internet. Vailable for Windows, MAc, or as a Firefox add-on, Kidzui allows for easy navigation through categories and larg eimages for kids. KidZui uses teachers and parents to screen content and maintains a database of approved URLs.

If you want to get KidZui for your computer, you must first download and install a web browser called Firefox (KidZui does not work on Internet Explorer). You can do that at this link; http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html

Then you need to download and install KidZui. You can do that at this link; http://www.kidzui.com/download/windows

Kidzui is available for all platforms and runs independently of your browser. You can download a Windows, Mac, or Firefox version from www.kidzui.com

Your child can set up an avatar and start browsing safely and connecting with friends instantly.

NetNanny

NetNanny is a paid (around $40) internet filter service that allows you to block sites that you do not want your child to view, stop inappropriate chat, stop illegal file sharing, and monitor where your children are going online.

It is available at; http://www.netnanny.com/

Kid-Safe Search Engines

Some search engines that are safe for kids include;

www.ajkids.com

www.yahooligans.com

www.onekey.com

www.kidsclick.org

You can set these up as your browser home page on internet explorer by choosing “Tools” from the top menu. Choose “Internet Options” and on the “General” tab, you can change the “Home Page” to one of those kid-safe search engines.

Changing and Locking Google Search

Google search has different levels of filtering and those levels can be locked on a computer. Because Google searches the entire internet, this is not a fool-proof way to avoid negative content, but it does reduce the amount of inappropriate sites that your child will encounter.

On the Google front page, choose “Search Settings” or “Setelan Penelusuran” from the top right corner. On the page that comes up, go to “Safesearch Filtering” or “Penyaringan TelusurAman”.

Choose the level of filtering you would like and, if you want to lock the settings, choose “Lock SafeSearch” or “GembokTelusurAman” (you will need a Google or Gmail login to do this).

(Updated 03 September 2010)

A study in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal concludes that a philosophical belief in self determination and free will is a better predictor of success in the world of work than conscientiousness, locus of control, and Protestant work ethic.

In Study 1, stronger belief in free will corresponded to more positive attitudes about expected career success. In Study 2, job performance was evaluated objectively and independently by a supervisor. Results indicated that employees who espoused free will beliefs were given better work performance evaluations than those who disbelieve in free will, presumably because belief in free will facilitates exerting control over one’s actions.

It doesn’t seem a huge logical leap to assume that the same rules apply in school as in the world of work. We try to highlight the impact of dedication and discipline to our children at Sekolah Bogor Raya, but if a child has a more fatalistic outlook on life, to what extent will that effect their classroom performance? A great discussion topic for the morning ‘circle time’ , I think!

I’ll be interested to see if these findings are discussed in our forthcoming “Learning and the Brain” workshop in September.

Highly effective teachers were compared using results from the state standardized tests and it was found that, regardless of background of the students or previous performance, good teachers were able to take previously weak students and turn them into high performers.

Some other interesting findings included;

• Highly effective teachers routinely propel students from below grade level to advanced in a single year. There is a substantial gap at year’s end between students whose teachers were in the top 10% in effectiveness and the bottom 10%. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.

and;

• Many of the factors commonly assumed to be important to teachers’ effectiveness were not. Although teachers are paid more for experience, education and training, none of this had much bearing on whether they improved their students’ performance.

This year at Sekolah Bogor Raya, we have been recruiting specialist teachers from Jakarta in order to find the level of quality and experience that we need at all levels of the school. We have found that the best predictor of a teacher’s quality is the microteaching stage of our recruitment process where we ask potential teachers to deliver an observed lesson to a sample class.

Knowledge of education theory and a thick CV full of classroom experience are, of course, highly valuable. But actually seeing how a teacher connects with the students and responds to them in the classroom is priceless.

The main difference between this book and most others on the market here is the content of the reading and writing comprehension. I have tried to make the English reflect the nature of the English language in that it is a living, breathing, constantly adapting tool for communication. Rather than use stuffy comprehension passages for reading I have used the language in a modern setting. Chapters include text messaging, web pages, blogs, TV schedules, comics, and podcasts. Each chapter has a language or grammar focus and each book also come packaged with an audio CD.

English 911! is available from Gramedia bookstores all over Indonesia, published by ElexMedia Komputindo. During the first week, sales have been pretty good, but I hope to do some more promotion during the coming weeks!

Gerald Donovan

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Responsibilities:

• Teaching English in the Junior and Senior High School
• Supervising Indonesian English Teachers
• Managing Extra Curricular Activities (Clubs, Teams, etc)
• Developing the English Curriculum
• Teacher Professional Development
• Occasional marketing activities and supervision of school trips

The Successful Applicant Will Have

• Experience teaching English at high school level
• A recognized teaching qualification
• Experience in developing curricula
• Experience of conducting training
• Citizenship of UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada
• The willingness to take on extra responsibility and motivate others
• Experience of teaching GAC or IB Diploma (Desirable)

We Offer

• Competitive Salary – tax paid
• Health Insurance
• Full visas and permitting
• Subsidized Education for children of staff (in some cases)
• A clean, green, and enjoyable working environment in a beautiful complex on the edge of the city.

Please send a CV, a covering letter, a recent photograph, and your salary expectations to me at geralddonovan@gmail.com Preference will be given to candidates with immediate availability.

If you think you know of anybody who might be interested, please forward them a link to here!