Community Project 2022

The Community Project is a core part of the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and at SEK-Qatar our students are completing it in Grade 8 (MYP3). This enriching project is divided in four phases,  our year students started working on their projects in October in order to finish by May.

Phase one – Investigating: Students worked over the months of October and November researching about needs and issues in our community in order to set a goal for their project. They also had to evaluate their primary and secondary sources, to make sure they were reliable and up to date.

Phase two – Planning: Once they had finished their investigation, they started planning how they were going to achieve their goal and create a successful outcome or product. They were asked to use their organisation skills to set short- and long-term deadlines, as well as develop their collaboration skills within their groups.

Phase three – Taking action: In this phase students focused on giving a service and making an impact in our community. Some of them decided to organise in-school events, others were a bit more risk-takers and created connections with organisations outside of school.

Phase four – Reflecting: Finally students reflected on their learning experience and the development of their ATL skills. They evaluated the quality of the service provided and their impact in the community.

This academic year we are proud of our 13 projects and we are pleased to invite other students, parents and staff to see their presentations by visiting their virtual exhibition.

Through the link below, you will be able to access our very special and innovative virtual exhibition – https://bit.ly/3MEat0l

  • Each section shows three of our student’s group. After viewing them and giving feedback, please move along to see the rest. You can always go back to the previous sections you have already visited by following the markers on the floor.

Please continue reading below to help you navigate through the virtual space.

By clicking on the markers on the floor you will be able to move around in the virtual space. Each section is designed by three of our student groups. When viewing the section you are linked to the related Sway (a new tab will open). Please make sure to read the survey at the end of each Sway where you will have the chance to leave your feedback which is especially very valuable for our students. After that, you can close the tab and go back and look at the next project.

Do not miss the welcome video in the center of the virtual exhibition which will give you an overview of all their work.

Please be aware, loading time for the virtual space may take a while depending on your internet connection, please be patient.

PYP Exhibition 2022

This year’s exhibition was a synthesis of the journey throughout the Primary Years Programme, and a time to share the knowledge, achievements and success of each student. As a culminating experience, the exhibition has given students an opportunity to pursue their interests, develop conceptual understandings, apply ATL skills and demonstrate the attributes of the IB learner profile. Students where able to showcase student agency and take action to make a positive difference in their school and local community.

During the exhibition, students overcame challenges as they worked collaboratively with their group members. Primary and secondary sources were sought, virtual field trips, online interviews and observations staged, data collected via surveys, experts consulted and group negotiations conducted.  And it was from this, that sustainable action to educate, eradicate and even reimagine has and continues to be taken by these learners. Throughout the process they were guided by mentors who supported students with structuring their time, keeping them on track with their research and supporting them with questions and guidance.

The grade five students celebrated this process by presenting their understandings to the school community. They should be very proud of their achievements, the skills the students used in gaining that knowledge, the understanding of concepts which most might think are too difficult for a G5 student to understand, and the actions that the students have taken to attempt to solve their issue, or raise awareness of it.

Social Issues, A Community Project by G8 Students

The IB “Community Project” is a yearly project that Grade 8 students participate in via groups, in order to spread awareness or take action to make our community a better place. One group of students this year, took it upon themselves to spread awareness about different social issues focusing on racism, gender inequality and bullying.

Through months of preparation and research, they created a website https://jumanamoawad.wixsite.com/my-site and had weekly lessons throughout the whole academic year to reflect and discuss in class.

During the month of May, SEK-Qatar will hold an exhibition where all Grade 8 students will be able to display what they have achieved in their groups for the “Community Project” 2022.

Book Week 2022

This week we have been celebrating Book Week at SEK-Qatar. There have been many exciting opportunities for students to learn more about some of our great books in the library, as well as take part in many games and activities based around literacy.

Some of the great activities included:

  • Book mark making competitions
  • Story writing
  • Mystery Readers
  • D.E.A.R (Drop Everything And Read)
  • Read-A-Thon
  • Book Nooks in the main hall

We had many parents come into school to join us, reading some of their favorite stories, or reading in their home language. We would like to thank all those parents who were able to come in and celebrate with us..

The PYP Student Council also contributed to the fun, by organising some fun days over the week.

  • Funny Hat Day
  • Reading in our PJs
  • Teddy Bears ‘Book’nic

One of the most important part of our Book Week celebration is the Book Character Parade that happened on Thursday. Students dressed up as their favorite book character and shared with their friends!

MYP Basketball

Last week SEK-Qatar MYP boys basketball team participated in a tournament as part of the School Olympic Program in the Basketball Federation Hall in Al Gharrafa.

It was the first time in a school competition in 2 years, so they were very excited.

Our boys won the first match 12-6, it was relatively easy game where the players showed great superiority. We were not fortunate on the second game where we lost 13-7. The other team’s players were significantly taller than our players, and this made it more challenging for us.

It is still unsure if we will go through to the next round, but we will find out very soon. Those games will then be played after Ramadan.

It great to see the excitement and happiness on our students and they demonstrated great attitude during the tournament.

DEAP Talk

Last week we had a visitor from DEAP who presented to our MYP grade 10 students regarding what the organization does to lead the beach cleanup movement and the fight against plastic pollution in Qatar while also advocating volunteerism and the importance of preserving the beautiful nature we have here in Qatar. The organization explained several ways in how the SEK-Qatar community can support. You can follow the organization on Facebook and/or Instagram to see how you as a family can contribute. There are plenty of articles and YouTube videos out there as well if you do a quick search. We sincerely hope this presentation will start a strong collaboration between the organization and our school community.

Micro:bits

By using Micro:bits, students from Grade 9 are doing a Physics project called Energy Awareness at SEK International School Qatar. Students have been inquirers by using their thinking skills and developing research questions that allowed them to investigate how much light energy is used in our daily lives in different school learning environments such as our Library, PYP, MYP, DP Classrooms, administration offices, big common areas, etc.  The goals of the investigations are, firstly to evaluate if SEK-Qatar would be able to contribute to the 2030 Sustainable Development Global Goals proposed by United Nations regarding Climate Action and secondly to communicate through Service and Action how the SEK-Qatar community could be more reflective and caring regarding energy consumption in their daily lives.

Olympic Contest 2022

On Monday the 28th of March 2022, two teams of Grade 5 and Grade 6 students will be representing SEK Qatar in the “Olympic Contest 2022″. This contest is a cultural competition on both Summer and Winter Olympic games, with the participation of eight other schools belonging to the SEK Education Institution Group.

Massive shoutout to our Grade 5’s: Leen Odeh, Rafael Issa, Rawan Fadul and Sara Guarin; and to our Grade 6’s: Josh Ngozi-Nwankwo, Leon Valencia and Marshal Perkins for putting in extra time to train in order to represent SEK International School Qatar. We wish you the best of luck in the competition!

Watch out, soon, there will also be a link available for everyone to stream the event live – we will tweet the link as soon as we have it.

Wellness Week at SEK-Qatar

Our PYP Student Council have been working hard behind the scenes to bring you some excitement for the last week of school before the term break.

Each day this week was titled with a special theme.

PYP kicked off with a “Crazy Hair Day” on Sunday, hair styles you have never seen before!

As SEK-Qatar has over 60 different nationalities across all grades, the following day was all about different countries and cultures. Students were invited to dress up in their traditional outfits from their homes culture or country. Special for not wearing school uniform for once.

Keeping up the dress up spirit, on Tuesday, students came as their favourite book or movie character, it almost felt like Hollywood in our school building. We also saw many students dressed up in purple to celebrated International Women’s Day as a call for equality and a symbol of women’s social, economic, cultural & political achievements.

How can you have a week of dressing up without digging out that animal costume you love so much? We encouraged students to especially dress up as their favourite endangered animal to raise awareness. Students talked about why they wanted to share this animal, and how they could stop it from going extinct.

On the last day the theme was “Trashion” – Trash and Fashion! Students were asked to make the best outfits out of trash or recycled materials. This was to visualise how much waste we create each day. Maybe we can even reuse our collection of bags from your local supermarket in a creative way!?

Such a fun way to close this term by focusing on different topics each day. Thanks to all staff and students who contributed.

SEK-Qatar wishes everyone a great term break and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again for our 3rd term. 

MYP Outdoor Lab

Our 8th grade students took an experiment outdoors to investigate the Earth’s albedo effect on how the surface of the Earth influences its ability to reflect or absorb heat. They used temperature probes inside of soda cans covered in brown paper and white paper and took measurements of each can over a 15 minute period and compared the changes in temperature for both under direct sunlight. The importance of this lab was for students to understand that the albedo effect has a significant impact on our climate. The lower the albedo, the more radiation from the Sun that gets absorbed by the planet, and temperatures will rise. If the albedo is higher, and the Earth is more reflective, more of the radiation is returned to space, and the planet cools. On average, the Earth has a global albedo of about 30%, which means it reflects about 30% of the sun’s radiation. However, deforestation and the melting of ice sheets have on large scale started to change the global albedo.