"Always One Step Ahead!"
Traditional activities are conducted for each grade level at Sanko Private Primary School. These activities are proper for that grade level and serve certain goals.
The following activities are performed within this framework.
The Candy Floss Day for Grade 1
The 1st graders share the experience of being a 1st grader with the kindergarten students at the end of the last week of May every year and share the activities made in the 1st grade. On that day organized to share the activities made in Grade 1 and to satisfy the curiosity of the kindergarten students about the next year, the 1st graders exhibit their shows including poems, dances and songs to the kindergarten students. After the show in the Abdulkadir Konukoğlu Sports and Cultural Center, the 1st graders go to kindergarten and offer candy floss to the kindergarten students and eat altogether.
The Movie Day for Grade 2
The Movie Day is organized for the 2nd graders every year. The aim of that day is to have our students become aware of how to behave in an activity held in a communal area and arouse the consciousness of cinema as a branch of arts. The movies shown on that day have a content covering the Values Education. The students enjoy watching movies with their friends. After each film, there is a chat about the film and questions are addressed to the students to review it.
The Traditional Games Day for Grade 3
Our 3rd graders organize the Traditional Games Day activity in May. They learn traditional games that are almost forgotten by asking elderly people in their families and make researches about this issue. The children altogether play the games their grandmothers and grandfathers used to play joyfully on that day organized with the belief that game is indispensable for children at any age in the Abdulkadir Konukoğlu Sports and Cultural Center.
Costume Fest for Grade 4
Our 4th grade students go beyond their creativity with the Costume Fest activity, held in May. They design costumes combining what they learn in the English lessons with their creativity and tell the jury and audience about the materials they use in their costumes and how they get prepared for the festival in English. Our students’ presentations are assessed in the categories of the “Funniest Costume” and “Best English”.
Having been implementing multiple intelligence teaching methods on the basis of which are group activities, individual teaching approaches and project-based learning, our school is one of the first schools to appropriate multiple intelligence and student-centered educational approach and have been practicing it successfully.
Sanko Private Primary School has been going on its educational activities with the homeroom teaching system since its foundation. In this system, expert teachers teach the same grade level every year. The teachers know age characteristics, special teaching methods, learning outcomes in the best way. They prepare lesson plans and materials appropriate for the students’ cognitive level and go on the teaching process, making them competent in every field.
With the belief that real learning is possible by activating all senses, all the curricula are structured in line with “learning by doing” and project-based education. The students exhibit the products of the project-based lessons on classroom bulletin boards and share them with their friends. The students improve their presentation skills thanks to these presentations.
As Sanko Private Schools has proven itself in getting up with continuously-changing world, we keep being an institution shaping education and thus future.
Learning outcomes have been determined from KG to the end of high school period based on the age group and measurement and evaluation procedures have been specified accordingly. This system is not only result-oriented but also provides an infrastructure monitoring the process and solutions when needed.
ENGLISH
It is well-known that fairy tales and stories bear great significant in kids’ world. Fairy tales and stories are the best way express everything wanted to be taught to kids in an indirect way. Moreover, they play a great role in kids’ developing skills directed at learning and expressing.
From this point of view, “the Language Acquisition Program through Narrating Stories Program” is implemented in in English language teaching at primary school. In this 3-hour program (except for the 7-hour main course lessons), values education is also studied and activities such as character analysis suitable for the age groups are carried out.
Some social activities are organized in the school garden. Our goal is to have the concepts and language taught in the classroom be used in different settings and contexts (i.e. finishing the track through the instructions, memory games and association practices).
Additionally, “Recognition” activities are conducted without aiming literacy in English lessons in Grade 1. The purpose is to have the students pronounce the words and structures without teaching letters separately in a deductive way. In this manner, the message that literacy in English is different from Turkish is conveyed to the students who have not started literacy in Turkish yet.
On the other hand, reading and writing activities start in Grade 2. Our students are expected to read and write the words they study in the English lessons at the end of Grade 2. JETSET examinations, which are international placement examinations, are implemented to our students starting from Grade 2.
In Grades 3 and 4, native teachers have story reading activities in the weekly 3-hour English lessons except for the 7-hour main course lessons. In fact, not only is one skill addressed but also the lessons are conducted in an integration of the skills as cognitive taxonomies are used in these lessons (i.e. book analysis, empathy, “how would we solve?” activities).
INTERNATIONAL JETSET EXAMINATIONS
JETSET EXAMINATIONS are a set of language examinations approved by the British Ministry of National Education and having internationally validity in assessing students’ English language skills. This assessment system from Beginner (Grade 2) to Advanced (Grade 8) is for the students aged 8-15. Sanko Private Schools completed all the official documents and got the right to be the JETSET LCCI Examinations Center in the 2015-2016 Academic Year. JETSET starts in Grade 2 and ends in Grade 8 at our school. Testing the four skills, these examination are sent from England. The examinations are conducted with a great organization at our schools and the exam papers are packed on the same day and sent to English for assessment. Our greatest goal in implementing these examinations is to have our students undergo an objective assessment. Another aim is to analyze the results, get feedback about both our English education and our students individually, monitor their developmental processes and support them when needed.
JETSET EXAMINATIONS are implemented in the second week of May. Preparatory programs for these examinations are structured in line with our English curricula. The yearly plans include the missing topics and specific question types in the examinations. Moreover, mock exams are carried out for students to learn about the exam rules and familiarize with the question types.
The results and reports of the JETSET examinations are shared with the students. Furthermore, the results are analyzed by the Directorate of Measurement and Evaluation and the English education is structured in line with the feedback received.
Our students get their certificates including scores in four different categories.
-DISTINCTION 75 – 100
- MERIT 60 – 74
- PASS 50 – 59
- BELOW THRESHOLD 10 – 49
LITERATURE BOARD
Literature Boards were hung on the walls on each floor all around the school for peripheral learning and to introduce English Literature and Culture. Tongue twisters, anecdotes, interesting information, brain teasers, riddles and poems are shared on the walls. Acquisition of English thinking skill is sought through this practice.
WORD POCKETS
Success in all skills in a language is directly proportional to knowledge of vocabulary. For this reason, word pockets are made on the classroom walls for the students to use target words studied in all the lessons actively throughout the year. There is one word pocket in every classroom and the words learned in accordance with the yearly plans are collected in a written way in these pockets. Activities such as pronunciation, meaning, synonyms, antonyms, usage in a sentence and association of words are performed in the classrooms. All the words learned at the end of the year will have been collected in these pockets and revised with different activities throughout the year, all the students will have reached their vocabulary target by the end of the year.
ENGLISH CURRICULUM DESIGN
An English Curriculum Design process special to Sanko Private Schools was initiated in the 2015-2016 Academic Year to clarify KG, Grade 4, Grade 8 and high school graduate profiles, set and achieve the standards in English education. While designing this special curriculum, Common European Framework (CEFR), international English language curriculum, was regarded as the basis.
While forming the curriculum, all the vocabulary items, grammar, four skills and 21st century skills were designed and through which techniques these are taught was also set as a standard. Our curriculum design is still in progress.
Target Language Levels in the Graduate Profiles:
- KINDERGARTEN (A1)
- PRIMARY SCHOOL (GRADE 4 - GSE 30-35 –A2)
- MIDDLE SCHOOL (GRADE 8- GSE 43 -50- B1)
- HIGH SCHOOL (GRADE 11 – GSE 51 – 66-B2)
INTERSCHOOL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS
Some projects were introduced for KG, Primary, Middle and High School students to share with each other, support peer teaching and contribute to the usage of English in other lessons.
ENGLISH SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS: Science experiments are organized for our high school students to present to the primary and middle school students in English.
STORY-TELLING: Our high school and middle school students tell fairy tales and stories from Turkish and world literature to primary school and KG students to support the Literature course and draw attention to values.
CULTURE DAYS
“Culture Days” is organized at the end of year to introduce the cultures of the three languages taught at our school (English, German and Spanish) and ensure that they are used in different settings.
Culture Days Activities:
- Poem Performances
- Narration
- Station Activities
- Garden Games
- Club Presentations
- Drama shows
- Chorus
- Costume Fest
GERMAN
German lessons are offered as a second foreign language option at Sanko Private Primary Schools. They are held one hour per week in Grade 1 and two in Grade 2, 3 and 4. Considering that knowing a language is not “knowing” but “using it correctly”, we aim at teaching foreign languages having fun, discovering and practicing in a natural process in the same way as the native language not as a body of rules.
In line with the idea that “each student learns differently”, various teaching methods and numerous visual and auditory materials are made use of directed at permanence learning. The students learn, understand and use frequently-used words and phrases in daily life. When our students graduate from primary school, they acquire basic information necessary for primary school.
SPANISH
Spanish, the official language of 21 countries, is the third most frequently-spoke language after English and Chinese and the second in the USA. Furthermore, it is one of the official language of many significant international institutions. Spoken by more than 500 million people, Spanish is becoming more important and has become the second language taught most. For this reason, Spanish has been offered as the second foreign language and Sanko Private Schools since 2014. The aim of the Spanish course in the primary school is to arouse awareness about the Spanish world and form the base of the language. Spanish is taught 1 hour per week at KG and in Grade 1 and 2 hours in Grade 2, 3 and 4. The students gain the ability to read and write in Spanish together with the usage of books in Grade 2, which is reinforced at the following grades. The students acquire the ability to use the language in a way to satisfy their needs through dialogs and mini dramatizations including simple grammar rules. Spanish becomes more enjoyable thanks to the songs in Spanish and the students improve their pronunciation skills. Bulletin boards are prepared and shared in the halls to make sentence structures and words related to the topics taught permanent.
The Learning Schools course is offered only at Sanko Private Primary School. It is offered at Grade 3 and 4 and the students appropriate the five disciplines of learning organizations; that is, mental models, personal mastery, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking concepts. The students learn to get to know themselves, consciousness of having personal vision, life-long learning, problem solving, basic communication skills, respect and sensitivity to differences and get prepared for life through this course. The content of the course is performed via fun and enriched activities. Thanks to this, our students learn to work together, improve their interpersonal relations and self-confidence, have an inner journey and get to know their personalities and contribute to their personal development.
Great importance is attached to laboratory practices and experiments to ensure permanence of what has been learned, create opportunities to put what they have learned into practice and improve their scientific process skills. In line with these goals, experiment manuals have been created at every grade level in the primary school.
Mind Lab is a method used in 25 countries and aiming at improving thinking and life skills. It has reached more than 10,000 teachers and 2,000,000 students since 1994. Mind Lab is implemented an hour a week in the 4th grade. In this course, our students gain skills like strategic thinking, using resources appropriately, problem solving, decision-making and time management with 11 different games.
ARTS
Weekday Art Activities : Baglama, Guitar, Violin, Creative Drama (for Shows), Drawing, Folk Dance, Chorus and Rhythm activities
Weekend Art Activities : Guitar, Violin, Creative Drama (for Grades 1 and 2), Folk Dance, Drum.
SPORTS
Sports Teams : Swimming, Basketball, Volleyball, Table Tennis, Tennis, Athletics, Bocce.
Weekend Sports Courses : Swimming, Basketball, Volleyball, Table Tennis.
Swimming, basketball, football, bocce, table tennis, court tennis and volleyball teams are formed at our school. Our students perform their activities in pilot teams in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades. Starting from the 4th grade, they are involved in school teams, take part in competitions and represent our school. Furthermore, folk dance team practices are performed at our school.
Values included monthly in the diaries used by the students are studied through various activities and the students make presentations about these topics. Wise sayings to support character education are written on boards first and then diaries before starting lessons every day and then the students share their opinions concerning these sayings.
Animation and short film presentations are made about such topics as social solidarity, global warming, covetousness, prejudice and helpfulness. Character education is also supported with presentations including visuals, videos, cartoons and animations.
The students' distinctive works showing their development are brought together, filed and passed onto the upper grade in their Portfolios. On the presentation day, the students' expressing themselves with their works and involvement in the evaluation process contribute to their personality development and help them gain decision-making skill and learning responsibility. The students pass to an upper level with their portfolios.