Director's Message
Rhonda Norris | rhonda.norris@aas.ru
Dear AAS Community,
We are so grateful for your engagement during last week’s conferences. Thank you for your words of encouragement and support which teachers appreciated very much. These conferences are important opportunities that allow us to strengthen the relationships and common understandings between students, teachers, and parents.
The current situation is impacting members of our community in different ways. To help us better understand how you feel and how we can support you and your family best, please take a few minutes to answer this short survey.
The wellbeing of our students and families continues to be our top priority. We are pleased to present parents with an opportunity to bring wellbeing home through a workshop with AAS consultants, J Christopher Dadefumi and Cathryn Berger Kaye. This workshop is tentatively scheduled for 5:30 pm on Tuesday, December 15. We only have 30 spots available due to the interactive format of the session. Please sign up here to participate!
Thank you to all of the parents who joined our Penguin Athletics focus group. It was a productive and collaborative conversation that resulted in new ideas for AAS and our parents to experiment with in order to better support our student athletes on and off the field. AAS Community Relations will be hosting another focus group tomorrow on the topic of communications, I thank you in advance for your interest and participation. Please fill out this form if you would like to be on our mailing list for future focus groups invitations.
If you have a few moments, I invite you to engage with the learning stories being shared online and to consider supporting our AAS Community Challenge, which is a wonderful service learning initiative started by our high school students. Finally, we are looking for ways to collaborate with our PTO to engage our community in our annual Taganka Gift Box Campaign as there are children at the Taganka Foundation counting on our support.
Thank you once again for your engagement, support and perseverance as we model these and other positive behaviours for our students.
Warm regards,
Rhonda Norris
Director
Anglo-American School of Moscow
AAS Community Challenge
Learn more and support this new student initiative!
ES Express
ES Principal Jeff.Hinton@aas.ru
ES Associate Principal Julie.Villers@aas.ru
ES Associate Principal Eric.Burnett@aas.ru
Dear ES Families,
We hope that you and your families continue to be safe and healthy.
PK-Grade 2
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We were thrilled to welcome back to campus PK-Grade 2 this week. Thank you to all of our educators and parents who have worked hard to make this transition as smooth as possible.
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Educators needed to move materials back to campus, adapt to a new schedule and ensure continuity of learning. All were incredibly flexible as we strive to do what is holistically best for our students while ensuring the health and safety of our community.
Conferences
Thank you again for engaging with us in Three Way Conferences. These times continue to foster important partnerships that support students in reflecting on their current achievements and determining next steps.
ES Holiday Tree
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The students on campus have been decorating our ES Office holiday tree. It is beginning to look very festive.
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If your child is coming to campus and would like to add a home made (preferably recycled materials) decoration to our community tree, please feel free to have them do so.
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If they would like it returned, they should put their name and class code on it.
Ice Rink
We will not be creating ice rinks this year. There are many perspectives that went into this decision.
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First, the equipment needs to be shared between students, which creates a bit of a challenge during COVID. PE Teachers find that in order to support students in both getting their skates on and being close to them when they fall/need assistance, they might not be able to maintain social distancing.
- Last year, the weather didn't cooperate and we were unable to create a usable rink. This year, we have committed to two weeks of DL after the Break, which will reduce the amount of time the rinks would be used, even if the weather did cooperate.
- While we know that ice skating is a valuable part of our program and a wonderful opportunity we have in Moscow it has been decided that for this year we will forgo it.
Winter Fun Photos
Finally, we wanted to share a few photos taken by our school photographer on the playground. It's wonderful to see students smile through their masks.
Have a wonderful day,
The ES Leadership Team
ES Counselors
What's Up in MS
MS Principal, Christopher Schuster chris.schuster@aas.ru
MS Senior Associate Principal, Karisti Cormier karisti.cormier@aas.ru
MS Associate Principal, Alex Lopez alexander.lopez-barton@aas.ru
Click here to like AAS MS on Facebook!
Dear MS Families,
Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences
Thank you parents for your support and attendance at conferences last week. We have had positive feedback from parents and teachers alike about the set times as well as the ability to have everyone around the “Webex” for the conversations - even if they were in different locations.
We had fantastic parent/student attendance:
- Grade 6 - 88%
- Grade 7 - 96%
- Grade 8 - 81%
House Backgrounds
This week we rolled out the House backgrounds for students to be able to use when they are in Webex. Download here!
Thank you to the AAS Community Relations for helping us create more House spirit around the MS!
Asynchronous Days
MS students spent this past Tuesday in Advisory talking about how to structure an effective Asynchronous Day. Students have been asked to think about how they are scheduling their day - including planning active wellness time, academic time, as well as taking advantage of teacher help sessions. This will be a continuing conversation in Advisory while we are in Distance Learning.
MS students spent this past Tuesday in Advisory talking about how to structure an effective Asynchronous Day. Students have been asked to think about how they are scheduling their day - including planning active wellness time, academic time, as well as taking advantage of teacher help sessions. This will be a continuing conversation in Advisory while we are in Distance Learning.
Have a wonderful week!
MS Counselor
James Villers | james.villers@aas.ru | Room 2075
Helping our children be safe and alert online has become an even more crucial parenting skill than usual. One immensely helpful resource related to this topic is Common Sense Media, which I’ve shared in an earlier newsletter. Of particular interest are their articles and videos on Privacy and Internet Safety, as well as their version of a Family Media Agreement. This agreement is meant as an example, and families are encouraged to adapt it as necessary, based on values that are important to them. In other words, please see this agreement as a conversation-starter and an educational tool, not as an automatic solution to the problem of a child spending too much time online.
A recent article in Scientific American offers suggestions for helping maintain our and our children’s mental and emotional balance during these days of limited socialization, as well as food for thought as to why this balance often feels difficult to achieve. The suggestions include limiting media consumption, while still creating opportunities for online social contact. While, on one level, those recommendations seem contradictory, they also seem true and accurate. And they also illustrate the difficult job parents have during the stay-at-home COVID pandemic. If it helps you, take a moment to congratulate yourself for the efforts you’re making on behalf of your children. And then visit Common Sense Media for additional tips on how to help those children find a healthy balance in their use of technology.
HS Flash
HS SENIOR ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL | matthew.groves@aas.ru
Community Connections
On Thursday, December 3, we are hosting the second of our wellness meetings, this time the topic is specifically on student motivation. We will look at what students are reporting and our multi-pronged support structures in this one area. Please join us using this link.
If you weren’t able to join us last week during our coffee and want to see an overall picture of the student-reported wellness data, please see this Webex recording.
Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences
We would like to thank all the parents and students that participated in conferences last Thursday and Friday in our new socially-distanced format!
We have received a great deal of positive feedback from families and faculty alike who appreciated both the appointment aspect of the sign-ups as well as having being able to have the whole family participate in these conversations from multiple locations. Below you’ll find attendance data from the last five years.
Despite the current global situation and some of our families not being the Moscow time zone, we still had very strong participation, a critical component of the learning process:
- Grade 9 - 72%
- Grade 10 - 72%
- Grade 11 - 75%
- Grade 12 - 56%
Learning this Week
This past Monday the Inter-Club Council led a fabulous and emotive high school assembly for nearly 300 participants. Maria and Amelia are spearheading efforts with Blue Dragon, a Vietnamese-based NGO to support individuals and families who were displayed after the recent and ongoing flooding there. You can learn more about the efforts and find information on how you can contribute at the AAS Community Challenge page!
Have a great week!

IB Office
Sean Sonderman sean.sonderman@aas.ru
The Long Haul
The Grade 12s are in the last couple of weeks of a really tough stretch of AoLs, Internal Assessments, Extended Essays, Individual Orals, and TOK Essays. While there is work to be done in the second semester with a few IAs, Mock Exams, and of course exam revision, this December will mark the end of the heaviest workload of the year. So, give those seniors some encouragement to reach the milestone of the upcoming Holiday Break!
HS Counselors
Bryn Will bryn.will@aas.ru supports students with last names beginning with L-Z
Lauren Zimmerman lauren.zimmerman@aas.ru supports students with last names beginning with A-K
Lauren Zimmerman lauren.zimmerman@aas.ru supports students with last names beginning with A-K
Your HS Counselors have two grade level presentations this week - one for Grade 12 on university interviews and the other an annual child protection lesson for Grade 9. It is a pleasure to meet with all of the students and we are incorporating interactive components to enhance engagement.
Next week's university visits:
Institut Polytechnique de Paris and University of the Arts London.
Both presentations are at 12:15PM on Wednesday, December 9th via Webex.
More information about each university is located in Maia Learning along
with recordings of prior visits - click on past events.
Second Annual Blind University Fair:
Next Friday, December 11th from 1-3:30PM
All grade 9-11 students will be expected to attend.
There will be a reflection piece of this event where students are asked to engage with their families about universities. Please ask your child to share their university fair "homework" with you next Friday.
Here is the video from last year's event.
Article of the week:
How Kindness Spreads in a Community
With all of the talk about contagions - did you know that kindness is contagious as well? Here is some insight into what spreads kindness amongst our entire community.
Let's create a Kindness Pandemic in our community through more prosocial actions and modeling!
All grade 9-11 students will be expected to attend.
There will be a reflection piece of this event where students are asked to engage with their families about universities. Please ask your child to share their university fair "homework" with you next Friday.
Here is the video from last year's event.
Article of the week:
How Kindness Spreads in a Community
With all of the talk about contagions - did you know that kindness is contagious as well? Here is some insight into what spreads kindness amongst our entire community.
Let's create a Kindness Pandemic in our community through more prosocial actions and modeling!
Please know that we are here to support your child and you and that we are happy to hear from you.
MAP Parent Sessions
Student MAP Results
- Thank you to all parents who came to the MAP sessions and learned about how parents, teachers and AAS use MAP data.
- If you missed it, please feel free to watch a recording of it here.
- You should have received your MAP reports for your child(ren) in your email yesterday.
- If you would like receive a more detailed report, please contact Kirsten Welbes at kirsten.welbes@aas.ru.
Bringing Wellbeing Home
New! Wellbeing workshop for parents
Wellbeing Workshop for AAS Parents
Tuesday, December 15, Time TBD
Meet J Christopher Dadefumi and Cathryn Berger Kaye for a dynamic conversation about how to support the wellbeing of our children. Of course, AAS gives significant attention to what wellbeing means, what it looks like, and how to support each child during these uncertain times. With the school-home connection being vital to how a child thrives, what’s a parent to do? A time to share ideas, explore possibilities and learn together.
Only 30 places available due to the format of the interactive workshop.
Library News
Librarians: kelsey.hedrick@aas.ru & kris.feller@aas.ru
It snowed! Let’s celebrate with some seasonal books, games, and more.
Quick Links:
Holiday Curbside Library
December 12
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
How does it work?
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Request some books that you would like on our handy form or request books through the Destiny system.
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Wait for the “You’ve Got Books” email.
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Come to school on the days we have indicated in the emails.
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Drive to school (or walk, or taxi, or bus) with your badge to come to the Main Gate.
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Give your name to the librarians and pick up what you’ve requested.
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Return any books that you’ve finished to the security guards during at AAS during a curbside day.
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Enjoy your books at home!
Please visit Kris and K’s “digital libraries." Click around and enjoy!
We are bringing lots of links and fun stuff for our people.
AAS Penguin Press (HS Newspaper)
November Issue of Penguin Press Newspaper Is Here
The COVID-19 crisis has definitely brought about challenges to the AAS community, and, unfortunately, Penguin Press has not been an exception. However, recognizing that our role as the school newspaper team has become more crucial than ever, we have worked harder to unite the school community through our monthly newspapers.
Health Office
Email: health.office@aas.ru
Ongoing flu vaccinations until the end of the fall semester.
Please check your emails for reminders and get back to us!
Student health screenings are going to start in the new semester, pandemic situation permitting.
More information is coming closer to the confirmed dates for all classes.
Winter fun and activities!
We hope you enjoy winter weather with your families and spend time outside as much as you can!
However, we do want to remind you about a few things:
- please remember about the road conditions and the weather changes outside
- dress nice and warm whenever you are planning on spending lots of time outside
- please don’t forget about all the usual covid safety precautions (masks and social distancing).
As much as we would wish for you to enjoy the winter season, we definitely want to see you all healthy and well!
Penguin Life
Email: plife@aas.ru
At the end of November our HS students participated online in the first Internal AAS MUN conference. Students and coaches put many hours of work planning and preparing for the event while exploring yet unfamiliar territory of online MUN conferencing.
We are very proud of this dedicated group and pleased to share conference review by one of our MUN student leaders:
Athletics
As soon as we are informed of the next Hybrid learning date for MS/HS, Athletics will update the practice calendar. Check out the following pages for more information: HS Athletics Webpage and MS Athletics Webpage.
Practice calendar will be updated once the announcement for Hybrid is made.
Stay Tuned
Penguin Best Practices
THANK YOU SO MUCH to all the parents that attended the focus group on Tuesday. We had a lot of great conversations and found new topics of interest for our parent community. We will be eagerly working on taking the ideas and building a set of resources, information sessions, videos, and coffee’s to provide our parents with opportunities to support our MS/HS athletes.
Speech & Debate
New video with student reflections from the competition!
Cozy November Winners!
Congrats to our 11 winners!
AAS Parent-Teacher Organization
email us at: pto@aas.ru
MESSAGE FROM:
Pauline van der Sman-Archer|pto.shop@aas.ru
PTO VP Internal & acting PTO Shop Manager
Dear AAS Families and Staff,
Happy Holiday Season! I don’t know about your family, but in a way we find it hard to believe it’s already December, while it also seems like it has been a very long year. Many of us have probably learnt a couple of things about ourselves, our kids, our spouses, our friends and family near and far over the course of this year. Being involved with the PTO has provided me personally both a sense of security of some ‘normal’ and purpose as well as the challenge of having to be creative and adjust. With 4 children in our household, routine and predictability is key to my sanity and comfort, so having to be creative and adjust quickly are not strengths. It has been inspiring to be part of a PTO volunteer team in which others are very creative thinkers allowing for new ways to bring the AAS Community together and do this in a very supportive way. Thank you!
The PTO Shop has been able to operate in a limited way as you know. We continue to be open to take orders and/or question about uniforms and spirit wear via PTO.Shop@aas.ru. In addition, we will have one more event before the end of 2020. This Saturday, December 5th from 4-6PM we will have our PTO Holiday Shop set up at the Gazebo at Pokrovsky Hills. We would love to see you there! Similar to the Halloween and Pinktober events there, we will have an assortment of small holiday items ranging from Penguin tree ornaments to pencils, notepads, small toys to give the kids a chance to shop a little. We will also have our new Penguin hoodie on hand as well joggers, fleeces amongst other items. And of course, there will be a fire to keep us warm, hot chocolate, some cookies and an ability to spend some time socializing in a Covid-19 safe way. If you need access to Pokrovsky Hills, please email the shop. We are looking forward to seeing you there!
Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday season and of course all the best for 2021!
Best regards,
Pauline van der Sman-Archer
THANK YOU!
- For joining our PTO Connect meeting on Monday
- We had a great chance to virtually get together and we had nice hour long chat
- It was a very informal meeting, which gave us the opportunity to get to know each other and share some ideas and suggestions
- You managed to make PTO very busy, your ideas were amazing and here are the first results of it:
- PTO Walking club
- Leader: Irina Elizarov
- E-mail: irand10@yahoo.com
- Tuesday 8.30 & Friday 14.00
- PTO Tennis club
- Leader: Michele Kuhlen
- E-mail: michele.kuhlen@gmail.com
- PTO Walking club
- PTO Cooking club - we are looking for the club leader and a chef
- PTO Beverages tasting club - we are looking for the club leader
- If interested in any of the clubs please contact the leader of the club (or become one) and make sure you send your phone number in case the leader would need to create Whatsapp group for easier communication
- Please contact us if you have more ideas and suggestions to share or if you would like to be a leader of the clubs, pto@aas.ru
- Our next PTO Connect will be in January, in the week of 25th, more information will follow
PTO IN DECEMBER
ONLINE HOLIDAY NEW BOOK FAIR
DECEMBER 3 ends tomorrow!
- Check out this spreadsheet with all the books! Start browsing and choosing your favorite books.
- Your order form needs to be submitted by December 3.
- DELIVERY will be on 9th-11th of December
ONLINE ARTISAN FAIR
DECEMBER 6 ends in 4 days!
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Here are the easy steps on how to participate:
- Peruse the digital shops of 15+ local artisans
- Browse the websites/facebook pages/instagram of the artisans you will find in our Artisan Fair presentation
- Choose what you like
- Order from each artisan directly
- Pay directly using indicated payment options
- Agree on delivery directly with the artisans
- Stay at home while waiting for your treasures :)
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If you have questions contact us at pto@aas.ru
PTO HOLIDAY SHOP
DECEMBER 5
- Pokrovsky Hills Gazebo, 4-6pm
- Assortment of small holiday items
- New Penguin hoody and more
- Hot chocolate & cookies
- Socializing in a Covid-19 safe way
PTO HOLIDAY COMMUNITY COFFEE
DECEMBER 15, 4pm
- Meet us here
- Agenda will be announced in our next Newsletter