Dear parents,
Please note that the After School Recreation Centre (SFO) is opened during the summer holiday weeks 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32 – from June 28 to August 13. The price per child per week during the summer holiday is DKK 400.00.
Due to the planning in the SFO, it is important for us to know before the end of April, if you wish for your child/children to attend the SFO during the summer holidays.
Once again the school parties have come to an end, and the teachers and I wish to thank each one of you for a couple of very nice evenings. It is always a pleasure to meet under more informal circumstances, where we have a chance to talk with each other in a less structured manner.
It is impossible to avoid that a huge project like our school parties with between 800 and 1000 guests each evening will cause some disturbances in our everyday life and daily routines, but I do believe that everything has gone without problems, and that it has been an eventful week for us all to remember.
So thank you very much for your participation and your good spirits.
On behalf of the teachers,
Simon Mosekjær
For More Information Contact: Cheryssa Jensen, Promotions Representative
Office: 88 20 21 10, Mobile: 27 99 75 84, E-mail: cjensen@upwithpeople.org
Families in the Kolding area will have the unique opportunity to bring a bit of the world into their own homes between November 8th and November 14th when an international cast of Up with People arrives in Kolding as a stop on their 2009 world tour.
Host families are being sought to keep one or more students from the 85-member Up with People cast which represents 20 countries and more than 25 states. “It is a great opportunity to experience other cultures while sharing your own,” explained Cheryssa Jensen.
The opportunity to stay with local families during their stay in each community is a centerpiece of Up with People’s 22-week program. The giving goes both ways…while families share their traditions and local attractions; the cast members share their experiences and cultures.
Local host families are asked to provide a bed, local transportation at the beginning and end of each day, as well as breakfast and most dinners. During most evenings, cast members will be home with the family to participate in their activities and interests.
In addition to many wonderful experiences with their new “son” or “daughter,” each host family will be invited to a special Up with People Show on Friday, November 13th.
Host an Up with People Cast Member
“I can honestly say that the dozens of families who have opened their homes to me during my time with Up with People is one of the most meaningful and memorable experiences I have had,” said Cheryssa Jensen. “I still stay in contact with many of them and I believe they will become lifelong friends,” she added.
“Those with smaller children or young teens in their home often find that the Up with People cast members are wonderful role models and provide a glimpse into other countries, cultures and traditions they might not often experience in Kolding,” Jensen added.
Local families in the Kolding area are being sought to host the cast members between November 8th and November 14th. Those interested in hosting are encouraged to contact Cheryssa Jensen on the Kolding Advance Team at cjensen@upwithpeople.org or by calling 27 99 75 84.
Up with People’s visit to Kolding is sponsored by Aperian Global, Business Kolding, Kolding Realskole, and The Cosmo – International School of Southern Denmark.
Up with People is an independent nonprofit, [501(c)(3)] organization without any religious or political affiliations. It provides young adults an international and intercultural experience that teaches service leadership and uses the performing arts to deliver messages of hope and goodwill throughout the world. Up with People exists today to spark people to action in meeting the needs of their communities, countries and the world while building bridges of understanding as a foundation for world peace. For more information visit www.upwithpeople.org.
A good offer for English speaking students at Kolding Realskole
If you have children attending classes at Kolding Realskole and you would like them to improve and/or maintain their English standards, we are able to offer them lessons every afternoon at The Cosmo.
We already have students that join our lessons every day – mostly from 13 pm until 13.45 pm – Wednesdays to 15.15 pm.
Here they have the possibility of speaking, reading, writing and hearing English. All the lessons are of course taught in English by qualified teachers.
The students will be provided with extra teaching material other than what they use at Kolding Realskole, and they might have homework.
Please visit our website or blog for further information or contact Head of Department Simon Mosekjaer at +45 2052 0549 for additional information and prices.
There might be many reason of why one should improve and maintain a certain degree of eloquence when speaking English, but no one explains it better that this commercial. Enjoy the video!
Bullying can be stopped if students, parents and teachers work together
The Cosmo and Kolding Realskole have a moral obligation to reduce bullying. Furthermore, the charter agreement lay down by the school board specifically states that the school strives to “provide a safe physical and emotional environment”. At school, teachers are doing their best to keep an eye open for potential bully situations and if possible stop them before they take place, though this is not always possible.
That being said, parents also have an obligation to help stop bullying, and we are not able to help and take action, unless we are informed by the students and/or the parents, so please inform the class room teacher, if there is anything we should be aware of.
If bullying occurs, we will have a serious talk with the student or students, who bully, and thereafter the parents will be informed. Should such an incident arise a second time, we will consider suspend the student in question for a shorter period, and if the bullying does not stop hereafter, the final step will be to expel the student from our school.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me…”
Do you remember that old nursery rhyme? Honestly, it wasn’t true when you were in school, and it isn’t true now. Teasing, taunting and other forms of bullying can cause serious emotional harm to children, and it may last much longer than a bloody nose or scraped knees.
Before the summer holidays a 12-year-old Danish boy committed suicide by hanging himself in a tree after having been the victim of excessive bullying from other students of his own age. Due to an Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, popularly called ADHD, this young boy proved to be an easy target for bullies at his school, and according to the Danish newspapers “…these bullies drove him over the edge of what he was able to endure”.
Even though the dead boy’s mother was well aware that he was having problems at school, she was totally taken by surprise by her son’s suicide. The dead boy was due to move to a new school, where his brother had already moved, because of the persistent bullying. The school has been criticised for not having done enough to stop the incessant bullying.
What can we do to prevent something as horrible as this from happening ever again?
Before trying to answer that question I believe it is necessary to explore what bullying really is and how we can stop bullies and bullying at school?
What is bullying?
Bullying can be defined in many different ways, and even though many countries do not have a legal definition of bullying, it can generally been seen as peer abuse. The reasons for bullying might be many; but most students have a tendency of bullying those who are in some ways different.
Bullying is every intentional act aimed at harming others, through verbal harassment, name calling and use of foul language, physical assault or other more subtle methods of coercion such as manipulation, threats or the like.
A definition of bullying can be when a person is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more persons. The negative actions are, when a person intentionally inflicts injury or discomfort upon another person, through physical contact, words or in other ways.
Electronic bullying also known as cyber-bullying
Bullying can also happen on-line or electronically. This form of harassment is known as cyber-bullying. It occurs when someone bullies through the Internet, over mobile phones or via other electronic means of communication. Examples include sending mean-spirited text, e-mail, or instant messages; posting inappropriate pictures or messages about others on blogs or on websites; using someone else’s user name and identity to spread rumors or lies about someone and finally lying to hurt internally and externally.
Some facts about bullying
A rough estimate made by the Danish Children’s Council (Børnerådet) says that 7% or every 14th child will experience being bullied once a week.
According to the survey from the Danish Children’s Council:
Other facts about bullying:
Stop bullying
Please help us to stop bullying by informing us about any incidents that might be classified as bullying.
Please bear in mind that it is very important for the students to remember to bring their lunch every day. They all have rather long school days, and we see a clear difference in their concentration before and after they have eaten.
They are sometimes able to borrow money from a teacher, if they forget their lunch, but of course they like their own lunches better, which are healthier and more nutrient than the food which they are able to buy at the school.
As we spoke about at the parents-teachers’ meeting we would like to make an automatic link to your mail addresses, when we post news on the blog. This way you will always be updated on news written on the blog.
In order to be able to do so, we need your mail addresses. Please send a note from home or mail it to the headmaster info@thecosmo.dk Simon Mosekjaer or class room teacher Synne Lindum Haagensen synne.lindum@kolding-real.dk with mail addresses on every parent in the family, who would like the automatic link.
Moreover you also have the possibility to subscribe to new posts published on the blog. This subscription is called RSS feeds. Read more about RSS feeds at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS.
After each post on the blog you will find the following text: “You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.” If you press RSS 2.0, a new page will appear, and on this page you need to click on “Abonner på dette feed”; “subscribe to this feed”, in English. Thereafter you will receive all updates from the blog.
Have a look here and see a short summary in English on a review of a novel originally worked with during Danish lessons. Among other things the students were to analyze the novel they had read, and practise their skills in group work. The most important challenge for them was to find out whether the main character actually had developed personally or just gone as they put it – “from realiable to unrealiable?”
The drop-out rate amongst new teachers is rather high, and at Kolding Realskole and at The Cosmo we would like to hang on to our new teachers, because when a teacher drops out at the wrong moment it is always a drawback and a bother for both the students and the other teachers. 
It is far from always easy to be a new teacher at a new school, with new colleagues and new students, new habits and new routines. There are so many new things, different routines and habits that a new teacher has to be aware of, know and take care of during their first period at a new school, which has a life of its own and its own way of functioning. It is both interesting and challenging to start at a new school.
According to Kai Frederiksen from FSL – the teachers’ union – “It is important that everybody at the school – old, experienced teachers, management, students and their parents- makes an active effort to make it a success for the new teacher and make sure that he or she would like to start at the school for a long time.
Starting at a new school is a hard job, so at Kolding Realskole and at The Cosmo we try to take good care of our new colleagues, and we ask you – parents and students – to do the same.
Simon
If you have children attending classes at Kolding Realskole and you would like them to improve or maintain their English standards, we are able to offer them lessons every afternoon at The Cosmo.
We already have students that join our lessons every day – mostly from 13 pm until 13.45 pm. Here they speak English and are taught in English. The students will be provided with extra teaching material other than what they use at Kolding Realskole, and they might have homework.
Please contact The Head of Department Simon Mosekjaer at 20 52 05 49 for additional information and prices.
A Good Offer
