Principal's Message
Dear Parents,
I hope you have a relaxing Winter vacation. For those of you who will be celebrating Christmas, I hope it is a wonderful and satisfying time of the year for you.
 The past few weeks have been so busy at school; probably the most outstanding events for your children would have been the performances during Mother Tongue and Culture Week. For me, it was a great sharing of our different cultures, traditions and languages. I am sure your children learned about themselves and can more appreciate the diversity in our school community. I hope they also understood the message that others’ cultures and languages are highly valued at YIS.
At this time of the year we often lose some of our students who are moving back to their home country or to some other destination. I hope those of you who are learning will take some wonderful memories of your time at YIS with you.
We are also losing some teachers, and welcoming some new ones. Mr and Ms Schoff are moving back to Australia. I am sure you will agree that we are sorry to lose them and at the same time wish them good luck for the future. Mr Schoff will be replaced by Ms Helen Keogh. Also leaving for Australia is Ms Mika Tanahashi. Ms Tanahashi has been working very closely with 1L and working a little in the Kindergarten Japanese culture class. Ms Mika will be enrolled in a Bachelor of Education teacher training course in Sydney. I know she is going to be very successful in her studies. Ms Tanahashi will be replaced by Ms Alex Lockwood. Ms Lockwood has just completed her teaching qualification, some of it with Ms Brown as her mentor.
Many of you know that Ms Saito and Ms Chan will be taking maternity leave in February. I am very pleased to tell you about the plans we have for those two classes. Ms Saito will be replaced by Ms Yoshida. Ms Yoshida was formerly one of our Grade 3 teachers and prior to that she was a Japanese language teacher at YIS. Ms Chan will be replaced by Ms Asako Clark. Ms Clark has been a regular substitue teacher at the ELC and the elementary school. We are very pleased to welcome these techers to our team. Ms Air, who works with our Kindergarten teachers will also be leaving for maternity leave in February. Ms Air will be replaced by a newcomer to YIS, Ms Maira Tanaka.
Finally, I would like to offer a gentle reminder to K - 1 parents to please pick up your children at 3:00pm unless they are signed up for an aftter-school activity. Your cooperation is always appreciated.
Paul Neary
Elementary School Principal
News
2009 Orphanage Christmas Party
 Thanks to the response of the entire YIS community, this year’s Orphanage Christmas party could take place successfully on December 5th. Prior to the event, the fundraising campaign was very well supported and a total of 276,545 yen was collected before the party. Mrs. Negishi, both vice president of the YIWC (Yokohama International Women’s Club) and the Christmas Party chairperson came to the school on December 3rd to receive the donations that were collected up until that time. Our thanks go to all those who helped with the money collection, and most of all we are extremely grateful to everyone who contributed so generously.
The money was used to buy stocking fillers for the children of two homes: Kofu Kodomoen and Kodomonosono in Chigasaki and the remainder has been set aside to go towards the purchase of the much needed replacement of a van at one of the participating children’s homes.
We are also very proud of the Van der Poel group of middle school and high school students. This year, the group made up of over 30 students was also supported by the Peer Helpers in grades 4 and 5 led by Ms. Kumamoto, and altogether they demonstrated outstanding commitment from beginning to end. They were all determined to ensure the event would be enjoyable for the children and to that end they were all involved in the purchase of the stocking fillers, the wrapping of presents and the decorations that transformed our YIS cafeteria into a festive setting for the party.
 Throughout the day the smiles from the children in response to our students' help with the food and games made it obvious that their effort had paid off. The children received a warm welcome, and at the end of the day our students sent them off knowing that they can meet up again at the spring events sponsored by the YIWC. This year’s Christmas party was a wonderful day where different parts of the community could get together for the enjoyment of all. Lastly, our thanks also go to Ms.Gadsby and our photographer Mr. Rayne.
Sylvie Maeda, Steven Hooker
Van der Poel Community Service Supervisors
K International Run
 Thirty-six runners from our elementary and middle school represented YIS this year on November 27th at K International School. The competition was tough as nine schools in total were at the meet but YIS did extremely well. All of our runners came in the top ten of their respective races and we brought home a lot of medals on the day. Thank you to Ms. Buchanan and Mr. Reynolds for coaching and to all of the parents who came and supported on the day.
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