The European International school hosted an IB in-school Category 2 “Teaching and Learning workshop”. The main focus of the workshop was the “taught curriculum” component of the PYP model and introduced teachers to a variety of practical teaching strategies that will assist in facilitating differentiated inquiry learning in their classrooms. The professional development sessions were led by Jenny Lathrop. She has extensive experience with IB programs and has worked as a Site Visit Team Member, PYP Coordinator, and as an MYP Visual Arts Teacher.

The Ceremony was held in the School's Main Hall where students, parents, teachers and guests gathered to celebrate. Mr. Christo Steyn, Director of the International Baccalaureate Programmes delivered his opening speech and welcomed our graduates. During the graduation our hard working Year 5 students received Year Books and certificates for successful completing their Primary Years Program. This was followed by a very touching final performance of the well-known song "We are the champions". Everybody attended a wonderful party after the graduation, which was organized by the parents.

On the 29th of May, PYP 4th graders had an assembly that united all the UOI topics that we covered throughout the year. The students created a new country, Karagis, with new culture, traditions, laws, government, national food, clothes and anthem, holidays, jobs and so on. The name of the country is specific, as it was created by using the first letters of the students’ nationalities.

As part of the final year of PYP, the fifth graders held a huge exhibition of projects that they designed, researched, and implemented over the course of seven weeks. The main theme was “Sharing the Planet” and students chose topics connected to this theme, such as public transportation, deforestation, air pollution, child welfare, healthcare access, and racism. Students had to research and interview experts related to their topic, conduct surveys, develop and execute a community action, and prepare a creative performance. All of their information was combined on a large display that, along with the performances, was shown on the Exhibition day. Students added their own flair with food, games, balloons, stickers and more. Overall, it was an extremely fun event and it demonstrated how much the students had learned over their time in PYP. Many parents commented on the changes they saw in their children and how they were more independent, curious, and engaged. Even the students themselves stated that the Exhibition process was fascinating. One student stated that it gave them the opportunity to prove to themselves that they could work hard and succeed. Throughout the process, Exhibition develops a student’s social, thinking, self-management, research, and communication skills, combining not only their academic accomplishments but also the attributes promoted by the International Baccalaureate. It is the first major milestone in a young learner’s journey to become an internationally minded inquirer.

In the frame of unit of inquiry “Energy” PYP 4B grade students visited “Crazy Hall” to transfer their theoretical knowledge into practice and clearly see interrelations between different types of energy. Students could not hide their emotions when they realized that jumping down from climbing walls and falling into foam pit was the result of gravitational potential energy that was changed into kinetic energy; And that gravitational force was the reason of making them difficult to climb out from that foam pit. While jumping on the trampoline they understood that the energy stored in a stretched object was elastic potential energy making them bounce up and down over and over. The students spent (consumed) their mechanical energy during one hour and went back to school with awareness of concept of different types of energy. It was great opportunity for students to mix up knowledge with fun.

Currently, the PYP grade 4 students are inquiring into the unit “Energy”. One of the lines of inquiry is “Renewable and nonrenewable energy”. To take a closer look at wind turbines, and find out first-hand how they generate electricity, the students visited a wind farm, located in Gori which is currently the only wind farm in Georgia. The students interviewed the electrician, who provided them with some information about the onshore wind farms. Our students had a great time and found the trip very enjoyable! Part of their next project will be to design a model for the country, using only green energy.

On the 11th of May PYP organized an ‘appreciation day’ as part of their ‘countdown to summer’ (summer countdown). Each day of the summer countdown is in alphabetical order and is very exciting for our students. For appreciation day, PYP students wrote letters and made cards for their teachers, the administration and all of the members of the European School Staff to show how much they appreciate their efforts and simply to say, ‘thank you’.

On May 10, third graders participated in a special Geography competition. As students have been inquiring the unit “Oceans, seas and river of the Earth” they learnt about continents, oceans and other bodies of water. Students also learned how to work with maps and identify different bodies of water, like rivers and seas. Thus, to summarize all their knowledge, a special Geography competition was held. Students from both grades were divided into 4 groups. The competition consisted of 3 rounds. In the first one, students had to answer the questions about the topics they have covered through the unit. Second round was about map search, kids had to choose a card with a body of water written on it and they had to find it on the map. For the final rounds kids had to create actual maps. In the end of the competition the winning team received certificates and globes for their hard work. Between the rounds, students also had the opportunity to performed songs and dances. All our students enjoyed the competition, and although winning was important to them they displayed great teamwork and used their knowledge acquired during our lessons.

On May 7, 2018, around 150 students from leading universities and schools participated in the annual cyber olympiad - CyberCube 2018. Two teams were representing the European School. The first team brought together students from American High School and IB Programmes: Aleksandre Lomadze-Gabiani, AHS, grade 11, Giorgi Chakhnashvili, IB MYP grade 10, Giorgi Imnaishvili, AHS, grade 10. Last year, the boys finished eleventh among fifty competing teams. This year, however, they’ve improved their performance and finished eighth. The second team consisted of students from Georgian Program: Omar Shekiladze, grade 8, Aleksandre Tvaliashvili, grade 8, and Konstantine Chkhaidze, grade 7. Georgian Program joined CyberCube for the first time this year. Throughout the olympiad, our teachers, Davit Nozadze and Irakli Javakhishvili, mentored our teams.