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Seasonal School

Group photo from the 2023 Spring School, when JAXA astronaut Naoko Yamazaki visited

JAXA Astronaut: Naoko Yamazaki visited us for our Space Themed Spring School

Held during the Spring, Summer, and Winter holidays, seasonal school is a highly anticipated event at YES International. Our teachers work together to plan these events ahead of time so that attending students can experience both enjoyable and educational lessons based around seasonal themes.

In addition to this, YES provides the unique chance for students to meet individuals such as authors, scientists, astronauts, celebrities, musicians, and many more. These influential and inspiring people appear as special guests during our seasonal schools and provide engaging and interactive lessons/lectures for attendants.

The 2023 Spring and Summer schools have been a huge success with places being booked out very quickly, and we are expecting to the same for our Winter Seasonal School at the end of this year.

2023 Spring School: Starship Academy

This spring, our seasonal school was based around the theme of Space exploration. Students received trilingual lessons in English, Japanese, and Programming based around this theme. Our teachers prepared Science, Programming, Social Studies, and Art classes so that they could understand the theme content from a variety of perspectives.

At the end of seasonal school, we had the great fortune of having the JAXA Engineer and Astronaut: Naoko Yamazaki as our special Guest speaker.


Ms Yamazaki gave a lecture with both factual information, and her own personal accounts of being an astronaut to the excited and amazed children!

JAXA astronaut Naoko Yamazaki in her orange flight suit
Magazine article about Naoko Yamazaki's special lesson at YES Spring School
Naoko Yamazaki giving a talk to students at the 2023 Spring School

2023 Summer School

Our summer school this year lasted for a total of four weeks with a different theme each week.

WEEK 1

Week 1 was themed Dino Discovery and saw the students exploring the field of paleontology.

We had the honor of hosting the renowned palaontologist, 
Dr Yoshitsugu Kobayashi as our special guest for this week.

 

Paleontologist Dr Yoshitsugu Kobayashi showing a dinosaur book to a student at Summer School
Dr Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, paleontologist and Summer School guest

Dr Yoshitsugu Kobayashi

WEEK 2

Week 2 continued was labelled Lights, Camera, Action and involved a study of Performing Arts such as puppet shows, theatre, and television.

We had the HUGE pleasure of welcoming the well-known actress and TV presenter
Nao Minamisawa as our special speaker.
 

Actress and presenter Nao Minamisawa with students in a performing arts lesson
Nao Minamisawa, actress, presenter and Summer School guest

Ms Nao Minamisawa

WEEK 3

Week 3 saw students take a deep-dive in music studies with the theme No Music, No Life. Our talented teachers enchanted the students with live performaces on the ukulele, guitar, and piano.

We also had steelpan music specialist, 
Ms Kanako Tomioka pay us a visit. Students were enchanted by the Caribbean sounds of the steelpan and had a chance to play it themselves.

Students on the floor enjoying live music during Summer School's 'No Music, No Life' week
Steel pan specialist Kanako Tomioka playing the steel pan with students

Ms Kanako Tomioka

WEEK 4

Our final week saw us return to a more scientific theme with the study of Marine Biology. This week was titled Under the Sea and was provided students to learn about marine life in detail.

We were privileged to have the dynamic 
Dr Ken Takai as our special guest this week. The students could not contain their excitement at his interactive and engaging lecture.

Dr Ken Takai giving an interactive marine life lecture at Summer School
Dr Ken Takai, Summer School guest speaker on marine life

Dr Ken Takai

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