■How can I say? Place you're in and where you work.

Yes. So hello, my name is Sierra Pratt and I am the vice manager here at the elementary school. So Upbeat International School. And I have been with Upbeat a very long time. I think this is my seventh year and this is my third year here at elementary.
I am the principal of elementary school of UPBEAT. I have been working at UPBEAT for 7 years.

■Please tell me the difference between elementary school and preschool sports.

So I think one of the biggest difference is the amount of student participation. And again, it is more student-led. I feel like with the preschool, the teachers play more of a role because again, they are younger, they need more assistance. However, once they get up to elementary school, we are working with them to lead the event and be in charge with their teams. Like, yes, we have red team and white team at both events. but it really is red team leading the red team. So that's the older students, grades four, five, six, leading the younger students. Additionally to, again, like their participation when it comes to the entire event, that's making the flags, making the chants, cleaning up. There's so much more that our students at elementary have the responsibility to do. So they are in charge of this event. Yes, we help out, we facilitate, but it is their event.

oh yeah, and then I wanted to add one more thing. I think also too, we are really encouraging like the emotional responsibility as well with the students because they are developing and elementary is always learning about their own emotions. And during the sports day, we are learning our unit is who we are. That's the transdisciplinary theme. So we are expecting them to take into account their emotions, take into account the emotions of their teammates as well too.

■What is the purpose for the sports day?

So our goal, I think, again, we have multiple goals, but I do think, again, I think the obvious one is to show off their physical abilities. Again, to show what they've been learning in their physical education classes, but also to show the development over time. Again, the games get more complex the longer they are here. So a grade six game is very different from a grade one game. So I do think. physical, their physical education is goal one. I think, again, to the overall like you said, the education when it comes to the connection to IB and who they are. So it is how they control themselves, how they work together as a team. Both our mottos for preschool and elementary were teamwork makes the dream work. And it really is relying on them to see that, well, yes, you can have individual achievement. Maybe you're running a race against someone. Overall, they need to work together with. their other fellow students, the other teammates that are in their group, either red team or white team, but also with the teachers and the coordinators, because we're also assisting them in putting on this event. So it really is showing how they can grow in their responsibilities and manage their own emotions when it comes.

That's one thing. The other thing is, as I said earlier, our slogan is Teamwork makes DreamWork. Teamwork is the power of dreams. I will make it. It's like that when I translate it. While doing various things, I learned how to interact with people, control my emotions, and a lot of people, such as teammates, teachers, and people who help me, work together to make this event a good one. I think that's one of the big goals of the group work and teamwork. So, those two goals are physical and internal.

■ The team flag, and also the chants. How are they doing making the chants and how are they doing making flag, those kind of team?

So at this moment, we have our various grades all have responsibilities when it comes to sports day. And so. When it comes to making the flags, we actually allow for the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. They come together, they plan together, and then they go about making the flag together. And then it's their responsibility to go to the younger grades, third, second, and first, in order to get them to contribute their signature or whatever the older grades decided for the contribution of that group. So I can let you translate and then I can go to the chance.

four, sorry, yes, grade four that has been making our chants. And so they do it as a class and they do it before they're even assigned a red team or white team. That way it's a completely fair process. And so they work together to come up with the chants. They propose it to us teachers. We give feedback. They also, again, they like performing for each other as well too. So they're always listening to feedback. And then once they have finalized two chants, they go to the red team and go to the white team and they are actually leading the older students. So again, the fifth and sixth and fourth grade, the fourth grade is teaching the fifth and sixth graders. They learn it and then it goes to the entire group of first to sixth grade to learn together.

And then another one that I want to mention is also, too, we always do a sports day dance. and this is actually decided, the song is usually decided by first and second graders. They vote on the song that they would like to dance to, and then it goes to the third grade who goes about designing the dance, and they work together as a whole grade, and then they come and they teach the school the dance, and then we perform it at the end of our sports day. So that is also something we use as a whole school collaboration.

■ What do you think is the best program in the sports day on the real day?

I think that's, again, it's a personal opinion for everyone. But when it comes to the students and the one where we see the most collaboration is, I would say, with our tug of wars, because they do have the first grade and second grade. They are doing the tug of war together. And it is a good chance for the second grade who maybe hasn't done it for as long to be the leaders for the first grade who it is a first time for. And then when it gets up to our next tug of war, it's the grades three, four, five and six. And this is a group who very much feels passionate about the tug of war. They are having fun with it. And also, too, they are making strategies of how they want to put each other. So you can definitely see the mindset shift, but also to how they're congratulating each other and really working to the best of their abilities.
And also white team was losing at that point.

Yes. The last tug of war was very... There was a connection between the 3rd and 6th graders. Regarding the 1st and 2nd graders, the 2nd graders were the first to lead the younger generation. It was an official place. I think the 2nd graders were the ones who pulled the 1st and 1st graders. Regarding the 3rd and 6th graders, there was a passion to connect. And it was almost over, so the game was already decided. It was already decided, but it was like how many points to hold down. There was a team that was losing, and they were doing their best. The students were thinking a lot about their own strategy to make them stronger. I think that was the most exciting part of the game.

■Is there any memorable moment for on the Sports Day?

on the sports day for the sports day yes like always the chance I love seeing them perform the chance and how fast they go about switching from red team to white team getting on the field and off the field but I think and Miss Ishihara mentioned earlier is that yes with our last our last tug of war it was a very close match between red and white and the white team could see the points and so they were really passionate about wanting to win that and they did end up winning for their team and while like the overall sports day it was red team that won white team was able to leave being like we won our tug of war so there was a very good feeling between the students of everybody winning.