Thursday evening over 120 students and coaches gathered to celebrate the sporting achievements of the 2017-18 school year. Awards were giving out to individual teams, Scholar Athletes, Athlete of the Year, and the Phoenix Award. Thanks to Mr. Clem and Mr. Parmar for all their hard work; it was a great event and a wonderful evening.

Apologies for the late delivery!

The 8am bus ride to Dongtan was a quiet one as the boys focused on the task at hand. Dalton looked to get their 22nd and 23rd straight win since they lost in the tournament final in 2016 to Dwight Foreign School. Coming into the game having dealt with every possible competitor they were confident, but knew that no team would simply hand over a championship trophy without a fight.

Mentally prepared the boys took the field as KKFS and ICSP played in the first match of the day. The winner would advance to the final. It was a heated game that would finish with a 2-1 victory for ICSP and the two time goalkeeper of the tournament, Hyeonseo Ko.

Going through the same warm up routine that has served them well over the last few years the boys got their feel for the turf and one another. Former Dalton goalkeeper, Kevin Bae, showed up to cheer on the boys and help warm up junior goalkeeper Danny Lee.

At the first whistle Dalton picked up where they left off in their last matchup against Dulwich three days prior. Dalton controlled the ball and connected pass after pass. This required the Dulwich defence to press and continue to shift their defence. This possession and team play, led by a solid backline (senior Jeonggon Kim and juniors Hongjun Lee, Joseph Park and Ryan Park), really wore down the Dulwich spirit.

It wouldn’t be long before Dalton would capitalize on this flagging energy. In the 6th minute of play sophomore Anton Zaitsev controlled a ball into the top of the box. Running off of him junior Woohyun Kim picked up a pass as he cut to goal. From there it was just the keeper to beat and he placed it gently into the back of the net for the first goal of the tournament.

Moments later Ryan Park made a brilliant run overlapping junior Taeho Kim (as he had done many times this season). A strong cross to the edge of the 6 yard box would find a well positioned Anton Zaitsev who blasted it past the keeper to the near post.

For the rest of the half it was a possession game directed largely by junior Miguel Batanero and Woohyun Kim. Both players played stunning games in the middle of the pitch and the opposing coaches would speak of them with incredibly high praise following the game. After lulling the defense to sleep with a number of well placed passes, Minsuh Lee would find junior captain Phillip Yoon with a through ball which would be placed passed the keeper for the third goal of the match. “Minsuh played an excellent match in this one, coming off the bench and playing some really inspired minutes” said coach Musselman following the game, “I’m really looking forward to seeing how he can develop for next year.”

After halftime Minsuh Lee would stay on the pitch and net a beauty off a great junior Taeho Kim pass that found him in stride breaking toward goal. Taeho, feeling under the weather, still played valiantly in the tournament using his speed and confidence on the ball to constantly put pressure on the opposition.

The game well in hand, coach Musselman got the opportunity to play all members of the team in the second half. Sophomore Minjae Jo would net his first goal of the season along with junior Hongjun Lee. Freshman Junha Mun would net his third of his rookie campaign as well.

The game would finish 7-0 and Dalton would chalk up their record tying 5th shutout of the season. Goalkeeper Danny Lee didn’t even register a shot on goal, but he fielded his position and distributed the ball incredibly well throughout the match. With the first game out of the way, the boys prepared for the last test of the season against ICSP, the only team in the division who had beaten Dalton for a half of play (the first half of their first matchup would see Dalton down 1-0 at halftime).

Geared up and ready the boys took the field and didn’t waste any time getting to the net. Miguel Batanero threaded the needle with a pass to a streaking Anton Zaitsev through the middle toward goal. The ball laid out just far enough for Anton to beat the keeper to the ball, touch it around him and finish it for the first goal. Total time elapsed: 1.5 minutes.

Three minutes later with Dalton threatening again, Taeho would launch a throw in into the box. Anton shielded a player from it and the ball would end up on the bounce to junior Takjun Oh who volleyed the ball off the post and in for the second goal. “I wish I could say that the game was ever in doubt” said coach Talbot, “but we were a force to reckon with today, two great team wins.”

Phillip Yoon, playing through a foot injury, would continue to press and make plays up top. “It is a position that he hasn’t played for me since 8th grade,” said coach Musselman. “I have to say, he is a real team player for being put in that position. He learned on the fly, and really excelled as the game processed. That’s the type of player he is, he means so much to this team.” On a run down the edge toward goal, the only way to stop Phillip is to tackle him. Unfortunately for ICSP they did just that in their own box resulting in a PK. With Phillip dealing with the foot injury, Woohyun Kim stepped up and drilled the penalty passed Ko for the third goal of the game.

From there the game got a little chippy. ICSP would receive their first of two red cards in this game and go down to an exhausted and demoralized 10 players. Although very upset with the infraction, Dalton maintained their cool and did not stoop to the level of their opponents. “Coach Musselman and I were really proud of the boys and how they responded. Quite easily can get out of hand, but our boys let their play do the talking… and it was loud today” said coach Talbot following the game.

Anton Zaitsev would net two more goals in the second half bringing his total for the tournament to 4. He would also finish the day with two assists making him one of Dalton’s most potent and dangerous attacking players.

After an uneventful second half that finished with all Dalton seniors on the field the goal was attained. Another Championship would be brought home to Dalton.

Joseph Park, a stalwart of the Dalton defence that didn’t give up a single shot on goal all tournament, was unanimously selected as the Defensive Player of the White Division Tournament by the coaches. While Joseph played brilliantly, it must be noted that it really was a team effort. Ryan Park was incredibly aggressive, winning acrobatic 50/50 challenges in the air, and constantly thwarting efforts down the right wing. Jeonggon Kim and Changwhi Park both shut down defenders and did well to maintain possession along the backline. Bushin Kim also played valuable minutes, using his speed to track down and stop any threatening attack. And finally, Hongjun Park. Hongjun could easily have walked away with this award as well as he was an absolute beast in the middle of the pitch. “I was very impressed with Hongjun today, he didn’t let anything bounce and won every ball that came his way. Honestly, our defence would not be quite the same without him. It is just a shame that this award can’t be given out to everyone who played along that backline,” said coach Musselman.

All of the coaches agreed that the MVP of the tournament needed to come from the Dalton squad, but they had trouble selecting just one. Miguel Batanero, Phillip Yoon and Woohyun Kim all played superb games in the tournament and were well deserving. Anton Zaitsev could easily have been thrown into the conversation with his offensive powerhouse capabilities. However, the coaches, after much discussion, decided that it was Woohyun Kim who had earned the honors. In a modest tone, Woohyun had this to say following his reception of the award: “I think the MVP is for the team. We all played for each other this season!”

The 4 seniors who will leave the team next year will be surely missed. It was an incredibly ride. Coach Musselman said that he was “proud of the players, not just for their game, but of the men they have become over the last few years I have coached them. They are a great group of guys, and will really be missed next year.”

With the tournament format changing next year, there will be more competition than ever before. Will Dalton be able to handle it? Can they continue this 23 game win streak and bring home another championship? Time will tell. For now, they are champions once again, and they are simply basking in the glory before they set their sights on next year. Great season boys!

SELECTED TO THE ALL TOURNAMENT TEAM 2018:
Anton Zatsev
Woohyun Kim
Joseph Park
Hongjun Lee
Miguel Batanero
Phillip Yoon

SELECTED TO THE ALL CONFERENCE TEAM:
Danny Lee
Phillip Yoon
Woohyun Kim
Joseph Park
Miguel Batanero
Taeho Kim

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Catch up on all the weeks sports and the amazing results from our first home badminton tournament.

 As we get closer to the AP exams I feel it is appropriate to talk a little about study skills and some research based tips to help you get the maximum out of your study time.
​First it is important to look at how learning actually takes place.

All the time you are taking in sensory information about the world around you and this occupies space in your short term memory, this is then processed in the working memory as you make connections to that which is stored in your long term memory. How effectively you learn is determined by how easily you can recall things from these long term memories.

Your long term memory is like a big dark storage room. How well you learn is determined by how easily you can find things in this room. So how well you store things in this room is really important. The more the care you give the room to maintain organization the quicker and more easily you can find things. This means the better you can make connections between current information and your existing knowledge then the more  information is more categorised and will be easier to recall. This is why some concepts you learn in class or in life seem easy, as you linked the concepts well to existing knowledge or experiences. It’s also why some things are difficult as you have little pre existing knowledge to link it to.

The more often you go into this storage room to look for things the more you tidy it up meaning you can find things quicker and easier. This is why the more often you recall information from memory the easier it is to recall.

Going into the storage room to search for things is what you are doing when you are studying. Making this time spent studying as effective as possible is what i would like to talk about today. I want to talk about 4 tips to assist you in your study. These apply both inside the classroom and when you are at home.

1. Environment- As we said all the time you are taking in sensory information from your environment. Your working memory is limited in space and so too much sensory information leads to a situation known as cognitive overload meaning that the working memory cannot process and form connections with your existing knowledge. We recognise this as a loss of focus or distraction.
   1. Technology-This is why we don't allow cell phones in class and why you should avoid extra internet connections when trying to study. Set limits on when you will check Kakao or facebook and turn it off while you study. Perhaps use them as a reward. Put the phone in another room and when you study for a 40 minute chunk of time you can reward yourself with 5-7 minutes of phone time.
   2. Music-If you forget that music is on while you study then its okay, but if you can remember the playlist or are singing along then its occupying your working memory and so is causing you to come closer to cognitive overload and thus diminish your learning.
2. Free or cued recall- The act of learning is evaluated by your ability to recall information/processes/procedures. How you practice this can have big impacts on the quality of learning you achieve. Cued recall is being able to recall information due to being given a stimulus. It could be a question, a picture, a place or a smell. This is an effective form of practice as long as you know you will be exposed to that stimulus. So if you know what will be on an exam and how questions will be asked it will be fine to study just using practice questions or flashcards.
   
   However, most of the time we don’t know when we will require some information and so the practice of free recall is more useful. In free recall you would try to remember all the information about a topic. You can practice this by closing your books or notes and trying to write or draw out the concepts. This is obviously more difficult as you have to think up your own cues but this act of struggling to do so actually solidifies concepts. You will spend longer doing this and identify more gaps but you will also process it much more deeply.
   Once you have established what you don’t recall from either free or cued recall you can go back to your notes or textbook and fill in the gaps, this is re-reading, this practice is not really studying so after you have re-read you must again try to recall the information. At this time only concentrate on the gaps you identified. Ie only read that section of the book or notes and then only practice that
3. Spaced practice vs Massed practice - Everyone knows that cramming leads to short lasting memories, if you cram for a test and then retake the same test a few weeks later you will almost certainly score lower the second time. This is because when you are cramming you are sorting material once and forming only basic connections with your existing memories. Yes it's better than not ever practicing but there are some classes where you don't need to cram at all, why is that? Its because you thought carefully about some concepts when you encountered them. You thought about multiple situations where they apply this means they are really well organized and thus easy to recall. So for long term retention we want to think about concepts multiple times ideally in multiple situations so spreading 4 hours of study into 4* 1 hour blocks will be much more effective In addition cramming generally is responsible for sleep deprivation which has also been shown to impact the ability to think the next day.
4. Interleaving- Research has shown that interleaving, that is mixing subjects up is more effective than studying only one subject only. This is great news as it means combined with spacing you can set out a comfortable study schedule for your AP exams or finals. The key here is that because you leave the subject and then revisit it you will make more connections to existing knowledge. We have a tendency to remember what we studied first and last... not the middle.Creating many 30 minute sessions (thus more beginnings and ends) will greatly improve the retention rate. Put the challenging material at the beginning or the end of a block. You have a higher probability to remember it for later. It is important to keep study sessions to a minimum of 30 minutes or you never really get into the deep processes required. Too short and too mixed means multi tasking which always results in poorer performance.

So the big takeaways-
Don’t just read or take notes. Use free recall In order to learn you need to think!
Start soon! Study often for shorter periods and mix it up every hour.
The more you struggle to understand a concept the deeper it will remain in your memory!