WelcomePlease note change of holiday date for Fiestas de Quito: Friday December 7th Living Over the last year we have been steadily developing a sense of belonging as one of the ten Orbital schools and you will have seen the Facebook and website information about opportunities to travel to Budapest, Ljubljana, Mallorca and Manchester as part of that development. I do hope that some of you will take the opportunities on offer and experience the excitement of meeting students from the other schools and learning to sail, ski (next academic year now) or visit wonderful locations as time goes on. Last week we filmed our Year 4 and Year 5 students singing a verse from Let It Snow which will be shared with the other Orbital schools to create a Winter Song extravaganza. In November we sent our Flat Stanleys around the schools and have so far received 20 in return. Later this year we will also share Digital Learning Day, World Book Day and International Women’s Day with the other schools. Last week our year 13 student Cristobal Carrillo flew out to Madrid to attend the COBIS Student Leadership Weekend Conference at Kings College. This was the first time a student from BSQ has taken part in this event and I am extremely proud of Cristobal and his achievements. Whilst there he took part in a wide range of leadership activities as well as being able to explore Madrid with the other conference attendees. Cristobal reports that the conference was 'amazing in every way possible.' He is particularly proud of the fact that his team won the prestigious prize for the best marketing proposal and will be receiving personal letters from the COBIS Global Director. Congratulations to Cristobal for representing BSQ so brilliantly and I hope that many more students will follow his lead and venture out to meet new people and learn new skills as representatives of BSQ. We are not only making the most of our connections with Orbital – last week I received the news that our application to join LAHC (Latin American Heads Conference) was accepted after a visit from a member of their board. This is another great opportunity for our staff and students to meet others and learn from others. Finally, we will soon be seeking your views about BSQ and your experience through the annual Parent Survey. Following on from last year we made significant changes to our enrichment programme, developed opportunities for students to participate in sport and arts and improved the facilities in Early Years and primary – just as some examples. I really do value your comments and look forward to a very high participation rate again this year. BSQ´s Parent Association and CAS join forces This Christmas for a good cause This year we will support two projects that our CAS students are working on with the following foundations: 1. Fundación Manos con sabor a Venezuela. It is a group of volunteers whose mission is to support Venezuelan migrants in great fragility conditions, providing support for their adaptation in an honest, authentic and efficient way. We would like to support them by donating non-perishable food and clothes (new or used clothes in good conditions) 2. Fundación Sinsoluka. Specialized in research, prevention, attention and treatment to groups of Young people and children in extreme marginality. We would like to support them by donating books in Spanish (new or used in good conditions). These campaigns start on Tuesday November 27th and ends on Thursday December 6th. Each classroom will have a box where you could deposit your donations; also, there will be a group of volunteer parents receiving donations at the school's parking lot. ¡We count on you! Thank you very much Learning Continuing the theme of the Orbital team, we also share ways of learning and a wide range of policies and practices that mean we can share best practice and support each other. For example, we are currently developing an online learning platform called Canvas across the group which we will aim to use to communicate learning with our staff, students and families and we are also developing group-wide assessment strategies. Meanwhile here at BSQ lots of our teachers have been taking learning outside of the classroom and embarking on trips all over the valley, Quito and further afield. With students going to PAE, Cotopaxi, and the science and water museums – just to name a few. Next month we will have students visiting Huasquila Lodge and the Instituto Geográfico. Here are some of the wonderful photographs. This week our IB students will be sitting their mock exams. Good luck to everyone. From the Staff and Students Last week we heard from Mr. Dobson and Ms. Dávila. This week it is the turn of Mr. Kennedy and the Year 8 scientists. Bats have been at the forefront of my mind this week. The science department is making final plans to a research trip to the jungle for the year 13 students, where they will study our little flying friends. The BSQ students and science teachers will head to Huasquila Lodge near Tena to join forces with bat experts from Pontífica Universidad Católica del Ecuador. Together, we will spend the weekend catching bats and conducting a variety of experiments to better understand these remarkable creatures. A couple of weeks ago, Miss Todd and I spent a weekend at Huasquila Lodge in order to finalise plans for the trip. We spent the first evening with a bat catcher called Saul. Just before dusk, we helped Saul set up a big net spanning one of the forest paths, then we went off to dinner. We returned to the net about an hour later. Our head torches lit up the many insects along the dark jungle path, and as we approached the net, I noticed Saul grow visibly excited. A huge bat was caught in the fine mesh of the net. It was the biggest bat Saul had ever caught. We peered in to get a closer look. This was the first time I had seen a bat up-close. I had seen stuffed bats in museums or sad embalmed bats floating in formaldehyde. I had seen living bats fluttering far above in the night sky or clinging in the darkness to the roof of a cave. But I had never had the opportunity to see – or touch – a bat up close. The first thing that struck me was its weird nose. It was an upturned snout, with a pointy extension that protruded from the top like a fleshy horn. ‘Why is it like that?’ I asked our companion Saul. He explained that the long nose was pointed in such a way to emit ultrasound waves with extreme precision. The ultrasound waves echo off the many hazards under the jungle canopy and the bats detect the reflected waves with their enormous ears. That way they do not crash into anything. But why does this bat in particular have such a strange long nose? Because, explained Saul patiently, these bats feed on insects in the forest where it is very dark, so they have evolved a particularly acute sense of hearing. Catching insects fluttering about in the darkness requires a highly developed transmitter. Fruit eating bats, he said, do not have such a big nose – they simply don’t need it. The second thing that struck me was that the bat looked so unique. It did not look dark or sinister like a small furry vampire. Nor did it look like a rat with wings. Neither did it really look like a mouse, though its fur was mouse-coloured and incredibly soft to touch. And it was certainly nothing like a bird. The ears, the nose, the delicate membrane of the wings, it was all uniquely battish. And it was all so perfectly constructed, as if tailor-made, for flying after insects in the semi-darkness beneath the nocturnal canopy. It was this wonderfully evolved uniqueness that I will remember about my first close encounter with a bat. And I very much look forward to sharing the experience with our year 13 students in a couple of weeks. Dates for your Diary November 26 - 30th - IB Mock exams for Year 13 November 27th - Nursery trip to the Pet Store November 29th - Parent Survey opens December 1st - Christmas Bazaar December 1st - Secondary Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences December 3rd-5th - Year 13 IB study trip to Huasquila Lodge December 7th - School closed for Fiestas de Quito December 11th and 12th - Nativity Play December 14th - End of term. School closes at 12 for everyone Emma Newman Principal Being BSQ – Primary Update Last week we held our Workshop about Reward, Sanctions and Reporting procedures for Primary parents. For those of you who would like the detailed presentation, please find the information here. This week has seen two different educational visits by our younger students: Year 1 to the Museo de Agua and Year 3 to the Museo de Ciencia. Both visits were planned and organised by the class teachers to extend their students’ knowledge and understanding of specific themes and concepts, allowing them to absorb, interact and be immersed in new experiences and environments. At BSQ we are keen to promote the educational benefits of visits out of school, recognising them as an integral part of our curriculum and the development of our students. Some of the key benefits are explained below:
Linked to this topic, we have a busy week ahead in Primary, with several visitors coming into school to speak with both students and parents, a variety of workshops and two class assemblies to look forward to, so do please keep looking at the school calendar to make sure you do not miss any of these wonderful opportunities. The week will end with our annual Christmas Bazaar, where the primary students will complete their Enterprise activity and sell their creations to you all, between 9am and 12pm on Saturday 1st December. Please do support your child by bringing lots of money to buy a wide variety of Christmas related products. Star of the week Marcus Madden Head of Primary Being BSQ – Secondary Update On Friday of last week, we held our second Rewards and Recognition assembly of the year, in which we celebrated the academic achievements and efforts of our fabulous students. While these occasions always leave a positive glow, this one was unexpectedly special. Having previously agreed to give some of the time to our Recycling and CAS groups to talk about their projects, we were prepared for the usual appeals for help. What we received instead was a truly inspirational showcase of what our school community is capable of. Through a deeply moving video and the eloquent, confident words of Ana Paola Giol, we learned about the work of the Life Project, a group of Year 7, 8 and 9 students working hard and passionately to develop ways to make the school and our futures sustainable. Camila Gallardo and Sofia Lofredo presented their work with Caemba, who are building houses made of bamboo for victims of the 2016 earthquake. Victoria Proano spoke about the Beyond Lagartococha project, in which she and 5 other Year 12 students are setting up a foundation with the intention of providing much needed medical infrastructure for the Secoya people of East Ecuador. And finally, Mateo Caicedo spoke passionately about his Deportes Para La Vida youth project in Esmeraldas. As Mr. Rob Taylor pointed out after the assembly, there is more conscious, meaningful and powerful community work being done in this school right now than you might see in the space of two years in a school five times this size in the UK. It makes us all, teachers and students alike, very proud to be a part of BSQ. Jim Wild Head of Secondary From the BSQ Counselling Team This week our school counsellor, Andrea Carrera, talks about learning to value others.
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May 2024
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