Welcome Living Open Day. On Wednesday February 6th we held our second Open Day of this year and welcomed 16 more new families into the school to take a tour, meet some students, staff and parents and hear about our wonderful community. As always the BSQ students who hosted and spoke at the event were greatly admired by the visitors for their kind welcome, passion for the school, confidence and maturity. Well done! Another area where our students excel is in the student council and this year the representatives in secondary have really been working hard to listen to the requests and needs of the wider student body. Here the Year 8 reps talk about their achievements and their plans. STUDENT COUNCIL What is the Student Council? Students Council is when students elect representatives to be their voice from each year group. The Student Council demands to the school to do and help in whatever the students require and need. What has the Student Council done through this year? In this new school year, 2018-2019, all the classes worked together to vote for the class representatives of each year. Since the moment the Student Council was chosen, they started to focus on life in our school and how to improve as many things as we can. The Student Council started the year by planning the “cafeteria campaign” that consists in finding new solutions to make the queue more efficient and create ideas to make the operation of the kitchen, the queue, and the system used to serve the food more organized. As the year passed, the Student Council have participated in the Holocaust Memorial (to remember the people that died during the genocide during World War II and the survivors) and have taken part in a collaborative Remembrance service with two other schools (remembering people who have died in wars and conflicts, particularly linked to WW1, which ended exactly 100 years ago). It was a great opportunity for them to learn more about the destruction caused by the wars and to be more aware of how terrible this was. Now, the Student Council is trying to improve the bathrooms. For this to happen, the Student Council created a committee and the girls in year 7, 8, 9, and 10 in the Student Council will take part in this committee. Finally, after voting during the meeting Student Council had, it was decided to make a trip to the cinema as the reward trip. The choices for students with 13 years or over are Glass, Spiderman, and Creed II. For students with 12 or less, the option that is available is Spiderman. Only the people with 50 or more house points Quimestre 1 or a British Reward, as well as you have to get certifícate to be able to have the opportunity of participating in this trip. Gabriela Baquero and Ana Paula Giol - Year 8 students School Photographs On Monday February 25th (Whole School and Secondary) and Tuesday February 26th (Primary) we will be starting the exciting journey towards creating our yearbook for 2018-2019 by taking a whole school photograph followed by class and individual shots. Please ensure that your children come to school in full and correct school uniform on that day. Michelle O.Fried We would like to share with you a brief description of our special guest, Michelle O. Fried, who will be delivering the Healthy Eating Informative Session next Friday February 22nd at 8:15am Michelle holds a Masters in Nutrition in Public Health from Columbia University, NYC. She is an ecological public health nutritionist, cook, food writer, and advocate for nutritional value and traditional foods. She is the nutritionist for a healthy consumer´s movement in Ecuador “Que Rico es” and some of you may have heard her voice in nutritional messages produced by EDUCA, the 8 minute programmes aired on all Ecuadorian radio stations. For additional information about our special speaker, please find the following links: www.michelleofried.com www.fuegos.com www.quericoes.org Parent Survey. So, following on from the discussion of some areas where you rated us positively, I want to look at some of the areas you said we could improve. Whenever a survey is completed there are always concerns raised about communication and it remains a fact that if even one parent does not receive clear messages and information about events, meetings, curriculum, changes etc then we are not doing an excellent job in that area. In answer to the question, ‘What is the main channel you use to keep updated with events and what is happening at the school?’ you said: So, it seems that the majority of parents rely on the newsletter and talking to each other to find out what is happening. So, in this newsletter I am going to test that and see if we can get some answers to how you would like us to improve the service linked to communication. Answers to Andrea Zambrano our Marketing Lead please on [email protected] Question 1. If the newsletter is read by over 1/3 of the parents, what should we have in it that helps communication to improve. Question 2. Since social media is the most easily accessible form of communication for most people, how can we develop our Facebook page (or other suggestions) to ensure that it is a frontline form of communication. We look forward to your answers because of course communication is a two-way effort. If you think someone may not have read the newsletter this week – pass it on! Learning Last week I visited a guided reading session in Year 3 and worked with some students to help them find examples of verbs, nouns and adjectives in the books they were reading. We had some excellent conversations about why how we can tell them apart and the function of each word in a sentence. Learning about vocabulary is one of the most important learning activities we can undertake – whatever our age – because the richer and deeper our understanding of our language the more effectively we can express ourselves. This is an article I shared with the staff a little while ago to inspire them to spend more time in the classroom looking at language – whatever the subject. There are some useful tips for talking about language at home too and using search engines to find out where words come from. Teaching children to recognise, or even be curious about, a word’s etymology means that they will have the keys to decode many more words. We know that a broad vocabulary can be a key part of how successfully a child can access the curriculum, how far they can articulate meaning in their writing and speaking, and ultimately how well they will go on to do in their exams. 1. Take advantage of history lessons. The national curriculum requires us to teach about the places, civilisations and countries that the English language stems from. Those history lessons about Greek, Roman, Viking, Saxon and Islamic civilisations all provide opportunities to teach about the legacy they have left when it comes to English. Did you know that "window" stems from the Old Norse words for "wind" and "eye"? 2. Encourage and model curiosity. Just as with anything in the classroom, if the adults are excited about it the children are too. Make discovering a word’s origins a regular feature. Model aloud your thoughts: "I wonder where this word comes from?". The standard Google dictionary is a good enough start – type the word plus "etymology" and begin your voyage of discovery. 3. Play word games. Your imagination is the only limiting factor here. From the Staff and Students Continuing with our teachers and their stories about learning in the classroom this term. This week we hear from Miss Todd and Year 11 in Secondary and from Ms. Coronel and the Nursery B students in Primary. Ms. Todd - Chemistry Secondary Teacher This time of year is a particularly crucial time when our exam classes begin their ‘formal’ preparation for their exams. It can often mean a lot of stress and frantic studying and often as educators and parents we ask ourselves - how can I best support my son/daughter/student? Here I offer some tips as to simple ways that we can do this:
It is important for our students to remember that success is not something that many of our idols achieved by accident, when talking about his career Michael Jordan said the following: ‘I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.’ I am obviously not suggesting that we want our students to fail their exams as it will lead to future success, but this quote is relevant to the exam preparation process. Making mistakes is difficult, it’s scary or at least uncomfortable but it is necessary to learn and succeed - our students need to reflect on the mistakes that they make and adjust accordingly...trust me it will be worth it! Ms. Coronel - Nursery B Teacher What a wonderful few weeks we have had here in BSQ. The children from nursery B have shown a great deal of growth since the start of the year. Their personalities shines through every milestone, they continue to show eagerness to live new experiences and explore their surroundings. This past week we have been learning about Chinese New Year, this is the year of the pig. To celebrate, we invited the parents to join us for our very own “Chinese new year party”. The children did a short presentation for their parents and we asked them to join us for the traditional dragon dance at the end. The children were amazed by the traditional dragon dance and the lion dance, they loved all the colors and movements. We eat delicious dumplings and specially made fortune cookies. Dates for your DiaryFebruary 18th – KS1 Assembly, led by Year 2B, at 1pm. Parents invited. February 22nd. - Healthy Eating with Michelle O.Fried February 25th - Whole School and Secondary Photos. February 26th - Primary School Photos. February 28th – Digital Learning Day March 4th - Carnival holiday week Emma Newman Principal Being BSQ – Primary Update Last week we enjoyed two Class Assemblies, from 1B and 3B. This week it is the turn of 2B and 3A to share their learning with their families. These events give the students the opportunity to practise important presentation skills and develop their confidence in front of a larger audience. These are always recorded and the pictures and videos shared securely with you on the Class Blog – we politely remind you of our policy of not allowing groups of students to be photographed. In a similar way, participating in art activities encourages the development of fine motor skills, neural development and problem-solving abilities. As educators, we know it can be used effectively to teach and understand other key subjects such as reading, writing, maths, and science. Therapists tell us that art is valuable because it allows children to process their world, to deal with sometimes scary emotions in a safe way and because it gives them critical sensory input. Artists tell us that art is important for its own sake—as a source of beauty and expression, as well as simply for the process of creating. Kids tell us that art is fun, an activity they enjoy. Parents tell us that art is vital to their families because it keeps everyone engaged and happy and helps with the sometimes difficult transitions of the day. To support your child’s artistic development, we would like every student to bring in an old painting shirt or apron that they can keep in school to wear during art activities, to help give them a real sense of purpose and ownership over their artwork and let them distinguish between art activities and other activities. This shirt may be too large for them – for instance, their father’s old shirt – but we can adapt them to help protect their school uniform. Star of the week Marcus Madden Head of Primary Being BSQ – Secondary Update Community Projects We're entering the part of our Community Projects cycle again where students are looking for creative and effective ways to support their respective causes. On Friday, the Secondary staff put themselves in the firing-line, taking pies in the face to raise money for PAE. Next week, we have a video game tournament at lunch times, and the week after that, our International Women's Day celebrations will be organized by the students working with La Triada foundation. It warms the heart to see these projects, and the ethos behind them, evolve and grow, and I thank everybody involved in bringing these rich and meaningful learning opportunities to our students. Jim Wild Head of Secondary From the BSQ Counselling Team This week our school counsellor, Andrea Carrera, talks about children having enough sleep.
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