WelcomeLiving At BSQ we embrace the whole community and we ensure that parents are provided with multiple ways to access our staff and to receive information about the curriculum, about the pastoral and academic care systems and about how to support learners at home. In the Primary school we provide weekly planning sessions where parents can find out about the learning that is coming up and in the secondary school, we have dedicated a day to our exam groups and their families so that teachers can provide feedback directly to the families about mock exams and next steps. Thanks to all the staff involved and to all those parents who attended to support your children. One area we all find challenging is managing at home when it can be difficult to know exactly what to say or do to support learners to feel positive and hopeful – about their studies know and their future aspirations. This website has a wonderful set of resources to help you are parents according to the particular challenges you might be facing. Just answer the 6 questions about your child and the resources will match your answers. As always, if you need any support you can contact any member of our staff team for guidance and advice. Learning We talk a lot about student learning but it is also important of course to learn from each other and the completion of the recent parent survey gives the school a team a great opportunity to learn about what is important to the whole parent body and to be able to respond. Next week I will meet with the Parent Association leaders to explore the outcomes and propose some next steps. I want to thank all parents for completing the survey. As always, we had a high return rate and the outcomes were extremely positive in all areas. The suggestions for moving forward were supportive and ambitious and it is a pleasure to work with such a loyal and committed family community. EYFS Webinar Share the news with friends and families not enrolled in BSQ with children aged between 3 – 5 years old. RSVP https://bit.ly/BSQEYFSWebinar and join us for an interactive presentation and discussion about our exciting and challenging curriculum for Early Years students! From the Staff and the Students Continuing with our teachers and their stories about e-learning this new period. This week we have Mr. Bradley Edwards and Y8 students, Ms. Natalie Sawyers, Ms. Aditi Sadotra, and the Student Council from Secondary and Mr. Matt Kidd and Ms. Antonella Coronel from Primary. Y8 Newsletter Even though schools remain closed and isolation continues in our respected homes, this has not stopped year 8 from exercising together. Taking a keen interest in their fitness and more importantly, a celebration of Jota's birthday, the whole of year 8 was present for a live workout on Thursday morning. There was fantastic energy from all students and it was amazing to see such great motivation so early in the morning. Year 8 are currently in week 6 of their 10-week fitness programme, where they are not only improving their physical fitness but increasing their knowledge of the health benefits of different activities. Well done to all for an excellent lesson and I look forward to seeing the class progress more throughout this programme. Mr. Bradley Edwards – Y8 students Year 9 Humanities Lessons In year 9 humanities students reflected on what they had learned so far and what they wanted to learn, they could present this however they wanted. I did a Victoria Sponge. I want to learn more about the Victorian era, its economy, geography, and lifestyle. "Amyra" Students also created resources to help learn the 4 different plate boundaries. Ms. Natalie Sawyers, Humanities Teacher Year 12 Geography In Year 12 Geography have recently started a new topic: Global Resource consumption and security. Students were given the following data to transform into a graph. Whilst learning online students have to develop ICT skills as well as their usual ‘on paper’ skills. I usually let students decide how they want to present their work to allow them creativity but also be efficient or practice weaker skills. As you can see this data is trickier to draw onto a graph as the income isn’t on a clear scale. I like students to learn from their mistakes and make improvements. This makes understanding stick better. They initially asked what type of graph to draw, we discussed what would be best and why; we identified a line graph as it was showing continuous data. Initially, when students put the graph to scale with the x-axis as income the smaller amounts were very close together and therefore you couldn’t see the changes; therefore, the students couldn’t interpret it. However, changing it to a logarithmic scale meant that they could then see how the income was distributed over the year and how the curve changed over time. Income distribution changes In 1970 there were two mountain-like shapes on the income around $700 and $5000 which means there are two big difference income groups. However, in 2000, those two groups were combined and there are only one mountain-like shape. Also the number of people with income less than $500 had decreased. Therefore, I think the world become more equal in 2000 than in 1970. Student Council Year 13 to Year 12 University Application Webinar On Friday 5th of February, the Student Council senior experience group ran a webinar especially for the year 12 students. They planned the session on university applications in a variety of different countries to share what they have learned this year from their own applications. They sent out a survey in advance of the webinar to find out what the year 12's needed to know. Based on this information they put together a team of 7 willing year 13 volunteers who were experts in the country of choice. The idea, planning, and execution were all driven by the students and their desire to help the year 12's as much as possible in their own applications that they are starting to think about now. Here is a comment from one of the year 12 students in attendance: "The webinar was really useful for me. Thank you for hosting such an awesome webinar!" This is the beginning of a set of webinars that will be run across the Secondary school with the older students giving their advice to students in the year below. Well done to Martinna, Sofia, Byron, and Juan in Y13 who were instrumental in the planning and implementation of this wonderful session! Ms Sadotra, Student Council Mr. Matt Kidd – Year 2B Teacher Year 2 has been working very hard in Science this week. So hard that they have made their very own telephones... plastic cup string telephones. These are a great way to communicate while socially distancing and are a lot of fun. The boys and girls have been learning all about waves and ripples to understand how sound travels across distances. Using only sound vibrations, a cup to amplify, and string, you have a very cheap and effective telephone. With only some string and a plastic cup, the super scientists were able to make a working telephone that allowed them to talk to each other over great distances and around corners. Well done everyone! Ms. Antonella Coronel – Head of Early Years Dear parents, Welcome back, we hope you all had a wonderful break. Today marks the beginning of term 4 and the live Little Kickers sessions will commence Tuesday on Canvas. The Nursery students will have their session every Tuesday from 11:30 to 12:00, the Reception children will have their session every Tuesday from 12:00 to 12:30. We look forward to seeing all the children join the live sessions and enjoy all the activities Mr. Julian Mora has prepared for them. You will receive a Canvas invitation to join the Little Kickers course. The next 6 weeks are filled with learning opportunities for the children and topics that will keep learning fresh and motivating. Below are the upcoming dates and topics of this term.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or your class teacher. We are delighted to start this new term with you and your children. Dates for your Diary
Emma Newman Principal Being BSQ – Primary Update Welcome back to Term 4 here at The British School Quito and we hope you enjoyed the break with family and friends. As we look forward to nearly six weeks of learning with our students, I would ask you to revisit the discussion from the last newsletter about supporting your child to make relevant and personal goals (targets) for themselves. Once they have explained to you what it is they want to achieve, we need to make sure that they have appropriate structures and support in place to help them achieve their goal, although of course this may be more difficult than it sounds with a child who is aiming for something unrealistic in the short-term! However, we need to be aware that not all goals have to be (or can be) accomplished – the process of working toward the goal can be just as important as the accomplishment. Below are two simple structures to help frame your conversation with your child about their goal and how they might achieve it. Both are suitable with a little support and guidance. The Five Ss:
SMART Goals: Whichever framework you choose together; it is important you following the following three steps to make sure that your child has every chance of success.
I hope this process will support your child to achieve their goals! Marcus Madden Head of Primary Being BSQ – Secondary Update Half term – rest or prepare? Would you believe that we started back after Christmas just 6 weeks ago! How time flies. When we look back and consider what has happened since then it makes me feel extremely proud of the students. They have worked so hard and done so well to get through exams, testing, and various meetings to consider what comes next. It was fantastic to see so much support at the parent-teacher conferences just before half-term to consider outcomes and focus areas as we move ahead in studies. I have written to you all to say that we are in touch with the IB and IGCSE examination boards and we are preparing for every eventuality. I must stress again that as a school we are committed to the preparations towards the best possible outcomes for our students. The secondary staff are determined in their task of motivating our students towards these goals. I hope you all took the opportunity to rest and recharge. If I was a student facing important exams this year, I would have used this time very wisely indeed. Rather than taking the time to forget school and my studies, I would take the opportunity to make my coursework as smart as possible to ensure that my school guided work attracts the highest possible grades. I would also use the time to brush up on parts of the curriculum that I had perhaps struggled with and plan my time carefully over the next 5 weeks. Time is ebbing away and it is important that we all maximize every opportunity we have to our advantage. I had a wonderful meeting with ‘G’ (Sebastian) and Daniela from the student council. They are focusing on the work that the student body performs in raising funds for the many enrichment and other events BSQ enjoys. Whilst we are somewhat restricted, for now, it was pleasing to hear of their ambitions regarding future ideas. The first will be the BSQ ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ event they are planning. More to follow but those of you who may be interested in the challenge, be reminded to brush up on your general knowledge. You never know you may be the recipient of a decent prize and of course the honour of being worldly-wise. Well done to G and Daniella for presenting themselves so confidently to me in the meeting. Our staff have all been trying to engage learning through more project type tasks which allow students more autonomy over their learning. This is hoped that motivation and engagement will be increased along with the wellbeing benefits of being away from the screen. Mrs. Moors has been working with year 8 on this following their end of unit assessment. She wanted to give students an opportunity to explore areas of the module in which they didn't evidence their learning during the assessment activity. The project is an opportunity for the consolidation of their learning. Mrs. Moors refers to Oppenheimer, who said, "the best way to learn is to teach". By presenting their project, students also teach their peers who, in turn, benefit from revising the content of the module. Well done to all the students involved and for being brave enough to present their ideas online to their peers. Here are a few images to give you a flavour of their activity: Jose Gabriel – Year 8 It is particularly important to highlight the outstanding work from Elias N. on mega-cities and Shenzhen particularly. It was extremely thorough and interesting and I encourage you to look at the full presentation on the link below. Well done Elias.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
CategoriesArchives
May 2024
|