Welcome One of the greatest challenges for all of us since March has been keeping our routines and traditions in place when the barriers sometimes seem insurmountable. At BSQ we have been working hard to ensure that students get the opportunities to celebrate, be rewarded and be recognized. We still hold our Star of the Week assemblies, our Reward and Recognition assemblies, our tutor programme, our support services continue as do our communications with families through social media and newsletters amongst many other parts of school life. Of course, for some of our students there are significant milestones that will be physically missed by not being able to attend school and so we are working to ensure that these events are still celebrated. For example, in June our Year 6 graduates will enjoy some visits from secondary teachers, they are still rehearsing for a performance of their Year 6 play and their end of year residential will take place during year 7. It is important that we have things to look forward to and that we continue to live and learn together as a community to provide support, care and comfort in line with our values. e-Learning at BSQ Opportunities for all. As mentioned in the original letter linked to discounts, we will continue to work through this period to find ways to support you to enjoy activities, benefits and opportunities that would normally be easily accessible to us during normal days. Michelle O’Fried recipes. Here is our first article published in conjunction with Michelle. How much fun it is to cook together; the kids love the activity and in this soup, they also love the colourful rainbow veggies. And it´s amazing, a miracle how when they cook, they eat things they´d probably never want to try. (The same holds for when they grow the ingredients, and this lockdown time gives us the opportunity to plant a kitchen garden!) For older children they can hone their knife skills; for younger ones they can stir, and stir some more the “refrito”. And just look at the list of ingredients in this soup!! A huge variety and the nutritionists´ rule is VARIETY: EAT THE RAINBOW. To ensure that you get all the micronutrients and fibre in the veggies and no toxic residues, do please either grow or buy agro-ecologically. Steve and Myriam’s basket is a community find!!! (Next week I´ll send you a cookie recipe made with Andean flours.) Music classes Remember that there are opportunities for discounted music lessons with Dina’s music school.
Dina also supports three foundations which will certainly benefit from her work during this time.
If you want to contact Dina, she is on this email address [email protected] or you can go directly to the chat on her website at https://www.escuelademusicasaraswati.com/contacto/ Remember to mention that you are a BSQ family. Annual Storytelling Marathon in Quito This traditional annual Storytelling Marathon in Quito will happen virtually this year on May 29th, 30th and 31st. There will be conferences, workshops on Friday 29th and storytelling, songs and poetry for children on Saturday and Sunday. The world around us. It seems like such a long time since we were able to travel freely to the places we love and to explore new destinations. I know it is something that many of us are looking forward to when the lockdown is over and the world is a safer place. Last week Sir David Attenborough celebrated his 94th birthday and the BBC put together 94 seconds of memories of his remarkable life in the natural world. Enjoy it here. Important Announcement - time is running out. By the end of May, we are aiming to have all our parents signed up to the Canvas Parent Portal and to STOP USING EMAIL AS A MEANS OF COMMUNICATING WITH YOU. PLEASE make sure that you are logged onto this platform using the invites you have had from school. We do now have over 100 families signed up – but we have 239 families at BSQ so still quite a way to go! From the Staff and the StudentsContinuing with our teachers and their stories about e-learning this new period. This week we have Mrs. Paola Montenegro, Ms. Belén Arellano from Secondary and Mr. Oliver Kyle and Ms. Antonella Coronel from Primary. Mrs. Paola Montenegro – Secondary Sociales Teacher Sociales During these months we have worked with year 8, year 9 and 10 on many topics related to the economy, the productive sectors, the development and evolution of our cities and it is impressive to learn about the ideas of all students with plans for economic recovery, fair trade and sustainability, proposal of education and work for the "ninis" as well as the design of their own city as if they were great urban planners. Congratulations and Congratulations!! With year 7 instead, we are working in the 50s, the students have done some research projects on how society has been changing since the Second World War, they learned about the colonization projects of the Amazon and the insular region in Ecuador, the role of women and how it is it was incorporated into work and the incorporation of children's rights into daily habits. I invite you to listen to this diary of a colonizer of Elias Narvaez and see his posters.
Community Projects: We cannot look aside and feel concerned about what our organizations that we love and help so much are going through, we know that for our safety and theirs they cannot receive us, but we are working on ideas from home for when we meet again, our help is more effective. Thus, we are making gardens, each garden has 5 plants (including vegetables, fruits and vegetables) that will be donated to each of the 86 families in Sinsoluka, we will also start making toys with recycled material and cat flaps for the rescued dogs and cats from PAE and we are supporting an event that you are sure to love to help other children in Guayaquil from the Karla Karla Morales Foundation. More information will be given by Mr. Edwards. We also want to thank the year2 representatives who very kindly collaborated in the acquisition of food baskets for Sinsoluka and several families who have written to us in order to continue collaborating with us. CAS: During these months year 12 students have been working hard from home, many have participated in the service and volunteer initiatives of GIVING A HAND WITHOUT GIVING YOUR HAND and FOR EVERYONE. BEYOND LAGARTOCOCHA has also been collecting funds for the SIEKOPAI or Secoya communities in the Amazon in order to continuously deliver food and buy rapid tests, to prevent this vulnerable group from being contagious. And others have become very creative, they are learning to play new instruments, illustration, photography, animation, drawing, singing and languages in a virtual way. We really don't stop!! On the other hand, the formal presentation has been made so that the y11 students can be part of the emblematic CAS projects such as Beyond Lagartococha and Jofani, so during these weeks the leaders of these two groups are reviewing the applications and very soon. We can introduce you to the 3rd Generation BSQ BEYOND LAGARTOCOCHA and the 2nd Generation JOFANI. Finally, year13 has ended with CAS and there have been unique moments that we have shared these two years. Thank you for all your ideas, your creativity, your ideas and the number of quality projects and experiences that you were the mentors; as you knew how to manifest in the last interviews we had - many of these projects will continue from their university life, we will be waiting for you with open arms. Ms. Belén Arellano – Secondary Visual Art Teacher During the past unit, year 10 Visual Arts students had been exploring Abstract Art and how to get away from reality to create unique compositions. Some artworks are neo abstractions which were based on a Still life composition they created at home and some others are pure abstractions based on a song they chose. The results were fantastic and you can see some of them here! Drama newsletter In our Drama lessons, held every other week, KS3 has been working on some exercises and games that allow all members of the family to have a wonderful time away from screens, relaxing, having fun and creating unforgettable memories. Last week students work and reflect on the questions: what is a pride? What values do we share as a pride (family)? What is the most important character trait your pride shares? Students reflected, with their families, on these questions to create a logo that represents their prides. Answers and opinions shared by the students show how valuable families are in our community. Some of the values families share are: “intelligence, visionary and fierce leaders, with clear objectives and strong personalities”, “friendship, responsibility, honesty, respect, independence, thoughtfulness”, “dynamic characters full of aspirations and goals, hardworking people who do not give up easily”. Values that have strengthened during the quarantine. Even though the activity was optional, some students went the extra mile to complete the task, involving their families to represent themselves and their values in very creative logos. Thanks to all the families that collaborate in this activity and thanks for the excellent teamwork during this time. Mr. Oliver Kyle – Year 5 Teacher Year 5 have been enjoying some engaging online learning these last few weeks, particularly in our Topic lesson where we have been focusing on the art of Oswaldo Guayasamín. We have been investigating his three main series of works: The Huacaynan, The Age of Anger and The Age of Tenderness. The children have been sketching studies of different paintings within these series as well as discussing the different styles. They will use these ideas to form the basis for their own piece of Guyasamín – inspired art in a few weeks’ time. We have also been looking at the life cycles of Humans and getting our heads around the different stages of human development. We are just in the early stages of our investigations but look forward to some interesting discussions in the future. There have been some steps of progress in our Maths work lately, which has mainly been focussing on our understanding of Fractions – particularly converting them. Many children having been making steps towards the abstract form (just using numbers) and this has been really encouraging to see. We would like to congratulate all the children for the way they have been dealing with these extraordinary times that we are leaving in, we are very proud of them. Ms. Antonella Coronel – Head of EYFS Another fantastic week of online learning in EYFS! This past week the children in early years have been learning about money. In nursery we began with coin sorting and teaching the children the name of each coin as well as its value. For the Reception students they have not only been learning about dollar bills but making their own as well. One of the students invented the 4-dollar bill with his face on it! The reception children have also been keeping very busy with their writing, forming short sentences applying the conjunction word ‘and’. They have also been rehearsing this skill during the live sessions by creating sentences with the focus on superheroes. The children were encouraged to transform themselves into superheroes, come up with a name and give themselves powers. During the live sessions, each child also explained who was a superhero to them. The responses were based a lot on their parents and siblings and with the use of adjectives they expressed why they were their superheroes. Well done everyone! We also want to congratulate Mr. Mercer, our Reception teacher for his great online teaching practice. He continuously works towards keeping the children motivated and learning actively. He brings excellent ICT knowledge, activities and games to the planning documents. Thank you for you Mr. Mercer! Dates for your Diary
Emma Newman Principal Being BSQ – Primary Update This week we are looking forward to even more creativity and enthusiasm from our students, which you may feel is hard to encourage now we have all been at home for so long. As parents, you are now taking even more of the responsibility for teaching your children and you have a vital role in supporting them through this period of learning. As teachers, we fully understand that this can be a stressful experience for our students, without the social element of school and the contact with their friends and teachers. As parents, you can help support your child by helping to reduce this anxiety by following some simple tips to turn your child’s home learning into a positive, stress-free experience:
After this full week of learning, we then will all enjoy a mini-break of three days off school to recharge our batteries ready for the final five weeks of term. We intend to use a short online reading and comprehension assessment with all students in Years 2 to 6 on the two days following this short break to gather information about your child’s learning and progress. This assessment will only take 30 minutes and will be easy for you to support at home, with only technical assistance required from you to ensure your child has access to the online assessment. More guidance for this assessment will be sent later this week, though in the meantime do not worry about this – your child will find it fun and engaging and it will give both the teachers a great deal of information about their progress in these important areas of learning. Marcus Madden Head of Primary Being BSQ – Secondary Update Year 11 IB Preparation Programme From Thursday 28th May, Year 11 students will begin working towards their IB Diplomas. Having chosen their courses, they will spend the next four weeks checking that they have sufficient prior knowledge and skills to succeed, filling any gaps that might exist, and further developing any skills they will need to excel. In this way, they will be ready to hit the ground running when we return to school in August. Jim Wild Head of Secondary From the BSQ Counselling Team This week our school counsellor, Andrea Carrera, talks about how communication is the glue that keeps families strong.
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May 2024
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