WelcomeThis week we find ourselves enjoying some small freedoms here in Quito and this gives us hope that we will soon be able to see an end to the time that we have spent apart as a community. This week there are lots of activities taking place including the IB Year 12 mock exams, the Year 13 leavers’ assembly and art show and in primary the Year 6 transition lessons continue. In Year 6 last week Ms. Avent, Mr. Samaniego , Ms Sadotra, Ms Cano and Mr. Edwards all joined the Y6 classes to give the students a taste of secondary life! With thanks to the team of staff who have organized and supported this process – a little differently this year. From our Equality and Diversity Committee. Normally I would introduce a contribution from students but these words from our fabulous secondary Equality and Diversity Committee are entirely self-explanatory. Congratulations to them for their thoughtful and sensitive reflections and guidance. The resources can be explored together as a family and there is clear guidance about the age-related links and videos. Dear Students and Parents, In the BSQ community, we put our values first, and events in the world right now remind us of two in particular: - Respect: We treat every single person in our community equally, showing respect, empathy, and understanding. - Care: We have a responsibility to care for ourselves, each other, and our wider community. We consider and support the feelings and well-being of others without discrimination. As a school that strives for equal treatment for all, by all, we must educate ourselves to understand the past and present situation so that we can appreciate why people are standing up, now, and telling the world that Black Lives Matter. We must look to history, both recent and distant, to understand where this comes from, and we have a responsibility, each and every one of us, to ensure that we acknowledge how the past has impacted the present in order that the future is a better, safer and kinder place for everyone. It is not enough to be neutral and not racist. We all must be antiracist. What does this mean? It means educating ourselves and taking action. Here’s how: ● Learn more about racism and antiracism work here ● Join the Equality & Diversity Committee - now open to all year groups - to make a difference in and out of school ● Challenge any and all racist language and behaviour you might see or hear We are committed to antiracism work at BSQ. With love from The Equality & Diversity Committee. Transition is always an important time for students, staff and parents and this year we will all be sharing the challenges and excitement of transition back to the campus. As part of that process we will be sharing our pre-enrolment letter with all our current families this week. Please ensure that you respond to the request for confirmation of your place as part of the BSQ community next year. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. Diary Dates are often lost in the busy world of life so please make sure you are fully aware of the events taking place towards the end of term by reading emails and checking the Dates for your Diary and reading the messages from your Heads of School below. e-Learning at BSQ BSQ Parents Quotes Thanks to our staff and community for your hard work and support, here are more comments from our BSQ parents about e-learning at BSQ Michelle O. Fried recipes. Here is our third recipe published in conjunction with Michelle. Now that we may be leaving our homes, little by little, I offer a quick recipe that everyone will love. Using smaller quantities of animal protein, we are being friendly to the environment, since meat production produces huge quantities of greenhouse gases. I have recently learned that raising pigs produces one-seventh the amount of greenhouse gases as raising beef, so if you can, use a small amount of ground pork in the recipe rather than ground beef. Everybody, especially children, loves noodles and even though they are a processed product, they are quick and “una vez al año, no hacen daño”. However, if you prefer (as I do) serve this superb stir-fry with brown rice. Remember to use all of the Chinese cabbage, cutting the white, crunchy parts on diagonal and adding the chopped, green leaves at the very end to conserve their vitamins. You may find this and other healthy recipes in Michelle´s book Un Mundo de Comida con los Ingredientes del Ecuador, available at all bookstores in the country. Also you can find more information by visiting her blog and website. PA announcement BSQ community, For the PA it is very important to support each other among the families of the British School Quito, even more at times like the one we are experiencing. For this reason, we have created a business directory with businesses of the Parents of our Community. We hope that you can first consider the options for goods and services that our BSQ Directory offers and thus move forward together. Workshop Receive kind regards, I would like to take this opportunity to extend you an invitation to a Virtual Workshop that will take place on June 16, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. It will be a space to enrich ourselves with knowledge to learn how to generate solutions in your organizations, exploiting their creative and innovative potential. The only requirement for you to join us is that you are willing to challenge your limits. In this workshop we will explore:
Join us in this incredible experience! Register at no cost and get valuable tools for the management you do in your organization. We count on your participation! Important Announcement - time HAS run out. If you are reading this newsletter, then you have accessed it through the Canvas Parent Portal – thank you for signing up. With over half of the families now using this tool we are reaching a wide audience but not one that is quite big enough yet. Please remind your friends and fellow class parents to make sure they are on Canvas. All letters with important information will also be placed there if they are for the whole school community. From the Staff and the Students Continuing with our teachers and their stories about e-learning this new period. This week we have Mr. Rodrigo Samaniego from Secondary and Mr. Simon Newman and Ms. Antonella Coronel from Primary. Mr. Rodrigo Samaniego – Secondary Maths Teacher During the past few weeks we have worked with the Year 12s with their toolkits. This is an activity which helps them develop the tools needed to approach complex problems. They have done a great job at understanding the problem and solving it using the simple information given to them by their teachers. With year 8s we have worked on finding equations of straight lines. After a slow start and difficulty, the year 8s have shown great effort and a great understanding of at least one process to find the equation of a line either from a graph or from a table. They have put in a lot of effort to understand a topic completely new to them, in a difficult scenario. Mr. Simon Newman – Year 6 Teacher The children in Year 6 have been ramping up their work on William Shakespeare in recent weeks. There has been some close study and appreciation of the UK performance poet, Kate Tempest. After being wowed by Kate Tempest's own performances of her poetry, the Year 6 children used her work as the inspiration to write their own poems titled My Shakespeare - and they are great. Here's an example by Lyla to whet your appetites: You'll have the chance to read many more of these poems if you come along to the Year 6 production where the poems will be on display, along with the Year 6 children's own Shakespearian sonnets. By the way, in case you were wondering, Year 6's production of Shakespeare's play The Tempest is now scheduled for performance at BSQ in early December...so it will now be a Year 7 production! Due to the lockdown, we have had to put a few things on hold that would normally form part of the summer term for Year 6 at BSQ. However, the opportunity for Year 6 pupils to meet all of the Year 7 teachers has still gone ahead, albeit in a virtual way using the Canvas conferences. We are also working on a final assembly for the Year 6s too so that we can come together for one last time as a KS2 class and team. I am sure you will have seen the lovely interpretations of famous works of art done by the children in Year 6. Our latest project, led by Ms. Camacho, has been all about family trees and we are looking forward to creating a virtual exhibition of this work using software demonstrated to us by Mrs. Davila and Mr. Madden. Ms. Antonella Coronel – Head of EYFS What another great week of online learning! This week was very special because it was children’s day. Despite not being able to celebrate this wonderful day in person we made sure we did something special for the children. We decided to do a ‘Throwback challenge’ and invite the parents to send us a picture of their child as a baby and one of them now. From the pictures we receive we made a compilation video that turned out wonderful. It was such a good experience to listen to the children’s reaction as they saw their transformation from then to how they are now! Another great reason why this week was extra special was because we have officially begun the transition process with the EYFS children. With the pictures of the ‘Throwback challenge’ we will discuss growth and changes over time. On Thursday June 11th at 2:30 the Reception students and their parents are invited to join the KS1 assembly, we hope to see you all there! Have a wonderful week! Dates for your Diary
Emma Newman Principal Being BSQ – Primary Update We are now in Week 13 of our Online Learning programme, with only fifteen days of this school year remaining. This may sound either exciting or daunting, depending on your point of view, though I do need to remind you of the famous quite that ‘not all learning happens in the classroom’. This has been even more important during this extended time at home, with a huge variety of learning happening each and every day at home that has not been initiated by the teachers at BSQ. Many of you have been sharing these experiences with the teachers, from making dens, baking cakes and bread, creating fantasy worlds using construction materials, drawing and painting, writing your own stories and a multitude of other activities. These activities are extremely important in your child’s ongoing development, especially when they have more time at home to explore their imagination and create their own entertainment and relaxation. As parents, we should view our role in this process as a mixture of facilitator, teacher and participant, making sure that we allow them time to explore this imaginative side of their personality but also ensuring they have a clear structure for their formal learning. With many of you continuing to work from home, this can be difficult to achieve each day, but please do make time each day to share your child’s learning, give guidance and support as necessary and of course some valuable positive feedback about their achievements. As we approach the end of the year, many of the traditional events we hold in school are being moved to an online platform, such as the End of Year Assemblies, transition activities, class parties and BSQ Award ceremonies. Year 6 are continuing their transition meetings with Secondary teachers, with a Parent Session on Canvas planned for 3:15 on Tuesday 9th June. Please do sign up for the Parent Portal, where we intend to send all announcements and information to you. This week we will welcome the Reception students again to the Key Stage One Star of the Week Assembly on Thursday at 2:30pm, using this invitation link. Marcus Madden Head of Primary Being BSQ – Secondary Update Last week and into this one, the Year 6 students have been getting a taste of life and learning in Secondary at BSQ. The lessons have been a huge success. Thank you to all those involved. On Tuesday 9th June, Year 6 parents are invited to join Ms Sadotra and myself for an online workshop to hear more about how things will change for the students next year, and how you can help them with transition from Primary to Secondary. After the Exams While the exam session serves as a way to mark the end of the academic year at BSQ, there are still a few things on the schedule before we are done for the summer. After the exams finish, Years 10 and 12 will return to class to receive feedback, and make plans for next year. Meanwhile, Years 7, 8, and 9 will take part in a special topic project. Year 13 will celebrate their graduation on Friday 26th June. Then on the final two days of school - Monday 29th, and Tuesday 30th - there are no regular classes. Instead we invite everybody to join us for the two traditional closing events of the school year: the Awards Ceremony, and the Farewell Assembly. More details to follow. Jim Wild Head of Secondary From the BSQ Counselling Team This week our school counsellor, Andrea Carrera, talks about how to help children manage fears.
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May 2024
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