Welcome Last week we celebrated our Juramento a la Bandera with the Year 13 students and their families. It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate all the determination and commitment of those students during their many years of education up until now. Each year I tell the students that we are proud of them and that their continued commitment and determination to improve will lead to them being ‘decisive, influential’ members of society both now and in the future. We all look forward to the many incredible, life-changing, world-developing actions these students will no doubt undertake in the future. Assessment at BSQ As some of you will be aware, the Ministry of Education have made the excellent decision to reduce the number of assessment points across the year from 6 to 4. As a result, the dates for the end of each assessment period have changed as follows: Mr. Madden and Mr. Moors will communicate with you about the way in which these assessments will be undertaken and how the report grades will be reached. e-learning at BSQ From the Staff and the Students Continuing with our teachers and their stories about e-learning this new period. This week we have Ms. Natalie Sawyers and Ms. Belén Arellano, Ms. Aditi Sadotra and the Red MOVE team from Secondary and Ms. Hayley Dean, Ms. Heather Stollery and Ms. Antonella Coronel from Primary. Ms. Natalie Sawyers and Ms. Belén Arellano – Secondary Teachers, Year 11A tutors As a new member of staff it is daunting, but a teacher that is also moving country and starting the new school year during a pandemic and teaching online; it certainly makes it challenging. I would like to introduce myself as the new Geography teacher and co-form tutor to 11a. I have previously worked in schools in Panama and South and South East London for the past 8 years. Working in Ecuador is an exciting and interesting adventure for me, as a Geographer I can’t wait to explore the diverse environments and meet people of different cultures, plus I need to continue learning Spanish. I have received a lovely welcome from staff, students and the community and I would like to thank you all. I wasn’t the only new member to 11a; Rommy has also joined. A very warm welcome and we look forward to the year to come with you. It has been a great pleasure getting to know the students in the school and especially in 11a in their LLS lessons. Students in 11a have shown that they are passionate and engaged in current world issues and want to make tomorrow a better world for all its inhabitants. Samantha is at the forefront of environmental awareness and a key player in ‘Red MOVE’ which is an intercollegiate climate action group formed by 15 schools and sponsored by WWF Ecuador. I’m sure we will be learning more about this group throughout the year once it is up and fully running. Another shout out goes to Julieta for her beautiful singing voice during her performance in the BSQ’s got talent and achieving an impressive 3rd place! Well done and I know we are all excited for the next performance. The last LLS session with year 11a has been very interesting and useful since we focused on how to be resilient in a digital environment, this is even more important for students now that digital platforms for learning are in vogue. Year 11a students showed so much interest in the topic and we had great ideas of how to become digitally resilient people. We would like to share with you the amazing contributions that we had from students that day: -Follow accounts that make you feel good -Focus on doing things that make you feel good about yourself -Do not compare yourself with others -Use social media to research, learn or discuss topics that you are passionate about -Remember that beauty is subjective. Finally, Year 11 is a significant year since it is the last year of the IGCSE program and the current pandemic has made things even more challenging for both students and teachers (plus parents I’m sure!). However, we, as tutors of the Year 11a class, do not question the success that each and all of you will achieve. We know you don't need luck as you are hardworking, determined and sensitive human beings. Student Council 2020-21 Last Wednesday we had our first Student Council 2020-21 meeting of the year. It was a real pleasure for me to welcome the new cohort and for the students to have a chance to meet one another. During our first meeting the important business of voting for our new leaders took place. The leaders of the Student Council will be instrumental in driving the vision and ideas of the whole student body forward this academic year. Let's hear from our new President and Vice President! I am sure you all share in my excitement of seeing what this amazing group of students, led by Sebastian and Maite, will achieve this year! Ms Sadotra Red MOVE 2020-21 We are excited to inform you that this year's Red MOVE team has been formed & we have assembled a competent team who will most definitely deliver exceptional results. The Red MOVE is a climate action group founded by Liceo Internacional working alongside the WWF & USFQ, it is a fantastic opportunity for students to broaden their connections (working with influential organisations & university students from a young age) & to meet people who are as passionate as they are for a brighter future. Despite the fact that our team has already be defined, there will certainly be opportunities for students to become involved with the MOVE & we invite you to stay alert for updates, our main goal is to ensure a more sustainable & environmentally friendly school, however, we also long to present students with exciting opportunities that best fit them. Additionally, we encourage you to cooperate with our guides & surveys, assuring that when the time comes & we have to present the Ministry of Education our MINEDUC guide it is presented in the highest calibre possible, that way we will achieve our goal for the school to be eco-friendlier. Samantha B. - Year 11a student The Red MOVE team 2020-21 Samantha (Student Leader), Ana Paula, Gala F, Maite P, Rommy, Shira The Great Kindness Challenge In Primary we have been taking part in the Kindness challenge alongside Year 7,8 and 9. Over the last two weeks the children have been taking part in a range of different activities to spread kindness around, including helping around the house, smiling at lots of different people, giving out thank you notes, giving people compliments and giving donations to different people and charities. The children then reflected on their acts of kindness and how that has made themselves and others feel. We are so proud of your wonderful acts of kindness; I know you will carry on spreading your kindness to everyone around you. Great job Primary =) Miss Dean Ms. Heather Stollery - Year 5A Year 5A have had a fantastic start to the year. In our Topic lessons we have been studying Australia and we have had some really interesting discussions around immigration and how people have arrived to the country. We have also been learning about an incredible Indigenous artist, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, and we have been using her as inspiration for our own artwork. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be creating our own Aboriginal dot paintings which we are really excited to see! Over the past four weeks we have also been working really hard to create our own Dreamtime stories and the children have come up with some fantastic ideas. Here are the titles to each of their stories: How the dingo got its teeth - Elias How the dingo got its ferocity - Juanita How the galah got its hairstyle - Ismael How the crocodile got their scales - José Tomás How the koala got its strength - Martina How the Gouldian Finch got its colours – Arian Why dingoes are similar to dogs – Franchesca They used the style of Aboriginal Australian stories and included fantastic figurative language and speech. Once their stories were published, they also designed front covers inspired by our learning from Art. Great work 5A! Ms. Antonella Coronel – Head of EYFS Dear parents, We have enjoyed a wonderful week in EYFS, the children continue to show enthusiasm for learning. Thank you parents for your great support. We began with topics of emotions and behaviour, where the children had the opportunity to learn about their own feelings. To reinforce different forms of expressions we have been using signs for learning as well as creative arts. In one opportunity, the students made their chosen emotion out of playdough and used different kitchen elements to add details on the faces, such as eyes from beans, nose from pasta and hair from yarn. In BSQ, we consider emotional awareness and the children's well being as an important pillar for their development. We understand the importance of the family's role in this. To support the EYFS families, we will be hosting a parent workshop to share strategies on how to emotionally support your child at home. This workshop will take place on the “BSQ Parent portal” at 3:30PM on Wednesday September 30th, 2021. We hope to see you there. Kind regards, Ms Coronel Dates for your Diary
Emma Newman Principal Being BSQ – Primary Update All the staff here at BSQ were really excited to receive all the different ways that the students have displayed kindness over the past two weeks. From helping with the dishes, smiling at their friends on camera, keeping their rooms tidy and sharing their toys with someone less fortunate than themselves, they have really lived our school values and made the world a better place. This week in Year 3, the students are experiencing a cognitive ability assessment, called CAT4, which will allow the teachers here at BSQ an invaluable insight into their students’ ability to think across four different reasoning batteries:
With this information about each students’ strengths and areas for development, we can target support, provide the right level of challenge and make informed decisions about students’ progress. This concept is true of any assessment that is undertaken with our students, either formally or informally. The teachers at BSQ are constantly gaining insights into the skills, knowledge and understanding of their students and giving them feedback on how to improve, as we spoke about in last week’s newsletter. As adults, we have to ensure that children do not feel threatened or worried about these assessments and see them as a valuable tool in their development. Marcus Madden Head of Primary Being BSQ – Secondary Update It is with mixed feelings that I write about Juramento a la Bandera this week and our celebrations surrounding the achievements of those students who have been honored for all of their hard work over their school careers. To be bestowed the honor of carrying a flag, whether it is the National Flag, the city flag or the School flag is significant. It is a quite remarkable achievement and something that we should all give huge congratulations. What a great shame that we cannot celebrate in the normal way in school, with many people involved, witnessing the procession. We are very fortunate to have an extremely creative team of staff who have considered how we can still celebrate the occasion virtually. Many people have been involved with preparing messages of congratulations and readying the students so that we had material to enjoy on Friday. I expect to see many proud parents clenching their fists to their chests as patriotic songs ring out in between the city and National anthems. These occasions are supremely important and should play a key role in the traditions of the school. What great role models these successful young adults are! They represent our values so well and act as positive role models to our younger children. On behalf of the Secondary team may I give our sincere congratulations to you all. One of the most stressful things we can do in life is to embed ourselves in a community and be exposed to limited language ability. As a human being one of our critical needs is to be able to communicate with each other. When barriers arise, we are good at improvising. This is very clear when you observe small children of different languages play. They are adept at adopting other forms of communication to improvise and play without hindrance. As children get older this becomes more of a challenge – perhaps even more so as a teenager or adult. I find that even as a confident school leader some self-confidence issues arise if I am pressed to communicate openly in a different language. My son is currently at this stage and it is fascinating to see him negotiate his way through communication challenges and expectations placed on him in Spanish through his learning. He is only 5. Children need to really try hard and be brave. They need to develop confidence so they take advantage of opportunities when they arise. They need to accept that they will make mistakes and understand that these are events that help them learn. They also need to develop some independence by taking responsibility for their own language development. As parents, we are encouraging and rewarding his successes and his failures - as he had a go. I find myself reflecting on this and I have come to the conclusion that this advice applies to all subjects and learning itself. If we can develop these things early then what comes next is far easier. Do please try to reinforce this at home when you can. Testing students is a critically important part of education. The data that this gives us allows us to benchmark and predict likely academic outcomes. When we are tracking performance over time this data is used, and if students are falling below target, we can then give intervention to correct the trend. Students in Year 7 and 10 will be sitting assessment tests in 2 weeks. Please look out for the arrangements and information on what the tests are and how they are administered. Please do not stress or worry about these as they are very normal and there is not a pass or fail outcome. I am sure that you are aware that the Ministry of Education has now given us more information on the partial assessment and reporting expectations for this academic year. We are moving from 6 to 4 partials, with the first now ending on 23rd October. This is three weeks later than originally planned. You as parents will be involved with the assessment allocating 1 mark of the 10. You will be asked to provide a score in the range of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 or 1. Do please look out for the communication and instructions on this as non-returns will mean that the school will automatically apply 0.5 score to the student’s overall grade. Feedback in lessons is critically important for us to assess outcomes and drive understanding. There are many ways that we do this. We are currently looking at the development of this important area in the Secondary school so that there is a standard and consistent approach. I write to inform you of this due to the feedback we received from some of our parents in the recent meet the tutors event on the subject of feedback. Staff will be meeting again on the 12th October to discuss this further. I will write to you with further details of what you should expect to see as parents when looking at workbooks after this time. Finally, on Monday 28th September at 12.15 we will be welcoming parents of year 12 students to a session on the IB curriculum being led by Mr Karakashian. Do please try to attend as there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions on all things IB. The meeting will be held on the year 12 tutor canvas page. Have a great week. Lee Moors Head of Secondary From the BSQ Counselling Team This week our school counsellor, Andrea Carrera, talks about teaching empathy.
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