Dear parents,
As you enjoy this newsletter, you will be relaxing with your families as we all begin our half-term break.
It has been a very busy, productive period, and we hope we can share some of the highlights in this letter.
Fun Run
After a few years’ break, the Fun Run was back, with a brand new style! One of our staple events of the charity calendar, the Fun Run has traditionally been held in September and was a fairly lengthy running challenge. This year, we shifted the emphasis to “more fun, less run!” by introducing a sponsorship element; children could simply pay the entrance amount to be involved, or they could run it in an imaginative way by gaining sponsorship from their friends and family. And what imagination we saw! Wonderful costumes, including vibrant African-style fancy dresses, inflatable dinosaurs, and even a giant minion. With students dancing, dribbling a football, in a wheelchair, on crutches, on a pogo stick, and even on a unicycle, we were amazed by the unique ways they could complete the course.
Thank you to all of you who supported this event with donations.
Día de Andalucía
Yesterday we all celebrated this day by dressing up in green and white and enjoying a traditional Spanish breakfast of bread and olive oil.
Pupil voice – Nursery
Even our Nursery children have a “Pupil Voice”: This week they sent me this letter, then visited my office with their suggestions for a change of uniform colour!!
Ilyana was the main spokesperson, I will consider their proposal with the management team.
Letter to Mrs Batchelor
“Can you give us a pink uniform? I don’t like blue colour.”
“Pink shoes, pink skirts, pink pens.”
“I like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black and white and rainbow. I like all the colours.”
“I like a rainbow uniform.”
“Pink, blue and purple uniform.”
“We love you Mrs Batchelor.”
Goodbye, see you later,
The Nursery Children
“xx from Ilyana.”
Ilyana – Main Spokesperson
Milana – ART
I was overwhelmed by my discussion with Milana (Year 11) who shared with me some of her artwork. She proudly told me she couldn’t draw well before she joined the school, now look at what she can do!!
Polite reminder – School nurse
We are privileged to have the presence of our school nurse, whose role includes dealing with children who become sick during the school day or unfortunately injured in the playground; PE lesson etc. She is becoming increasingly inundated with children who have had accidents or sickness at home being sent to school to visit the nurse.
Last Monday, with an instruction to “visit the nurse” she had seen 25 children by 11:00 am, the majority of them saying they had been sick or injured over the weekend. Please may I ask in these situations you consult your family doctor.
Thank you for your support on this matter.
Eco Project
In order to continue our community awareness of a more healthy environment, one parent quite rightly reminded us that “small actions make a difference” .
Turning off your car engines in the main car park (not on the main ramp or the lower car park) whilst waiting to collect your children could make a significant improvement in the air quality during rush hours. Pollutants such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates, and oxides of sulfur and nitrogen are released into our environment from idling cars.
ACM APS
Thank you to the APS parents society for preparing and selling second-hand uniforms, this was much appreciated by parents.
School production
Congratulations to all the students who played a part in our recent school production entitled “Creepers”.
It was like watching a professional production in London’s West End – absolutely amazing- Congratulations!!
Cambridge Outstanding Awards
Congratulations to the following students who achieved a Cambridge Outstanding Award for the following:
Jade Gambetti – Foreign Language Italian – Best in Spain
Margherita Vernuccio – Foreign Language Italian – Best in Spain
Alice Kelly – Foreign Language Spanish – Best in the WORLD
Parents Assembly
Thank you to the parents who attended the parent assembly meeting, and the Board of Trustees who conducted the meeting. We thank Rosa Gómez, Chair of the Board of Trustees, and her fellow Board members, Peter McDermott, Macarena Perez, Ruth Cooper, and Martin Tye for the endless time and full commitment dedicated to our wonderful school.
In the following link you can find the calendar of the academic year 2023-2024:
Finally, please enjoy a video of our wonderful school fresh out of the oven!
Enjoy more reading from the Primary and Secondary news. We wish you a wonderful half-term break. See you all on 6 March.
PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS
What a busy, but brilliant month we have had in the primary school. A particular highlight has been the numerous visits from children who have been celebrating their excellent achievements and classwork. We have seen such a variety of learning from spectacular stories to fabulous pieces of art work. It has been a pleasure to see so many children show pride in their achievements, keep it up, we can’t wait to see what next half term brings.
Some of our youngest learners from the Foundation Stage were invited to attend the fantastic Year 1 assembly which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. We would like to take the opportunity to thank the class teachers and children for their hard work and efforts in producing a wonderful retell of Michael Rosen’s ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt.’ The assembly was even more special thanks to all of our mums, dads and special visitors who came to watch.
On Monday 20 February we were also treated to a brilliant Spanish assembly led by the Spanish department and our fantastic Year 4 children. From sharing expert knowledge to showcasing wonderful singing, the assembly had us all feeling the carnival spirit. Thank you again to our staff, children and parents for collaborating together to bring this assembly to life.
Our wonderful Reception children took part in an exciting and educational trip to Selwo Marina in Benalmadena. The children enjoyed exploring the park and learning about the different species housed there; especially the importance of respecting their natural habitats and how we can help to preserve them. The children were also treated to an informative show about dolphins. They then rounded off their day with a lovely picnic lunch in the school grounds. A wonderful time was had by all!
In Year 3 we have loved learning all about Ancient Egyptians! In English, we have learnt about hieroglyphics, contractions, created fact files and even wrote our own adventure stories. This month our IPC unit is Temples, Tombs and Treasure focusing on Ancient Egyptians and we are currently rehearsing for our assembly to perform for you all in March. We created cartouches from clay, learned about the mummification process and why the River Nile was so important for their prosperous civilisation.
In Year 6, we have been applying our maths knowledge of ratio and proportion in order to multiply or divide quantities equally to scale up or down a recipe. We enjoyed putting this into practice by successfully making delicious truffles!
As writers, we have been uplevelling our descriptive writing to create suspense. Our editing and proofreading has resulted in some excellent attention-grabbing stories. Furthermore, our star handwriters have also been awarded pen licenses!
We wish you all a wonderful half term break and remind you that school starts back on Monday 6 March.
SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS
Drama Production – Creepers!
The creative arts is always an evolving process and the long-awaited transition to an entirely student-led production was realised this year.
Starting last Easter, Ksenija Kocuraite and Eva Campbell wrote a full length play, the standard of which was simply incredible. A comedy mystery hybrid of Scooby Doo and Sherlock Holmes, “Creepers!” had everything; farcical physical comedy, witty one-liners and a superb plot that kept the audience hooked.
Last June brought the appointment of the student leaders for the project. Students with skills and experience in all the different aspects of theatre were invited to apply, with the knowledge that this would be a large commitment but they rose to the challenge with pride.
The music was led by Yumi Mulligan with a team of six talented musicians and singers. Having live music in a show adds a layer of difficulty for all members involved, and many professional shows steer away from it for this very reason. However, I am sure anyone in the audience would agree that the music was perfect, and live sound effects too were just the icing on the cake. Many parents also enjoyed the 80s theme to the music, coupled with Scooby Doo they were really reliving their youth!
Backstage was run by Archer Dumas, assisted by Tina Ghods. The precision of the transitions and props plus helping actors with cues, ran so smoothly due to the way the team worked together under Archer’s leadership.
The technical team were by far the most organised, with the tech script prepared and ready to go before Christmas Zifan Wang, Adrian Ogrzewalski and Daniel Puglisi battled through some tough challenges with last minute equipment faults. Their calm attitudes in the face of pressure showed such maturity and resilience.
The set was stunning, brought to life under the careful watch of Connie Fitzgerald and Sophie Ergo. These A Level art students encouraged their young team to create a bright and vibrant set which really encompassed the themes of the play. Sophie also organised all of the costumes and together they designed and managed all of the hair and make-up for the shows.
Sofia Nakpil was the choreographer, producing two individual pieces and two full ensemble routines. This included choreographing and training our Year 6 dancers, who have hopefully been bitten by the showbiz bug. Sofia also had to train a rather rowdy bunch of “Jitterbug” cameo performers, who are the biggest divas in the whole production!
Sofia ran the media team too, creating a full website that documents the journey through the creative process, which you can find here. Along with Tom Gainey, they also produced the tickets, posters and programmes.
This leaves me to mention our directing team: Irene Dumas, Avin Moonesan and Lola Cooper, the “mother hens” of the production. They worked tirelessly to bring the words and meaning from the script to life. It is such a large, and often stressful part of the process but the end result was simply outstanding.
Here, we are crediting the leaders who were supported by a fantastic team. Totalling 65 students, the drama production really has something for everyone and they all play a significant part. Either as performers or backstage, we hope a few of our younger ones have been inspired to be leaders in the future.
A note from our drama teacher, Bruno Martellotta:
“It was really emotional to see the kids yesterday. I feel so proud and happy for their work and we were lucky to see all the process from the inside. This was the first time that the students created, directed, choreographed, performed (acting and LIVE music) and designed their own musical play. They also managed to perform a full length play after more than two years of not having that sort of experience. Students were empowered during the entire project, feeling owners of the play and protagonists of their own learning, which was constant, in social, emotional and artistic educational aspects. Primary school students were also a key part of the performance, fostering collaboration between both primary and secondary schools and developing future performers.”
Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award Completion
We are incredibly proud of the twenty three Y11 and Y12 students who received their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh awards this week. This was our first Duke of Edinburgh Awards ceremony for over ten years and they were presented with official certificates and badges to celebrate their efforts.
They have shown hard work and determination at every stage and in all sections of the award. Completing physical activities as diverse as ballroom dancing and skateboarding. Contributing over 350 hours worth of voluntary work to the community in projects such as beach cleans, working in charity shops or walking dogs at animal shelters. Yumi and Daniil provided a fantastic musical interlude demonstrating their improved skills from the skills section of the award. Eva, Zifan and Amani all talked about their experiences and challenges, the adventurous journey being fondly remembered by all. Getting lost, growing as a group and working as a team. Each student has individually spent over 100 hours worth of time in training sessions and expeditions in Jimena de la Frontera and Tarifa.
The physical and metaphorical journey that these students have completed through the entire awards programme embodies our own pupil profile and we are delighted to be offering the Award again.
Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
On February the 2nd and 3rd of February, while secondary school students were taking part in two exciting learning days of workshops focused on developing study skills and routines, our teachers also took part in training workshops designed to develop and enhance their practices.
Focusing on exploring attitudes and approaches to learning, teachers worked together to share ideas and explore a range of strategies regarding encouraging positive behaviours and mindsets amongst students, and how to help pupils develop their lifelong learning skills, particularly critical thinking skills.
Over the past two years, we have made it a priority to develop our culture surrounding Teaching & Learning and are particularly proud of the significant changes we have made to our continuous professional development (CPD) provision. By creating regular opportunities for teachers to collaborate and by promoting high standards through our systems, resources and learning communities, we can proudly assert that there exists, throughout the staff, a commitment to developing practice which undeniably has a massive impact on students’ engagement and progress.
Since the workshops, teachers have been incorporating into their lessons many of the ideas and teaching strategies we explored, and these have had a positive impact on pupil development, progress and enjoyment. As such, we believe that by collaborating regularly and always striving to develop our practices, our school continues to cater to students’ varying needs in creative and innovative ways and learners are helped to achieve their potential and be their best.
Students, too, enjoyed their sessions run by Elevate Education. The Mnemonics and Study Skills session leaders, Tabs and Jules, kept students engaged and thoroughly entertained with crazy sounding but effective strategies for remembering information and advice for making study time more effective. One example involved an outlandish story that linked 10 key concepts of an event in history. It involved birthday balloons, a unicorn, a Lamborghini and Boris Johnson jumping out of a birthday cake.
Here’s a glimpse of our happy learners (students and teachers!) benefiting from the training:
IB Art & Geography Trip to Barcelona
The IB Geography field trip to Barcelona was an outstanding experience for the students. The investigation focused on how environmental quality changes with distance, providing the students with an opportunity to analyse the city’s natural and built environments. During the field trip, students collected data on air and noise pollution levels, green spaces, and the urban fabric. Through this investigation, students learned how to conduct a geographical inquiry and analyse their findings. This practical application of their learning enabled them to gain an in-depth understanding of the subject matter, and the skills they developed will be beneficial for their future studies and career paths.
Apart from the academic benefits, the Barcelona field trip was also an enjoyable and memorable experience for the students. They were immersed in the local culture, history, geography and had the opportunity to develop their place-based knowledge. The students were enthusiastic about investigating a new place that they had never been to before, which contributed to their personal growth and development. The data collected during the field trip will be used by the students to write their internal assessments, providing them with a platform to apply their learning and showcase their research and analytical skills. The students thoroughly enjoyed the trip and appreciated the opportunity to apply their classroom learning to a real-world context.
KS3 Music Concert
On Friday 10th February we held a KS3 music assembly in the Arts and Sports Hall. This was an opportunity for every class from Year 7 to Year 9 to perform pieces that they had been working on in their weekly music lessons. Performances ranged from Samba drumming, classical music on the boomwhackers to a west end style dance choreography and singing ensemble to the well known song ´Hit the Road Jack´.
The students were certainly showing some nerves, but they were up for the challenge of performing to their peers. It was wonderful to see the maturity, growth and development as the students in some cases were pushing their comfort boundaries and developing their confidence.
A special thank you to Gennaro D’Aria and Anatoli Praslov for being such brilliant hosts with their charismatic and unique presenting style. Thank you also to Freddy Sharp for his wonderful piano solo as well as Ankido Kino and Timur Dosmukhamedov who stole the show as lead singers in their outstanding performance of Viva La Vida.
Congratulations to all students who participated. What a wonderful way to finish a Friday afternoon!
