Dear Parents,
Welcome Back
I welcome you back to a new term and wish you and your families a happy, healthy and successful new year. I hope you all enjoyed some wonderful quality time with your families over the festive season. It’s time to make those positive New Year resolutions – if you have broken them already, don’t worry, start again!
We welcome 15 new children (including 5 “returners”) to Aloha College this term. We hope they are all happy and settled.
Last term was a difficult one for our college community so let us start the Spring Term with our usual positive attitude, and look forward to some great successes.
Your children all appear happy to be back, even Years 11, 12 and 13 who face examinations – we wish them all good luck!
ATTENDANCE AND PUNCTUALITY
Please continue with your great efforts in ensuring your children arrive in school on time and well-prepared for their daily routines. And continue please to collect them punctually – as I have said many times, little ones can get quite distressed when you are late. Remember our drive to achieve 100% attendance continues, and absence continues to be closely monitored, as indicated in our end-of-term school reports.
AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
The CEP programme is already underway, after a much more successful start than last term. Thank you to all for your support in this matter.
WELCOME TO STAFF
We welcome back Miss Esperanza Barragan (Secondary Spanish teacher) following her maternity leave. We also welcome to our school an additional member of staff, Miss Naomi Walker, as Foundation Stage assistant.
YEAR 13 UNIVERSITY OFFERS
It is very exciting to hear how most of our Year 13 pupils are receiving university offers from the UK and worldwide – this is great motivation for them all.
Let’s aim to help our children believe in their ability to try new things and practise old. Let us ensure they have a sense of worth and are always aware of a sense of responsibility for their actions.
Just to remind you, our next Fundraising for Charity Day will be Friday 25 January, to support Sarah Almagro, from Marbella. More details to follow.
I wish you a happy weekend with your families.
Yours sincerely,
Elizabeth Batchelor
Principal
PRIMARY SCHOOL
Dear Parents,
Happy New Year and welcome back to the Spring Term of 2019. At this time of year, many of us have made New Year resolutions or set ourselves new challenges. A new challenge for our children as always is learning how to be resilient and safe when using digital resources. Many children will have received new digital devices during the Christmas holidays. Therefore we have started the term with a series of lessons for all year groups to raise their awareness of “staying safe”. This also is the focus of my Talk Homework this week. No doubt many of you will be very interested and, if you are like me, learn something new in the process.
Next week’s target: COMMUNICATION
Talk Homework: How do you stay safe online? Explain to your parents.
Yours sincerely,
Kathryn Salmon
Headteacher, Primary
SECONDARY SCHOOL
Dear Parents,
A warm welcome to a new term. I hope that you have not been too hard on yourselves with your new year’s resolutions. Mine are straightforward and, hopefully, achievable: healthy eating and more outdoor exercise. I will keep you up to date on my progress.
It is usually a conversation with a student or colleague that sparks new ideas for my newsletter. This week, I have decided to write about the amount of time adolescents spend indoors.
Last Tuesday, a pupil in Year 9 came in to talk to me about ‘Fortnite’. He was a little upset because he is not allowed to play the online game at home anymore. “I know nothing about Fortnite”, I said. The student quickly summarised everything I needed to know and insisted that the game was great as it makes you think strategically. He said that he misses his friends as they all play online and he is no longer part of the group. I asked the student : “ I do not understand how you miss your friends as it is an online game. You do not see your friends when you play, do you?”
This conversation suddenly reminded me about my childhood and adolescence. I was out and about all the time, playing with my friends, siblings and relatives, making our own entertainment. I even walked or cycled to school every day. Things have changed since. Children spend most of their time indoors, connecting with friends online and not experiencing true companionship.
I understand your perspective as parents in terms of protecting children from what is, perhaps, now a more dangerous world. However, we are extremely privileged to live in a place like Marbella where we have the sea, plenty of green space and a wide range of outdoor activities to enjoy with family and friends.
From my point of view, what we really should understand is that spending endless hours around a square in Puerto Banús every weekend cannot count as an outdoor activity. I would prefer your children to play ‘Fortnite’ instead!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Yours sincerely,
Francisco Escobar
Headteacher, Secondary
