Dear parents,
I hope you have all enjoyed a half term break with your families despite the lack of sunshine.
Safe return
You will have seen yesterday’s Covid letter which shared with you the good news that all our pupils and staff have returned safely to school.
Trial Examination Results
Year 11 and 13 pupils face uncertainties and concerns about their external exams due to the situation with Covid. Despite this, the results of some of their recent trial examinations made me very happy indeed. Congratulations to all those pupils for facing current challenges with resilience and effort, and still managing to smile. Keep up your hard work and motivation, it will bear fruit! All our pupils deserve success.
School environment
The secondary school is a pleasure to walk around. The corridors and open spaces are brimming with outstanding pieces of artwork, all telling their own stories.
Photographs of Head Students, School Council, Pupil Voice, Makers club team and school events decorate the corridors and classrooms, helping to make the place a vibrant environment for learning.
The Primary School is the same. Children’s work is gloriously displayed everywhere, encouraging all to be proud of their achievements. Despite you the parents not being able to visit, and the fact that many of our annual events are not taking place, we have still not allowed Covid to lower our spirit, our efforts and our standards. The whole college looks as good as ever!
New member of staff
We are pleased to welcome Athanasios Spyropoulos to our Secondary School as a teacher of mathematics.
El Mundo
Further congratulations are due to the Board of Trustees, you the parents, management, staff and pupils for enabling us to be ranked among the top 6 international schools in Andalucia. These scores are not awarded lightly so we can definitely be proud of the prestige bestowed upon us. You can follow us on social media to be aware of all our news.
I hope you have a lovely, hopefully not too wet, weekend with your families.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
Welcome back after the half-term break. I hope you enjoyed time with your children, despite there not being a lot of sunshine. The children appeared delighted to be back with their friends, and have worked and played hard this short week.
My letter this week has lots of good news.
Maternity leave
Firstly, we welcome back Mrs Anne Ross (Year 3 teacher) and Miss Kate Edwards (Year 2 teacher) following their maternity leave. The children were very happy to see them, as were the staff!!
Miss Emily Selmes, who left us a short time ago to start her maternity leave, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Enzo, on Wednesday. Congratulations to Miss Emily.
The only time I claim priority in school is to follow our in-house rule whereby I get the first cuddle of all new additions to our Aloha family!!!
Omegle
Before I carry on with more great news, I need to inform you all of something that has caused us great distress during half term.
It has been brought to our attention that some pupils have experimented with a website called Omegle. One of our Primary students had a nasty experience and was approached inappropriately whilst using this website at home. Please be aware that this is not an appropriate site for young children and it is reported to have been infiltrated by predators. It is of the utmost importance now, more than ever, that we are vigilant in monitoring our children’s activities online and that each of their devices is secured with appropriate safeguarding control.
Nursery excitement
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, these were the words I heard in Nursery on Thursday when the children arrived to find a large, tall beanstalk had appeared in their classroom. They were fascinated by the possibility of a giant visiting their classroom during the evening!
New pupils
We welcome 3 new children to our wonderful school, we hope they and their families are made to feel welcome.
Maths Certificates – A big well done to everyone from Mrs Fox to all the children who have been working hard on their maths activities online this past half term. Certificates and five house points go to all of the children mentioned below. Keep up the good work everyone! Let’s see who wins at the end of next half term!
Earned the most coins in NUMBOTS:
- Year 1: Celine Hagbo, Ivo Piwek and Matisse Eghdamian Daemi
- Year 2: Marvin Matter, Youna Delavari and Jenna Wahlroos
Collected the most coins in TTRockStars:
- Year 2: Henry Howard and Delin Khan Mamakaev and Alejandro Escarcena Rivas
- Year 3: Neo Powell, Alisiia Luchko and Leo Apaydin
- Year 4: Soraya Rohayem El Khayati, Fernando Fay Pérez and Aurelia Howard
- Year 5: Morgane Matter, Rafael Tye and Lana El-Rais
- Year 6: Yohan Le Courvennec, Zlata Luchko, Laura Eggens and Iker Ortigosa Maldonado
Collected the most stars in Doodle Maths:
- Year 4: Soraya Rohayem El Khayati, Arseniy Dishdishyan and José Gutierrez Villafranca
- Year 5: Olivia Nakpil Bueno, Daniel O‘Hayon Karlov and Diego Veit Urbano
Played the most on Manga High:
- Year 6: Elin Höglund, Zlata Luchko and Yousef Toubah
Our ACM February’s Personal Learning Goal was TO BE INQUISITIVE
Congratulations to the following children, who received the Blossom award:
March Personal Learning Goal – TO BE A COMMUNICATOR
Next week’s Aloha Value – EFFORT
Kindness
Every week there is an act of kindness from Sophie (1MTI). Here she is!
Finally, the news you have been waiting for!
I promised that I would find the best person to become the new Head of the Primary section of the school. And I kept my word!! I am delighted to say that after a worldwide search, 136 applications and numerous lengthy and arduous interviews, we have appointed a new Headteacher who will take up her position in September 2021.
Her name is Miss Rebecca Eldred. She is currently an Assistant Headteacher at a well-established school in Dubai. Your children asked me to find someone who was kind, caring, clever, pretty, strict, fair, experienced and funny – Miss Eldred ticks all the boxes. They even told me that they didn’t care if he/she was as old as me – well, she is not! Although she does talk a lot like me!!!
The process, I repeat, was long. However, myself and the Board of Trustees were unanimous in our first choice and we are excited for the future of the Primary School.
Rebecca is really looking forward to the challenge of taking our excellent Primary School forward into the future. I know you will all make her welcome in September. We are all looking forward to her arrival.
After a great week, I wish you and your families a lovely safe weekend.
Yours sincerely
Elizabeth Batchelor
Principal
SECONDARY SCHOOL
Dear Parents,
I hope you have had a nice half term break. Last week I received a letter from Mateo, my godson. He loves sending me letters through the post. He is 9 years old and a very able writer. There was a drawing at the bottom of the letter- I have not yet figured out if it’s an elephant or a dog. Drawing is definitely not Mateo’s strength! I called my cousin (Mateo’s mother) to say how much I enjoyed reading his letter. She answered the phone by saying: ”Isn’t Mateo great at drawing?” I paused for a second and replied: “Up there with Picasso!” She told me off for being so critical about her perfect, beautiful and clever 9 year-old son.
I tried to explain to her that the reason why Mateo continues to draw such misshapen animals is because she has overpraised him and continues to do so for something he is terrible at. Mateo now believes that he is as good as Rembrandt! When I spoke to Mateo and said what I thought of his drawing skills he sounded confused. This is because I was judging it differently to what he is used to.
Now, I am sure that many of you are thinking: “Come on Mr Escobar, he is only a child.”
I am not saying that we must criticise all the time, but too much praise can be very damaging. I know that it can feel a little disheartening when, after putting a lot of effort into something, we are told that it is not good enough.
Séneca once said: “Admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.”
I agree with Séneca, especially because we have a tendency to have a high regard for those who succeed and forget the ones who try their hardest but do not quite make it. I always encourage our students to try. However, Mateo has tried multiple times without much success. Wouldn’t it be wiser if he invested the time and effort into improving his writing? This is an area where he has shown so much potential.
It would not be fair if I kept praising my lovely godson about his artistic talent when there isn’t one. I will, of course, praise the effort he puts into things, but it would be dishonest of me to lie just to save his feelings. If he then continues to draw because it is what he really enjoys doing, great! At the end of the day, we have to do whatever makes us happy.
Telling our children that everything they do is excellent does not build their self-esteem. When we grow up hearing, “you are the best,” or, “you are so bright,” it is then hard to do something that you know you probably will not be good at.
I cannot wait to read Mateo’s next letter! I wonder if he will draw anything this time.
I hope you have a nice weekend.
Francisco Escobar
Head of Secondary
