Dear Parents,
I begin by thanking all Secondary parents for your support of our Alumni Charity on Thursday. Primary pupils will support Charity Day on Monday. Please remember that on that day your child will come to school wearing PE kit with €2, and will compete in a mini-marathon in the afternoon. Any parent who wishes to contribute more, they are very welcome!
MATHS COMPETITION
Today, as you read this letter, Aloha College Marbella is hosting the ISMTF International Maths competition. 240 children, accompanied by their teachers, will be working on Maths calculation, problem-solving, Maths puzzles, etc. Our guests are students at international schools as far away as Moscow, Milan, Cairo, London, Zurich, Brussels, Geneva, Frankfurt, Amsterdam Toulouse, Paris, The Hague, as well as Barcelona and of course the most important pupils from – Aloha College!
| TEAM H1 | TEAM V2 |
| Adrian Ogrzewalski | Iker Yang |
| Pablo Benet Vincenti | Álvaro Sánchez Valenzuela |
| Sofia Elgaily López | Martin Brun |
RESERVE: Marco Santaella
A sincere thank-you to Mrs Turner, Head of Maths, and her department, who worked so hard to put this event together.
Thanks also to all the staff who have made this possible including Fátima and Isabel who met and greeted the visitors at Málaga airport; Juan our concierge, Sergio from maintenance, Alejandro in IT, Marta and Mr Davies who will be taking photos, the cooks, the cleaners, and our Year 10 and Year 12 pupils who organised activities and games at the beach last night.
I know this is going to be a fantastic event for our children and the college as a whole. I can hardly wait until next week to share with you photos and the details of our successes. Our wonderful school can hold its head high knowing it is amongst the top international schools of the world.
News of the Maths events will be tweeted on Monday!
SECONDARY SCHOOL INTER-HOUSE SPORTS DAY
Another huge success for Aloha College! For the second time the inter house athletics was hosted in the Estadio Municipal de Marbella and the level of performance was raised yet again. At least 12 records were smashed and new champions crowned.
Inter House athletics champions – Sevilla 1210 points
Girls Junior Sports Champion – Michelle Lundteppen Y8
Boys Junior Sports Champions – Marat Borlakov & Christian Campo Y8
Girls Senior Sports Champion – Florence Sargent Y10
Boys Senior Sports Champion – Mateo Iturmendi Y10
The photos speak for themselves! What an amazing array of athletic talent.
EASTER HOLIDAYS
Please remember that we have one more week until the Easter holidays and learning will continue until 16.00 h on Friday 12 April. Please ensure therefore that your child is in school and not enjoying an early holiday.
We are very aware that the expectation of attendance of 95% is very high; However, we do have very high standards at Aloha College. Looking at our attendance figures overall, we can see they have improved as parents are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of good attendance in their child’s learning. As always, these policies are put in place to help your children, not just because we like imposing rules. Like every policy this will be reviewed at the end of the academic year.
NURSERY ASSEMBLY
Thank you to all our Nursery children for their beautiful assembly on Monday about international food. They were scrumptious!
Have a lovely weekend – I look forward to seeing you next Thursday at the
Music and Art Evening (18.00 h).
Your sincerely
Elizabeth Batchelor
Principal
PRIMARY SCHOOL
Dear Parents,
This is how our 46 Nursery children greeted us in Monday’s Assembly when they treated us to songs and dances about different foods around the world. It is sometimes too easy to forget that Aloha is a rich culture of children from 57 nationalities learning and playing together. It made us all feel very proud all week!
On Wednesday Year 3 and 4 children invited me to join the exit point of their IPC unit ‘Temples, Tombs and Treasures’. They had transformed their classrooms into ‘Museums’ with their creations of ‘Ancient Egyptian’ artefacts ranging from pyramids to hieroglyphs. They enthusiastically explained the importance of the river Nile and the mystery behind the death of the young King Tutankhamen. It was also explained to me that Mesopotamia had an ancient tribe called the Sumerians who lived between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates thousands of years ago! For me, as Headteacher, the most important part of the visit was the children’s faces. Their eagerness to share their learning, their pride in their writing, research and artwork and finally the fun that they were having collaborating and sharing their ideas!
Have you ever thought of being an author? On Thursday Year 4 and 5 children were treated to a day exchanging ideas, learning new writing tips and being thoroughly inspired by our visiting author Peter Bunzl. He answered some really interesting questions from the children and captivated them with how he turned his small ideas into best-selling books. As Daniele in Year 5 said: “Amazing day! I liked Peter Bunzl because he explained everything about his books and we could do a workshop and draw our own robots after”. The day was a real treat in the build-up to next week’s Primary Book Week.
‘Get Caught Reading’ Competition’ Reminder – All entries to be handed
Next target: RESPONSIBILITY (independent thinking in lessons)
Talk Homework: What kind of book would you like to write and why?
Your sincerely
Kathryn Salmon
Headteacher, Primary
SECONDARY SCHOOL
Dear Parents,
If I told you that I am thinking of inviting an outside speaker to talk to your children about literature and, especially, the works of Federico García Lorca, what would you think? And what would you envisage this talk to be like?
I am sure that many of you, if not all, would imagine someone on stage simply addressing a group of students on the benefits of studying literature and preaching on what a great writer Lorca was. You would even start feeling sorry for your children who would have to listen to this boring person talking about poetry and classic novels for over one hour.
Long gone are the days in which literature was taught in a traditional and uninspiring way. Perhaps this is still the norm at other schools, but certainly not at Aloha College!
Noelia García, Head of Spanish, and I had endless conversations about the way we could promote the works of García Lorca to students during book week. An eureka moment suddenly sprang to mind, and MUSIC was the answer to all of our questions. Everyone loves music! We thought it would be fantastic to show our students the connection between literature and music.
Well, I must confess that the guest speaker I referred to above is not fictional. Yesterday, we had a very special guest who was able to explain the connection between flamenco and literature brilliantly. The renowned flamenco singer, Miguel Poveda, came in to do a talk to Spanish First Language students in year 11, 12 and 13 about the importance of literature throughout his career and why he decided to choose the poems of García Lorca in one of his albums.
It was a wonderful experience for students and staff alike. Miguel’s passion for García Lorca was infectious. We left the room in total awe, curious to know more about the famous poet from Granada.
In Miguel’s own words: “The more you know about Lorca, the more you are drawn towards his infinite universe”
I hope you have a good weekend.
Yours sincerely,
Francisco Escobar
Headteacher, Secondary
