Dear parents,
Another busy week throughout the college. Your children are amazing!
The public examinations for Year 11 and Year 13 pupils have already started. Good luck to all our pupils!
Head Students
This week I enjoyed a meeting with our new Head Students Ainoa Veit and Marcus Elizondo-Darwin. We talked at length about their new role and what responsibilities it entails; they are two great potential leaders. One of their aims is to work even more in the Primary section of the school.
Screen time
Marcus has made the following video to help students control device use coming up to exams, or at any time. Parents may find it useful too!
Enjoy reading
At weekends during term-time I try to take some time to read books related to education. In the holidays, however, you will see me enjoying a light romantic novel which takes little effort to understand and presents no challenge to my thinking powers!
Yesterday I discovered that I am working alongside a talented author! Carmen, our school nurse, presented me with a signed book for our school Library. The book is entitled El Caso Voronet . This was written by Carmen herself and won the V Certamen Literario Corcel Negro. Here a summary:
Inés and Mario, who are teachers, will be involved in murder, theft and fraud when they find a letter written in Latin. With the help of their friends, they will try to solve the mystery behind the letter. Meanwhile, an anonymous, dangerous enemy will be following them closely.
What a huge talent; qualified nurse by day and author at night! Congratulations, Carmen!
The Secondary school all decorated their classroom doors as the cover of a book. This not only brought an array of bright colour to the corridors, it also helped promote some valuable discussion
Excellent work in Primary
Victor Heitz (3JCH) has done some incredible Maths work, which I have shown to Mr Escobar, Head of Secondary and Maths teacher himself. Because of the high standard of his work Mr Escobar thought that Victor must be in Secondary school but that he hadn’t yet met him! Well done, Victor!
Mija Sidorovic (4KFR) had to re-write a chapter of “Mr Stink” in her own words. And what words did she use! Mija explained how she uses the Thesaurus to find really descriptive and imaginative words. Here you can see that Mr Heath, Head of English in Secondary, can’t wait for Mija to join his class in a few years’ time!
It is a pleasure to be surrounded each day by such wonderful children.
Have a lovely weekend with your families.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
I hope your week was as good as mine. The children have worked hard and played well.
Year 6 Transition Days
The Year 6 children are busily preparing for Transition Week. This will take place in the week of 24 May. They will spend 4 days in Secondary School, following a typical Year 7 timetable.
When I asked some of them what they were excited about, I received a variety of answers:
Stella told me she couldn’t wait to have lots of different teachers every day.
Mara said: “I´m looking forward to doing science, I want to be a scientist! I want to meet with the new teachers, to get to know different buildings. I have heard that the secondary lessons are very interesting and I can’t wait to try them! As well, I want to go to drama lessons (my favorite). I’m counting the weeks until transition week”.
Children’s work
In Year 2, the children of Miss Kate’s class (2KED) have been working collaboratively to create fact files. They used iPads and non-fiction texts to find animal facts. Their final masterpieces are displayed beautifully on the classroom wall for everyone to enjoy. Here are Elija, Marvin and Theo showing their finished piece.
In Year 3 the children of Miss Liz’s class (3EK) have produced some beautiful artwork this week and some children have made clay models. Well done!
I had a beautiful new sparkly decoration made by Lucy Matthews (1LTA) to hang in the office. Thank you Lucy.
I was very happy to welcome Morgane Matter (5ES) back to school after a short time away. I was even happier to see the folder of all the work she had done to make sure she kept up with all her class assignments. Well done Morgane for your effort and resilience!
Parents, your beautiful children share all your secrets!!! Sometimes their stories are so funny. Happy birthday Mr Robb, daddy of James and Emma. I enjoyed watching your birthday video, made for you by your lovely children.
Nursery/Reception Parents
Please note that your child will be invited into school on Tuesday 18 May dressed as superheroes. I have my costume all ready for the big day.
Enjoy your weekend with your lovely children.
May Personal Learning Goal – TO BE ETHICAL
Next week’s Aloha Value – EFFORT
Yours sincerely
Elizabeth Batchelor
Principal
SECONDARY SCHOOL
Dear parents,
This week students will be taking part in a host of activities both in and outside of lessons related to the theme of Nature as part of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Many of our Key Stage three students have been getting out and about in nature as part of their “Connect with Nature” challenge – an initiative designed to boost mood through getting outdoors more. They have definitely been up for the challenge!
It then made me think “Do we appreciate nature enough?”
Marcus Elizondo-Darwin
Ainoa and I were in a meeting last week with Mr. Escobar where he highlighted the importance of trying to get the students to focus on connecting their mind and body to nature. We both went home that day, and instead of staring at our devices, we decided to watch the sunset and appreciate the small, everyday things in life, to calm down and relax a little bit after long days filled with exams and deadlines. It is these small things that help me stay calm during stressful situations. Although of course this is not always easy to do.
In Maths the other day, one of the students could tell I was stressed, so he approached me and quoted Bruce Lee.
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”
At first, I didn’t quite understand the analogy – I was very confused. So when I got home, I searched for the quote and read it again. Never before has something made so much sense! I needed to accept, adjust and adapt in that Maths lesson- all of the things that water can do.
Ainoa Veit Urbano
Just like Marcus just said, life can be full of so much stress and many worries but sometimes we just have to sit down and stop thinking about a million things. Very few good decisions are made without a clear mind. If you are ever in a stressful or problematic situation what really helps me is to think about these two questions:
Can I change the situation or fix the problem? Or is there nothing I can do about the problem or situation?
If the answer to my first question is yes, then what I do is start working on solving the problem and improving the situation. However, if the answer is no, then what I do is simply try and accept it. Now that can be really hard. At least for me, it is really hard!
I used to be someone and sometimes still am someone, who loves to stress about overwhelming situations, even if they are out of my hands. However, what I have learned is that we have to remember that there is no use in focusing all our energy on something that we can not change or fix. We have to adapt, just like water. If it does not work out, that is ok there are a million other things you can do and try out, just like water in a glass. Not everything goes perfectly the first time you try it. That is something I am constantly working on.
Sometimes you have to sit back, relax and appreciate everything else you have. It is good to focus on all the work that has to be done but it is equally important to learn how to relax and not worry about everything that is out of our control.
We hope you have a great weekend.
