Dear parents,
Our first official monthly newsletter marks the end of our first month back at school.
What a delight it has been to see your children so happy, smart, and very productive. Thank you for all your support so far.
We welcome many new families and staff. We hope they will already feel part of our wonderful school community.
Our recent welcome coffee morning, which greeted over 150 parents, indicated the positiveness that permeates the school.
One recent change in the Primary is that Agostina Boschini has moved on to new ventures, we thank her for all her work. Belen Cerezo, who many of you already know, has taken the role of the primary secretary.
More primary news includes the year group meeting with you, the parents, where you were all given the opportunity to meet your child’s class teacher, visit their classrooms and learn a little about the curriculum that will be covered this academic year.
The two curriculum meetings specifically held for Maths and Spelling were also very well attended and the feedback from all of these was positive.
Miss Kate and Mr Smith will keep you well informed of what is happening in the primary section of the school.
Secondary life has been equally as busy, again parents of Key Stage 3, 4 & 5 have been invited to various meetings regarding different aspects of the curriculum.
I hope you took the opportunity to read about and celebrate the results of the public examinations from the summer, once again they were outstanding. Congratulations to all pupils and staff involved.
You may have noticed, proudly flying in the entrance, our green ECO flag! This has been rewarded after 4 years of effort, making us the only school on the coast to achieve this award.
Thank you and congratulations to Miss Meryl (Reception class teacher) who led the project with staff and children involved.
Parents Society – Newsflash!
Over 120 tickets have been sold for the welcome party! This should be a really exciting informal event. Thank you to the parents’ society for organising this.
Now please enjoy more primary and secondary news.
PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS
We can´t believe it has been a whole month since we came back after the summer, but it has, and what a GREAT month it has been. It has been fantastic to have seen so many of you in school already for the Year Group Meeting and the English and Maths Presentations – and hopefully, we’ll see a few more of you during the Year 5 Assembly on Monday. We have hit the ground running with many exciting projects, topics and learning activities taking place around the school, so here is just a little taster of what has been going on.
In EYFS, there was a burst of curiosity as boxes began to arrive in the outdoor area. Children started asking questions and wondered what it would be… a swimming pool or a shed perhaps?! As the wonderful maintenance team, supported by the children, began to build the structure, they learned a variety of brilliant skills from working together to carry sandbags to helping to measure the wooden planks. The children were delighted to create and be the proud new owners of a wonderful sand pit.
In Year One, we have been enjoying reading many of Julia Donaldson’s fantastic stories. The children labelled the characters from The Gruffalo and were fantastic at acting out scenes from the book! There were some particularly brilliant gruffalos and owls in the class! In our writing classes, the children worked hard to remember the punctuation they needed to include in a sentence. We ended the week by completing an independent piece of writing, retelling the story.
In Year 4, we have enjoyed using both our Chromebooks and non-fiction books to research the fascinating topic of VOLCANOES, as part of our IPC unit on Active Planet. Each group had a set of questions to focus on during their fact-finding. We enjoyed sharing our discoveries as a class.
SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS
Welcome lunch for KS3 students
Changing schools can be a daunting prospect for many students, even those who have changed schools many times. Getting to know so many new names and routines takes time and perseverance but can help enormously. Form tutors thought these students deserved some special treatment this month and invited them to their own special lunch with decorations, party bags, music and delicious desserts. We swapped names and interests and got to know each other better. It’s great to see how many of them are looking much happier and more settled now.
I hope they will now encourage parents to join the Welcome Party and dinner at Restaurante El Gamonal on Friday, October 14th. It will be another great opportunity for our new families to make friends and enjoy the entertainment laid on.
Year 10 Art drawing day
As part of their IGCSE Art coursework component 1, Year 10 art students enjoyed a morning field trip to Estepona where they created a number of observational drawings of the Plaza de las Flores, followed by making their way to the beach to work on some landscape studies.
The students were able to work on developing their observation skills and capturing details in a quick and stylistic manner. They were given a number of creative tasks to complete, practising and developing their skills. Our Art students thoroughly enjoyed themselves whilst producing a variety of interesting drawings to contribute towards their Portfolio.
Pupil Profile trip
Due to Covid restrictions being lifted this year, we were finally able to reward our super students who completed their full Pupil Profile award jigsaw not only last year, but also from the years before. We took the nine completers to Selwo Aventura for a day of animal interactions before spending the night listening to the sounds of the wild, sleeping inside the zoo. The next morning we were off to Selwo Marina to learn about the marine animals and see their amazing skills. With a constant focus on conservation and the impact of human behaviours we had not only an enjoyable time but also learned a lot about these amazing animals and what we can do to protect them and their natural habitats.
My Summer Work Experience, by Tom Marionette-Pearson, Year 13
Over the course of 10 days during the summer, I took part in an intensive investment banking course, run by InvestIN, where I learnt from professionals within the industry, got to take part in interactive trading simulations, and had the chance to visit iconic London landmarks such as the shard.
I arrived at the course completely alone, which meant having to go out of my comfort zone and reach out to total strangers to make friends, which was something I haven’t had to do in a long time. It was an incredibly unique experience that gave me a feeling of independence, valuable knowledge, and good friends. If anyone is thinking about taking one of InvestIN’s courses, I would highly recommend them to do so.
Thank you for taking the time to enjoy this newsletter. We look forward to seeing many of you soon and sharing more exciting news and learning with you in our next newsletter.
