ISSUE 1 SCHOOL NEWSLETTER #40
The British International School of Marbella
NEWSLETTER A Newsletter for Parents, Students and Friends of our School
Septmeber 2019
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Headteacher’s Message Dear Parents and Carers, On behalf of all of us in school I’d like to welcome you to the BISM for 2019/20. It‘s been a wonderful start to the year. I’ve been very impressed with the children in our school, from FS to year 9, they have all arrived back in school with fantastic amounts of energy and commitment to their studies. The articles in this month’s newsletter demonstrate the broad curriculum that we offer, and the extent to which the children engage with it. I have enjoyed working with the children and getting to know them a little better, they have been so friendly and welcoming to me and I cannot thank them enough for this. This half-term has, of course, seen the introduction of the Extended Curriculum and, as I write this, the children are choosing their options for the next half-term. I have enjoyed observing that the children are already beginning to show some of the attributes that the Extended Curriculum seeks to develop; independence, confidence, self-awareness and courage. The children have challenged themselves to try new things and it has been great to see them be so successful. I have had the opportunity to meet many of you at the various events we have had over the past month or so and I have also enjoyed getting to know you all a little better. Many of you are active participants in our school community and I am very grateful for the support you provide. Over the next few months the school and our newly-formed Parent Representatives
Committee will be planning and organising school events and social activities that will build upon the community spirit that is evident in our school. Finally, a brief update on our new campus. Work is progressing well and over the next few days, I’ll be visiting the site and beginning the process of organising the internal fittings and fixtures, everything from the kitchen sink to ICT! There are exciting times ahead for our school and I feel very privileged to be a part of them. With very best wishes, Dean Moore Headteacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Foundation Stage One Fire! Fire!
This term we are looking at the topic ‘People Who Help Us’, as part of this we have spent time looking at the fire service, how they help us and how firefighters do their job. The children have really loved finding out lots of information. To help them understand how this relates to their lives in school all the children have completed a ‘fire safety’ tour of the school. They were on the lookout for all the way the school helps to keep them safe in the event of a fire. The children were thrilled to explore all of the school and kept their eyes well and truly peeled for fire extinguishers, fire alarms and signs. The children really impressed me with their ability to spot signs. We had big conversations about emergency exits and how to follow the arrows to the nearest door, the children were thrilled to discover the emergency staircase from the balcony and see their playground from a whole new perspective. Not only was it great for the children to find out about fire safety but it help them in future to remain calm during our fire drills and to understand why they are so important. It is also great at getting the children to look at their environment and read signs around them, looking at picture clues and deducing what the words might say. Together the children were able to work out that the sign near the lift meant they were not able to use it during a fire and lots of the children said they had seen similar signs in the homes and shops. Great fire safety work Foundation Stage one! Mrs Riddell Foundation Stage One Teacher
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Foundation Stage Two Hoses and Ladders The children of Foundation Stage Two became firefighters when learning all about ‘People Who Help Us.’ As part of their Maths learning, they were introduced to the game ‘Hoses and Ladders’, a twist on the traditional snakes and ladders board game. The children were excited to ‘become’ firefighters and put out the fire by moving across the board. To add challenge to the game, the children used both the traditional dotted dice and a more unusual numeral dice. Some children were able to say the number of spots just by looking (without counting) and others did a great job of recognising the numerals. They had to go up the ladders and put out the fires and if they were unlucky they had to go down the hose. This is a great way to introduce children to number recognition, counting carefully as they move across the board and to show patience when waiting for their turn! Please try to play some family board games at home too, we would love to see your pictures! Mrs Rutherford Foundation Stage Two Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Foundation Stage Foundation Stage Wow Day To kick start our year and our topic ‘People Who Help Us’ the whole of Foundation Stage spent a week looking at the wonderful book Postman Bear. This is a delightful tale of a bear who invites all his friends to his party and hand delivers the invites through the story. The tale then ends with a birthday party full of presents and cake. In the week the children made invitations, wrote birthday cards, spoke about their birthdays, memories and baked cupcakes. This led to a huge celebration on our WOW day where we celebrated Postman Bear’s birthday. The children made party hats, ate their cupcakes and joined in with lots of traditional party games such as pass the parcel, musical statues and the Hokey Cokey. Thanks to the music department for setting up the lights to enjoy a disco where the children really got a chance to show off their moves. We would also like to thank the parents for their support and sending in all the lovely snacks and cakes for the children to share with their friends. It really was a lovely day. Mrs Riddell Foundation Stage Leader
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Year 1
Phonics Fun
Welcome back for another fantastic year at BISM! The children and I were really happy to see each other again after the long summer holidays. The discussions we have had together and the bond that we have already formed has been lovely to see. There is such a wonderful feeling to the class, we are all such good friends here in Year 1. From the very first day back at school we have started with phonics lessons. We needed a few days to catch up from where we left off last year from Mrs Rutherford but I have been impressed by everyone’s ability already! Many children already know many of their single letter sounds and forming their letters clearly. They are currently working hard using finger spaces and using their fred fingers to help their spellings. Their determination to finish their work has been impressive. Collaboration has been a strong feature in the class also as we have a real communal feel here in Year 1. Everyone understands that through hard work and perseverance we can achieve our goals. I would like to congratulate the children about their wonderful start to the year. Mr Thomas Year One Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Year 2
The Start of a Good Year Year 2 have settled in incredibly well to their first month of the academic year. They have worked incredibly hard in all areas of the curriculum and have already accumulated over 500 dojo points! Maths: Geometry The children have excelled when learning about symmetry, right angles and using venn diagrams. They have worked in pairs, independently and in groups to create patterns, sort shapes based on their properties and are able to recognise different types of polygons. Health and Safety During PSHE sessions, the children have been learning how to be safe at home and in school. The children discussed what dangers are present at home, such as electrical devices and potential hazards in every room. They then worked together to create ways to remain safe: putting toys away, refrain from touching plug sockets and be careful when playing. The children then conducted their own health and safety tour of the school, highlighting areas where we should be careful and how to avoid any unnecessary accidents. Safe to say, the children were very sensible and produced some excellent ideas on how to protect ourselves and our friends!! Overall, the children have been working incredibly hard on how to be a good friend, how to care for others and the importance of sharing. Well done Year 2! Miss Flanagan Year Two Teacher
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Year 3 The Water Cycle In Year 3 our recent learning about the tropical rainforest’s of the world provided us with the perfect opportunity to learn about the water cycle, since it rains so much in the tropics! After having learnt where the equator and tropics are located, using both atlases and more usefully for this learning, globes, the children discovered that the tropics are closer to the sun than the rest of the world, since planet Earth is spherical. Therefore as the tropics are hot places, the children asked why does it rain so much there, which led perfectly onto the opportunity to explain the water cycle. We took a tub of hot water, put a smaller tub on top of the warm water and sealed them both air tight together. On top of the seal we put a couple of ice cubes and over the next few minutes we found water (precipitation) inside the previously smaller dry tub. Amazing! The water cycle in action on scale we could show in the classroom. Some children managed to predict this would happen and all had a better understanding afterwards of what evaporation, condensation and precipitation mean. Well done Year 3 children! Mr Holden Year Three Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Upper Primary English Years 4-6 Year Four Wanted: Space Explorers! Year 4 have been reading biographies and selecting applicants to be trained as astronauts for a mission to Mars. They have researched the life of Neil Armstrong and other astronauts and cosmonauts, looking at the personal qualities needed to be successful. From a grammar point of view they focused on the effective use of pronouns and fronted adverbials, and used these in their writing tasks: to write a diary entry and a biography. It looks like we have some future planetary explorers in our midst. Year Five A World War II German soldier has crash landed in your village and is hiding in the moors. He was bombing a nearby town, he is the enemy and your father was killed a year ago by the German army‌ but he just saved your life! Would you help him or report him to the British army? That is the dilemma faced by David in our story (Friend or Foe by Michael Morpurgo) and by the Year 5 children while reading the novel. They have produced some excellent writing in the first person, considering David’s thoughts and feelings as well as exploring drama to help understand the dilemmas that he is facing. Year Six Year 6 have been reading a magical, mysterious novel called Eye of the Wolf by French author Daniel Pennac. Both the boy and the wolf have suffered a lot in their lives and have been on long journeys through different countries before arriving at the starting point of our story. The class have used drama to understand the many different emotions of the two protagonists and have explored the viewpoints of different characters in their writing. Miss Marseglia Upper Primary English Teacher
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Upper Primary Maths Years 4-6
Year Four The Year 4’s have been working extremely hard this work learning all about time. They have been practising telling time to the nearest minute on analogue and digital clocks and converting between them. The class ended the week using TV guides to calculate how long their favourite programmes are on. Keep up the good work Year 4! Year Five This week Year 5 have been focusing on time. On Tuesday we were faced with a problem. On a digital clock showing 24-hour time, over a whole day, how many times does a 5 appear? Working systematically, using an interactive digital clock the children discovered that 5 appears 16 times in the minutes (5,15, 25, 35, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55x2, 56, 57,58, 59). So they calculated 16timesx24hrs= 384times. Then investigating the hours, they discovered they had to add 120 more 5s when the hour was 5 or 15. So over one whole day on a 24-hour clock we see the number 5 504 times! But is it the same with a 12-hour clock? Year Six This week Year 6 have been focusing on converting units of measurement. On Thursday the children planned a road trip around northern France carefully planning out all the landmarks they want to see. But they had a problem, the distances they had were all in miles and all the road signs in France are in kilometres. So they needed to convert miles into kilometers. Using a map the children discovered that 5 miles approximately equals 8 kilometers so they used the function machine of divide by 5 and multiply by 8 to convert miles into kilometers. Well done Year 6! Mr Whyman Upper Primary Maths Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Secondary English Years 7-9
Lots of Drama........in English Class! We have jump started into Key Stage Three English this term, with all three year groups studying fantastic novels! Year Seven Year 7’s are studying the novel Holes by Louis Sachar and learning about persuasive writing. In groups, the Year 7s prepared a persuasive speech for their classmates in order to sell the most unlikely of items such as dog goggles! The Year 7’s did a fantastic job of using a range of persuasive language features in their speech which resulted in lots of pupils wanting to by the imaginary dog goggles - even those without a dog! As part of the final task, we had a competition for the best persuasive speeches. Well done to Ella, Jasmine, Paddy and Charlie who won the overall competition. I am looking forward to completing more drama activities with the Year 7’s this term as their enthusiasm and hard work makes these lessons great fun! Year Eight The Year 8’s have been studying the novel Wonder by RJ Palacio and interlinking PSHE themes such as abortion and physical appearance as well as, charter values such as, decency and courage when studing the novel. I was very impressed with the hot seating lesson the Year 8s took part in as they demonstrated excellent dramatic skills (particularly Maria V and Teddy) as well as high order questioning techniques (particularly Aston, David and Aggie). The Year 8s had a very mature discussion on abortion which linked to our novel and I was very impressed by their knowledge and understanding of such controversial issues. Year Nine Finally, the Year 9’s have been studying A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and interlinking charter values such as independence and courage into their understanding of the text. The Year 9s have really developed their analytical skills this term and are producing analytical essays of a very high standard. Below are examples of the tremendous descriptive work produced by some of our Year 9 students this year (Claudia and Lauren). If you see any of our Key Stage 3 pupils, please encourage them to discuss their class novel and in particular the themes of the novel with you. I think you will be very suprised by their very mature understanding of the set texts and the real life themes they deal with! Miss Kerlin Secondary English Teacher
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Secondary Maths Years 7-9
Year 9 Index Laws
The Year 9 Maths class have been busy learning about the index laws. Index laws are the rules for simplifying expressions involving powers of the same base number. First, we reviewed that indices, exponents or powers are numbers that tell us how often a number is to be multiplied by itself in a mathematical expression. A power is usually represented by a raised smaller number on the right side of the number that it belongs to, for example 3². The challenge was not to learn all the different index laws, but to evaluate them and to assess the origin and validity of these laws. For instance, we knew that 3² = 9. So 3² x 3² should be 9 x 9, giving an answer of 81. The Index Law simplify this to 34, (as the powers have been added together) also written as 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 which has the same answer of 81. The law works! We needed to justify each law by giving examples to prove its accuracy and validity. The challenge is to understand these laws, rather than merely learning the laws off by heart. A challenge that set the foundation for further learning of indices to come. Mr Kuhn Secondary Maths Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Secondary Science Years 7-9 Year 7 Scientists
The Year 7 students have been busy learning about the scientific method, this is a process for experimentation that is used to explore observations and answer questions. The goal is to discover cause and effect relationships by asking questions, carefully gathering and examining the evidence, and seeing if all the available information can be combined in to a logical answer. At the core of all the Sciences lies a problem-solving. The scientific method has five basic steps, plus two feedback steps: Make an observation. Ask a question. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis. Test the prediction. Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions. The pupils have been learning the stages in a scientific investigation. They will be conducted a range of scientific experiments throughout KS3. Many Scientific experiments require the use of a Bunsen burner to provide energy in the form of heat. The Year 7 Pupils have all gained their Bunsen Burner licences this month. They must follow the safety steps when lighting a bunsen burner. All of the children have demonstrated that they are able to follow the steps and the process safety and were all awarded their certificates this month. Well done Year 7! Miss Ladds Secondary Science Teacher
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Spanish
Advertising is Everywhere! Over the last couple of weeks students from the Year 4 & 5 Spanish Natives group have been learning about advertising. In class we have looked at different its types such as TV commercials, street panels and other business spots. They learnt that slogans, images, logotypes are all part of an advertisement, and how companies use catchy songs and famous people to persuade us about their products. Children have demonstrated good teamwork and collaboration by creating their own products and designing a poster advertisement for its purpose. I have certainly been impressed by their ability to create catchy slogans, artistic logotypes, as well as bright and attractive images. They have shown great imagination and convincing writing too. On Tuesday they have had the privilege of having a guest speaker, Fai M. Rodríguez, Strategic Director from AsesMedia company, who kindly offered to visit the class. He talked to them about the role of his company which is specialized in advertising, communication, marketing and design. In addition, he shared with the class a range of TV commercials and debated about how subliminal advertising is presented to us. Here are some of the opinions of the students about this experience: Zoe, “I enjoyed learning about the different types of “logotipos, isotipos, imagotipo, isologo” and what each one of them represents. Overall, it was a great presentation and I loved every section”. Méline, “It was interesting to learn how sports brands have changed their slogans over time and where they got the inspiration from”. Miss Escribano Spanish Coordinator
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Extended Curriculum
The Extended Curriculum We have had a fantastic start to the brand new Extended Curriculum at BISM. The children have enjoyed choosing their own modules from the four different strands we have on offer. Pupils have engaged well with the activities, they enjoy the challenge aspect created in each module. They are working more independently and building on key skills and our charter values as they move through each module. Teachers are already busy planning to ensure the modules are just as exciting and challenging for the second rotation! Sports, Health and Wellness The children have been learning the skills involved in playing team sports such as cricket, rounders and football. They have competed in mini competitions to encourage teamwork and leadership as well as our monthly Inter-house Sports Competitions. Children have also been learning about how to keep fit and healthy, training schedules and how to develop their stamina and improve their reaction times. Football is still very much part of BISM life with weekly training sessions, house competitions and advanced football skills being introduced into Lower Primary to give our football stars the best possible start in their careers! Knowledge and Understanding Some pupils are currently taking a trip under the sea and learning about the complexity of the oceanic food webs while others are travelling back in time to learn what it would have been like to go to school in Victorian times. The pupils have been on a virtual trip to India, Indonesia, Japan and Scotland and visited a range of rainforests across the world. They have learnt about different cultures and explored the art work of both ancient and modern civilisations. The children have been studying the fashion industry are they are even creating their own modern magazine! Enterprise and Challenge Pupils have been engaged in a range of stimulating activities across the school including learning how to organise a fundraiser for the Triple A animal charity, learning the structure and function of DNA in the world around us, solving global challenges to help achieve the seventeen Global Goals and competing in the Crystal Maze and Maths problem solving competitions. Some of the children have been very busy designing their own school, I wonder how similar it will be to our new school? Creativity and Performance There is no hiding from the fact that ‘Rock Band’ is back on the EC menu! The children are learning how to collaborate and work as a team to be able to wow us with their performance of ‘We will rock you’ by Queen and ‘Beat it’ by Micheal Jackson. As usual the
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Music Department are showcasing their musical talents across our Extended Curriculum with the children learning to play a range of instruments including the ukulele, recorder, guitar and keyboard as well as making their own instruments. Creativity goes global with a range of art projects from Batik from Indonesia and the Japanese popular artwork of Manga. Miss Ladds Extended Curriculum Coordinator
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EARLY YEARS
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PRIMARY
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SECONDARY
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