Primary Newsletter March 2013 English

MARCH 2013

THE PRIMARY NEWSLETTER

Primary News from the Pupils and Teachers of King’s College, Alicante

L i t e r a c y We e k Head of Primary Message It is hard to believe that we have completed two terms of school already. The children have worked so hard and achieved so much. As I have got to know the children I have been hugely impressed by their confidence, talents and thoughtfulness. The primary school has a lovely community feel and I thank the staff for all their hard work and commitment to children´s learning.

I would like to extend my best wishes to all the primary families, staff and children and thank you for your kind words and gifts. Your kindness and support has been very much appreciated. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here at King´s College and look forward to visiting the school in the future.

I return to London with happy memories, new friends and a love of all things Spanish!

www.bsalicante.com

Miss Lubaczewska Head of Primary

LITERACY WEEK IN EARLY YEARS The Nursery and Reception children had a fantastic time during literacy week. One of the highlights for the children was the shared reading with Year 5 and Year 6 who came to visit their classrooms. The children loved sharing their favourite books with the older children.

Many of the Year 5 and Year 6 children had prepared puppet shows of traditional stories and they performed them to small groups of Early Years children. They had worked really hard and on behalf of all the children and teachers in Early Years we would like to thank them for their hard work and efforts. Well done Year 5 and 6!

THANK YOU MARGARITA Reception have been really lucky this month to have had a visit from Margarita Rioja DĂ­az, who has two sons, Diego and NicolĂĄs, in Reception. She helped the children to ice special biscuits that she had made.

The children had a fantastic time and really enjoyed making the icing for their cat and car biscuits, and they especially enjoyed eating them when they got home!

We hope Margarita can come to visit again!

AMBULANCE

VISIT

Early Years had the fantastic visit of an ambulance in the school. We were able to visit the inside of the vehicle and learn about what they do. It was a fun activity for all of us.

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TEDDY

DAY

On Friday 22nd March Nursery had a fantastic morning acting out the Bear Hunt in the siesta hall. The children loved this activity and fun was had by all. In the afternoon we had our Teddy Bears’ picnic. All the children brought in their favourite teddy bear and we had a special picnic all together on the nursery playground. It was a fabulous day!

EARLY YEARS THEATRE VISIT

During Literacy Week the Early Years children had a visit from a theatre group from Elche. The siesta hall was set up like a proper theatre and there were special effects with the lighting and music. This was a magical and enchanting experience for all the children and teachers.

The theatre group told the story of a day in the life of a parent and caring for a baby. The children loved the story and listened carefully.

The teachers were very proud of how well behaved the children were and at the end of the production the children were able to ask lots of questions. The Early Years Team would like to thank Se単ora Berenguel for discovering the group and organising the visit.

WINNERS OF THE LITERACY WEEK HANDWRITING COMPETITION IN EARLY YEARS We were very proud of our special Literacy week winners in Early Years. Miss Lubaczewska presented the handwriting certificates in a special assembly.

In Nursery the winners were Matteo in Nursery P, Mar in Nursery C and Claudia in Nursery E. In Reception the winners were Alejandra in Reception P, Marta in Reception D and Mar in Reception H. Well done to all these clever children. Fantastic work!

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THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON In Year 2 our topic for Literacy week was `The Great Fire of London´. We read lots of nonfiction books to learn about what happened and then we acted out the story using props and costumes. We pretended to be reporters and interviewed eyewitnesses. Then we wrote diary entries and newspaper articles describing the events of the fire.

“How did you escape from the fire?”

“We had to climb out of the window...it was really scary!”

“Where will you live if your house is destroyed?”

“We have used some old blankets to make this tent but it is very cold out here at night!”

We made pictures of the Great Fire of London using paint, collage material and the laptops. We have made lovely displays in the corridors and our classrooms and we all really enjoyed the topic.

On Thursday 7th March, the school celebrated World Book Day as part of the Literacy Festival that took place from 4th8th March.

KS2 and Y7 students came to the library to do different activities related to books by famous British writers such as Lauren Child (author of “Charlie and Lola”), Francesca Simon (author of the well-known “Horrid Henry” Series), Anthony Horowitz (creator of the “Alex Rider” Series) or Cathy Cassidy, among others. All of them were invited, together with many more, to take part in The Biggest Book Show on Earth, a British live programme where the most popular writers and illustrators talk to students in schools all over the world.

Y6 students came to the library to watch the programme and were delighted to meet their favourite authors. Then they had the chance to borrow some of their books the day.

LITERACY WEEK IN KEY STAGE 2 READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Who would have thought that literacy could be so much fun? Well this March, we proved it… Literacy is sooooo much fun!!

March 4th saw the beginning of a school wide Literacy Festival which started off with a whole school Assembly led by Miss Lubaczewska. Children from Key Stage 1 and 2 gathered together to the sound of “Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting”, much to their surprise. Many were wondering what the significance of this song was. They soon got their answer when Mrs Gandhi, Mrs Hughes, Mrs Rose, Mr Compton and Miss Sanghera demonstrated Kung Fu Punctuation which was something they would be learning during the week.

Miss Lubaczewska announced that there would be lots of activities including Non Pen Day on Tuesday 5th March, Spelling Bees in Key Stage 2, a handwriting competition, speaking and listening awards and winners of the recent Short Story writing competition would be announced at the prize giving assembly on Friday 8th March. What a week lay ahead. Now can you see why literacy is sooooo much fun?

Literacy Week in Key Stage 2 Every Body Was Kung Fu

PUNCTUATING!!!!!

Children all over Key Stage 2 learnt punctuation through Kung Fu movements. This initiative has proved to be really successful in the UK in helping children learn their punctuation in a fun way.

Children learn individual movements for different punctuation marks from capital letter to full stop, from semi colon to speech marks and from question mark to exclamation mark.

During the week, children start off with basic movements (white belt), more movements (red belt) and finally the full package of Kung Fu Punctuation movements (black belt).

Fran (6G) said, “Normally I find punctuation quite boring but with the Kung Fu movements, it was really good fun and I remembered all the movements and the marks I should make when I am writing.”

SPELLING BEE During the Literacy Festival, Key Stage 2 hosted their very first Spelling Bees. This is a spelling competition which originated from America.

Children were selected from their classes to take part in the Spelling Bee. On Wednesday 6th March, Years 5 and 6 spelling candidates competed. They had to walk up to the microphone and when the caller said the word, the speller would have to say the word and then spell it clearly.

Mrs Gandhi, Literacy Coordinator Key Stage 2, said, “I could see that the children were nervous and excited at the same time. They had never done anything like this before so it must have been quite nerve-racking.”

If someone didn’t spell a word correctly, they would come out of the competition.

Some candidates said, “It is very hard… words that you can normally spell correctly because you are writing them down, suddenly become difficult to spell because you have to spell them out aloud.”

The winners of the spelling bees were: Paz 3P Paula E 4P Pablo 6F Paula S. 5S Miss Lubaczewska, Head of Primary, said, “I hope we can continue with the Spelling Bees on a regular basis as it is an exciting way for children to practise their spellings.”

HANDWRITING COMPETITION During the Literacy Festival everyone in Primary took part in a handwriting competition – this was any opportunity for us to launch our new handwriting scheme which will officially start in term 3.

Congratulations to all our handwriting winners.

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THE SHORT STORY WRITING COMPETITION At the beginning of this term children from Key Stage 2 were invited to enter a short story competition aimed at finding future budding authors. The competition was hugely successful with entries from every year group from years 3 -6.

“I am so pleased to see so many enthusiastic writers,” remarked Miss Lubaczewska, “It took several days for Mrs Gandhi and me to read through all the entries and finally we came to a conclusion and found winners and runners up. We both want to thank everyone for participating and congratulate winners and runners up for excellent short stories.”

The winners are: Sara 3S (Titles to add) Isabel 3M Nicolás 3P Lucia Fuentes 3P Laura V. 4J Lucy 5S Alicia 6G Manuela 6F Carla 6F “An exciting development from the competition is that all the winning stories will be compiled as a very first King’s College e-book which people will be able to download and read on-line… I am so excited!” exclaimed Mrs Gandhi, “It is the first time anything like this has been done in King’s College Alicante.”

Carla (6F) said “I can’t believe I am one of the winners and it will be so fantastic to see my story published on-line.”

To read the short story e-book click here

STORY TELLING AND PUPPETRY

Throughout the Literacy Week, there was much story telling in Primary.

Children from Years 5 and 6 partnered with a class from Early Years. The older children practised telling traditional tales via drama and puppetry and then went to the younger children’s classes to tell their tales. The feedback was excellent.

Miss Millson, Head of Early Years, said, “It is wonderful to see the older and younger children coming together. Younger children love to hear the stories being told by their older peers. We hope to continue working together in this way.”

Mrs Hughes, Leader of Years 5 and 6, said that the older children had really enjoyed getting into their characters, learning play scripts and dressing up. “They also enjoyed making puppets and they doing a puppet show… this is what makes literacy much more interesting when children are interactive and creative.”

In addition to this, children from Year 10 visited Year 6 on Friday 8th March to share stories that they had written with their primary counterparts. Groups of secondary children worked with groups of 5 primary children and read them their own handwritten stories. The primary children were totally engaged and loved listening to the older children. It is hoped that Year 6 will be able to reciprocate and have a chance to tell Year 10 their stories in the near future. Big thanks go to Miss Taylor, Head of English in Secondary and her team, for organising this.

PREPOSITION OBSTACLE COURSE One of the areas of the English Language which children find hard to grasp is prepositions because there are just so many of them in English.

A great and fun way to learn prepositions is to have an obstacle course where children have to be instructed to do various movements to get from A to B. Throughout Literacy Week, children from Key Stage 2 were able to participate in a preposition – obstacle course which was set up and organised by Miss McHugh PE teacher and Miss Snook Year 3 teacher. Children were divided into their house teams and they were given a set of instructions. One person had to be blindfolded and another person would read instructions to them to successfully get through an obstacle course. The children would be timed to see which team could complete the course the fastest.

“The Children had a fantastic time learning prepositions in such an energetic and exciting way,” remarked. Miss McHugh.

“Hopefully, they will remember their prepositions even more now when they are writing English,” added Miss Snook.

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AWARDED PRIZES AND CERTIFICATES

This month we celebrated Literacy Week with many activities and competitions taking place. At a special assembly the children were awarded prizes and certificates for different categories: Excellent Handwriting, Speaking and Listening in English, Story Writing and for excellent spelling at our Spelling Bee. Well done to our prize winners!

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NO PEN

DAY!

Oh how much fun Class 3S had for ´No Pen Day!´ Children got the opportunity to express themselves and show off their language skills. Student Spotlight gave children the opportunity to bring in an object or talk about anything important to them for 1 minutes. Student Spotlight came with a challenge: Big voices for Class 3S to hear, express, interesting vocabulary and amazing adjectives.

Another speaking and listening activity which all the children were involved in was ´Just a Minute´. A child was asked to leave the classroom, whilst the rest of the class would choose only one object from a tray. In order to guess what the object was, once the chosen child was invited back into the classroom, they had only one minute to ask as many closed questions, which required a yes or a no answer.

Once their minute was up, they could guess what they thought the object was. The quality of questions asked was excellent and lots of fun was had in the process! Can´t wait for next year´s ´No Pen Day´.

WWF CHARITY PROJECT ´CAMPAIGN FOR A LIVING PLANET´ In a previous letter, I mentioned that we would be initiating a new project with regards to our fund raising in school. Every year, our pupils, parents and staff contribute most generously to support local and national charities here and abroad. Whilst some of the contributions are quite substantial and make a lasting impression on the charity involved, some of our fund raising events generate smaller contributions. I am delighted to inform you that from April onwards, we will be working closely with the World Wide Fund for Nature España , towards creating a sustainable project for the whole school. I am pleased that Sra Margarita de Cos from the WWF has agreed to be our liaison at the charity and has already started to send me some materials for the children to use. This project will be continued annually to build up the project through the accumulation of these smaller fund raising events. This will allow us to contribute more meaningfully and also allow the children to follow the progress their contributions make year on year.

I will outline the project in more detail in the next newsletter.

Derek Laidlaw, Headteacher

VISITING HUERTO DEL CURA

Year 5 went to visit the historic Elche Palm Grove. It is an UNESCO World Heritage designation and is Europe’s only palm forest. It contains nearly 200,000 date palms (Phoenix dactylifera), some of which have grown spontaneously, although most were planted by man over the course of centuries. The unusual way in which they were laid out gave rise to many orchards (horts), nearly a hundred of which still exist. One of these is the Huerto del Cura orchard, with nearly 500 palm trees, including a specimen that is truly a botanical rarity: the one known as the "Imperial Palm".

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WILLY WONKA WOULD BE MIGHTILY IMPRESSED! As part of this term´s amazing topic “CHOCOLATE” , Year 6 have been learning about the chocolate making process and visited two chocolate factories in Villajoyosa. Their homework project was to invent their own chocolate factory and build it using recycled materials where possible.

On Wednesday, 20th March the children, with much excitement, brought their creations to school. In the afternoon their works were exhibited in a museum where the rest of the school and parents could view over 60 chocolate factories!

It is not untrue to say that every single factory was unique and it is quite hard to believe that over 60 ideas could be so different. The imagination and thought that went into each and every factory is quite exceptional.

Every factory had something special whether it was the clever way it demonstrated the chocolate making process or whether the idea was just so ingenious. There were factories made from sugar cubes; factories with mechanical working parts; factories made from sweets; a forest factory; a factory set in a rabbit burrow; factories with electrical circuits; the list goes on and on.

We would like to thank all those parents and friends who supported their child with this project. Your efforts are hugely appreciated. I think the results speak for themselves. There were many happy, proud children displaying their work on that Wednesday afternoon and I am sure it was a memorable day for them.

The choice of winners for this project was extremely difficult. After much deliberation the following winners were decided: Emma (6H); Víctor (6H); Justina (6G); Alejandro (6G); Manuela (6F); Stefania (6F) If you were unable to visit the museum, the children´s work will still be on display in school after the Easter holidays in the library, office area and outside Year 6 classrooms. Come along and be amazed!

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A huge well done and thank you to Year 4 staff and pupils for entertaining us with an outstanding musical production of Alice in Wonderland. Congratulations Year 4!

Click here to download the video

“AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY” This a well known English saying that we often hear... and as you can guess it is all about eating healthy diets so that we prevent illnesses and therefore don´t need to go to the doctor as often.

Over at King’s College Alicante, the Healthy Me Subgroup organised a fantastic Healthy Me event from March 20th-22nd.

During the week children were encouraged to bring in fruit and healthy snacks as well as doing 10 minute exercise sessions in the class.

“So many children brought in healthier snacks and were rewarded for it with stickers and house points,” said Miss Snook one of the lead teachers working with the subgroup.

The Healthy Me Sub Group Members include:

EMMA 6H ZACH 2T EDU 3M CARLA 6F LOURDES 4O JULIO 4O SARA 2T FELIPE 2D JOE 2S JIMENA 2S

“It was also great to see so many children doing some quick exercises in class, in between their lessons,” said Miss Pyner, another lead teacher working with the Healthy Me Subgroup.

SUMMER UNIFORM As from 8th April, all pupils will be required to wear the official summer uniform as detailed below. I am very pleased with the overall standard of uniform as worn by our pupils. They look especially smart in winter uniform and it is very pleasing to receive comments from the general public following trips and excursions that they are very impressed with the uniform and behaviour of our pupils.

BOYS • White Polo shirt with KCA logo • Dark grey, short trousers • Navy blue or dark grey socks • Smart, black shoes • Optional school jumper • Optional Black or Navy blue coat

GIRLS • Summer dress with KCA logo • Navy blue socks • Smart, black shoes • Optional school jumper • Optional Black or Navy blue coat

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MISS BASIA LUBACZEWSKA

As you will be aware, Ms Lubaczewska, Head of Primary, is leaving us to return to the UK.

Ms Lubaczewska joined us in September 2012 and although her time with us has been short, she has contributed to the ongoing success of the Primary School. In particular, she has instigated and actively promoted our new reading scheme which has proved so successful and popular with the children and staff alike. This has led to increased levels of reading and literacy skills and will be continued throughout next term and the years ahead. Ms Lubaczewska has also implemented a new system of teacher review and professional development which has increased the levels of staff training and classroom practice throughout Primary. On behalf of the staff and pupils, I would like to thank her for all her contributions to our school.

We wish her well in her new life back in the UK with her partner, Gary.

MR JULIAN FOOT FCA CTA Every month we will be featuring information and news regarding the Governance and Management of the School. This will, I hope, make parents, staff and pupils more aware of the strategic leadership and management of our own school and the King’s Group in general. This month we are featuring an introduction to Mr Julian Foot who is a Governor on the King’s Group Board since its inception in 2007.

Mr Julian Foot is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, an Associate Member of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Taxation, has completed over 25 years’ membership of the Spanish Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICJCE) and has a diploma from ICADE in Spanish business tax consultancy. He brings over 40 years combined experience, of international consultancy in the UK, Spain, Canada and Arab countries and, additionally, in information technology for which he has attended many systems and programming courses. He has a solid financial background in his fields of expertise which include internal and external audit; financial analysis, management accounting and reporting; UK, Spanish and international taxation and, management consultancy experience in several different industry sectors.

Much of his career has been spent with PricewaterhouseCoopers where, in his last post, he was responsible for Information Technology in their Tax

and Legal Division for over 16 years before joining the King’s Group Board.

Based in Madrid, he has played a behind-the-scenes role in assisting with the ongoing review of the Group’s management accounts and the provision of advice on ITC matters as well as being one of the longest serving members on the School Council.

Julian visited the school last year as part of our ISI Inspection process, representing the Board of Governors.

EMMA: SPAIN CHAMPION! Alex and Emma came back from Pontevedra where they were participating in the Spanish Table Tennis Championships. Alex played very well and although the stiff competition prevented him from making it to the the finals, he played very well.

Congratulations however must go to Emma who won the title of Spanish Champion in her category (Benjamin Femenino).

Emma also won silver in the team game and bronze in the doubles. Well done Emma and Alex!

A TRIP TO MADRID FOR THE MAY PUENTE?

YOU'RE INVITED! King’s College International in collaboration with Club de Campo are once again working together to organise the International annual Horse Riding event at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid.

The King’s Group are sponsoring the event which will take place between Friday 3rd May and Sunday 5th May and we would like to extend an invitation to parents and families.

If this would be of interest or you would like more details please click here. Please note that places are limited and strictly on a first come first served basis.

Contact: info.kca@kingsgroup.org

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KING'S IN THE MEDIA We are delighted that King’s Group has been featured in a number of national press articles once again this month. These include the annual Cien Colegios special in El Mundo and a special edition of El País. Please click on the links to see a copy of the article.If you would like to receive a copy of the articles, please email sam.wilson@kingsgroup.org.

Important Dates 8 April - Return to school 11 April - Fiesta Day 25 April - School Council Meeting 1 May - Fiesta Day 10 May - Special Author visit 23 May - Year 1 Trip to the Aquarium

Glorieta del Reino Unido 5 Alicante 03008 Spain www.bsalicante.com email: carlos.lazaro@kingsgroup.org