Primary Newsletter March 2011

M A R CH 201 1

T H E P R I M A RY N E W S L E T T E R Primary News from the Pupils and Teachers of The British School of Alicante

Carnival Parade 2011

World Book Day 2011 On Thursday 3rd March the school celebrated “World Book Day”.

Students, dressed up as their favourite book character, came to the library to take part in various activities about “Countries around the World” such as a Treasure Map, Design your Own Flag!, Making Book Marks, a Word search, Colour in the Flags!

Jokes, Games and even Recipes from different places! (Article continues inside)

Message from the Head of Primary

T

his term has certainly seen some celebrations at BSA. We celebrated Chinese New Year at the beginning of February and Carnival at the beginning of March. These celebrations gave us an opportunity to teach the pupils about another culture and, through Carnival, their own roots and culture.

Such celebrations certainly enhance our curriculum and provide us with a dynamic tool for self-expression and exploration. Through learning about these traditions we develop new ways of looking at the world and are able to discover what we all have in common, and celebrate what makes us different.

Both celebrations gave many opportunities for art, music and dance and there was certainly an explosion of colour and music to mark both events.

As tradition dictates we held our annual Carnival Parade, circling the patio for all to see our costumes with many pupils wearing the masks they had made in class. Sr. Mora organised the music, and all of Primary was brought together to celebrate one of the oldest traditions.

I hope you enjoy looking at the photographs in this Newsletter and seeing how much fun we had!

Head of Primary Fiona Thomas

Book Marks Fund Raising A

s you all know, the school organized a fund-raising event for “Save the childrenâ€?, where students had to decorate book marks and then sell them to their families and friends. Because of the amazing support, we raised more than 1,316.18 â‚Ź.

The school would like to give special thanks to all parents and children who helped with their donations. We all set a good example for our students: the importance of solidarity and team work to change the world where we all live.

A Table Tennis

P

Star!

upils from Year 4 Interview Class mate, Emma about her recent table tennis successes. Emma recently won 1st place in a table tennis competition in the Valencia region, this enabled her to be entered into a national competition, where she claimed 3rd place for playing doubles.

How many games did you have to win to get 1st place in the Valencia games?

I had to win 5 games.

How did you feel when you found out you would be playing in the Spanish doubles championships?

When my Mum told me I felt very happy.

Did you know your doubles partner very well?

I new her a little bit from another match, but I had never played with her before.

What were you competitors like?

They were all girls and they were older, most of them were 10 years old and I was only 8 years old.

Where you surprised to do so well, considering you were playing older and more experienced girls?

I was shocked because this was the 1st time I was in this competition and also the other girls were much older.

Do you hope to play in this competition next year?

I want to play again next year but I will have a different partner, I hope to get 1st place next year.

LAMDA We have now received confirmation from LAMDA that our examinations will take place on Monday 11th April and Tuesday 12th April. The examiner, Nichola West, will visit the school for 2 days and results and reports will follow 6 weeks later.

Both pupils and staff have been very busy preparing and it is important during these last few weeks that you encourage your child to recite at home at every opportunity. I will be visiting all groups during the next few days to ensure their preparation is complete.

YearSix Both Year 6 classes have been finding out about Changes since 1948 as part of their History Programme of study. They have been researching significant individuals and events, as well as changes in work and transport on the lives of men, women and children from different sections of society. Some of their work has been completed at home and their presentations look amazing on display on the Year 6 corridor. It is lovely to see parents, grandparents and other family members working together and discussing their family history with the younger generation.

Early Years Reminder We would like to remind the children in Nursery and Reception that they are not allowed to bring toys into school, unless we have specifically asked for them for our topic. This is an important Early Years Department rule as the young children get upset when their toys get broken or lost at school. Thank you for supporting the Early Years staff on this issue.

Early Years Security Cards The new Early Years ID cards have been working successfully. We would like to thank you all for supporting us with this and ensuring the security and safety of the children, by showing your cards every morning and evening as you come through the Early Years entrance. We would really appreciate it if you could wait for the doors to be officially opened by the teachers at 8.45 and 4.15 before coming into school, so we can check all the cards.

World Book

O

DAY

n Thursday 3rd March the school celebrated “World Book Day”. Students, dressed up as their favourite book character, came to the library to take part in various activities about “Countries around the World” such as a Treasure Map, Design your Own Flag!, Making Book Marks, a Word search, Colour in the Flags! Jokes, Games and even Recipes from different places! They all chose their favourite country and found out information about it from the library books. They also had a chance to read fiction books from around the world, and the librarian read a story of the “Book of the Week” entitled “Tales of Wisdom & Wonder” by Hugh Lupton (highly recommended!)

We were all very lucky to have such a special day just dedicated to books!

These are some comments from the students “I loved it because the activities were colourful. I read books on India and I enjoyed dressing up as a Ninja. I liked it because I could work with my friend Guillermo” Daniel, Year 4 “The book I read was very funny. It is called “Stop that Cow”. I liked drawing a horrible picture of myself with lollipops and chocolates on my Passport. My record was reading six books from the library in one day! I read some about India and France. I dressed up as Jasmin with red clothes because it is the colour of luck in China. I liked that day because I could read with whom I wanted” Alba, Year 4 “I enjoyed doing the Passport activity because we could write about things that we like such as our favourite book, country, superhero… I liked making book marks because we put some information on countries. My favourite book was a very big one called Atlas that had all the world flags” Carla, Year 4 “I think the activities were very interesting because we could read lots of books, have fun with our friends in the

activity about matching countries with their flags and, as well, we could design your own flag and learn new things about countries” Laura, Year 7

activities the fire alarm went off. We all walked out of the school with our hearts beating. After, we went in and we did a game called the treasure map” Victoria, Year 4

“I think the activities were very interesting because they didn’t talk only about Spain but also about the rest of the world and its customs. We learned facts about each country and specifically about typical animals, costumes…” Alejandro, Year 7

“There were lots of different types of books. My favourite flags were India and America. My favourite book was about the Earth and it was very exciting to learn all about the world” Justina, Year 4

“ I liked the books in the library, They were very interesting and had plenty of information. We did a lot of planning about the WBD and we learned many things about different countries” Marina Year 4 “The library has lots of original books and I loved reading lots of books in WBD. “ Neus, Year 4 “We had plenty of fun doing the activities. We helped ourselves with books from the library. We coloured flags and made book marks” Luna Quesada Y4H “In the library, I read a lot of books and I learned some interesting things. In WBD, when we were doing the

World Maths Day W

orld Maths Day was celebrated on March 1st and many pupils took part in online games. We were able to compete against 5.3 million students from 218 countries in live games of mental arithmetic. Each game lasted 60 seconds and pupils could play up to 100 games, accumulating points. Students who answered the most correctly will appear on the World Maths Day Hall of Fame website.

>> LINK TO WEB

“I quite enjoyed the activities from WBD because we used some Geography books to help us doing the activities. The country I chose was Mexico and my favourite book was called “Nations of the World: Mexico” Virginia Domingo Y4H “I really enjoyed the activities from WBD because the things that we did were very funny. The books were also very interesting and I could find lots of information to do the activities. We coloured flags using the information from the Geography books. In the books there was a lot of information about all types of countries and different people” Alicia, Year 4

CARN VAL P A R A D E 2 0 1 1

The Nursery Teddy Bears Picnic The Nursery children’s teddy bears had a special visit to BSA and had a lovely time at their picnic. Even Mr Laidlaw’s, Mrs Thomas’ and Mrs Millson’s teddy bears came along and joined in the fun. They all enjoyed listening to stories about teddies and acting out the story ¨We´re going on a Bear Hunt¨.

Hea dte a c h e r ´ s B l og I invite all parents to read the Headteacher´s blog which is available on our website. News and information will be posted and updated regularly . I hope this will keep you more informed of school developments.

Dates for April •

April 1st Book Fair

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April 5th Year 1 and 2 Theatre Trip

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April 7th Year 1 Concert (9.30a.m.)

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April 7th Year 3/4 Production (2.30p.m.)

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April 11th LAMDA examinations

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April 12th LAMDA examinations

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April 13th Oliver (5.00p.m.)

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April 14th Oliver (5.00p.m.)

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April 18th Secondary Sports Day and Year 6

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April 19th Last Day of Term

For more dates please see our Parent Calendar on the website.

www.bsalicante.com

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