BSG Newsletter | Issue 3, 2015/16

Newsletter

Issue 3 - 2015/16

“Year 6 students defeated the teachers at a festive game of football before the Christmas holiday. It was a lot of fun watching all of Primary cheering the students on.� Mark Thomas, Principal

To download a copy of this newsletter, please visit www.bsg.org.cn |

BritishSchoolGZ |

bsgnae

message from the principal

Dear Parents, As we say goodbye to 2015, I cannot help reflecting on what a significant term it has been. In the final week, I had the pleasure of attending one of the three Early Years performances. The level of commitment demonstrated in learning the words of their songs was impressive, and the students gave another memorable performance.

Performances by the EYFS team are always well attended and this was no exception, with parents turning out in force to demonstrate their support.

I am sure by now the photographs and videos that were taken have been shared with grandparents and friends around the world, and will be cherished for years to come.

My next engagement was with our Y2 students who performed ‘Angel’s Delight’. Their performance was truly delightful, and I was pleased to note so many smiles on students’ faces as they delivered their lines and performed their songs. It was clear to me that they thoroughly enjoyed their moment in the spotlight, and the levels of confidence they displayed were a credit to the Y2 team, particularly Miss Nicola, who was responsible for directing this performance with Mr. Hughes.

Not to be outdone, the Y4 team organised an eco fashion event to celebrate students’ achievements in creating costumes from recycled junk. I was very impressed by the levels of creativity shown by the students, as well as the confidence they demonstrated as they swaggered down the catwalk. Well done to the Y4 team for putting together such an enjoyable topic of study.

As always, our music department were busy preparing for a host of concert performances during December. This year we enjoyed performances in an amazing range of venues, including Guangzhou’s Sacred Heart Cathedral, the Shangri-La and Garden Hotels, and finally, TaiKoo Hui, where our orchestra and choirs helped to create a festive atmosphere for the shoppers. There is no doubt that we are encouraging our students to be musically ambitious.

One of the most significant developments this year has been to our extra-curricular programme. We are fast becoming a 24-hour school, with basketball and swimming academies competing with the orchestra for student time at the end of each day. This was identified as a need for our students on our strategic development plan 4 years ago.

To see students completing laps in our heated pool, practicing basketball drills in the gym or rehearsing complicated classical music pieces with the orchestra long after the end of the school day, shows how far we have come towards making the development plan a reality.

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As we finished off the term, our Secondary teachers were packing up their resources in preparation for the move to the new building.

It was an amazing moment when they returned from the holiday and finally moved into a purposebuilt Secondary building. I cannot thank our facilities team enough for their hard work in preparing for this move - they were incredibly busy throughout the holiday.

Although it has been lovely to see the way our Primary and Secondary students have shared the same building, the time has come to give our older students a place of their own.

The VI Form students in particular are enjoying the opportunities that their spacious facilities provide for a more independent approach to learning.

The impressively large lunch hall is also a big hit with the new sandwich, soup and salad options proving extremely popular with staff and students. We will have an official opening of the new facilities soon; so do look out for further information.

Kind regards, Mark Thomas

Find us on a China Southern flight!

BSG has made it into China Southern’s in-flight magazine! Mr. Pearce is pictured here, spotting us on his Christmas travels. If you happen to see us, send in a selfie and you too could make it into the newsletter!

Important information is often sent via email.

If you are not receiving emails, please contact our receptionist, Lily Huang at lily@bsg.org.cn

community

Charity Update Welcome back!

In 2014/15 we raised a significant sum of money for Room to Read and we have just received some wonderful news regarding the library in Nepal that this donation helped to build: Dear Gemma,

I am excited to let you know that the library you supported in Nepal is fully established and open for use! We’re pleased to report that this library suffered no structural damage resulting from the earthquakes that devastated Nepal earlier this year. Students have already begun to enjoy the new world of written words opened up by the library and hundreds more will benefit in the years to come. Thank you for helping plant the seeds of literacy in this wonderful community!

Your partnership has helped us achieve some remarkable accomplishments to date, and we cannot thank you enough for your investment in our work. Since 2000, caring supporters like you have helped us benefit more than 10 million children through our Literacy and Girls’ Education Programs. We are working hard to advance this trajectory, and with your continued passion and support, we are working to reach an additional one million students by the end of 2016.

We send our great thanks for the British School of Guangzhou’s commitment to empowering children around the world to reach for a better future through education. Please share this report with your fantastic students, and let me know if you have any questions about our work or the attached report.

Wishing you a wonderful start to 2016!

Warmly,

Miya Dunets Global Business Development Associate Room to Read If you would like to read the report please visit our website - www.bsg.org.cn

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community

Family Christmas Brunch On Sunday, 6th December, The Sofitel Sunrich Guangzhou warmly hosted our annual Family Christmas Brunch. The event opened with a wonderful performance from our talented Chamber group who helped to fill everyone with Christmas joy.

It was a splendid event, with Christmas crafts and the opportunity to have your photo taken with Santa before indulging in the delicious food. In the true spirit of Christmas and the gift of giving we raised a fantastic 6250 RMB for The Library Project (please visit their website for details about this charitable organisation and its initiatives: http://www.library-project.org/).

Congratulations to our lucky Raffle draw winners Mrs Joanna Tsoi who won a nights stay in the Prestige Suite for 2 and Mrs Jun Ding who won a dining experience for 2 at The Sofitel Sunrich Guangzhou.

Thank you to all who attended the event and special thanks to our hosts at The Sofitel Sunrich Guangzhou!

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community

I Moustache You A Question...

How much did we raise for Movember 2015?

2481.3 RMB!!!

I would like to thank everyone for supporting our 14 male members who participated in this year’s Movember. These men have grown various styles of facial hair throughout the month of November to raise funds and awareness for Prostate Cancer UK. MoBro 2015 Mr Piers Hunday is our winner for his dodgy looking moustache. He proudly wore his tache for the whole month! Very impressive!

MoSista 2015 Mrs Kathy Weir-Davis is our winner for her role in driving people to support this fantastic cause. We particularly enjoyed the assembly she organised for the EYFS participants and students. Cheers!

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community

Young Enterprise By: Andrew Hallas For the duration of the Autumn Term, the Young Enterprise team worked with enthusiasm and dedication to get their business up and running.

Starting with a ‘loan’ of only 600RMB, they first set up a company selling wristbands on International Day. Some of the funds were then reinvested into setting up a refreshment stall selling soft drinks to competitors at the secondary swimming gala, and they finished off the project selling Christmas jumpers to teachers at BSG. In total, the group made over 2000RMB profit, which is a great effort, especially as students had only one ASA a week to do all of the planning and preparation.

All of the money raised will go directly to the charities BSG is supporting this year, and I would like to personally congratulate all students involved on their success.

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early years foundation

Santa’s Not-So-Little Helpers By: Vicky Whieldon On Tuesday 15th December, as a Pre-Christmas Treat, Santa sent a group of his special helpers to visit Early Years. These helpers came in the form of Year 4 Children, bursting with enthusiasm to work with some of our youngest children.

Santa’s ‘troops’ were organised into groups and deployed at every classroom in sight! In Nursery, the year 4’s read stories to the children and interacted with them through play. All children listened beautifully and were excited to show the ‘big children’ their classroom and toys.

In Pre-Nursery the Year 4’s had the delicious task of helping the children decorate gingerbread men! Everyone was so impressed by the patience and maturity shown by the Year 4’s as they helped the younger students to add icing and decorations to their cookies.

The morning was topped off by spending time in our ‘Outdoor Learning Area’, where all children were able to play together. Santa certainly trains his helpers well and we look forward to another visit next year!

All of the Early Years children and staff want to say a big thank you to the Year 4’s for visiting us and fully embracing the school’s Core Value of ‘Responsibility’.

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early years foundation

Our Little Christmas Stars By: Liz Hill Throughout December,theFoundation Stage children at Lakefront had been very busy preparing for our fabulous Christmas Show. Each class worked hard to practise their songs and actions and could hardly wait to show their friends and families when the big performances finally arrived.

The audience waited with excitement and anticipation for the children’s arrival. Finally the moment was here for the children to make their festive entrance, and the hall started to fill up with Christmas elves, jolly Santas, jingle bells and a beautiful Nativity scene. The children looked spectacular in their costumes.

Excitement reached fever pitch as the children prepared to perform their Christmas songs for all to hear.

As the performance began, proud parents watched on in awe as their little stars presented with loud voices and confidence. Each was met with cheers and tremendous applause as every class gave their very best, singing and dancing to their Christmas songs.

There was a sea of happy smiling faces, including parents, teachers and of course the children themselves.

For the grand finale, the Pre-Nursery, Nursery and Reception children all joined together for one final Christmas gift – a show-stopping performance of ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’.

The Foundation Stage Christmas show was filled with joy, laughter and wonderful singing, and brought warm Christmas spirit to all who came to watch.

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early years foundation

Reception’s Hour of Code By: Alfie Creissen On the 11th December 2015, the Primary school took part in an initiative called the “Hour of Code”. This gave the children a chance to code and create simple computer programs.

After reading about the event and not wanting to be left out, Reception thought we could give it a go but in a more simplified form for the younger children.

“We believe that a quality computer science education should be available to every child” CODE https://code.org/ learn We gave all the children an iPad and showed them how to complete the task. They were challenged to command a dog or a little monster by giving it instructional code to follow.

They were able to move their little cartoon monster by giving it commands to walk forward and by how many steps to do so. They moved the dog forward and backwards telling it when to bark and eat. The children had so much fun and learnt the first steps of computer programming.

At The British School of Guangzhou, computer science is of great importance and we believe that exposing them to this means of education earlier, will put them in a stronger position in the future in our ever advancing world.

This activity was the perfect platform for the children to showcase their amazing coding skills that they already possessed, and allowed our dedicated teaching team to push them further.

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PRIMARY

Code Wars Competition By: Chris Thomas HTML. Python. Flash. Java Script… no, these aren’t characters from the new Star Wars films; they are all different coding languages. These are the vitally important languages that are used by programmers to make games, apps, websites, computer programs and everything else that a computer does.

Just before the Christmas holiday, Primary students at BSG took part in Hour of Code week. During this week, children (and adults) all over the world undertook at least 1 hour of coding lessons. At BSG every single student in primary learnt to write some simple (and some not so simple) code.

The school was a buzz with excitement all week, as children completed a whole range of different coding challenges and activities. Some classes were writing code to make apps or animations, while some wrote code to create websites and even control robots!

During the week, there was a big competition running to see which student could use their coding skills to create the best Star Wars game. It was a very tough challenge but over 40 children entered their finished games.

After hours of testing all of the finished games, the esteemed judges decided that one game really stood out. And the winner was…………….

Aashika Suresh! Congratulations Aashika and everybody else who took part in the Code Wars competition.

May the force be with you!

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PRIMARY

Chocolate!

By: Nikki Williams Bonjour, Monsieur Chocolat!

A visit from a crazy, chocolate loving, Belgian man called Mr Chocolat started 2016 for year 1! With his face smothered in chocolate, and through his curious European accent and eccentric personality, Mr Chocolat explained to year 1 that he came all the way from his chocolate factory in Belgium to ask for their help.

Mr Chocolat is opening a new museum exhibition within his chocolate factory. Year 1 have kindly agreed to help him to research the history of chocolate: where, when and how it was discovered or created, and how it is made. They have agreed to create some information boards and decorations with this information, for his exhibition.

With chants and cheers of “Chocolate!” the children volunteered to taste some of his chocolates right there in the hall. They described the range of chocolates as “yummy,” “sweet,” “crunchy,” “soft,” and “delicious!”

Further excitement was strirred, when Mr Chocolat generously handed out gift hampers full of interesting and exciting chocolates for every class to try!

Year 1 are excited for the coming few weeks, to help collect and write up the research information, write chocolatey poems, as well as cooking up some delicious chocolatey treats!

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PRIMARY

Year 2 Shine Bright In ‘Angels’ Delight’ By: Gareth Hill A Happy New Year from everyone in Year 2!

Year 2 finished Term 1 in festive style, displaying their amazing talents in our Christmas Production of ‘Angels’ Delight’. The show saw us taking an eventful journey with some delightful angels, to different countries around the world.

Throughout the performance we learnt about the different traditions and how Christmas is celebrated in China, Malawi, Ireland, Australia, Poland and the U.S.A. The children put in huge amounts of effort to ensure the show was a success.

They had the challenge of preparing props, designing tickets and posters, remembering their lines, learning songs and perfecting their acting skills. There was so much confidence on stage and so many proud faces in the audience as everyone enjoyed the show. The songs and dances were a particular highlight, with all the classes delivering memorable, Christmassy performances of a song related to their country. A huge ‘well done’ to all of the children in Year 2!

In addition to the fantastic show that took place, the children also got very busy decorating some Christmas cups. They designed festive patterns and pictures and then carefully painted their designs onto a cup. This was all done in aid of a great charity ‘Hopeful Hearts’, as the Year 2 parents were then able to come and purchase the cups which were also filled with some delicious treats, before and after the show. Altogether we managed to raise a whopping 3260RMB, which is a fantastic effort from everyone involved. What a great way to wrap up a brilliant term.

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PRIMARY

Angels’ Delight: Year 2 Production

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PRIMARY

Goodbye 2015 By: Philip Bennett 2015 finished with a flurry of activity, including the choosing of the Year 6 House Captains, and the making of house Christmas trees for which years 3 -5 made decorations to hang.

House Captains The children wishing to be considered for House Captains prepared short speeches, explaining how they could be role models and inspire the rest of the children in their house to take part and do their best in house competitions. Around nineteen children put themselves forward, approximately 20% of the total year six children. They made their speeches to the rest of the year 6 children in a specially organized ‘hustings’. The four year six teachers made the final decisions which resulted in the following children being chosen:Normans: Romans: Vikings: Saxons:

Emma Kalnova and Ellis Langford Sara Jeswani and Oren Davies Michelle Blit and Nick Schneider King Fu Chiang and Reyansh Budhdev

Congratulations and a big thank you to everyone who took part.

Your enthusiasm is so enjoyable to see.

Christmas Tree Challenge The Christmas House challenge involved year six making a ‘recycled’ Christmas tree in house groups, for other classes to decorate. Each house was given a mystery box containing items to use, and everything used had to be recycled.

The trees were in the colours of their houses and were constructed from a range of imaginative items including plastic gloves, paper cups and newspaper. Roman house took the top prize of 200 House Points – congratulations everyone for making this such a fun event.

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PRIMARY

Year 4 Inter-House Football

Boys and Girls in Year 4 took part in the Interhouse Football Competition on Wednesday. It was a cold, but sunny day and all the children were keen to take part giving it their all in the series of round robin games. Romans and Vikings got a great start in the boys competition both scoring 5 goals against their respective opposition of Normans and Saxons. Vikings continued to be dominant and didn’t lose a game, putting them in 1st place overall.

Boys Results: 1st Place – Vikings 2nd Place – Romans 3rd Place – Saxons 4th Place – Normans

In the girls competition there were some closely fought games and some great goals.

Vikings and Romans won the first round of games, with Vikings also continuing to be dominant in the next 2 games, due to the skills of Mila and her team mates. Overall results are as follows: Girls Results: 1st Place – Vikings 2nd Place – Saxons 3rd Place – Romans 4th Place – Normans.

More interhouse competitions will take place next term with Year 1 & 2 having a multi skills event and Year 5 & 6 having a Netball and Handball competition.

Thanks to our Sports Leaders in Year 10 and 11 for helping to organise this event – Jule, Yujin, Eeshta, Rikke, Rie, Jerrine, Amy, Haerin and Emma.

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PRIMARY

Year 6 Students vs Teachers Football It was a game of two halves and plenty of laughs, as children ran rings round the teacher team.

The sprightly Mr. Mikhail may have been on form with a sublime hat-trick, but Christmas time has clearly had an affect on our teachers’ stamina, as the students’ slick passing made them dangerous on the counter attack.

With the ball knocking around nicely for the Year 6s, there were some flourishes from staff, which helped to take the match to penalties. In the shoot-out, the children had the energy and eagle-eyes to outclass Mr Bennett in goal and seal victory!

Congratulations to everyone who took part - it was a thrilling end to the term!

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Dance Showcase

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PRIMARY

Making Mountains By: Aidan Stallwood In Year 5 we began our new term with a trip to Baiyun Mountain to start the topic ‘Mountains and coasts’. For some, this was a chance to explore this oasis within Guangzhou, where we were able to test our compass skills in a navigation task set by Climbing Colin.

After making our way up in the cable car, we then took in the differing views in Guangzhou which led to some beautiful art pieces to recreate the scenes from the day, using different techniques of shading and tones for depth.

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~ DRINKS ~

KENT’S CAFE OPENING TIMES SATURDAY 10AM - 4PM SUNDAY 10AM - 3PM CLOSED DURING SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

Milkshake

20RMB

Slushy

15RMB

Sports Drink

8RMB

Coke/Sprite

5RMB

Cold Water

5RMB

Hot Coffee

15RMB

Hot Tea

15RMB

Hot Chocolate

15RMB

~ MENU ~ Fresh Paninis (made to order)

20RMB

Burger (Fish or Chicken)

20RMB

4 Chicken Wings (New Orleans Style)

20RMB

Hot Dog

18RMB

Hot Chips (French Fries)

15RMB

Pretzels & Muffins

8RMB

Fruit Salad

15RMB

Garden Salad

10RMB

IF YOUR CLUB OR ACTIVITY ARE EXPECTING MORE GUESTS THAN USUAL OR IF YOU WISH TO PRE-ORDER FOOD OR DRINKS, PLEASE TALK WITH US

PRIMARY

Under-11s Basketball By: John Robb On Saturday, 31st October, the Under-11’s Elementary Basketball tournament got underway.

The tournament was held at Utahloy, with the “big three” participating: The international school of Nanshan, Shenzhen (ISNS), Utahloy International School Guangzhou (UISG), and of course the mighty British School of Guangzhou (BSG).

BSG provided two teams for the event who each played two games. The teams were mixed with a range of both boys and girls from years 4, 5 and 6. Each game consisted of 2 X 20 minute halves. The children were very excited to take part in their first competitive basketball game and played well together.

BSG 1 played the ISNS to begin. BSG team were down by half time however, BSG 1 managed to pull together with their best efforts, raising their score to 14 points and winning their first game! This was a confidence booster they needed going into their next game.

BSG 2 played UISG in their first game. Unfortunately they didn’t receive the same success as BSG 1. The Utahloy team quickly took control of the game showing excellent passing, shooting and defence. It was clear to see that the Utahloy teams have been busy during pre-season. BSG 2 although under heavy pressure, never gave up and fought until the game was over. BSG 2 were far from winning but they came together in unity and managed to hold off the waves of offensive attacks and even celebrated two baskets in the second half.

BSG 1 played UISG after the break whilst BSG 2 played ISNS. BSG 1 unfortunately suffered the same fate as the BSG 2 who played them previously. The Utahloy team was a force too tough to be reckoned with on the basketball court.

BSG 2 began to show more strategy and teamwork in their second game. They managed to take advantage of the shooting opportunities and scored 10 points before the game was out. Although BSG 2 walked away from the game with a lower score, they left the court a stronger team.

Fun was had by both teams throughout the tournament and all students represented their school very well. There was much cheering and celebrating from our young and eager pupils who played with enthusiasm, determination and high standards of sportsmanship.

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SECONDARY

School Production: Hairspray

By: Alex Hughes

This year’s musical extravaganza will be transporting the audience to Baltimore, Maryland, USA in 1962. Set during the civil rights movement in America, the show takes on some serious issues of the 1960s and has an important story to tell.

The show centres around Tracy Turnblad, (Rachel Moon, Year 9) a young girl full of hope and big dreams.

Her main ambition is to dance on the Corny Collins show alongside the council members and the dashing heartthrob Link Larkin (Iain Chambless, Year 10).

Against her mother’s wishes, Tracy goes to audition for the Corny Collins show but is ridiculed by the mean girls on the stage. Things aren’t looking too good for Tracy until she learns some new dance moves, from the ultra cool Seaweed J Stubbs (Tyrek Richards-Morris, Year 12), whilst in detention.

Along with her new friend Seaweed, his energetic younger sister Little Inez (Romy Hoffman, Year 7) and his famous DJ mother, Motormouth Maybelle (Keisha Rutega, Year 11), Tracy becomes an activist for integration and leads a protest in order to ensure that the Corny Collins show is a place for equality - where everyone can dance and sing together, regardless of race.

Hairspray is a really energetic, fast-paced and fun show. The music is infectious and dynamic. You will be impressed by our students’ beautiful and powerful voices as well as their engaging acting skills. Over 70 students from the Secondary school have been involved in preparations for this year’s production; we have a talented cast and chorus, who are working hard to ensure that you will be fully entertained on the night and plenty of people backstage making props and costumes. We hope you will be able to attend this year’s show and look forward to sending you all back in time to Sixties Baltimore.

Save the date! Hairspray will be showing in the Nanhu Theatre on Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th March.

Information regarding tickets to follow.

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SECONDARY

‘My Guangzhou’ Art Exhibition By: Hollie Slaughter Nestled in the streets of Dongshan, one of the oldest districts of Guangzhou, Students, parents and staff gathered at the beautiful Kui Yuan Gallery to view the exhibition of ‘Canton S’est Vu’.

Nestled in the streets of Dongshan, one of the oldest districts of Guangzhou, Students, parents and staff gathered at the beautiful Kui Yuan Gallery to view the exhibition of ‘Canton S’est Vu’ to enjoy a glass of wine, some nibbles and to view the postcards designed and made by our students based around the theme ‘My Guangzhou.’

The exhibition was proposed by the Zhanlan French Collective and it showcased 30 selected works made by our students and numerous work of artists within the city. Displaying paintings, quick sketches, pen drawings, poems and letters to depict a city that unites us.

The Zhanlan group chose 10 postcards to be put into print including work by Romy Hoffman in Year 7 and Mariana Barradas in Year 8. The postcards are on sale at the gallery now!

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SECONDARY

Swimming Gala Secondary Students took part in the annual swimming gala last term. Houses competed for the medals and trophies as Year 7/8, Year 9 /10 and Year 11/12/13 year groups, but all in their house teams.

This is a mass participation event with the aim being that all students have an opportunity to race, whether that is an elite swimmer swimming 100m freestyle or a more recreational swimmer competing in the tyre relay, there is something for everyone. After the pool had heating installed in the summer to enable all year round swimming, the temperature was perfect for the swimmers, even though the day was slightly cooler than previous years.

Ross from the Saxons got the first medal in the individual medley, followed by Sophie who won the girls race, also from the Saxons.

Students took part in many events including freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke. Many notable performances were demonstrated. In particular, Naomi in the freestyle and butterfly for the Saxons and Bono in the freestyle for the Vikings.

After a BBQ lunch, the last races of the day were the relays and it was all to compete for as the relays were awarded double points. First up were the medley relays, then the freestyle relays and then the tyre relays to finish, everyone’s favorite and fun event.

Trophy winners were: Overall winners – Saxons Year 7/8 winners – Saxons Year 9/10 winners – Vikings Year 11,12,13 winners – Saxons 25

EVENT

Choir & Orchestra Concerts

2015 was a big year for music, ending with a truly fantastic festive season.

By: Jonathan Haslett What a busy first term it has been for the BSG Music Department! The students have worked extremely hard to prepare for the events that took place, and I hope you will agree that the standard has been extremely high. The number of hours our students have spent on rehearsal time over the last few months has been extraordinary. The dedication, commitment and love of learning shown by our students has been outstanding and it is this that will help them develop a lifelong love of learning music.

The Music Department would like to take this opportunity to say a huge ‘THANK YOU’ to all the students, instrumental staff, music teachers and wider support staff involved with the various ensembles. This includes help with event organization, particularly over the Christmas concert season. We would also like to thank our parents for their continued support throughout the year - this is invaluable to the success of the Music Department.

Thanks again - I look forward to seeing you at our next event!

Music Events in term 1: Regional conference performance – Solo Performers - Angel Lee and Sabrina Chu - Norwegian Music group performance - Primary Performance, Secondary Piano Competition, Juilliard teaching artist visit - cello workshops - student performances - master classes and workshops, International Day - Orchestra and Choirs Performance, GIVES Fair at Canton Tower – Orchestra Performance, Israeli Chamber Group Performance – student master classes and workshops, Student lunchtime recitals, Key stage 1 production, Shangri-La Hotel Performance – Choir, Garden Hotel Performance - Choir, Key stage 2 production, Sacred Heart Cathedral Performance – Choirs – Orchestra – Chamber group – combined ensemble, TaiKoo Hui Mall - Choirs – Orchestra – combined ensemble - Chamber group...

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