BSG Newsletter - Issue 5, 2014/15

Newsletter

Issue 5- 2014/15

The British School of Guangzhou

“Little Shop of Horrors was a huge project, but thanks to the hard work of so many staff and the brilliance of our student cast and crew, it’s a show that the whole school can be especially proud of.”

Ted Moore, Head of Drama & Performing Arts To download a copy of this newsletter, please visit www.bsg.org.cn

MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents, I hope everyone enjoyed a relaxing break and were able to celebrate Easter and the Tomb Sweeping festival, which fell conveniently close together this year. As we enter our final term, I would like to remind everyone that the cooler summer uniform should now be worn.

On Friday, 17th April, we will be holding an official launch event to provide details of the Juilliard-Nord Anglia Performing Arts Programme. We are delighted to announce that Juilliard alumna and accomplished violinist, Stephanie Song, will be performing on this day. We will also have performances from our orchestra, a song from the ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ and a short dance performance from a Year 4 class. This evening presentation will be an excellent example of how our collaboration with Juilliard will open so many new opportunities for our students. With limited space in our theatre, we will need to strictly limit tickets for this event, so we ask for your understanding in advance.

This will also be the month when we announce the names of the 3 students who were chosen to represent our school at the Global Orchestra event in New York. I would like to take a moment to thank all the students who auditioned. The standards were impressive and I would encourage those who are not successful to continue practicing and to audition again next year.

This is an important time of year at BSG with Secondary students involved in their IGCSE and A-Level examinations, and Primary students about to undertake their SATs tests. We are extremely proud of the academic successes of our school and encourage all students to ensure they follow the advice of teachers to prepare for these external examinations.

As soon as we get the results, we will be notifying the individuals involved and providing the parental community with a statistical breakdown of our overall performance. This type of external validation of academic achievement is extremely valuable for teachers, and allows parents to measure our school against the best UK independent schools and against other schools within the Nord Anglia Education family.

At the moment, our admissions department are experiencing unprecedented demand for places and waiting lists are expected in key year groups. If you are leaving at the end of the year, please contact admissions to ensure they have taken this into account. Next year, we will be opening a new Toddler Class (1-2 year olds) and have already filled a large number of the limited number of spaces. Work has also begun on our new Secondarydedicated building, which will open in January 2016. This new building has been specifically designed to meet the needs of our older students and provides a purposebuilt library, canteen area, Sixth Form study areas, art studios and additional sports areas.

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I am pleased to be able to tell our FOBISIA parents that we will also be making a number of improvements to the pool, including the addition of heating, which will allow our swim teams to extend their training season well beyond October.

We are fast approaching the end of our year but have a number of events still to take place, including the Primary production of Oliver!

Stephanie Song, Violinist with auditions now completed. The Secondary students have set the bar Juilliard Alumni incredibly high with their recent performance of ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ Chinese-American Violinist Stephanie Song’sinvolved artistic career is one and our thanks goes again to all staff and students who were that has been committed to showing humanity a more beautiful and in this amazing production. The next time visit the together school, you will through perfect you possibility.

By bringing people and cultures her sensitive and imaginative interpretations, she has been continually no doubt see Audrey 2 on display in oursearching reception area - just try avoid for new ways to communicate withto audiences.

Whether solo performances from the established violin repertoire, being eaten! This year, we have decidedgiving to use an outside venue for the coming together with friends and colleagues for chamber music or exploring forms outside the musical profession, Ms. Song strives Primary production, as from experience, we art know thatof demand is high. to find connections between different art forms that stimulate the imagination.

Please look out for advance ticket sales and book early by contacting Gemma.Campbell@bsg.org.cn to avoidCurrently disappointment. on the faculty at The Soochow University School of Music

and a recent graduate from the 5-year accelerated bachelor and master degrees program at The Juilliard School, Stephanie Song gave her first performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto at the age of 17 with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has performed under the baton of conductors including Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Alan Gilbert, and Ludovic Morlot in numerous Juilliard Orchestra collaborations. Appearances in major venues as a soloist, chamber musician, and in orchestra include the Carnegie Hall, the Shanghai Grand Theatre, the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and Avery Fisher halls in New York City. In 2008, Ms. Song was invited by the Juilliard Orchestra to participate on its historic China Tour Having with with stops in Beijing, Suzhou, and Shanghai just before the Beijing Olympics. During the cross-registered 2012 Olympics, Ms. Song once again joined the Juilliard Orchestra on its London Tour, performing under theColumbia baton of composer/conductor University andJohn taken Adams in the BBC Proms.

Yours truly,

STEPHANIE SONG Violinist

Mark Thomas Principal

classes in Comparative Literature

during her studies at studies Juilliard, Having cross-registered with Columbia University and taken classes in Comparative Literature during her at Juilliard, Stephanie Song draws inspiration from a wide range of art forms Stephanie and collaborations, fueledinspiration by the Songeach draws artists’ interactions. In 2014, Ms. Song pursued studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in film-making. During a span from a wide range of art forms and of 6-weeks, Ms. Song wrote, directed, acted in, soundtracked, and edited her first five short films. In the summer collaborations, eachforfueled of 2010, she participated in the World Expo in Shanghai as a cultural exchange ambassador, working the San-by the Francisco-Shanghai-Sister-City-Committee in making performances happen for the artists’ Grammy Award-winning, interactions.male a-capella chorus Chanticleer, in Shanghai. In the fall of 2010, she also served as the Interpreter for the First New York Chinese Film Festival at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, where numerous high-profile Asian and American actors In 2014, Ms. Song pursued studies communicated professionally about the American and Chinese film industries.

BSG Baby Boom! www.juilliard.edu

Congratulations to Cindy Li, our catering assistant from Eurest, who gave birth to a baby girl during the Easter break!

Congratulations to our Early Years teachers, Gavin and Bronwen Fleck, who recently welcomed twin girls, Isla and Freya, to their family!

Congratulations to our Lakefront Early Years Campus Head Chef, John Pan, who is now the proud father of a baby girl!

Congratulations to our art and Spanish teacher, Jone Barrenechea, who is now the proud mother of baby Garai.

at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in film-making. During a span of 6-weeks, Ms. Song wrote, directed, acted in, soundtracked, and edited her first five short films. In the summer of 2010, she participated in the World Expo in Shanghai as a cultural exchange ambassador, www.bisshanghai.com working for the San-FranciscoShanghai-Sister-City-Committee in making performances happen for the Grammy Award-winning, male a-capella chorus Chanticleer, in Shanghai.

In the fall of 2010, she also served as the Interpreter for the First New York Chinese Film Festival at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, where numerous highprofile Asian and American actors communicated professionally about the American and Chinese film industries.

Important information is often sent via email.

If you are not receiving emails, please contact our receptionist, Rainbow Chen, at rainbow@bsg.org.cn 3

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COMMUNITY

Charity Update 2014-2015 Charity Running Total

167,382.52 RMB I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone within our school community for the generosity you have conveyed this year.

We certainly couldn’t have done it without you. This money is the result of a number of different events that have been held throughout the year, in and around school such as International Day, BSG Backstage magazine, selling second hand uniform, the Make it right campaign, non-uniform days, Movember and many more.

Where has the money has gone?

Action Aid 62,979RMB As in previous years, this money will be donated at the end of the academic year once a contract has been drawn up between Action Aid and The British School of Guangzhou explaining in detail where the money will be spent.

GETCH 35,000RMB In September 2015, we will be using this money to fund an outreach programme whereby some of the students from GETCH will be brought to The British School of Guangzhou to participate in an Art ASA. We are also planning to create a portfolio of their work, and photos of them participating in the Art ASA, which we can then give to each of the students as a gift.

GIVES 1045.5RMB This money was raised and donated to GIVES at the GIVES International Food Festival earlier this year.

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OXFAM 19,316RMB As a result of the Make It Right campaign money was raised from a number of events including a sponsored walk from The Sofitel Hotel to The British School of Guangzhou.

The money was donated to Oxfam, which is a charity dedicated to fighting poverty.

Movember 12,502RMB Some of our male members of staff decided to grow their moustache throughout the month of November (Movember) in order to raise money and awareness for this worthwhile cause.

Room to Read 34,540RMB This money has been used to build a library in Nepal and fund 8 children through Primary school in Vietnam.

Shenzhen Longgang Society Welfare Centre 2000 RMB + 400 Shoeboxes The money was used to help with the delivery of the shoeboxes from The British School of Guangzhou to the children’s orphanage.

The shoeboxes were greatly received by the Children at the centre, their children’s faces lit up with delight when they opened their gifts.

We have 17,688RMB left for our charity committee to distribute.

Thanks again for your time, commitment and kindness this academic year. We will keep you posted on upcoming charitable events and ways to get involved in the future.

Best wishes, Gemma Campbell

FOCUS

FOBISIA Maths Competition

By: Sheena Ling and Angela Kim The tests were harder than we could have ever imagined. The tests were; the math trail, a mental math test, a logic test, a written task and a spatial test.

Our favourite team task was the relay.

It was where we had to run forwards and backwards to receive the question, which we had to answer as fast as we could. We did the best out of all the schools in this particular activity. The rest of the challenges were as equally as hard!

As we came out they all began clapping!

It was like we were famous! They were congratulating us and thanking Mrs. Brooks and Mr. Barton for taking us on this amazing trip. It has been a very tiring, busy and difficult competition but it was one very memorable experience!

Later that day, all the teams waited eagerly to know the overall results at the ceremony. The BISS Puxi School’s Primary Headmaster came to personally congratulate all 32 teams for doing extremely well and delivered participation medals to each child.

When David Lee received his medal and trophy for getting an amazing 2nd place in the individual rounds, we all clapped and cheered for him. Additionally, Angela Kim won bronze in the Maths Trails, leading us to an even bigger applause. At last, it was time for the results of the team events…The BSG Team came 3rd out of 32 schools! It was a so exciting and an incredible ending for our competition and hard work. We were also really proud that BSG beat all the other Nord Anglia schools in Asia!

Finally, it was time to leave and return home. We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. And of course, nobody wanted to leave. We didn’t want to leave behind the comfy hotel rooms that we had been enjoying. When the plane reached Guangzhou, we were hurrying to see our parents.

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FOCUS

Guangzhou Puiching Primary Guangzhou Puiching Prima School Charity Event Translated by Jojo Guo On 13th March, a charity event was held in one of the local schools in Guangzhou: Puiching Primary School, in order to gain support for the poor areas in China via donations and products selling. This was instigated by a visit from four students from The British School of Guangzhou in late January, as part of the school’s ‘Make it Right’ project, which aimed to raise awareness (and hopefully funds) of every child’s right to an education, with them focusing on China specifically. They set Puiching the challenge of supporting the cause and helped them plan for their event.

Every tutor group in Puiching then came up with ideas of how to approach this charity event, as well as deciding what products to sell, how to attract more people and how their ‘stores’ can be as convincing as possible. Musical performances, secondhand stationery selling and toy selling where just some of the stalls on offer. Plenty of fascinating ideas were implemented and it was certainly successful.

Also, it was not only the staff and students that participated; some of the parents joined to help organising as well.

Overall, this event raised 168692.8RMB in total, with all of the funds being sent to ‘Yuexiu District Foundation’’ and ‘Guangdong Province Red Scarf Foundation’. These funds will be used to construct better educational environments for the children within these poorer areas, and improve their living conditions. Student Committee of Guangzhou Puiching Primary School.

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EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION

Best Dressed Students Jennifer Guo, Nursery B & Yijun Ye, Reception B

Early Years EAL Update By: Kevin Clare From “hello?” to “I am eating lunch in the dining room” is representative of the leaps and bounds made by our Early Years EAL students. Term 2 has seen some rapid improvements in the EAL classrooms. The students have become much more confident, and are actively seeking opportunities to use their rapidly growing English speaking skills in all areas of the school.

The highlight of the term for the EAL team was the Chinese New Year Performance, where our students taught us about the 12 Zodiac Animal Signs in a very colourful and energetic display, with great singing and wonderful actions. We were very pleased to see how much work the students put in and gave us all a wonderful show.

In the classrooms, we have been learning all about different sports, what you can find in a house and what our families can do at home. We are all very pleased at how quickly the students have adapted to role plays and are readily asking each other questions and answering them.

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EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION 8

Slow & Steady By: Monica Daryani ‘Slow and Steady’ is one of our mottos in Pre-Nursery! It has taken us a little while to begin on new adventures but we are slowly yet surely getting there. We started off on a new chapter of learning by introducing ‘Pre-Nursery’ assemblies after the Chinese New Year holidays. Our little gathering comprises of our three classes assembled in our dance studio and sharing our in-class topics with each other through IWB activities and ‘song and dance’ and we end the session with our popular merit certificates. Our first two assemblies of the year comprised of our ‘Book Week’ theme, Nursery Rhymes. The children all sat beautifully during these sessions and participated with a sense of eagerness and excitement! Let the good times begin…..

EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION

Trip to the Zoo By: Iwona Krasa Going to the Zoo is always one of the most exciting outings you could ever imagine for the young children. Our Nursery Trip to the Zoo was indeed a thrilling experience!

The whole Nursery Unit: the children and teachers alike, just couldn’t wait for that day to come and when it finally was our turn to go, the excitement reached the limits. Our spirits were high in spite of the changeable weather.

The Guangzhou City Zoological Garden was very welcoming and offered us a pleasurable day including a bus ride and a breath-taking experience of feeding the giraffes. We truly enjoyed the opportunity of admiring the variety of animals living in that rather big Zoo from the comfort of the bus seats. In over two hours we managed to see all the amazing inhabitants of the garden with fearsome tigers and lions, cheeky monkeys, graceful zebras, cute pandas, and wrinkly elephants being our absolute favourites. But the best fun of all was feeding freshly picked leaves to extremely friendly giraffes, which were not at all afraid of us and, surprisingly, we were not at all afraid of them! The classes took turns to feed the giraffes and every time they gently picked up the leaves from a child’s hand a scream of joy and excitement could be heard. The children were overjoyed! So were the teachers! Sadly, that was the grand finale of our Zoo trip.

After such intense and entertaining morning we went back to school just right on time for our well-deserved nap. In the afternoon our classes turned into little zoos as all the children eagerly role-played their first-hand experiences from our day. I am sure that stories about the Nursery Zoo trip will be told for many more weeks. No doubts about that!

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EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION

Let’s Pretend with Puppets By: Helen Jones This term in Reception our topic has been “Let’s pretend”.

This topic involves lots of role-play using puppets and making puppets. We began our topic with the teachers performing “Pinocchio” for the children.

From this we moved into puppet making. We have made sock puppets, finger puppets and also paper bag puppets.

We learnt about puppets from other cultures, used story sacks and read lots of traditional tales and well known stories that helped us to learn about pretending and making up stories using the puppets from our story sacks. The children were able to take on different roles and share their experiences when role-playing. This enabled them to expand their vocabulary and build their confidence when speaking.

We also created a puppet theatre in the classroom and gave children the opportunity to create stories and perform them using their puppets. The children have enjoyed listening to stories, putting on puppets shows for each other and making a variety of puppets immensely. Lots of fabulous fun was had with our playful puppets!

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EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION

Book Week: Door Competition By: Alfred Creissen At lakefront we have been busy decorating our doors in celebration of book week, and from Pre-Nursery to Reception we have been going book crazy! It has been great to see all the children involved and helping to create the door displays. They have really enjoyed this task and have developed a better awareness of books because of this.

Each year group has chosen a theme or author to base the doors on. In Pre-Nursery they went with Nursery rhymes, Nursery have gone with animals and Reception based their doors on the author Babette Cole.

We have had a little competition judged by ‘Climbing Colin’, who took the judging very seriously, making notes and not giving anything away.

The winner of the door display was Pre-Nursery Ducklings a very well deserved win, with a beautiful door depicting ‘5 little fish’. Second prize went to Reception Robins, and third prize went to Nursery Dolphins.

Keeping with the old saying ‘pictures say a thousand words’, here are some pictures of the Lakefront extravaganza.

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EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION

Book Week: Visiting Author By: Prerna Nankani During Book Week, we had the thrill and privilege of having singer and storyteller, Courtney Campbell, visit us. The children laughed and found so much joy in her songs and stories. They happily clapped, sang, made sound effects, and did hand movements to Courtney Campbell’s songs and stories. What a performance and what a great audience! Rosie (Seahorses) said “I liked her because she told a funny story about a fish in my bottle and made funny sounds while playing the guitar.” Geneve (Squirrels) said, “I liked her singing because I like to listen to songs”. Alison (Squirrels) thought that Ms. Campbell was very funny because she made high and low sounds.

She particularly enjoyed the story of the ‘King, Queen, Prince and Princess’. Haru (Seahorses) said, “She sang songs and I like to sing. My favourite song was ‘The Camel With a Runny Nose’ and it was so funny.” It was equally inspiring as a teacher to hear how she used story to explain concepts and engage the children. We’ll be using her expertise in school for sure!

Who is Courtney Campbell?

Courtney Campbell is an award winning singer/songwriter, master storyteller, writer and musician. She travels all over the world performing for children, giving concerts, workshops and keynote speeches. Courtney also stars in and is the co-creator and writer of the award winning children’s TV/DVD series Mustard Pancakes. Courtney’s three CDs of songs and stories, Mustard Pancakes, Dinosaur in My Backyard and The Camel with a Runny Nose are very popular and loved. They are played over and over in classrooms and homes. Her songs and stories are some of the best most enduring ones for children that you will hear. Her audiences are totally and happily engaged from the minute she steps on stage. She says, “ What’s most important to me is to reach inside each person and turn on the lights.”

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EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION

Snuggle Up & Read By: Jill Stenburge We ended our fantastic book week this year with a lovely ‘Snuggle Up and Read’ day on the Lakefront Campus. All the children and staff came to school in their most comfortable pyjamas, most treasured story and favourite teddy bear, and we all settled down to listen to our favourite books. Also, a good bedtime story session would not be complete without a yummy warm chocolate drink and biscuit, and the children were all treated to a delicious cup or two whilst they relaxed along to the sounds of their favourite tales.

All the children were kindly given a ‘Mr. Men Book’ to in order celebrate the end of a very successful week, which the children were grateful for.

A selection of year 4 children came to visit the reception children to kindly read some stories to us.

The year 4 children read very confidently and the reception children sat very quietly and were completely captivated by their story telling skills. It was a very successful event -Well done to everyone.

Sean Lee proudly shows everyone his favourite

The Rabbits’ Class relaxing to a story read by Mr Chris.

Miss Vicky and the Ducklings’ Class enjoying their new Mr. Men Books!

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BOOK WEEK PARADE

EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION

PE Update By: Christie Greenhill Early Years has been having lots of fun preparing themselves for next term’s Sports Day - the competition between the houses is already heating up! We have been practicing competing in our house team colours and learning how important it is to support each other. Our Sports day should be very noisy, if the cheering in the lessons is anything to go by!

Our youngest fitness fans have been learning how to throw and catch a beanbag.

Once these skills were learnt, they have progressed onto balancing bean bags on various parts of their body and walking around. However, nothing puts a smile on their faces like running around the football pitch and kicking a ball.

Nursery have been focusing on balancing and they have shown great skills in racing each other while balancing beanbags on their heads and in the Egg and Spoon races. They have also been learning how to hold poses for long periods of time; we have some yoga masters in the making!

Reception has been learning the value of being a team player. They too have been competing in their house team colours.

When the weather permitted we were able to go outside on the running track.

Once they mastered how to hold and pass a baton there was some very close competition. At the request of the children, next term, they are going to start running five laps around the football pitch...that’s further than some adults can run!

Looking forward to a fun filled and energetic Term 3 on the Early Years Campus!

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PRIMARY

Book Week: Year 1 By: Natalie Watson One of the many highlights this term in Year 1 has to have been the very busy and exciting Primary Book Week.

As a Year group we decided to choose one of our favourite authors ‘Julia Donaldson’, to focus our Book Week on. We read lots of her lovely and enjoyable stories and carried out some super writing and fun crafts to go with these books.

Not only did we enjoy doing these activities but we also had great fun during our ‘Snuggle Up and Read’ event. The children loved putting on their pyjamas and getting all cosy in their classrooms with some of their favourite books.

Each class were then tasked with the exciting challenge of creating a ‘Book Door’ based on their favourite Julia Donaldson story. The children all worked together to make, paint, stick, collage and write a variety of things to make their book door look extra special.

See if you can guess what Julia Donaldson book each class did!

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PRIMARY

Book Week: Year 2 By: Laura McElhill After a relaxing Chinese New Year break, Year 2 came back ready to learn and excited to be back in School and see all of their friends after a long rest. We continued with our topics on fables in English and begun new topics in science ‘materials’ and in topic ‘active earth’. However we can all agree that the highlight of the term was Book Week.

Year 2 decided that we were going to focus on the stories of Roald Dahl. The dragonflies, giraffes and alligators took on ‘The Twits’, whilst the monkeys read the very scary‘Witches’ and the turtles enjoyed ‘The Magic Finger.’ The stories fed the imagination of the children and they produced not only amazing book doors but also some excellent writing. We were lucky enough to be visited by Courtney Campbell for a sing-along storytelling extravaganza and other highlights included being able to wear our pyjamas for ‘snuggle up and read ‘and then to dress up in amazing costumes and come to school as our favourite book characters.

On dress up day, Mr. Jono and Mr. Doug kept us all entertained as Mr and Mrs Twit.

We were all especially frightened of Mr. Jono’s outfit as it was a little too convincing as the mean and unattractive Mrs. Twit.

We were very proud when they won the prize for the best dressed teachers of the day. We were able to showcase our great costumes in a whole school assembly and I would like to congratulate Duo Duo for winning first prize for her very original Mary Poppins outfit. What an amazing day and I am sure the children agree that it was a lot of fun.

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PRIMARY

Globetrotting By: Amy Stather Year 3 have been trekking the globe this half term. It all began with an email from a gentleman who met Mr Laird on the ski slopes of Japan! After Chilly Gonzales had spent most of his holiday helping Mr Laird up and once he’d managed to stop laughing at poor Mr Laird’s down hill abilities, they started talking about the amazing Year 3’s of BSG. Chilly then wrote us an email and even had some of his friends from around the globe contact us.

This became the perfect catapult to our topic, ‘Contrasting Environments’. The children have been researching all about the Artic, where Chilly was from, the Savannah and Australia. Finding out about life in these areas, how they differ from each other, and from our life here in Guangzhou.

We became so interested in other places around the globe; we even began reading all about Sunny the Meerkat and his adventures in Meerkat Mail, written by Emily Gravett, in our English lessons. We studied Sunny’s travels and thought a lot about how he would have felt visiting different places. With the help of his postcards and lots of discussion about the things he could have done in each area and the way he would be feeling during these times, the children wrote some wonderful letters in the style of Sunny, imagining he had visited us here in Guangzhou. We all agreed he would love the diet of juicy mosquitos and dumplings!

Our interest in different environments didn’t stop there. The Year 3’s also incorporated the contrasting environments theme into our book week. We had already decided on the theme ‘Where’s Wally’ so we used our decorated doors to hide Wally in five different environments! Sadly, none of the Year 3 doors won the pivotal ‘Winning Door’ competition but I think it is fair to say that they certainly invoked a lot of interaction from all pupils and staff alike. All to often, we opened our doors to find hoards of staff, desperately trying to find Wally before the pupils had chance to!

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PRIMARY

Vile Victorians By: Nicole Torrens Year 4 had an unusual start to half the term, launching their ‘Start of the Modern World’ topic with an authentic Victorian classroom experience. Through the course of the morning, the children were put through their paces in handwriting, arithmetic, physical education and spelling, all under the watchful eye of our very strict and stern Victorian teacher; Mr McDaid.

The day began with a very thorough fingernail inspection and the chanting of our Victorian class rules, which included only speaking when spoken to and always addressing your teacher as ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’! As the morning progressed the children had the opportunity to use chalk slates during lessons and even experienced some scary Victorian school sanctions...

This fantastic experience provided Year 4 with a realistic snapshot of what life would have been like at school in Victorian Britain and will be remember by the children for many years to come. On reflect Year 4 now all feel very lucky to be going to school in 2015 and are look forward to finding out more about ‘The Victorians’ over the next coming weeks.

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PRIMARY

Bollywood!

Year 6 have been shimmying and shaking this term! As part of our introduction to our new unit India, we were fortunate enough to get a dance teacher into school to teach us some (traditional and modern) Indian ‘Bollywood style’ dance moves. It was great fun!

Bollywood is a popular name for the film industry in India.

The name is a combination of Bombay, the former name of the city of Mumbai, where the Indian film industry is based, and Hollywood, the capital of cinema in the United States and a de facto symbol for movies worldwide. In fact, Bollywood has become so internationally ubiquitous that it now has it’s own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary!

The highlight of a Bollywood movie is the elaborate dance sequences and original soundtracks. Over the years Bollywood movies have developed their own signature style of song and dance, which combines the rich texture of India’s many classical and folk dances, fused with elements of Jazz, Hip – Hop, Arabic and Latin Forms.

All the children thoroughly enjoyed learning this elaborate and creative form of dance. There may even be a performance in the near future…watch this space!

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PRIMARY

Entrepreneurs ASA By: Amelie Piggott March the 26th saw the first fundraising effort by the ASA ‘Developing Entrepreneurs’.

We had a sale of fruit kebabs.

During the ASA we are learning about micro finance and how it can help people with small businesses in Ghana. To start off with Mr Mikhail gave us our ‘Seed Money’ (in our case it was 20Rmb each) and we hope to see it grow turn into more.

Each child chose a fruit to buy so we could use it in the kebab, and sell it.

Our sale was a great success!

Altogether we made an amazing ¥463 which we will use to put towards our final total to give to a micro finance company in Ghana.

Micro finance is when you lend people a small amount of money to help them with their business.

The customer will use the money to buy something like a chicken, that they can then sell the eggs and make money. It may also help a small shop to buy stock or a farmer to buy seeds to plant. They can then pay the loan back to the micro finance company, plus 2.5% of what they borrowed.

We are planning our next fundraiser for early in the summer term.

Keep a look out for our posters.

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PRIMARY

Sita’s Story The following is an excellent piece of writing by Sophie Morath in Y6DM In our English classes we have been reading a book, set in India, called, ‘Boys Without Names’. It is a story about Gopal and his family, who move to Mumbai to try and start a new life. This piece of writing was in response to events in the book.

Sita’s Story I open my eyes and see black shoes too close to my face.

“Get up, get up, what are you doing here?”

“You will be scorched if you don’t get away from here, now!”

I managed to look up and saw what the problem was. Fingers of fear gipped my heart and my insides turned to lead. The world around me was being destroyed by ravenous flames, leaping high into the night sky.

I hurried over to where Aai, Babba, Naren and Sita were sleeping on the pavement. I shook them awake and shrieked urgently to wake up and get going; we were in danger! In moments they were up on their feet – we didn’t even have time to pack our meagre belongings – we were running, trying to save ourselves.

Flames pounced fiercely at us, leaping like tigers. The ear-splitting crackle of the flames masked the explosive roar of collapsing buildings.

Searing heat scorches my blistering skin as we run blindly away from the flames. Sita and Naren are screaming hysterically whilst Baba and Aai embrace us all protectively whilst trying so hard to run.

Just then, Sita trips over her own feet and falls.

In our frenzy to escape the flames, no one notices her. Her unmistakable cries go unheard and are swallowed up in the unforgiving crackle and roar of the flames.

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Aai, Baba, Naren and I dash for the safety of the woods, twisting and turning swiftly to avoid fallen trees. Suddenly I trip over a gnarly branch, obstructing my way, and if my leg is not broken it is, at least, twisted beyond use. As I fall, a sharp, jagged stone finds a home in my forehead and I hear a sharp crack from my arm. I couldn’t even bear to look at it. You could see the bones straining to break free of the flesh. My palm is now facing up and from elbow to wrist my arm is flattened.

Baba is tending to the gash on my forehead and Aai is frantically calling Sita’s name, over and over again. I could feel the agony in her voice. Naren is sobbing into my blood-soaked, crimson chest.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the image of a flaming tree crashing down.

As I slowly surface from my sleep, I am aware of being carried in Aai’s loving arms. I inhale her familiar, sweet scent. I felt the passion ignite like a bonfire in my heart, but then all the terrible, terrifying events of the previous hours came cascading back into my mind; Sita, my arm, the fire, our flight from Thane.

I carefully climbed out of Aai’s arms as we entered the burnt, black remains of Thane. Aai suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and her whole faced dropped. Baba and I stopped and stared. There, before us in the road was a pitiful pile of charred bones with the pathetic remains of a frayed t-shirt and skirt still clinging to them. As we approached, Aai’s pace quickened. It was Sita. Her small bones lying piteously in the road where she had fallen.

A long lock of her raven black hair still lay beside the remains of her charred bones. Aai knelt down and moaned in pain. Baba’s eyes were wet, and tears trickled silently down his face. Naren ran over to Sita’s scorched remains and wailed his heart dry for his lost twin. Baba pulls me close and I weep into his shoulder.

Sita, my beautiful sister was gone; gone forever.

By: Sophie Morath 6DM

PRIMARY

Pi Day By: Sabrina Chu 6AP March 14th is Pi day. Why? If you write it in short form, it’s 3.14, the first three numbers of Pi! This year, because it is 2015, Pi day is even more special. It only happens once a century! At BSG, we celebrated this special day early. On Wednesday morning, the Year 6 students went downstairs to have a special class in Secondary. In that exciting session, some talented Year 9 students taught us all about Pi. We learnt about Pi and how we can use it in maths, then started making a Pi city. The first building in the Pi city was three blocks high, the second one was four blocks high and the third was one block high. We continued for another twelve numbers, all provided for us, as the year 9s explained yet another interesting fact: Pi goes on and on and on, so the city could be as long as we desired. After we finished our fifteen block long Pi city, our year 9 teachers then put up the first hundred numbers of Pi on the board, and asked if anyone wanted to try to memorise it. Several people volunteered to try; the results got better.

At last, the winner of the class got a bag of sweets and chocolates! To finish off the class, we each added a strip of paper to the long (and growing) Pi chain at the front of the classroom. For lunch that day, we had pie. Delicious!

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Art Basel, Hong Kong

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Pi Week Last week, the Mathematics Department celebrated the wonder that is π or Pi or 3.14159265.

As most of you know, Pi is the ratio between the diameter and the circumference of any circle. It is irrational, which means it goes on forever without repeating, and is generally considered to be one of the most celebrated and loved of all numbers.

This year on 14th March, it was Pi Day (3/14) and in particular it was Pi Day of the Century (3/14/15) and at 9:26 and 53 seconds in the morning, it was a very special moment when the time would correspond to the first 10 digits in Pi! The only time this century that such an event would occur.

What did us mathematicians do to celebrate? We had a whole week of events to celebrate this marvelous number! ~ We celebrated Pi’s famous homonym by eating Pie! On Wednesday, pupils were served delicious Beef & Mushroom or Mixed Vegetable Pies for lunch. ~ A Pi Poetry competition, where the structure of the poem had to correspond to the numbers in Pi, was fiercely contested and eventually won by Selina Yang.

Some peoples attempted to create some pieces of Pi Art, where the number was displayed visually in all of its random glory!

Year 9 pupils taught a lesson to Year 6 pupils creating Pi-lines where the values of Pi were used to create an effect similar to a city skyline.

The Mathematics Department were thrilled to spend the week sharing their love of Pi, and were grateful to the enthusiastic participation of pupils from across the school who made it extra special.

Some more Pi facts for you all to impress your friends with: ~ In 1897, the US state of Indiana almost passed a bill declaring Pi to be equal to 3.2.

Luckily a mathematician was around to stop it! ~ If we used Pi to 39 decimal places, we could calculate the width of the observable universe to within an accuracy level of the width of 1 hydrogen atom! ~ In an early episode of Star Trek, an evil computer was defeated by being asked to calculate the last digit of Pi.

~ A Pi Memory test attracted many competitors, and it was Eric Shen who walked away with the top prize for remembering Pi to an astonishing 211 decimal places! ~ We made a Pi Chain; this involved constructing a paper chain where each digit in Pi was shown using a different colour of paper. The eventual chain was over 500 links long!

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Manga Club!

By: Jerrine Ng Yooooooo! I’m Jerrine! Before I start saying about my feelings and thoughts towards the manga club, I would first like to thank Mr Delmotte, Miss Richards, my besties and my Super Dad for helping and supporting me. So um, for the previous 8 weeks, I had a really, really awesome time leading the club.

I normally spend hours and days finding references and pictures that the manga club can use. I was also needed to find appropriate pictures for their level so it won’t be too hard for them. I don’t really find any hardships to balance it with my studies although sometimes I do get scolded for putting a lot of time into the preparation for manga club.

I think that the manga club values a lot to both of my current education and my future education. I do feel stress sometimes. I actually need to prepare a lot for each week, in fact more than I expected. However, it was 100% manageable because this was also what I volunteered myself and I am willing to do this even if it will take me a lot of time. It was really enjoyable seeing the KS3 students each Monday and teaching them about drawing as well as helping them.

Although this was my first time having leadership I really enjoyed the whole process, as I don’t think being at school only means studying and revising for tests. Besides, activities like these are also important as some might also boost selfconfidence or help us find our way for our own future. I hope that the manga club will be more successful during the 3rd block!

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FOBISIA Under 13s The U13 Fobisia Team enjoyed a tiring, but enjoyable and competitive experience in Bangkok. Day 1 was the swimming, where the first race saw Bangkok Prep’s best swimmer coming first, narrowly beating Naomi in the Individual Medley Relay.

Medal winners were: Naomi: 2nd Individual Medley, 2nd 100m Freestyle, 1st 50m Freestyle, 1st 50m Butterfly.

Coco: 3rd – 50m Butterfly Peter: 3rd – 50m Freestyle Sanne: 2nd 50m Backstroke, 50m Breaststroke Cameo, Aisling, Marlie, Karina: 3rd Medley Relay

We had several close calls where BSG students just missed out on 3rd place. 4th places went to: Peter: 100m Freestyle, 50m Breaststroke B Ross: 100m Breaststroke Dickson: 50m Breaststroke A Coco, Lisa, Marlie, Sanne: Freestyle Relay In the afternoon we travelled to the Athletics stadium. It was a great afternoon, with many medal winners: Angelina: 1st 300m Aisling: 1st High Jump, 3rd 1500m Vincent: 2nd Long Jump A Ross: 2nd Long Jump B Karina: 2nd Discus, 3rd Shot Rachel: 2nd 100m A, 2nd 200m Naomi: 1st 100m B Lydia: 2nd 800m Dickson: 1st 200m A Brandon: 3rd 200m B Sanne: 3rd Triple Jump Coco: 1st Javelin Rachel, Lisa, Naomi, Angelina: 3rd Relay A great day, followed by dinner and shopping at the mall.

Day 2 – Girls Basketball and Boys Football

Both teams did exceptionally well coming in the football and basketball. Coincidently both teams tied 3rd, but then were edged out by head to head fixtures in the football and goal difference with the basketball respectively. Great effort and commitment came from the football.

In basketball, the girls worked non-stop and applied a very strong defensive zone, preventing other teams from scoring. However, the team needs to work on their offence to ensure they can win games. Great determination came from Sanne, who was like a tree in defence, Karina, who was tenacious in her defensive marking, and Rachel, who worked well to get the ball up the court. An excellent overall team performance. Well done!

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Day 3 This was girls football and boys basketball. BSG girls won their first game against Bangkok Prep 2-1, with 2 goals from Marlie. The second game saw us missing out against the favourites to win, St Andrews.

We lost 1-0. In the 3rd game, Naomi shot a fantastic goal into the top left-hand corner, ensuring we won against KTJ, 1-0. At lunchtime, we were in 2nd place. After lunch, we played against BSB and we unfortunately lost 1-0. This meant we had to win the last game against BISKL to ensure a trophy. It was a hard fought game, both teams were now struggling in the heat and their fitness was important here. We had several attempted shots, but the GK made some fantastic saves, as did Lydia in our goal.

Unfortunately, we drew this game 0-0, meaning that we were in joint 3rd position. We lost out on a trophy by 1 point.

Boys basketball was always our weakest sport, but they learnt a lot and worked hard. We had some great plays from Dickson, Vincent and Jurek, who worked tirelessly up and down the court. They finished 6th in their league.

The students were a credit to the school and their hard work will certainly be the foundation for future FOBISIA events. Â

Sanne & Marlie’s FOBISIA Experience On 12th March, everyone was so excited to go to Bangkok for FOBISIA! As we arrived at Bangkok airport, we had to wait for 2 hours because someone lost their passport before the trip and then she had to get an emergency passport, which meant we had to wait for her to get the new visa in Bangkok. We took about an hour getting to the hotel and then we were rushed to dinner.

The Head of School gave an opening speech to the teams. Our school was of course the first one to start socialising with the other schools. Within an hour we had made a lot of friends. Then we were told to go up to our rooms and unpack.

Finally, Day 1 came! We did swimming and athletics. Our goal for swimming was to get 250 points. By the end of the swimming event, even though we came 5th place, we achieved our goal and got 253 points! We were SO happy to hear this news!

After having success with swimming, we had athletics. When we arrived, they told us to start warming up for our events. This time our goal was to achieve 19 medals in total for athletics.

When everyone was working at their best, medals were flying in. By the end of the day we had good news again! We got 20 medals!

Day 2, boys and girls split up. Boys went to do football and the girls went to do basketball. Overall the girls did

not practice a lot for basketball, but we came joint 3rd with two other schools, which meant we got moved down to 5th place.

We think we did our best and had a wonderful day. For the boys, they also came joint 3rd and got moved down to 4th.

Day 3, we switched. Girls did football and boys did basketball. The goal for the girls was to come 3rd, but it came down to the last game. We got a 0-0 draw. At the end, we found out that we had ended up 4th. We did so well and just missed out on a trophy. The boys also did very good, but ended up last place, which is 6th.

Finally, we were all excited for the gala dinner! As we got started, we had a speech again from the Head of Secondary. Then every school got a participating award. Then, we started having our meals. As we were eating, we had a speech from Mr. Ike Nwankwo, who is a former NBA player and managing director of top fight basketball, Bangkok. After the speech, we got to get a photo taken with Mr Ike. As the photos were taken, the disco started.

The day we left was a sad and memorable day. We said goodbye to all our friends from the other schools, then left to the airport with two people forgetting their electronics. As we arrived in Guangzhou, we queued up for a really long time! And that was our AMAZING FOBISIA trip to Bangkok.

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Volleyball Tournament On 7th March 2015, the first Saturday after CNY, our BSG volleyball team boys’ division I U14s made a great break through.

Seven Y9 boys took the first place in the tournament in Foshan Country Garden School(CGS).

We then moved on to the finals against CGS again. CGS lost to us at the first battle, though we still needed to keep alert. In the first set , after a couple of time-outs, both of the teams could not dominate each other.

After 4 matches with four 2:0 wins , our boys fought within a team, heart to heart, shoulder by shoulder, and finally went on to the summit. In the team line, we had Peter, Henry, Neil, Jim, Stevie, Danny and Hoo.

Finally, we got a chance - 29:27. From then, I realised they had a new player who was able to serve heavy, dig up, set well and spike fast - an all-round player.

Every single one of us looked refreshed and energetic and we did adequate warm ups through a routine of shuttle running, jumping, blocking, spiking, serving and mini games.

In the division there were 6 teams. CGS is a traditional volleyball school with good coaches and facilities, which is in the same group as us and AISG-B. After the first win against AISG-B, under the leadership of captain Henry, we gradually gained momentum. We then beat CGS by 2 games to 0.

After two wins, we became the top team in our group, and I knew we could make history. We also got extra free time before and after lunch, during which, we had time to look around and enjoy games and acquire some experiences from others as well.

In the semi-finals, the boys had no pressure at all and it turned out to be a big win.

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When the score came to 23:23, no one could tell which team would overwhelm the other, and it continued...24:24, 25:25, 26:26, 27:27.

At the beginning of the second set, this all-round player initiated the serving first, which pushed our boys very hard.

I called a time-out, giving it a break and calmed them down a little bit. This call was a little bit late. We started over again and everyone fought for glory within a team all the way to 6:9.

The pressure rolled to the CGS side, so they had to call a time-out shortly. During that time, the boys knew if we turned the score over, we would be champions.

The game carried on all the way up until 19:19, and I was sure there was a big chance to win this game. As the clock on the wall moved on, the score hit 23:23, which was a key point. At this stage, they had to serve, but they did not catch this chance! “Come on , Boys !” I Shouted. After a safe serve and a few volleys, CGS dug the ball out of line! “We won !!!”

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Little Shop of Horrors The Secondary School production finished in fantastic botanical fashion with a sublime finale before the Easter break.

Thrilling puppetry and filled with humour, the show delighted a packed audience over two nights, proving to be one of the best performances we’ve seen at the school.

A huge congratulations to all the students and staff for creating such a wonderfully animated, colourful and exciting production.

A DVD is now available to order for 50RMB through reception. Please email rainbow@bsg.org.cn.

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