Friday 23 September 2011

6: Friday 23rd September 2011

From the Headmaster

Final chance to see “Much Ado About Nothing”
Tickets available on Monday morning ONLY, until 12 noon, for the TNT Theatre Production of this famous Shakespearean play. Contact Sandra Acosta at the Main Reception (2241-4428) - ticket price $15, numbered seats.

9th to 12th grade students will be seeing this production on Tuesday morning.

Congratulations IB Diploma Graduates of the Class of 2011!
With the final International Baccalaureate results now in, we can give our congratulations to the Class of 2011 for producing an excellent IB Diploma pass rate. The official congratulatory message from the Board, Headmaster and Staff will appear this Sunday in El Diario de Hoy, including the final university destinations of the IB Diploma receivers. Well done!

Primary News

International Primary Curriculum
Hopefully you will all know by now that the Primary school will be using the International Primary Curriculum to complement the British Curriculum which we use currently. The motto of the IPC is “Great learning, Great teaching, Great fun” and it is an active, theme based curriculum which is easily as rigorous and as challenging as any used in the Primary school so far.

The themes last between four and ten weeks with most being around seven or eight weeks. We plan to complete four, or possibly five, themes in each grade throughout the year.

The IPC encourages parental involvement both at home and at school. On Friday Primary parents should receive from their children a letter about the IPC unit on which they will be working in the first half of this term. This will tell you what the unit is, how long it lasts, what the learning goals are and how you can help us to help your children at home. In future we plan to send these letters out to parents by email.

Many parents attended the presentations this week by Katherine Tucker, an expert from the IPC who has also been working on training the staff, and were able to get a good understanding of how the curriculum can be used to improve the children’s learning.

For more information please look at www.internationalprimarycurriculum.com and if you have any concerns or questions please feel free to contact me amandadickson@abc-net.edu.sv or phone Claudia Avilés for an appointment to come in to school and see me.

IPC Entry Point in Grade 2
The IPC has arrived at the ABC! Children in second grade had an excellent Introduction to their unit of study “Different places, similar lives”. The children were given a One Day Passport and then got to travel to different countries. They visited Iran, Turkey, Japan, Sweden and El Salvador. The children were given relevant and interesting information about each country. They all enjoyed their experience and began to understand that people around the world have similarities and differences in spite of the countries they live in.

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IPC Entry Point in Grade 3
On Wednesday the children in Grade 3 launched the IPC unit Time and Place. They came to school that day with their travelling bag and passport and having no idea of what they were doing or where they were going, everything was a mystery! At 10:00am they began their journey around the world experiencing the different time zones. The time in El Salvador was 10:00am, a normal school day, so the children played Multiplication Bingo. They took the magic plane to the United Kingdom, the time there was 5:00pm Tea Time, children enjoyed a nice cup of tea and biscuits. They took the magic plane again and they flew to India where it was 9:30pm Bed Time, they heard a traditional Indian bed time story called The Monkey and the Crocodile. Finally they flew to Australia. It was Thursday, very early in the morning 5:30am time to get up, they changed their pyjamas and enjoyed a healthy breakfast.

Ask your children about what they experienced and to think about the word TIME.

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Independence Celebrations
We are celebrating El Salvador’s 200th year celebration from the first shout of independence; the exact date was 11th November 1811.

On 15th September we celebrated 190 years on independence.

El Salvador’s government has made a huge emphasis on the richness of our cultural patrimony, traditions, patriotic symbols and characters such as our national heroes, presidents and writers.



Peace One Day
All the children in Primary wore white shirts on Wednesday of this week to encourage them to think about conflict and peace at home and in the world. All classes had circle time to discuss and reflect on how even individual people could promote peace in their families, at school and at home. Children in Lower Primary released white balloons to help to reinforce the message in a memorable way. Well done and thank you to the staff and children of 1st Grade Aguirre who presented a very thoughtful, interesting and well prepared assembly on the subject of Peace.




McLay Fun Run
Today, all of the children in Primary have participated in the McLay Fun Run. An annual event in school which reminds us of a previous Head of Primary, Mr McLay, who was well known in school for his love of exercise and fitness. The children enjoyed their run around the school field and completed an impressive number of laps. The money donated will be put towards improving opportunities and resources for sports within our community. Many thanks to all parents for their contributions.





Grade 5 field trip
Children in 5th Grade are going on a field trip to the national zoo where they will see for themselves how animals adapt to their environment. This topic is related to our Science Unit: Interdependence and Adaptations.

This trip will take place next week on Thursday 29th September and the children will depart from school at 8:30am and be back at the normal time.

School for Parents - Bringing up children today
7am and 6pm Wednesday 28th September in the PAC

During specific periods of a child‘s life it is easier for children to acquire certain abilities such as language, discrimination of sensory stimuli, and mental modeling of the environment. Once the critical period for acquiring a particular ability is past, the development of the brain has progressed past the point at which information can be easily absorbed. The child must then be taught the ability, resulting in expenditure of conscious effort, and, sometimes not producing results as positive as they might have been if the critical period had been taken advantage of.

Dates for your diary


Lower Primary
Monday 26th - Friday 30th September: LP Parent/ Teacher Interviews
Friday 30th September: First Grade Gilchrist Assembly


Upper Primary
Monday 26th September: Civic Monday
Monday 26th September: UP Assembly
Wednesday 28th September: 4th and 5th Civic Celebration
Friday 30th September: UP Children’s Day

Secondary News

Peace One Day
We celebrated Peace One Day on Wednesday and Friday with celebrations building on the theme that individuals have the power to bring peace into their and others lives and using the next year to build up to a global truce on the 21st September 2012. Peace One day is a UN sponsored event and shows us the potential for positive change in our world.

Theatre Week and Much Ado About Nothing
Next week is Theatre week and as part of the celebrations we will be hosting the TNT production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing for our Grade 9-12 students on Tuesday morning. There will also be a public performance on the evening of Monday 26th September in the PAC and tickets are on sale for $15 at school.

Know Your School nights details
We have our first Know Your school nights next week. On Tuesday it is Grade 6 Know Your School starting with a meeting of all Grade 6 parents in the PAC at 5:30 pm. We do ask that you be on time so we can start at 5:30. After the meeting you will have the opportunity to talk to all the teachers of your son or daughter.

On Thursday we have Grade 7 (starting promptly at 5:30 in the PAC) and then Grade 8 (starting promptly at 6:10 in the PAC). Again after the meeting you will have the opportunity to talk to all the teachers of your son or daughter.

PSAT training
Many of our students have signed up for PSAT tests at the start of next month and we are offering practice sessions to help them prepare. Please make sure your son or daughter knows where to be and when to take advantage of these sessions.

PAES Examination
This takes place on Wednesday for all our Grade 12 students.

Grade 6-8 Creative Carousel
We have completed the first cycle of the Creative Carousel so Grade 6-8 parents will see a change in the carousel from the start of October. Unfortunately we have not been able to offer as much drama for staffing reasons. We hope this will soon be rectified.

Extracurricular
All students in grade 6-8 are expected to have signed up for an extracurricular or team sports activity as part of developing their talents. In particular students who are now finishing off a carousel in an activity they enjoy should be looking to do an extracurricular activity in that area.

Dates for your diary
Tuesday 27th September: Know Your School night for Grade 6, 5.30pm PAC 
Thursday 29th September: Know Your School night for Grade 7 and 8, 5.30 pm PAC for Grade 7 parents and 6.10 pm for Grade 8 parents
Monday 3rd October: Know Your School night for Grade 11 and 12, 5.30 pm PAC
Wednesday 5th October: Know Your School night for Grade 9 and 10, 5.30 pm PAC for Grade 9 parents and 6.10 pm for Grade 10 parents 

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