From the Director
As a community we have clear expectations about the roles we all play in providing a secure foundation for our children to grow up into the adult world. It is important we all understand and play our part. In order to provide a clear understanding of our procedures we have drawn up our Safeguarding Policy along with a Parent Charter to clarify our expectations and responsibilities. These can now be viewed on the Parents page of our website. Our responsibilities towards the children who attend our school are vital and it is important that we share them and understand how the school and families can work together in the best interests of all our children. I would like to thank the many parents of Grade 2 to Grade 5 who came to our events this week to share ideas for strengthening our community by working more closely together. You can see a blog about the event in our Newsblog. I hope that parents in Grade 6 and 7 will attend the similar event the week after next on Tuesday 24th May at 6.30 pm in the PAC.
I am sure many of you are aware that we will be completing the remodelling of the Lower Primary classrooms over the coming summer vacation. We will then have new classrooms designed to facilitate our curriculum across the Lower Primary school. We are also planning to work on areas within our Secondary Science classrooms over the summer to ensure they remain up to date and appropriate for our secondary curriculum needs.
Congratulations to all the swimmers who took part in the National Swimming Finals this week and to all the parents and teachers who supported them!
The Class of 2016 are coming towards the end of their IB exams over the next week and we are all looking forward to celebrating their graduation with them next month.
We hope to see many of you at the Digital Awards Event next Thursday. Have a lovely weekend.
Primary News
Dear Parents and Carers,
Thank you to everyone who attended the very important Community Online Protection meetings on Wednesday and Thursday evening. Some of you are already quite well informed about the hazards of online use but I think many were shocked as they realised the extent to which there is a potential for our children to be damaged and how apparently harmless social networking sites and chat apps can be manipulated by the skilled or inadvertently misused by the ignorant. We are continuing our initiative and there will future meetings. These will be tailored to respond to your questions and requests to help find the safest solutions and to ensure our children are prepared to make good decisions for themselves. Our goal is to have a whole community where parents can trust every home as well as the school to have a consistent approach to electronic device and online use.
Our final Kinder classes have now visited ‘La Granjita’ and had a great time learning about domestic animals and caring for them.
Kinder had a wonderful experience during their visit to La Granjita. It definitely offered them a learning experience away from their regular school environment. 
Hands-on experiences: children learn through their senses. Being able to pet the animals and feed them gave the children the opportunity to have significant experiences and experiment with different emotions.
Experiencing things for the first time: Riding horses, feeding rabbits, feeling the hamster’s soft fur. Some of our children did have their first experiences, and this gave them a feeling of success.
Congratulations to our students who swaim and took part in the national competitions yesterday and today. We know they all did their best and as usual were terrific representatives of the ABC.
Tonight the Grade 3 students are camping on the school grounds. For their teachers sake as well as the students we hope they have fine weather. As an experienced camper though I have to say there is something quite comforting about laying in a snug tent and listening to the rain hit the canvas (or nylon these days!). I know all the teachers have put in a lot of preparation time and effort to make sure the event is a success. I will be popping over to see them and checking how things are going during the course of the camp.
There will be another opportunity for our students to wear their Somos Fernando t-shirt in school on May 27th. Further T-shirts are available from the Primary and Secondary Offices.
Important reminder. Students shoes must have a fastening, either a strap and buckle, velcro or laces if they can tie them themselves. Slip-on shoes and ballet style pumps are dangerous in school as they slip off and trip the students when they are running and playing. Students compensate for this by walking awkwardly or scrunching up their toes to keep the shoes on. Slip-on shoes also allow the foot to slip forward, squashing the toes and damaging the development of the foot. Toes, joints and feet can become misshapen and painful.
Trainers can only be worn with PE kit. Please note we will be enforcing these rules from August so please buy your children’s next school shoes with care.
We wish you a lovely week ahead.
Kind regards,
Sharon Short
Head of Primary
Dates for your diary
Lower Primary
June
Friday 3: Moving up day
Friday 10: Lower Primary reports go home
Upper Primary
May
Friday 13th: 3rd Grade Camping
Monday 16th: Cultural Diversity Week
Friday 20th: Upper Primary students go home at 11:10 am
Wednesday 25th: IPC 2nd Grade-Feel the force- Field Trip to Tin Marin
Friday 27th May: Somos Fernando T Shirt Jeans day
Friday 27th: 4th Grade Camping
June
Thursday 2nd June: 5th Grade to 6th Grade Induction Day
Thursday 2nd June: Grade 5 Parent Partnership Meeting: Secondary Induction
Secondary News
Dear Parents / Guardians,
Spring Music Recital - Friday 13th of May
I hope to see many of you at this afternoon’s Spring Music Recital.
The Spring Music Recital is an opportunity for instrumental students to demonstrate the skills that they have acquired in the course of this year.
Dee Leong
Head of Performing Arts
DVA - Thursday 19th of May
The 6th Annual ABC Digital Video Awards is almost upon us. Thursday May 19th is the date for this gala event, the purpose of which is to highlight excellence in student video work, done throughout the school year.
This year we have 52 student filmmakers, from 2nd to 12th grade, involved as nominees in the following categories (some within several subcategories):
- Best Animation
- Best Educational Video
- Best Star Wars Parody
- Best Advertisement
- Best Short Film
- Movie of the Year
The theme is Star Wars, and at 7:30pm on the 19th of May, those people lucky enough to be in the PAC, will be transported to a galaxy far far away.
Community voting opened on Monday (and closed Thursday).
We would like to thank all of the parents in advance, whose children have been nominated for an award, for their support on the evening of the event.
(Taken from ABC LRC Blog)
Jennifer Garcia
KS3 ICT Teacher & Learning Resources Centre Coordinator
Grade 8 'Ethical and moral choices' empowerment afternoon and early closure day - Friday 20th of May
Next Friday, we have our final early closure / teacher planning day for this academic year. Lessons will finish at 11.25am (after Period 4) and the Grade 6, 7 and 11 students are to promptly go to be collected by their parents / drivers. The Grade 9 students will be in an internal examination and will be finishing at 11.30am (after which they will go home). Please note that there are still Grade 12 (IB) and Grade 10 (iGCSE) external examinations on this day.
On the same day we also have the Grade 8 Empowerment Afternoon, from 11.30am to 4.30pm, on the theme ‘Ethical and moral choices’. Activities will commence at 12.00pm after the students have had their lunch (from 11.30am to 12.00pm). Thank you in advance to the Madres Enlace for providing lunch and refreshments on this day.
Grade 8 students will need to wear their PE kit on Friday. They will also need to bring a change of clothes.
Parents of Grade 8 children, please make arrangements for your child to be collected at 4.30pm on Friday 20th of May.
Telus Trip
During STEAM Fest Telus International El Salvador extended an invitation to tour their installations. The ideas was to enable our IB Film students to search out cool venues and opportunities for film making, within the Telus building. We took them up on their offer and on Friday 6th of May, we took a small group of students to the Telus installations in Plaza Merliot.
During the tour, the students were given a video orientation in the movie theatre, complete with popcorn. They then took a physical tour of the installations, which allowed them to check out the themed conference rooms and investigate the onsite gaming and gym facilities.
The installations do hold quite a bit of promise for our students' future film work. We expect to set up a followup visit in the near future, to get the ball rolling on a few special projects.
We would like to thank Telus for making this short visit so dynamic for our students.
(Taken from ABC LRC Blog)
Jennifer Garcia
KS3 ICT Teacher & Learning Resources Centre Coordinator
European Union Concert
The European Union Anniversary Concert was a success, and the ambassador was very happy with the result.
Dee Leong
Head of Performing Arts
Here are a few pictures from last Friday’s event:
Thank you to everybody that contributed.
Finally, please be reminded that the Grade 9 internal examinations start next week.
Warm regards,
Stephen Spicer
Head of Secondary
Secondary dates for your diary
Friday 13th May: Spring Music Recital
Monday 16th May: Cultural Diversity week
Tuesday 17th May: Grade 9 examinations start
Thursday 19th May: ABC Digital Video Awards (DVA) event
Friday 20th May: End of IB exams for Grade 12 students
Friday 20th May: Secondary School closes at 11:30am - Grade 8 'Ethical and moral choices' empowerment afternoon (11:30am-4.30pm).
Tuesday 24th May: Class 2021 and 2022 (6th / 7th grades) Community protection programme for our children. Is for all Parents, at 6.30 pm
Friday 27th May: Somos Fernando T Shirt day
Monday 30th May: End of Grade 9 exams
Monday 30th May: Health Awareness Week
Tuesday 31st May: Thanksgiving ceremony for Class 2016
Thursday 2nd June: Moving up day- 5th Grade to 6th Grade and Parent Partnership meeting “Secondary Induction” 6.00pm PAC
Friday 3rd June: Moving up day - 5th Grade to 6th Grade
Friday 3rd June; Class 2016 Headmaster's Reception
Thursday 9th June: Class 2016 Graduation Day and Graduation Ceremony at 5.00pm Auditorium
Friday 10th June: End of IGCSE exams for Grade 10 students
Monday 13th June: Grade 6 and Grade 7 Award Assembly; Lap of Honour at 7.00am; Logros Event at 6.00pm PAC
Tuesday 14th June: Group 4 Science project
Wednesday 15th June: Grade 8 and Grade 9 Award Assembly
Thursday 16th June: Grade 10 and Grade 11 Award Assembly and CAL Report issued for Grades 6-9 and 11
Friday 17th June: Last day of School Year
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