13: Friday 2nd December 2016

From the Director 

This is the time of year when parents of potentially new students need to be registering for a place in the coming school year. We have a limited number of places including in Pre-Kinder where we want to keep our classes small and very personal. If you, a member of your family or friends are thinking of their children joining us they need to get registered as soon as possible. This includes if you want your child to join the Class of 2032 and please be aware that if this class is full we will not be allowing entry to the class for Kinder. My advice is for your child to join Pre-Kinder and benefit from a prolonged experience of our values, learning English and settling into our way of learning and life.

It is always a pleasure to welcome an education visitor into school to share thoughts about how we can develop our school. This week Joe Terrasi from the Positive Coaching Alliance spent three days in school looking at our sports provision. Joe looked at all aspects of our sports programme, including Physical Education and Team Sports. The school leadership team and myself all spent time with Joe and we listened carefully to his thoughts and feedback. He was hugely impressed with us as a school in terms of our values and promoting a positive attitude. He is also showing us how to develop key areas of our school in terms of promoting sporting excellence. Sporting excellence means that children show commitment, take their sport seriously and have fun as part of a team. It also means they take pride and have a positive experience with their coach and their parents. Joe is proposing a model where we work with coaches, students, parents and school leaders to make this work. He started this process with parents at a meeting this week which was attended by some parents. Joe’s message was clear for parents. Your role is to promote life lessons through sports. Lessons which will help your child grow into a responsible outstanding citizen - learning about respect, commitment, teamwork and the joy of participation leading to success on the field and in their lives. Our role is to provide a safe, secure, positive environment where children grow as athletes with a commitment to their team and their coach. We need to help children celebrate their sporting achievements and use them as a springboard for success in all aspects of their lives. We have a three year partnership with Positive Coaching Alliance and are very excited at the prospects of better integrating our sports programmes into school and seeing even more success in the sports arena.

Anabella Soto, our Communications Officer in school is sending a brief survey for you to fill in order to help her identify our communications needs as we move forward. Please take some time to fill it in as your ideas are important to us.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend with your children. I am sure everyone is already starting to get excited a Christmas approaches. 

Primary News

Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you to everyone who supported the Mix and Match day. We received many books in English and donations to the value of almost $350. Another great contribution by the ABC students. We have received a lovely lot of jars for Santa’s Fair Tombola stall and the shoe boxes are beginning to collect in the Primary offices. It gives me such a proud and warm feeling to see what we can achieve when we all work together. The Secondary Shoeing campaign is currently underway so if you have any shoes that you no longer need please send them in and there are ‘Christmas grams’, another seasonal tradition in the school, available from the library staff. Thank you for all the contributions so far.

Last Friday Grade 2 had the annual overnight camp. The teachers slept under the stars and the students were in the tents. This gives teachers better monitoring options! Everyone had a great time, although it was tiring for students and staff alike. With the pool party, the outside movie and the scavenger hunt they were all ready to sleep. We would like to thank those parents who helped and prepared a delicious dinner and of course our own Grade 2 staff for organising it all.

The Upper Primary Christmas concert will take place on the 8th of December. The students are already rehearsing their parts and their songs. Last year was the first year we had the concert and it was a resounding success. We are hoping to repeat that this year. Please make sure your children know all the words to their special songs. We sometimes find they fade a bit after the first verse.

On Wednesday the Primary School Council met with Joe Terrasi the sports advisor visiting the school. He said it made his day when one of our second grade representatives was able to explain a growth mindset to him. He was a very impressive speaker and the students were reluctant to leave him after their session was over. They had so many interesting and appropriate questions. One of the concepts he shared with them was the ‘flush’. I won't tell you what it is but if it filters back to you through your children please take careful note. 

Please keep a careful eye on the school calendar and the upcoming events. I would like to give you early warning about the school closing, as always on the last day of term, at 11.00 for Lower Primary and 11.30 for Upper Primary. Please make sure all your friends know. I really do take a dim view of negligent parents who leave their children sitting here until almost 2.00pm.

Enjoy the last couple of weeks of school. We do have many exciting events planned.

Best wishes,

Sharon Short

Head of Primary

Dates for your diary

Lower Primary

December

Friday 2nd: End of 2nd Extracurricular session
Thursday 8th: Prepa trip to the toy shop in Súper Selectos

Friday 9th: Lower Primary reports go home

Wednesday 14th: Christmas Shows 3:15 - 6:40pm PAC

Thursday 15th: Last day of Team Sports - continue in January 9th, 2017

Friday 16th: Last day of term 1 - all LP (with UP siblings) children leave at 11:00am

Upper Primary

December

Friday 2nd: End of 2nd Extracurricular Term - PRIMARY

Wednesday 7th: 5th Truscott Assembly 9:20-10:05 PAC & 12:15-1:15 PAC
Thursday 8th: UP Christmas Concert 6.00pm

Friday 9th: Primary Reports go home

Wednesday 14th: Christmas Fair 3:30pm - 7:00pm

Friday 16th: Last day of term 1 - all LP & UP siblings children leave at 11:00am

The rest of UP at 11.30am

Secondary News

BOOK WEEK

As we approach the end of term, the pace of life in Secondary continues to be very busy. This week we have been celebrating Book Week with a variety of fun activities and competitions to remind us all of the joys of reading. One of these was a competition to design a book cover, an illustration for the front and a ‘blurb’ for the back. This is just one of the delightful entries by Khristy Zhang from 6d.

DRAGON’S DEN

Over the past couple of months the whole of Grade 8 have been working hard in an exciting cross- curricular project within IT and Geography. This project involved students taking on different roles to plan and create their own sustainable businesses in preparation for a big fair outside the LRC to showcase their products. This will be held for students to attend at lunchtime on Tuesday, 13th December. 

This week during the presentation finals (called the Dragon’s Den), we saw some of the business ideas come to life. We saw examples of solar powered lighting solutions for houses, healthy alternatives to your normal drinks and even an app to cut down procrastination from work. After the presentations, each group received valuable feedback from our panel of judges. Using this feedback, the students will now reflect on their ideas to get ready for the big fair! We are all looking forward to see what the final creations will look (and taste) like.

A successful Sustainable Project so far.... Well done Grade 8! 

YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

Congratulations to the Marketing Competition Finalists who all made very impressive presentations of their business ideas to a panel of judges last week. I was delighted to be a member of that panel and was very impressed by both the quality of their products and the work the had put into their presentations. The final decision was very difficult but the the places were 1st Churritop, 2nd Sushi Burgers and 3rd Shake House

Positive Coaching Alliance

As Mr Keslake described, the school welcomed Joe Terassi this week to look at our sporting provision. During that time he held a session with many of our Tribal Chiefs on leadership in sport and how they could support positive coaching values with their teams and support each other as a team of leaders. We enjoyed the session very much and the students had many questions for him at the end of his talk.

Secondary dates for your diary

Friday 2nd December - Senior Christmas Family Day

Monday 5th December - IB Group 4 Science Project

Tuesday 6th December - IGCSE Award Ceremony for Grade 11 Parents - 6:30pm PAC

Thursday 8th December - Grade 7 Art trip to Casa Blanca, Chalchuapa

Thursday 8th & Friday 9th December - Grade 10 IGCSE Art mock exam

Wednesday 14th December - Grade 10 IGCSE Geography fieldtrip to Santa Ana volcano 

Thursday 15th December - ABC Pop Christmas Concert - 6pm PAC - $1 for charity

Friday 16th December - Last day of term, Christmas holidays

Monday 9th January - First day back to school