From the Director
We have had a visitor Robin Watts from the UK this week working with us on Safeguarding. He has reminded me of our prime responsibilities in terms of educating and encouraging our students in a positive, supporting manner at school and at home. In school we have all been trained to identify children who may need help and we expect staff to report their concerns. We also encourage children to speak directly to any of us and we also encourage parents to share concerns with us if they need to. We will be discussing ways to work even closer as a community to support each other and create a safe environment for our students to grow up in.
We have the local Mathcounts competition this weekend and I am looking forward to seeing our children participate tomorrow. I know how much fun these events are and want to thank everyone involved in preparing our students.
We are always concerned to ensure our students are safe playing sports during classes as well as in their recreation times. We have clear supervision procedures but we have had a couple of unfortunate accidents recently. Please do inform us if your son or daughter reports incidents where children are playing in a dangerous manner so we can investigate. Please be reassured we do have safe procedures and we are vigilant in ensuring our children are always safe in our campus. However we do welcome your thoughts and comments as always.
We have been monitoring morning traffic and it is clear that if you arrive before 6.50 your son or daughter will not arrive late. Please bear this in mind in your morning drop offs especially if we have contacted you about a punctuality concern. I know the traffic situation in the afternoon is still difficult and I am sorry for the extra delays yesterday when most of the school left at 2 pm. Thank you for your extra patience.
Primary News
Dear Parents and Carers,
As I know many of you are aware young children should not be accessing social media because of their vulnerability to adult abusers. We have talked about this often in school. This week we have been alerted by a school overseas that the app Live.ly has been misused by adults and is impacting on children. This what they have released. Some grade 5 children using the app live.ly were involved in a group chat yesterday evening when it was joined by a man not known to them. He proceeded to expose himself and behave sexually towards them.
Whilst the app is only supposed to access contacts on the user’s phone, it appears that quite quickly, friends of friends of friends are able to join the group chat and your child does not know them at all. Therefore it is a very unsafe app for children to use.”
The age restriction for this app is age 12 so children in primary should not be using it anyway but if you would like to check it out
can give sensible advice on this app. Please scroll all the way down the page.
Will give you other parents views and knowledgeable advice on many apps that our students use. Please have a good look. Exposure to unsuitable internet streaming or apps is already having an impact on our students.
The Inter-tribe competitions have continued and last week was Handball and this week has been athletics. The students have been giving their all and have been full of enthusiasm. Please have a look at the PE team blog on the following link.
We are continuing with our Pre Kinder entrance evaluations tomorrow. As part of our ABC community you might be interested to know that we have already had more applications than spaces available but we are always looking to widen the ABC family adding their viewpoints, talents and skills to our community. We do prioritise current ABC families and exabrits but we are now offering spaces available on a first come first served basis. We have several international families who will be arriving in the summer that have already reserved their places.
Pre-K have been adventurous recently and had two days out and about. The first to Tin Marin and the second to the Jardín Botánico. All the children had a lovely time exploring these locations, demonstrating their curiosity and learning about the world around them. They were very well behaved and a credit to the school and to their families. Thank you to the staff who organised and supervised the trip.
Next week grade 1 will be having their sleep-over in the school PAC. Another exciting event for Lower Primary.
Best wishes for the week ahead.
Sharon Short
Head of Primary
Dates for your diary
Lower Primary
February
Friday 10th: Kinder Cáceres Assembly 7:45 am PAC
Friday 10th: 1st Grade Sleepover - 4:00 pm PAC
Monday 13th: INSET day for staff - SCHOOL CLOSED
Saturday 18th: Parent Association CARNIVAL 9:00 am - 9:00 pm
Monday 20th: Prepa Night Activity 4:00 pm PAC
Wednesday 22nd: Prepa trip to Jardin Botánico - 8:45 am
Thursday 23rd: Early closure and Teletón jeans Day
Friday 24th, Monday 27th & Tuesday 28th February - Half term holiday
March
Friday 3rd: Teletón day - jeans day
Upper Primary
February
Wednesday 8th: 3rd Spanish Assembly 9:20 - 10:05 PAC and 12:15 - 1:15 PAC
Thursday 9th/Friday 10th: 5th Grade Camping to Portezuelo Park
Monday 13th: INSET day - School closed
Wednesday 15th: 4th Rumsey Assembly 9:20 - 10:05 PAC and 12:15 - 1:15 PAC
Wednesday 22nd: 5th Molina Assembly 9:20 - 10:05 PAC and 12:15 - 1:15 PAC
Thursday 23rd: Early closure and Teletón jeans day
Friday 24th, Monday 27th & Tuesday 28th February - Half term holiday
March
Friday 3rd: Teletón day- Jeans Day
Friday 3rd: End of 3rd Extracurricular Term - PRIMARY
Saturday 4th: UP Sports Morning & Family Day
Monday 6th: Start of 4th Extracurricular Term - PRIMARY
Wednesday 8th: 2nd Lawrence Assembly 9:20 - 10:05 PAC and 12:15 - 1:15 PAC
Wednesday 15th: 2nd Spanish Assembly 9:20 - 10:05 PAC and 12:15 - 1:15 PAC
Saturday 18th: Primary Spring Fair
Wednesday 22nd: 3rd Sullivan Assembly 9:20 - 10:05 PAC and 12:15 - 1:15 PAC
Secondary News
Dear parents and carers,
We have had another busy week in Secondary school! Grade 10 and 12 have finished their MOCK exam period and we look forward to finding out how well they have done. These exams give our students the opportunity to take a practice version of an exam before they take the real thing and it has huge benefits for them. We continue next week with the Exam days for Grade 7 and Grade 8 and we wish them the best of luck!
Thank you to all the parents who attended our Parent Teacher meeting for Grade 9 and 11 last Tuesday and we invite Grade 6 and 7 parents to their Parent Teacher meeting on Thursday 16th of February at 4.30 pm in the Auditorium. As always, our students will be making appointments with their teachers so please make sure you ask them for their appointment sheet and we look forward to seeing you.
Grade 11 Art students visit MARTE
From Ms Chávez
Last week the Grade 11's IB Visual Arts group went to Marte Museum to visit the private collection which has only salvadorean artists artworks, up to today they have 362 of them.
They also visited the contemporary Art room which is conformed by young and emergent salvadorean artists and the installation called " la bandera" which was done in the context of the 25th anniversary of the Peace accords.
The purpose of that visit was for them to learn how to curate an art exhibition as this for them is the culmination of the students' IB Art experience.
At the end of their IB programme they will present a selection of their best work in the form of a curated final show, and defend and articulate their purpose and intention in a written rationale.
Math Relay and Mathcounts
From Mr Cañas
Today we are participating in the Maths Relay at the American School. Students go in teams of 8 (2 per school) to compete in 8 mathematics skills: Scientific notation, percentages, powers, roots, complex fractions, decimals, equations and order of operations. Time and accuracy are important for this competition!
On Saturday they will be solving word problems in 3 different rounds: 1. Spring round 2. Target round and 3. Team round. Finally we have the countdown round in which only the top 10 individual scores participate. We wish them the very best of luck!
Some pictures from last year:
Math relay
Mathcounts
IGCSE/IB Geography, Economics and Business Trip to Japan: 16-24th February 2017
From Mr Kilford
On the 16th February 2017 the Business, Economics and Geography departments will be taking 31 students of Grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 who are studying IGCSE and IB Business or Geography to experience this fascinating country to support their business and geography courses. Throughout the trip students will have the opportunity to experience the capital city of Tokyo which contains some of Japan’s famous shopping districts including Akihabara Electronic town and Odaiba Shop city. Students will have the discover a different culture when we visit the historic temples such as Asakusa and will also have the opportunity to climb some of the tallest (earthquake resistant) buildings in Asia. During the trip we will be travelling overland by the famous bullet train to visit Lake Ashi (on a Pirate Ship) as well as the impressive Mount Fuji. With all of these activities and more, students will become more internationally minded citizens through experiencing the business and geography of Japan first hand.
On Wednesday 15th February (the day before we leave) we will have our final information session for students to give any final details, hand out the trip hoodies and the work/information books for the trip. Please save this date as it is very important that all students attend.
STEAM Fest
From Mrs García
This year's STEAM Fest is going to be bigger and better than last year's in a variety of ways!
The numbers are in and the response has been overwhelming, from our 6th grade to 12th grade students. Close to 100 students, from across Secondary have now formed teams and volunteered to plan and develop a STEAM project for this year's event.
This doesn't take into account teachers, nor does it include the hundreds of Primary students who will be working diligently in their lessons, on their projects as well. Upper Primary will present one final project per class, as well as several ICT projects, at this year's event.
The Logo Competition
Several students from both Primary and Secondary challenged themselves to design a new logo for this year's STEAM Fest, based on our new Motto which is: MAKE a Difference, Think Globally, Act Locally! The Logo Competition winners have been chosen and we have two of them.
The design below was created by combining both winning logos. These were selected from a collection of submissions as the ones that best illustrated our new Motto.
BTW: You may recognise the last part of that motto. It isn't our own, in fact we have borrowed it. If you would like to know more about this interesting quote you may want to start with this interesting Wikipedia article about it.
Here is the winning announcement :
Finally, can we please ask for your support in ensuring your children wear the correct uniform in the morning. This includes wearing only school uniform jumpers and Pe kit on the correct days. Our students look so smart in their uniform and they really demonstrate their school spirit and pride by respecting it. Thank you for your help in this.
Have a wonderful and restful weekend!
Natalia Cáceres Escalón
Secondary dates for your diary
February
Friday 3rd & Saturday 4th Mathcount/Mathrelay Central American competition
Friday 3rd - End of IGCSE/IB Mock exams
Tuesday 7th - Grade 7 & 8 exams start
Monday 13th - INSET Day for teachers - School closed for students
Thursday 16th - Grades 6 & 7 Parent/Teacher meetings - Auditorium, 4:30 p.m.
Thursday 16th to Friday 24th - IGCSE Business & Geography trip to Japan
Saturday 18th - Parent Association SUMMER CARNIVAL
Thursday 23rd - Early Closure: School closes at 12.30 p.m; Jeans day- Teletón
Friday 24th, Monday 27th & Tuesday 28th - Half term holiday, school closed
March
Thursday 2nd: Grade 10 IB Options & Parent/Teacher Meetings - Auditorium, 4:30pm
Friday 3rd: Teletón day- Jeans day
Monday 6th - Grade 8 IGCSE Options & Parent/Teacher meetings - Auditorium, 4:30pm
Friday 10th - STEAMFEST
Tuesday 14th - Grade 12 IB Art inauguration day
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