Friday 25 August 2017

1: Friday 25th August 2017

From the Director

I would like to start by welcoming the many new families who have joined our community this year. You will have understood by now that we value our community and expect you to play an important part in the life of our school and the education of our children. As you are probably aware we will be carrying out a school wide self study as part of our CIS reaccreditation and you have been sent a link to a parent survey as part of this process. We would be grateful if you would take a few minutes to fill it out. The link is: 


It has been great to see so much energy come back into school with the return of our students. We have had an amazing first week back and we are all looking forward to the year ahead. We have started our programme of ABC values this week with our CORE values of Creativity, Open Minded, Respectful, Ethical and Enthusiastic. These our are community values and as always we hope you will reflect on them and help support your children in understanding their importance to their lives.

Congratulations to the Class of 2019 for their excellent University of Cambridge IGCSE results. A particular congratulations to our top students who are pictured below. 


We have a number of recent Exabrits from the Class of 2017 working as interns in the Primary School. It is great to see them working with some of our younger students and sharing their positivity about life and their school.

We have seen our new pre Kinder children start school this week in our new learning areas and it has been good seeing them settle. We plan to start helping parents looking at admission for PK year with a longer preparation and induction period and we will be sending out details to prospective parents soon.


We are continuing to consider possible uniform trousers for girls. We are and will be trialing some options for different ages in conjunction with ideas from the Student Council. We would like to find suitable trousers to provide protection from mosquitoes and to allow girls to choose clothing in line with professional dress expectations in our society. We will work with the Student Council on this and present ideas to the Board and Parents Association in due course.

Primary News

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to school! We hope your children had a good week. They certainly all seemed very happy to be in school, although one or two mentioned they were quite tired by Thursday. We were very happy to see them all.

Our new staff members have settled well and are finding their feet in school. You may have already seen or heard of Mr McNeil the new Deputy Head for Upper Primary and for your information we have Mr Dykes a third grade teacher, Ms Lehmann in the Jubilee Library, Ms Kennedy in Prepa, 3 new learning assistants in Lower Primary, Andrea Cea, Kathy Mena and Camila Beltranena. And in Upper Primary we welcome 2 new assistants Fabiola Murillo and Josue Erroa. We have three shadows in school too. We also have a selection of interns learning about school life and teaching in general in order to see if it may be the career for them. All of these people will contribute to the smooth running of the school and the students learning opportunities and we are delighted to welcome them into our community.

Yesterday we welcomed new parents to the school with a morning meeting designed to give them some insight into how the school works. The meeting was also attended by many of our Madres Enlace and I would like to thank all of them for their support to our new families and to everyone who attended. If you have a new parent in your class please go the extra mile and have a chat with them.

Thank you and congratulations to all the parents who took part in our Parents IPC Quiz at the beginning of the summer. It was a bit tricky but I am pleased to say that 100% of parents who took the quiz knew that our shared vision of the type of person the school is aiming to produce is a ROC and the correct order of the process of the IPC. Many knew the primary learning definition and were able to comment on Knowledge Skills and Understanding. Anyway, tada…. the top three responses were from, Luisa de Rosales from Grade 4, Claudia de Soriano from Grade 3 and Natalia Guevara a 5th grade parent. Well done and congratulations to you three, We have sent your promised chocolates from England home with your children today. Enjoy!

Many of your children enjoyed participating in “Voices around the world’ last year. I am sure you heard them singing ‘give me sunshine, everybody sunshine,let the sun shine through’ lots of times. The school received a letter of commendation for the tracks and videos we produced. Particularly Mr Diaz who took a lead role in this activity. The video to raise funds for impoverished children has now been released and the ABC features no less than 3 times in it! For more information about how to download the video please connect to the following link. https://voicesaround.com/sunshine-2017 . The cost of the download is 4.50 pounds sterling. I am sure it is well worth it to support children in Tanzania. I wonder if your child is on the video which is being shared worldwide?

We have had a fantastic start to the year. All the teachers are very pleased with their classes. We are looking forward to next week.

Have a lovely weekend.

Sharon Short
Head of Primary

Dates for your diary

Lower Primary
August
Thursday 31st - Pre-Kinder and Kinder Back to school night - 6:00pm - PAC
September
Thursday 7th - Prepa and First Grade Back to school night - 6:00pm - PAC
Friday 29th - First Henriquez Assembly - 7:30am - PAC

Upper Primary
August
Wednesday 30th - Grade 2 & Grade 3 Back to school night - 6:00pm - PAC & UP Classrooms
September
Tuesday 5th - Grade 4 & Grade 5 Back to school night - 6:00pm - PAC & UP Classrooms
Wednesday 6th - 5th Linares Assembly 9:20 am - 10:05 am PAC and 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
Wednesday 13th - 4th Rumsey Assembly 9:20 am - 10:05 am PAC and 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
Friday 15th - El Salvador National Day: School Closed
Monday 18th - INSET day: School Closed
Wednesday 20th - 3rd Mena Assembly 9:20 am - 10:05 am PAC and 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
Thursday 21st - Peace One Day
Friday 29th - McLay Fun Run

Please note Ana Gloria Mena and Edda Padilla are Primary Safeguarding Officers

Secondary News

Dear parents and carers,

Welcome back to School! It seems incredible to think it has only been one week with so much already happening. I would like to start by saying thank you to all our teachers and support staff who have worked tirelessly to ensure a smooth and positive start to the school year, for providing the kind of stimulating, challenging but supportive environment that enables our students to fulfil their potential in so many areas.

I would like to take this opportunity to also welcome new and returning staff members. The following teachers are joining the ABC this year: Luke Anthony Wysoczanski and James Peter Braddan have joined the English department as well as Edward Dafnis who we are delighted to welcome back to our community! Reebe Mayer is leading the PAD department as Head of Department and Anthony Robert Pike as Drama teacher. Azees Ososanya will be joining the Mathematics department soon. In Science we welcome Al Razi Masri in Physics, Maria Angela Jayin and Kevin Moran in Biology and Duncan Ware in Chemistry as well as Head of Year 10. Helen Louise Hopkins has joined us as Geography and History teacher. I know they will find in ABC students and families a source of support. 

We finished our first week with our Extra Curricular Fair in the Auditorium and I am pleased to see that our students are taking up new activities and following their interests by signing up to participate! I know they will really enjoy them and make the most of all the opportunities the school has to offer them!

I was happy to see so many of the parents in KS3 at our Welcome Back to school evening last night. Sadly, many parents are still not attending these meetings and I would like to respectfully ask that you make a point of attending your child’s school meetings as we share a lot of very important information and your involvement and interest is a way to show your child that you support their school and believe in its ethos and vision. We look forward to welcoming parents in G9 to 12 on Monday at 6.00 pm in the PAC for our Welcome Back to school evening. 

I’m looking forward to another busy ABC year ahead of us. It is really an honour to have the opportunity to serve such an amazing school. The ABC School is a supportive learning community which challenges our students to achieve personal excellence and to develop as confident, caring, life-long learners positively engaged in our world. 

Have a wonderful weekend,

Kind regards,

Natalia Cáceres Escalón

Dates for your diary
August
Monday 28th - Know Your School meeting with Parents for Grades 9 to 12, 6pm PAC
September
Friday 1st - G11 Team Building activity at Bicentenario park
Monday 4th - Secondary School photos all week 
Friday 15th - National holiday - Independence Day
Monday 18th - School closed for students - INSET for teachers
Thursday 21st - Peace One Day
Saturday 23rd September - Grade 11 Empowerment Day
Wednesday 27th to Saturday 30th - Geography Grade 11 IA Field Trip to Antigua Guatemala