Friday 27 October 2017

10: Friday 27th October 2017

From the Director

The ABC takes pride in developing global citizens. Our children grow up in an environment where they think about and understand global issues. As a community we work together to help our children understand different people, different ideas and appreciate the importance of listening to other views. As such we are working to help our children be citizens who will make our world a better place when they are adults. We have seen examples of being global this week with our UN activities and the Save the Children events today. This has been a week of optimism and hope, helping our children realise they can be a positive force for change.

I know everyone is looking forward to a holiday next week after a long half term. It has been an amazing half term full of fun and learning and I would personally like to thank so many of you for the support you have given our community and the school.

On a final note congratulations to our football teams who have had an excellent week as well as to our varsity basketball ball team for a great campaign.

Primary News

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you enjoyed the International Friendship Fair as much as we did. The children learned so much from the experience. Handling real money is something that rarely happens in real life these days so they got to be in charge of their stall and their own spending. All of the activities are lots of fun and the students demonstrate so much enthusiasm. The delicious food available also added to a splendid morning with the children’s performances to start the whole thing off. We managed to raise over $8,000 for the education of our support workers and their families and had a great time doing it. Of course events like this do not happen on their own so I have a long list of ‘thank you’s.

Firstly to the ‘Fairs to Educate’ committee who have worked tirelessly for months. Your organisation skills are amazing. You have thought of everything! We really appreciate all of your time and effort that makes this event such a great success. 

Thank you to the music department for the performances that started the event.

Thank you to everyone who donated prizes, filled jars and the lovely food that was for sale. I tasted a few and they were delicious. Thank you to the teachers who gave up their Saturday morning to be there. Thank you to the ICT department who organised the sound system and to Miss Susie the compair. Thank you to Mr Truscott and Mr Mcneil for getting very wet in the sponge throwing. And finally to everyone who came, for making it a wonderful atmosphere. 

Last Friday we finally were able to do the McLay Fun Run for our grade 5s at the Bicentennial Park. You can see how they got on on the PE blog https://pe-sw-abc.blogspot.com/ . As always thank you to the PE team who organised this event.

You have had a reprieve! The IPC team have decided not to send parents a survey after all but we will be inviting a few parents in to talk to them.

Please note we have had a minor outbreak of headlice in school and ask you to check your children’s hair thoroughly over the weekend. We also are concerned about conjunctivitis which has been reported in the country. It is highly contagious if a child touches their eye and then touches another child. If you suspect your child has conjunctivitis please take them to your doctor and get the all clear before bringing them into school after the holiday.

The students really enjoyed the presentation of the Wizard of Oz yesterday. It was a production that was very child appropriate and of course there a strong values moments in the story so It is great to have those re-enforced. If you have not yet paid for your child to see the production you can still send in the $2.

This morning we laid our special stones on the field in a great spiral. Each stone represents a child and we discussed how we belong to families, classes, grades and our school community. Understanding where we belong is the first step in allowing us to develop international mindedness. We can then empathise with others situations and develop a deeper understanding of others cultural influences and lifestyles. We used a drone to take photos of the stones laid out and hopefully I have a picture here for you now. 

Watch Out? United Nations About!! - Mr McNeil

This week the school has been celebrating the United Nations (UN) organisation. As you will know this is a worldwide organisation made up of countries with the aim of making the world a better place to live in for everyone. 

As part of the celebrations the UP children took part in an activity called Model United Nations (MUN) by where each class was assigned a country and they had to work together with other countries the come to a solution for a problem that was given to them. This year the problem was “Lack of Water”, each country selected two delegates to speak on their behalf about the problems in their country and their ideas for solutions.

Each country listened to the others’ issues and then worked together to create a new resolution or plan of action. By being Global Citizens and Internationally Minded each country helped each other in finding answers and solutions for the following areas:
  • cost of water
  • making new water
  • stopping water wastage
  • punishments for not following the rules.
As with all Governments and Politics, nothing is ever easy. When it came time to vote on the new resolution, unfortunately some countries felt that it was unfair to them. So they voted “NO” to implement the new plan of action. However, they did say that they were happy with most of it, they just wanted to change a few things e.g. remove the death penalty for wasting water. 

Even still the children participating have had great fun and hopefully next time they will be able to come to an agreement.


Finally a reminder that we all now have a week’s holiday. It has been a long half term and everyone is tired, students and staff alike. So enjoy the break and we look forward to seeing everyone back in school on Monday 6th November.


Kind regards,

Sharon Short 
Head of Primary 
and Safeguarding Officer

Dates for your diary

Lower Primary
October
Monday 30th to Friday 3rd November - School closed for Half Term
November
Wednesday 15th - 1st grade field trip to playa San Diego to release turtles 
Thursday 16th - Pre Kinder Curriculum Night 6:00pm - PAC
Friday 17th - Prepa Macdonald Assembly 7:30am - PAC
Friday 17th - Guy Fawkes Celebrations 6:00pm
Monday 20th - Lower Primary Christmas Toy Collection begins
Tuesday 21st - Kinder Curriculum Night 6:00pm - PAC
Tuesday 21st - No PE or Team Sports Extras
Friday 24th - Prepa Pashley Assembly 7:30am - PAC

Upper Primary
October
Monday 30th to Friday 3rd November- Half Term (school closed).
November
Monday 6th - Back to school from Half Term.
Thursday 30th - Last Golf class from Term 2.

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

Secondary News

Dear parents and carers,

Half term is finally here! What a fantastic celebration of the UN week this week has been, culminating in our now traditional Colour Run. A huge thank you to Mr Hall who put together a very enjoyable UN Assembly for our community and thank you to all the students and staff who participated in the Colour Run! 

G11 students giving back to the community at the Friendship Fair. 
Last Saturday, 11th graders held our ABC Values Based Education high! They had the opportunity to lead by example and work hand in hand with Primary children. During our annual Fair to Educate- International Friendship Fair- they helped primary children run the Fair, be part of a team and shared laughter, learning and a common purpose serving our community! All of them proved to be real ROC's and Global Citizens! Thank you 11th graders!


At the ABC we like doing things in style and truly making an impact! We now look forward to another big event where students and staff will give their best at our up and coming Sports Day! Preparations are underway and you can access all the relevant information on this link. This week our students have been signing up to participate in the different categories and a huge thank you to the Madres Enlace for their work in reaching out to sponsors and being a key link in the organisation process! You can see our video on this here 

ABC Colour Run 2017
From our Head Students: Daniela Castillo and Matías Hudson
The ABC Colour Run is a wonderful event and opportunity for all students to take part in, and help society by doing so. For those that are not aware, the ABC Colour Run is an event that started three years ago with the aim to raise money towards the NGO “Save the Children”, which promotes children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries. 

Working on the Colour Run was a new and great experience for both of us. We know it is an event that a lot of students look forward to every year and we wanted to make sure we could deliver the best event so far. We combined ideas from previous years and brought some of our own in, and by working together with the school and other sponsors we were able to organize the event -which was a success! It was a lengthy process, involving efforts from all of the prefect team and a lot of time invested in making sure everything was perfect, especially as we were closing in on the final week of the preparation. 

We are confident both students and staff enjoyed themselves in the Colour Run 2017! We were truly happy seeing how everyone was having fun, and helping a good cause at the same time. Including Colour Run profits, donations from sponsors and the money raised in the bake sale last week, our school is donating a sum of $2,852.00! Thank you all for your support, we hope the Colour Run was a good way to enter your mid-term break. Have a nice week. 

Thank you for all your hard work and excellent coordination Matías and Daniela, Deputy Heads and Prefect team!



This half-term has certainly been very busy but it has also been very rewarding. Thank you to all the community of parents, staff and students who made every day of hard work enjoyable and truly rewarding!

Please look at the dates in the calendar section to add to your agendas! Have a fantastic Half-term break and I look forward to seeing you all back in school, early on Monday 6th of November! 

Kind regards,

Natalia Cáceres Escalón
Head of Secondary School 

Dates for your diary
October
Monday 30th to Friday 3rd November - School Closed for Half Term
November
Wednesday 1st - Friday 3rd- Half Term (school closed).
Monday 6th - Back to school - Term 2
Friday 10th - Grade 10 and 12 Cal 1 Reports issued
Monday 13th - British Week
Tuesday 14th - Parent Partnership KS3 (Grades 6 to 8) "Looking after our child's wellbeing"
Wednesday 15th - Parent Partnership KS4/IB (Grades 9 to 12)"Looking after my child's wellbeing"
Friday 17th - Guy Fawkes Party & Christmas Fair
Friday 17th - Grade 12 Learning Review Day
Tuesday 21st - Secondary Sports Day, Estadio Mágico González
Tuesday 21st to 11th December - Shoe Box campaign starts for whole school
Friday 24th - Grade 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 Cal 1 reports issued
Friday 24th - Grade 10 Learning Review Day
Saturday 25th to Sunday 12th December - Spanish trip to Madrid

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