In the last two weeks we have been very busy preparing for our major event tomorrow, the Festival of Lights. This year the event has taken a new and exciting direction and we are looking forward to seeing you all there from 15.00 onwards.
Last week was our school’s Anti-bullying Week. We try to help our students understand what bullying is and support them to develop empathy for others, acceptance and tolerance of others’ differences and to build skills about dealing with bullying. Through these activities we also build expectations for conduct in school and promote kindness and goodwill among the students. The Primary classes had their own related activities but on Tuesday we had our ‘Odd Sock’ day where we all wore mismatched socks and on Friday we had our anti-bullying assembly and Kindness Day.
If the students received an act of kindness they wrote about it on a leaf and pinned it to the Kindness tree. Please see some of our pictures below.
We have a presentation for parents also relating to bullying that we hope to circulate shortly.
On Wednesday Class 4 took an awesome trip to the Red Star Line Museum as the entry point to their unit, ‘What a wonderful World’. They learned about people from all over Europe who sailed across the ocean to Canada and the United States in the first half of the 20th Century. These people’s stories and journeys were powerful and they learned a lot about the world and human migration.
On Wednesday 6 students from class 5 were invited to take part in an IT Day at Thomas Moore University in Mechelin with several other international schools. They had the chance to build their own space equipment from junk materials and then use it to make a green screen movie scene. They learned about and got to use virtual reality equipment. They looked very funny as they moved and responded to what was going on in their screens. They designed and created their own virtual reality scene on the moon and then went on to explore it. The students also went into robotics and had the chance to fly drones. As always our students were great role models. They mixed well with the other students. Participated fully in the activities and many of the teachers there commented on what a great set of children they were.
On the 22nd November the Maths Olympiad took place. We had 40 entrants for this competition which is our highest number yet. We look forward to receiving the results next term.
The 23rd November Class 1 & Class 2 had a fantastic time taking their first steps on a snowboard on real snow! For 4 weeks the students worked on the ‘Snow to School’ project during PE.
It all came together with the trip to Aspen where they had to use the skills they practised during those lessons. The great indoor facilities at Aspen were the ideal place for this exciting occasion.
It was terrific to see students venturing out of their comfort zones making the event an unforgettable experience.
As we work towards the build up for Christmas there will be other events and activities for students. In particular on the 9th December it is book character day when the students should come to school dressed as the character from a book. Please support your children to get dressed up for this.
Have a great weekend.
Sharon Short
Head of Primary
Lead Safeguarding Officer.