ISSUE 1 SCHOOL NEWSLETTER #19
The British International School of Marbella
NEWSLETTER A Newsletter for Parents, Students and Friends of our School
June 2017
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Headteacher’s Message Dear Parents and Students, The final month of the academic year has been full of great events while showcasing the progress that has been made throughout the year. The Swimming Gala was extremely impressive. It was amazing to see some of the younger children who were reluctant to enter the pool at the beginning of the year now confidently jumping in and swimming with strength and stamina. Some of the older children are now very strong swimmers in their chosen stroke and we are already thinking about putting a swimming team together when we have our own pool. Well done to everyone who took part and congratulations to the Normans on winning the Swimming Gala House Cup. The event of the month, if not the year, had to be the Upper Primary Production, ‘The Lion King’. It was hard to believe that we were watching Primary children in an international school in Spain as opposed to a Theatre School in the West End of London. The acting, singing, playing of instruments and dancing was spectacular. This coupled with the costumes, props and lighting all provided by the children made for an amazing show that had the audience laughing, crying and thoroughly engrossed. We really have some remarkably talented children in the Upper Primary; well done to everyone who took part, you made me extremely proud. Congratulations to all the staff that helped put the show together and a special thank you to Mr. Patterson for all his hard work. In addition to the events, the children also completed their end of year assessments. The results were very pleasing on the whole with most children making at least expected progress. Well done to Year 1, Year 3 and Year 4 whose test results were far higher than the UK national
average across all areas in Maths and English. The Numeracy and Reading results continue to be very high. Writing will be our main focus for next year and we shall inform you in September of new initiatives we will be introducing to further raise standards in Writing. All in all it has been another great year at BISM. It is unfortunate that we end the year with no further news of the new campus. As you are aware, there have been unforeseen delays which have prevented the building work to start, however, please rest assured that the campus will definitely still go ahead but will not be ready until January 2018 at the very earliest, September 2018 at the very latest. Have a safe, relaxing summer and I look forward to welcoming you back for the Parent Teacher Student Consultations and Curriculum Presentation on 1st September. Ms. Kirkham Headteacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Pre-Nursery What a Drama!
The children in Pre-Nursery have been learning all about polar bears. After showing us how much they have developed their spoken language by talking about what they look like, how they move and what they eat; the children followed a story of a polar bear on the Interactive Whiteboard. But this was not your average story, this was a drama story. With each new page, the children had to use their acting skills to pretend to be the polar bears, acting as the bear would at certain times of the day such as waking up, catching a fish and building a cave to hide from the snowstorm. The children thought it was very funny and made very convincing polar bears. After that, they followed instructions to make polar bear finger puppets and sang polar bear rhyming songs. What a fun drama filled time in Pre-Nursery. Mrs Rutherford Pre-Nursery Teacher
Speech Day
Well what an emotional morning we had at the PreNursery Speech Day. After welcoming everyone with a song and a few words, we shared an iMovie of the highlights of this year in Pre-Nursery. It was certainly a tear jerker. After passing the tissues around and composing ourselves, the children received their certificates with such pride, showing just how much they have matured as the year has progressed. They really are ready for a new adventure. The children were very happy throughout, singing their favourite songs from across the year and ending with the new Foundation Stage end of year song. It was clear to see how much the children have grown and developed this year and we are proud to send them onto their next year as confident and happy individuals. Well done Pre-Nursery. Mrs Rutherford Pre-Nursery Teacher
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Nursery
Cold As Ice Nursery Class expressed a keen interest in ice cream and ice lollies during their last month of the Summer term, and we can’t blame them in the summertime heat! Following their interest and enthusiasm, we transformed their classroom into an ice cream parlour. It was a very busy and popular place for the children to practice many key skills. We were so impressed with their sharing, turn taking and listening and communication skills. Even putting the ´sprinkles´ on their customer’s ice creams with tiny tweezers was done with great precision and accuracy, building up those fine motor muscles. The children were great enquirers when learning about why and how water freezers and ice melts. When using the ice lolly paints, they discussed their observations of melting with their friends and adults, always keen to firstly give their reason why they thought this was happening and then listen to factual information, gaining new knowledge as they played and painted. Miss Nixon Nursery Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Reception 12s
In June the Reception children loved improving their number sequencing through a game called 12s. In this game the children would stand in a circle and take turns reciting numbers. Starting from 0, each player is allowed to say 1, 2 or 3 numbers in the correct sequence but the person who ends up saying “12” is out. It is a great game and fantastic at supporting children in counting on and learning what number comes next. Once children mastered this game they got the chance to play it with different numbers, for example 8 to 20, and so “20s” instead of “12s” and even playing it backwards, which supports counting back when subtracting. Well done, Reception, children for playing it so enthusiastically. Mr Holden Reception Teacher
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Year 1
Cool Cars
Super Shading This month in Art, Miss Portelli has been teaching Year 1 how to use shading in different ways. She taught them a variety of shading styles, including cross
hatching
and
stippling.
The
children
practiced the different styles and then applied their new skills by completing an observational drawing of a bowl of fruit, thinking carefully about the light and dark. Well done, Year 1! Miss Armstrong
Year 1 Class Teacher
This month, Year 1 went to visit the Automobile Museum in Malaga. We were impressed by the huge collection of weird, wonderful and truly amazing cars. From old, historic cars to cars of the future, we saw everything. We were shocked to hear that only four of the cars did not work and that some of the cars that are nearing 100 years old still run. We even saw a car that was worth over 8 million Euros and one that was used in the latest Star Wars movie. The visit helped our understanding of the history of cars and made use think about what cars might be like in the future. Miss Armstrong Year 1 Class Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Year 2 Robotix
Selwo Zoo Trip
What an amazing day we had at Selwo Zoo. The children were looking forward for weeks for the big day especially since we have been learning all about dangerous and nocturnal animals. The Year 2 class had a wonderful week at the beginning of June building Milo the Rover for our Robotix project. They had a mission to instruct the rover through coding to move around and stop before bumping into object by using a sensor. They were pretending the rover was on Mars and needed to be programmed to follow precise instructions. The class displayed good teamwork skills in building Milo and coding instructions using Ipads. They had lots of fun entering the world of coding and didn’t realise so many things around us use simple coding as well. Mr. Llion Thomas Year 2 Teacher/Lower Primary Leader
When we arrived at the zoo we went straight away to learn about cheetahs and their behaviour patterns. The children were impressed and even in awe! I was impressed by the questions the children were asking the zoo keeper as it clearly demonstrated their curiosity. We saw all sorts of animals during the day, from goats to monkeys, but one of the highlights was to see the lions. You could tell the children were impressed as they stood and stared for a long time. The children enjoyed themselves so much and learnt even more about dangerous and nocturnal animals. It really brought their learning to life. Mr. Llion Thomas Year 2 Teacher/Lower Primary Leader
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Year 3 Viking Assembly Year 3 displayed their incredible acting talents once again with another amazing performance in their Viking Assembly. The children went on a journey meeting some rather scary, hairy and menacing Vikings. The class sang their hearts out in an updated version of Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’ Mr Pattison was so impressed with how quickly they learnt the song and how well they sang it, as it was a very tricky song to sing. Well done Year 3, your performance was confident, loud and very funny. Miss Allen Year 3 Class Teacher Miss Griffiths Year 3 Teaching Assistant
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Year 4
Magnificent Mask Making Marvellous Maritime In Year 4 we kindly accepted the challenge of making
Year 4 ended their year with a bang, by visiting the
wildebeest masks and elephant tusks for our KS2
Maritime Museum in Malaga on the final week of term.
production of ´The Lion King.´
They loved participating in the workshop, where they learnt all about the sea life which inhabits the medi-
Making the masks was lots of fun. We separated into
terranean sea. The workshop included the difference
two groups; one group made the black horns and
between mammals and fish, a tour of real whale skel-
the other painted the detailed wildebeest faces. To
etons (which included a 2 metre long spine) and jars
make the elephant tusks we used rolled up paper
with amounts of salt found in 1 litre of different sea
and paper mache.
water around the world. The tour ended on a high with an introduction to some living sea life, including
It felt good to help make the masks and props, be-
turtles, stingrays and eels.
cause, although I wasn’t a main character, I could still do something really important for the show. It felt re-
Next the children took a ride on a mini train around
warding to use the props knowing that we had made
the port of Malaga, which provided them with lots of
them ourselves.
interesting information about the local coastline.
Nikolas and Charlie K
Finally the children sat in the park on the Paseo in
Year 4 Students
Malaga and enjoy a delicious packed lunch (with chocolate brownies to boot!) Miss Varty Year 4 Teacher
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Year 5/6 Shaping up in Maths In Maths Mrs Williams’ group worked on tessellation, the arrangement of polygons in a repeated pattern without gaps or overlapping.
Class trip to Dolmenes de Corominas
The students demonstrated that their understanding of the learning intention was ‘in good shape’ as they designed tessellating patterns in groups. Just like the pieces they were creating, the students are all different, but came together to create something beautiful. We’re all pieces of the big puzzle! Clare Williams Year 5 Teacher Year 5/6 found out that prehistory is alive and thriving as they undertook some authentic archaeological fieldwork at the Dolmenes de Corominas museum near Estepona. Upon arrival, the children were given a tour of the museum by a guide who explained much of the unique history of the area and why it is so important to the study of the Stone Age in Spain. The museum houses some genuine artefacts including 5,000 year old stone spear heads and jewellery, as well as some replica skeletons lying in their tombs, resembling how they were discovered on that very site. After our introduction, it was time to get our hands dirty. The children had learnt about the importance of Cave Art in class and now they had the chance to recreate their own using their hands as our ancient ancestors would have done. Some children even took the initiative to make their own dyes using charcoal and water. Then came the excavations…… The children were given archaeological tools to unearth a quadrant of sand and identify their discoveries. Animal bones and Stone Age weapons were among the artefacts dug up and the excitement was plain to see. No Stone Age excursion would be complete without getting our hands on some prehistoric weapons. With a few tips and pointers from the experts, the children were soon firing arrows in the traditional manner employed before the development of the bow. They also saw how a primitive slingshot could be put to good use. All in all a fabulous day was had and one which won’t be forgotten. Mr Anthony Year 5&6 Class Teacher Ms Worsfold Year 5&6 Teaching Assistant
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Special Event Speech Day 2017 Once again, Speech Day was a excellent end to a great year. With prizes awarded for exceptional achievement and speeches heard by all the teachers, it really was a super event that allowed us to reflect on our achievements this year. Congratulations to the whole BISM community on another fantastic year.
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Spanish
Visit to Onda Cero Radio Station
Years 5 and Years 5/6 had a great time last week, as both Miss Escribano and Miss May’s class visited Onda Cero radio station in Marbella. All students had a tour of the studio, had the opportunity to interview a broadcaster and listened to live news. The staff at the station were very impressed with the children’s skills and all the children received a book celebrating the 25th anniversary of the radio company. Miss Escribano’s class have been studying advertising and were very interested to learn about how adverts are made. The students recorded their adverts, which they had been preparing during their lessons. They listened to the news live as it was being produced in the studio. Miss May’s class have been learning about the media and discussed what makes a good advert. We studied an advert for an Ipad and debated whether it was a good advert or not. We prepared lots of questions for Julio, the broadcaster, and everyone spoke in Spanish and practised their speaking and listening skills. The children requested to hear their favourite Spanish song and were given the opportunity to record themselves singing it. Well done to both classes for being wonderful ambassadors to the school. We certainly have some future DJ’s and journalists in the making. Miss Escribano and Miss May Spanish Teachers
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Music What a great and very busy last month of school we have had in the Music Department. We have some excellent performances from the KS2´s performance of `The Lion King, some wonderful class assemblies, piano exams in KS2 and ‘Doughnuts for Daddies.’ Class Assemblies It has been so wonderful to see Year 1 and 2 demonstrate all their wonderful progress and ability during their end of year assemblies. Year 1 wowed all with their knowledge of old fashioned transport through a variety of different songs, singing them really loudly and confidently. Year 2 told the famous story of `The Boy Who Cried Wolf´ through a medley of Tom Jones songs. Both classes were brilliant to work with; well done Key Stage One for more fantastic performances. Piano Exams On Tuesday 13th June, five girls from Year 5 and 6 took their ABRSM Piano Grade One exam. This is an exam that the children have been working towards for a year. They have worked on a selection of pieces, scales, sight reading and aural tests and have worked so hard to achieve it. Well done to Isabel Potter, Emma Gabarron, Daria Costanzo, Julieta Castro Toro and Poppy Campbell. Doughnuts for Daddies It was great seeing all the dads who celebrated Father’s day this year at BISM. The children sang a very lively rendition of `I Love My Daddy´ and `Daddy´s Cool´. The children sang brilliantly and it was lovely to see some amazing dancing with the singing. Well done to the Foundation Stage. Key Stage Two Production As many will know this term KS2 have been preparing their own version of the classic show The Lion King for their KS2 production. It has been a lot of work by a lot of children and staff but we finally put the show together to create one of the best productions we’ve seen at BISM. The children were fantastic and were able to showcase their vast array of talents including lots of acting, singing and dancing. The children did most of the work themselves, so on top of learning lines they made their own costumes and props, played their own musical instruments and coordinated the different lighting effects to add to the atmosphere. It’s hard to believe that with such a high standard of the production all the children are only in Primary school. It has been a wonderful experience for all involved; very hard work but rewarding and fun. It´s been a pleasure helping the children enjoy and progress in music at BISM. We will well and truly miss them and wish them all the best for their future, both in music and in the wider school. Miss Green and Mr Pattison LS & UP Music Leaders
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Special Event Splish, Splash, Splosh What a great way for FS children to spend their last week at school...in the pool! BISM held their annual ´Splash Day´ in super soaker style. The children thoroughly enjoyed cooling down in the giant paddling pools, partaking in water based athletic events and of course chasing each other and their teachers around the playground with water pumps. The enjoyment was evident through the children’s laughter and beaming smiles, some commenting that they wanted everyday to be ‘Slash Day’. The children had been looking forward to this day since we informed them about it weeks ago. The event did not fail to amuse the children and made sure they had a fantastic last week with their peers and teachers. Miss Nixon Nursery Teacher
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Special Events Doughnuts for Daddies
On Friday 16th June, the children in Foundation Stage invited their Daddies or their loved one to share in the UK celebration of Father’s Day. The children secretly prepared cards and gifts, decorated doughnuts to share with their special guest and practiced their singing skills ready to serenade their Daddies. In the morning, the children stood on stage with pride, singing with beautiful voices and dancing with precise moves. The event started with the popular song ‘I love my Daddy’, which gave the audience a big smile and brought a tear to their eyes. To keep the emotions running high, a video of secret loving messages from each child was played, giving everyone a giggle - there are some funny reasons why the children love their Daddies. Next, the children in Reception class showed their confidence and reading skills as they carefully read a poem about fathers and the support they give us. They were truly a delight to listen to. It is not easy to get up on stage and they did such a great job. After the tissues had been passed around, the children once again serenaded the audience, this time with their rendition of the 1976 hit by Boney M. ‘Daddy Cool’. It seems they sent everyone ‘crazy’ with happiness, as the performance was met with a huge round of applause. The children then took their Daddies or loved one into the dining room to share their gifts and doughnuts (although there wasn’t much sharing from the children) on their carefully decorated placemat.
To finish, the children repeated their performance of ‘Daddy Cool’ before giving their guests one last surprise...A Daddy Disco!! This time dancing to the original Boney M. hit, the children and their Daddies rocked around the hall, showing off some impressive dance moves. What a way to show ‘Daddies, we DOUGHNUT know what we would do without you!’ Mrs Rutherford Pre-Nursery Teacher
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Foundation Stage We’re Going to Catch a Big One
When Foundation Stage went on a bear hunt recently at Parque Quinones, they found lots of bears, although in truth none were very big...luckily! Inspired by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury´s classic children’s tale ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ and a fantastic summer term’s worth of learning through stories connected to bears, such as ‘Norris, the Bear Who Shared’, ‘Peace At Last’ and ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ all of the children, supported by their teachers and many parent helpers, set off on a bear hunt in early June. The children walked up a big hill to Parque Quinones and found bears they had previously decorated in class scattered around the park. They played football, enjoyed the play park and little picnic. Walking back down the hill was no problem for these little explorers, with lots of singing of ‘We´re Going on a Bear Hunt’ along the way. Their behaviour was impeccable. Mr Holden Foundation Stage Leader
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
Art Club An End to a Very Creative Year at BISM As the end of the school year is approaching, we look back at all the wonderful artwork produced by the BISM art club and ECAs. Over the course of the three terms, the children have produced some beautiful and interesting pieces of art, covering essential skills in drawing, painting and sculpture. The children have worked together, learned to work with control and most importantly they have had lots of fun. It has been a fantastic year and the children should be very proud of their achievements. Miss Flannigan Art Teacher
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