Welcome to the 2011/2012 edition of the YearBook! Madrid Young Learners’ YearBook number Eleven! Brilliant! Thanks to all the students and staff who have worked so hard to produce this fine showcase of work – great writing and fantastic artwork. What a talented bunch you are! I’m sure our devoted editor, David Kavanagh and his trusty assistant, Cassandra McHugh are just as proud of the Yearbook as I am. I would like to give a special thank you to David and Cassandra. I’m sure everyone has noticed the curious silver barriers separating us form the Palacete building, and I know a lot of you have been using our new entrance/exit onto Calle Fernandez de la Hoz. What is going on behind those barriers? Perhaps we should have a competition to decorate them with pictures or graffiti. To be slightly more serious for a moment, it is very important to follow the systems for moving in and out of our building, coming in through the right door, leaving through the right door and so on. It may seem a bit inconvenient to have to walk an extra five minutes but we have brought in these changes for everybody’s safety. Most of you have followed the rules most of the time so I would like to say a massive THANK YOU for that. Please keep it up!
I was very impressed with the excellent entries to our competitions this year. We ran the folder competition, of which you’ve seen the great results, and the Christmas card competition, the calendar competition and many more. We always enjoy seeing our students’ enthusiasm and creativity. In addition we organised seasonal activities at Halloween, Christmas and Easter and this year World Book Week lasted 11 magical days at Madrid Young Learners! The other day I was in the resource centre reading Enchanting Stories from Offsite Schools. This is the second Big Book collection of work put together by students from our partner schools SEK Santa Isabel, Colegio Valdeluz, Colegio Blanca de Castilla, Colegio San Juan Bautista, Colegio San Diego y San Vicente, and Colegio Esclavas del Sagrado Corazon de Jesús. This was great stuff. Look out for the book which will soon be on tour moving from school to school. Here’s looking forward to Yearbook Twelve. Best wishes
John Pare Teaching Centre Manager Madrid Young Learners