Navarra February 2017 (english)

ISSUE 1 SCHOOL NEWSLETTER #12

The British School of Navarra

NEWSLETTER A newsletter for parents, students and friends of our school

2016 - 2017

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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Headmaster’s Message Dear Readers, This month has been one full of hard work and excitement. We were privileged to host Joaquin Calderon, the Director of the film biography of Pablo Sarasate, who is Spain’s most famous violinist and composer. Students from Year 4 watched the film and listened to the wonderful music he wrote in the auditorium of the conservatory named after Pablo Sarasate, which is in the building secondary students are using - a fitting tribute. We also had visits to the renowned Giant’s Museum and Planetarium. Years 8 & 9 visited the Diario de Navarra and had a presentation from a journalist (parent of a child at the school) who is carrying out research at the University of Navarra. Primary held the House Spelling competition and secondary participated in the House Table Tennis competition. Finally infants had a Healthy Eating presentation complete with a talking cow.

James Batten Headmaster

SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Pre-Nursery February has been a short month but action packed with fun learning!

We really enjoyed Science week and the Pre -Nursery Foxes loved being little scientists. We did lots of exciting experiments such as ‘raining colours’, ‘colour bubbles’ and ‘oozy green slime’.

The children were fascinated with the experiments.

We even got invited over to the secondary science lab to carry out some more interesting experiments.

Also this month we enjoyed dressing up for carnival.

The children loved dancing away to the samba music!!

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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Nursery February has been a very interesting month. We celebrated science week and the children enjoyed it a lot.

We did some experiments related to the topic ‘Bears’. We used jelly bears and we put them in water to see what happened to them. It turned out that they grow a lot! The children observed them everyday and talked about it at all times!

We also experimented with food colouring, water, oil and vinegar. We had very weird reactions. Another fun experiment was adding drops of food colouring in the milk and then using cotton buds with fairy.

The fairy repelled the food colouring and created really cool effects in the milk!

Great experiments Nursery Ladybirds!

SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Reception February was a busy month for the Reception Dolphins!

Our theme for this month was based

on the story Goldilocks and the 3 Dinosaurs. The children loved the dinosaur role play and small world area. We learnt about different types of dinosaurs, what they eat, and engaged in Dinosaur experiments during Science week. Some of the experiments were making volcanic eruptions, freezing and melting dinosaur ice eggs, and making dinosaur fossils. We also went to the high school to try some experiments in the science lab, and we made rocketships to blast off to the moon! We learnt about where Penguins live, what they eat, and how they stay warm, and we tested out how Penguins stay warm in cold waters by covering our hands in butter and placing them in icy water. In maths we have been learning about 3-D shapes in our environment and have introduced addition and subtraction. At the end of the month, we had a spelling house competition where one child from each house in our class stood up in front of the whole school and spelt words, for example “c-a-t�. They were very brave and did a fantastic job of representing Reception for BSN!

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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Year 1

In February the children at BSN celebrated Science Week. Across the school children were busy making rockets out of plastic soft drink bottles. The children in Year 1 had a great time decorating their ‘rockets’ before launching them on the patio. They used a foot pump to push air into the bottle until it launched.

We also visited the secondary science lab and took part in a variety of experiments prepared by our resident scientist Ms Pauline. We were able to use a real stethoscope to hear each other’s heart beats.

Miss Rachel and Ms Liz prepared some exciting experiments in the classroom to complete the week! We are all enthusiastic scientists in Year 1!

SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Year 2 Well, February went by very quickly! It was another busy month with many exciting things happening for Year 2.

We tried out many water themed experiments during science week. We blew bubbles inside bubbles, we observed and recorded melting ice and we went to the Science Lab in the secondary building and we dissolved sugar in coloured water. The most exciting thing was launching our plastic bottle rockets, one even got stuck in a tree!

In our English lessons the children have been making up their own creative writing stories. They had to include traditional characters such as Baba Yaga, the witch, dragons and giants, but we also used the class robot that we had made during creative arts week. We used classical music and percussion instruments for sound effects and performed our stories in front of the whole school during an assembly. The children spoke very clearly and loudly and worked really well together as a team to give an excellent performance. Mr Batten said it was one of the best assemblies he had ever seen!

We finished the month with a carnival day, dressed in bright colours and wearing our hand made head decorations! We enjoyed dancing, shaking maracas and eating the food that was kindly donated by one of the parents. We are ready to start a new month!

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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Year 3 We have had a very busy month starting off with a visit to the Pamplona Giants at the end of January. At the beginning of February we had Science week. During this week we went across to the secondary laboratory to do some fun experiments. We also designed and launched rockets made out of plastic bottles and we saw what happens when you leave an egg in vinegar for a week!

During regular Science classes we studied magnets.

We investigated which magnets were stronger and what happens when same magnetic poles are put together.

We learnt the words “attract” and “repel”. To finish off this topic we made games using magnets and took them to Reception and Year 1 classes to play!

In English this month we looked at instructions and explanations and we created illuminated letters and natural dyes, like monks used hundreds of years ago. We read a story called “The Ink Garden of Brother Theophane” and found out about how illuminated writing was done. This English topic linked in nicely with our IC topic of AngloSaxons as we found out a little bit about the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

We rounded off February with a house spelling competition. Each class had a mini house competition and the finalists went on to compete in the whole school competition, where they won 2 house points for every word they spelled correctly. All the children worked very hard to learn their words and it was a great afternoon!

SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Year 4 This month in Year 4 we celebrated Robert Burns, or Rabbie Burns, as he is informally known. We did some research and discovered he was a famous poet from Scotland. We studied his poetry and used it as inspiration to write our own pieces. In Art we used light and shadow to recreate his portraits. Finally, in PE we learned four traditional Scottish dances.

One afternoon we invited our parents in and taught them some dances, showed them our portraits, recited some poetry and tasted some traditional Scottish desserts. It was great fun!

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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Year 5 February was a busy month here in Year 5. We had science week during which we grew crystals of sugar in water, they took a little longer than we expected to develop and the children couldn’t wait to get them out of their cups to see the results but we did get some exciting results. We also had fun doing some experiments which had kindly been laid out for us in the secondary building.

There was chromatic colour separation and vinegar and baking soda foam bombs which the children particularly enjoyed. The children spent time designing some really impressive rockets from soda bottles which we launched twice, the second time with improved power as our rocket launcher had some adjustments after the primary launching.

We have been working on our entries to two art competitions, one is themed “I am international” and the children have come up with some really creative designs about being part of a network of International schools and what it means to them. The second is part of The Council of British Schools and the theme is “Transformation”. The children have thought of all sorts of ways in which people and things can transform and have made some really creative work about growing up, evolving and building.

Next week we will have book week at the school and we have chosen to read “The Sheep Pig” by Dick King Smith, the children are excited to wear their themed costumes into school next Friday and we will also have two book fairs so it looks set to be a great week to promote enjoyment of reading with the children.

Year 7

We have had a very busy and fun February. At the beginning of the month we had a well documented video about the life story of Pablo Strantsea. This also allowed us show the new auditorium to the students.

Also the Year 7 students are continuing to work hard to achieve The BSF Awards. They have been helping in the school with different activities. As well as this we had a lot of new students achieve the bronze commendation award.

Lastly we did our whole school assembly where we focused on first aid. The Year 7 students showed the rest of the school how to act in an emergency situation if you see an accident. Well done Year 7!

SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Year 8

Year 9 Even though February has been a short month there has been a lot of exciting events for the students in the secondary school. At the start of the month we were lucky enough to receive a presentation of a film about Pablo Sarasate by the director himself. We have also been learning more about opportunities in the world of work, having visited Diario de Navarra to see how a newspaper is put together and made, and we kindly received a visit from Ester Appelgren, a professor from the University of Navarra, who gave the students an insight into data and robot journalism.

We have been as busy as bees in February. We opened our month with a video telling us the life story of Pablo Strantsea in the auditorium. There has been lots of helping around the school with the younger children as part of our community service for The BSF Awards. Alongside that we have sent rockets into space for science week, had a visiting journalist and gone on an excursion to the Diario of Navarra. It has been action packed all the way with much enthusiasm from the students.

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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Music

Spanish

On the 14th of February Year 8 and Year 9 went to Diario de Navarra. Maria Carmen Garde where a journalist showed us the different departments and explained about the history of the newspaper and the new challenges .

We visited the advertising and marketing department, library, editorial department and the meeting room. After this visit we appreciate and understand much better their jobs, how quick they have to be and the different parts of a newspaper.

This is the second year for Year 7 playing the guitars. They are improving and correcting the mistakes and producing better quality sounds.

Year 7 is making a good effort, playing more and different songs.

Step by step our music lessons are like little concerts improving all the time.

To finish the visit we went to the printing area to see how they print 200,000 newspaper everyday. The day after we appeared in the newspaper and were given a comic and a photo as a gift.

It is a pleasure for us to have visited Diario de Navarra and be journalists for a while.

SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

The British School of Navarra www.bsn.org.es info@bsn.org.es

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