BIC Sa Porrassa Primary Weekly News (6/25/21)

Dear families,

It was joyous to welcome so many of you to the Awards Events today, and to see and hear of the wonderful success and achievements of our students in this, the most extraordinary and challenging of years. At this time of the term, I look back on the year, reflect on our progress as a school and a community, and look ahead to future developments. As ever, I was filled with pride and humility when I thought about all the fantastic teaching and learning that has gone on across the school, despite the restrictions and the masks, all the fun and exciting inter-House activities and competitions, the sporting events, the themed weeks, the trips. I applaud and acknowledge the tremendous work of all the staff and the resilience, adaptability and commitment of all our children and young people. And I extend a warm and genuine note of thanks and appreciation to all of you, who have given myself and the school such support over the year. Thank you.

It is customary if sad to say farewell to staff at the end of term. We have already said farewell to Kriss Kunningham who is now enjoying his paternity leave, having welcomed baby daughter Ayla into the world. We are very sorry to say goodbye to Cath I'Anson, who was with us this year on a temporary basis as we adapted to the class size restrictions of COVID. She has been an absolutely fantastic teacher to Year 2 and a great colleague - we hope this will not be the last time she works with us! We are also very sorry to say farewell to Ms Roberts who is moving to our sister school in San Agusti. We also say farewell to Bernard Gilman.

In addition, it is not just our school but our profession that is losing two exceptional teachers to retirement. Janet Florey has been a tremendous teacher and member of staff over the last two years, temporarily leading the English team whilst we searched for a fantastic new leader (who we found in Ms Austin), and teaching English exceptionally well. I would like to offer my own personal thanks to her for all the help and support she has given me.

It is with a sense of occasion in addition that we say farewell to Pauline Coley, who has been at the school since 1987. We are sorry to see her go and know that over those years she has touched the lives and the hearts of hundreds of children and young people who will remember her forever. Pauline has also been heavily involved with charitable work in the school, and we will miss her a great deal. We wish both Janet and Pauline a happy and relaxing retirement.

And to end on a happy note, last week Ms Compton and husband Vicente welcomed baby Vicente Juilio into the world, mother and baby are doing well and we send them all our love and best wishes.

Alison Colwell

Principal

Dear families,

This week has been one of the most memorable weeks in the primary calendar. It has been jam packed with exciting trips, fun themed days and special events. Previously, I mentioned how amazing our children have been during this challenging year. They have shown resilience, positivity, worked hard and have put extra effort into all that they have achieved. So over the past few days we have celebrated this with some fantastic educational trips and special days.

We started the week celebrating International Yoga Day (21st ), this followed on from last week's Awareness Afternoon on Healthy Minds and Bodies. Mens sana in corpore sano - ´A sound mind in a sound body´.

Practising yoga provides children with physical benefits such as strength and flexibility, but also improves emotional control and boosts self-confidence. It helps to develop young children's focus and increase their attention span as well as teaching them how to handle stress and anxiety. With this in mind, and the joy that our children have shown in participation, the teachers have been inspired to include some sessions into the weekly timetables for next September.

Ms Colwell mentioned in her newsletter article last week the importance of " the great outdoors and the joy of fun and friendship" and "the beauties and bounties of this lovely island". This has truly been reflected in the amount of fantastic educational trips around the island; Year 3 went to Puig de Na Morisca to learn more about this Stone Age settlement, Year 4 had the high challenge of walking along a rainforest canopy at Jungle Park, Year 5 practised their outdoor adventure skills on sea and land at La Victoria and Year 6 explored the beautiful island of Cabrera of which they are making an exact replica in their classroom. Read on, to find out more about each trip and see the wonderful photos.

As the end of this academic year draws nearer, we begin to look ahead to next September and today the primary children met their new teacher. For all children, moving up to the next Year group is a significant milestone, more so for our youngest learners and also for our eldest, who spent an exciting morning in the secondary department. It was clear to see from the smiles on the children's faces that everyone had a great time getting to know their new teachers.

This is also the time when we bid a fond farewell to two wonderful primary teachers, Ms Roberts and Mrs I’Anson. Ms Roberts has been an important and integral part of the Key Stage 2 team at Sa Porrassa. For the last five years, she has brought to the department her passion for writing and Design and Technology. Recently Ms Roberts moved to Palma and therefore she has now decided to work closer to home at our sister Orbital school at BIC San Agusti. There she is looking forward to teaching KS2 and strengthening the ties between our two schools.

Over the last few years, Mrs I’Anson has kindly and professionally stepped in to be a class teacher and a Learning Support Assistant within the primary team. She has shared her expertise in Key Stage 1 and her wonderful sense of humour. Mrs I’Anson is now looking forward to spending quality time with her daughters and focusing on her fabulous, soon to be finished, house. On a personal note, I would like to say what a pleasure it has been working with both teachers and I am sure that this is not a ‘goodbye’ but a ‘hasta luego’ and that we will meet again in the near future.

Speaking about transition and getting to know new people, I am delighted to announce the arrival of baby Vicente Compton. Both Ms Compton and her gorgeous son are healthy and happy. We are sending our warmest wishes to the family and are looking forward to meeting our youngest member of the BIC community!

Have a wonderful weekend

Ms Laura Hodgson

Acting Head of Primary

Dear families,

My husband, Vicente and I are so proud to introduce our son Vicente Julio Villar Compton. Born on Friday 18th June at 11:27pm weighing in at a healthy 3780g! We are looking forward to the new adventure as a family.

I wish you all a wonderful summer break and thank you for all your support to your children, staff and school in such a challenging year.

I look forward to seeing you all again soon in the new academic year.

Happy holidays,

Ms Elizabeth Compton

Year 1 enjoyed did some yoga to celebrate International Yoga day this week.

In maths the children worked very hard understanding the directional language associated with making turns. They learnt this practically, through movement in the playground.

We started Monday morning with an outdoor yoga session to celebrate International Yoga Day. Seeing as it was also the longest day of the year, we decided that an early morning sun salutations routine would be the perfect way to start this wonderful day.

We continued after lunch time with a themed ‘Under the Sea’ yoga session. The children were so deeply relaxed during the final part as they listened to soft waves and sea meditation music, that we thought that some of them had actually fallen asleep!

The children learnt to stretch and awaken some of their sleepy muscles, they learnt the importance of breathing properly, they took part in some peer massage, and they discovered that breathing in some natural oils can energize or relax us depending on the essence.

What a wonderful International Yoga Day we had in Year 2.

Healthy bodies also need healthy food. We had some great fun creating delicious, nutritious smoothies.

Following our Stone Age topic our Year 3 students went on a trip on Tuesday to Puig de Sa Morisca Stone Age site in Santa Ponça. It was such a wonderful learning experience and we are delighted to share some of the highlights below!

On Wednesday we celebrated the end of our topic with a Stone Age themed day. We made shadow puppets and performed our own Stone Age shadow puppet stories to each other. We did spear throwing and made clay pots like the Stone Age people. We also made replicas of Stonehenge out of biscuits. A fun day for all.

Stone Age themed day - Year 3 all looked amazing in their costumes.

The clock is ticking down to the end of term but Year 4 continues to work hard on various ongoing projects. The Rainforest “books” are coming along nicely and our class reader is reaching its end.

After a term of hard work learning all about Rainforests, the children are keen to compile all their pages into a format they can be proud of. The covers need to look good too.

Roald Dahl´s The Witches has provided lots of great opportunities for writing. This week the children had fun concocting some disgusting recipes for potions, to do all manner of nasty things to people. Ingredients included frogs blood, dog droppings, rocks and cat saliva to name just a few delights on their ingredient lists.

Of course, it wasn't all hard work this week. Year 4 had a wonderful time at Jungle Parc. The afternoon was a well earned end of year treat that everyone enjoyed.

Year 5 have had another amazingly active week beginning with some relaxing yoga on International Yoga day followed by a fantastic trip to La Victoria near Alcudia. Everyone (including Ms Hodgson, Mrs Dixon and Mrs Demangeat) took part in the kayaking off the rather stony beach, archery lessons where some of the children scored bullseyes very quickly and the rock climbing which some found quite tough. The teachers were very impressed by the excellent behaviour of the children throughout the day and the way in which everyone “had a go” and supported and cheered each other.

The highlight of this week and such a wonderful way to end our year was the recent trip to The Cabrera Archipelago Maritime-Terrestrial National Park. The behaviour on the trip was fantastic and the children enjoyed examining the wildlife and learning about the history of the island. This was concluded by a well-deserved relax on the beach and swimming in the clear, blue sea. It was a joy to see the children have so much fun together.

As you will have read about in last week's newsletter, last week was our BIC Olympics Week. During the week, students from every part of the school took part in over 30 different events that took place to score points for their House. At the time of writing last week's newsletter, the events had not finished and you can see below a selection of images from the events that took place on Friday, the athletics.

The competition was incredibly close right through the entire week with each House winning different events in different Year groups. Going into Friday's athletics events it was all to play for. A huge congratulations to Roosevelt House who ran out as overall winners of the Olympic Week. The overall scores are below.

• 1st - Roosevelt - 75 points
• 2nd - Parks - 57.5 points
• 3rd - Winton - 54 points
• 4th - Galileo - 47 points

The Year 4 students in Ms Rodríguez’s class have created these amazing time capsules. They have included objects that represent them, and have written outstanding texts with details about their hobbies, nationalities, heroes, families… Amazing work! Please do not open until 2050!

Year 5 students excelled with a presentation of their favorite star: