BIC Sa Porrassa Primary Weekly News (09/10/21)

Dear families,

Great organisations depend on two main things - culture and leadership. Here at BIC Sa Porrassa we have a wonderful culture of "can do", positivity, solutions not problems, and collaboration. We have a fantastic staff who care deeply about your children, have high standards and expectations and who frequently go the extra mile.

I am also blessed with outstanding leadership across the school. All of us are leaders to the children, recognising our responsibility as role models and our duty to provide an outstanding education. I am surrounded by a senior team who lead on their various parts of the school with a dedication and professionalism that you would be hard pushed to find in other schools, and they do so with warmth, wit and wisdom. Our House system and vertical tutoring is led by our four brilliant Heads of House, who work tirelessly to support and encourage the students in their respective Houses, and to build an ethos based around the school's values of compassion, respect and independence.

This week the children in Years 7 to 10 have gone out on their House bonding trip; these have been really successful, the children getting to know students in other Years in their House and the company who organised the activities commenting on how polite and well behaved our young people have been, a credit to themselves, our school and to you, their parents. We have an inspiring, talented team of subject leaders who lead their various curriculum areas to ensure outstanding teaching and learning, and this year I am really excited to welcome new leadership to maths (Mr Cacchia), to English as an Additional Language (Mrs Cruttenden) ,and - hot off the press news - to Srta Rodriguez who takes on the leadership of Modern Foreign Languages across the school. And of course, another hugely important set of leaders are our wonderful students themselves. On the trips this week so many of them displayed great leadership, and Ms Tomlinson and Ms Hodgson write today of the student leadership roles we have in school and their importance to our school community.

The former basketball player and coach Phil Jackson said, "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” I am blessed with a wonderful team of staff and students here at BIC, and, as you have heard me say many times, leading our great school is a privilege. We are all so pleased to be back, and are really looking forward to the year ahead.

Enjoy the weekend,

Alison Colwell

Principal

Baleares International College, Sa Porrassa

At Baleares International College we recognise that our young children are the inspirational leaders of the future and therefore provide a range of opportunities for children to develop their leadership skills. Pupil voice is valued and promoted – during the academic year, pupils are given a platform to express the views of their school to help shape its development. We believe that all children have the potential to develop leadership skills. As adults, we can teach the skills necessary for children to take on leadership roles now and in the future. Involving children in leadership activities can help children:

• Boost their self-esteem

• Improve public speaking and communication skills later in life

• Teach them to identify their strengths and weaknesses

• Help them develop organizational skills

• Teach them to work with others

We encourage all of our pupils to embrace the wide range of opportunities available to them – and always seek to find new ways that we can further empower our pupils. This enables our pupils to develop as individuals, as a community and grow the school as a whole. Many of the extra-curricular activities that school-age children are involved in often provide opportunities to develop leadership skills, including organized sports, dance, theatre, camping, and martial arts. Many of these sports and activities help encourage teamwork and self-reliance, qualities of a good leader.

This week, in assembly, the House captains and Vice captains were elected by their peers through a democratic process and I would like to congratulate all students who presented to be a House captain. See the next newsletter to find out more about our new inspirational primary House leaders. This important role requires students to develop many skills, even through the application. The children are extremely proud of their Houses and enjoy participating in the House events. The House badge is part of the school uniform and is worn with pride. ( Please let the office know if your child needs a new House badge).

Student leadership and the House system play a key role for student confidence, communication, resilience, determination, positivity and competitiveness - all qualities that we want our BIC students to develop in their time with us and will support them in becoming the inspirational leaders of the future.

Have an inspirational weekend,

Miss Hodgson

Parks House

Galileo House

Winton House

The children in Early Years have spent the first week exploring the classroom and all of our toys and equipment, and have started to get to know one another through playing together and joining in with circle games with the teachers. The first few days in pre-school and Reception can be hard for children and parents, however I am pleased to say that after just a few days of a transition period we have a very happy Nursery and Reception class. We look forward to seeing the children's ´All about me´ boxes next week to help us get to know them more.

What a wonderful first week we have had in Year 2. The children have settled in so well and are thoroughly enjoying our new classroom and playground area.

This week they created some super, pop-art style self-portraits.

In maths we have been learning what the word ‘estimate’ means. The children now know that when they are faced with a large amount of small items to count, they can estimate - or make a clever guess - to find their total . They also learnt that by grouping the items into 10s will also help. We were so impressed with the children’s 10 times table chanting!

We enjoyed listening to a wonderful piece of music composed in 1886 by Camille Saint-Saëns named ‘Carnival of the Animals’. It was a fabulous introduction to our new topic and also linked nicely to our first music lesson. We listened to the music and thought about which animal each piece represented according to its pitch, speed and tempo.

Year 3 spent time preparing speeches for the role of House Captain and Vice House Captain. They carefully thought about their personal qualities that would help them in these roles. The children listened carefully before selecting their House Captains.

In P.E this week, Year 3 have thoroughly enjoyed their swim sessions developing their confidence in the pool and having a splash. In their second P.E session they developed their knowledge of the rules of netball and practised pivoting on the spot which is a key element in the game and the three types of passes: bounce, chest and shoulder pass.

In science, Year 3 learnt about different food groups before sorting different foods.

We would like to thank all of the students for coming back to school with such enthusiasm.

What a busy first week we have had in Year 4. The children have returned to school happy and enthusiastic. We have enjoyed getting to know our new pupils too! The learning has started in earnest and the children are quickly remembering the routines in Year 4.

Our maths work has been focussing on our understanding of the number system.

We shared our ideas of how food travels through the body.

We designed our own Ancient Egyptian headdresses to become Pharaohs!

Next week, we are looking forward to delving deeper into our study of Ancient Egypt and to further increasing our knowledge of the digestive system.

It has been a busy start to the new school year for our Year 5 students. Making friends with new students, renewing friendships from last year and learning how to work in Year 5 year has all been taken in their stride. They loved making their enormous colourful paper flowers and they hung their own kind and inspirational quotes underneath them.

The students were introduced to the humanities and science topics for this term; The Vikings and Earth and beyond, and are very excited to learn more fascinating facts and information.

Warm weather has seen the children outside enjoying the still hot, summer temperatures in their playtimes, sports lessons and in particular, in their swimming lessons.

Year 6 have had an amazing start to the year. We have enjoyed maths challenges, made some superb art work and we’ve even written some incredible versions of the story ‘Alma’. We’ve had a lot of fun in beginning our topic on Ancient Greece and have been comparing the telling of Greek myths. We’re looking forward to watching each other perform in our own versions of Medusa!

It has been wonderful to welcome back and meet the new students in our PE lessons.

We have gone over our rules and expectations and got our pupils used to our weekly routines.

During our PE lessons it is all about enjoying being active, building confidence to try new things and motivation to move our body everyday.

Time to get back into it!

Our fantastic Year 6 Spanish students have decorated their Spanish books with a Hispanic theme, bravo!