BIC Sa Porrassa Primary Weekly News (02/12/21)

Dear families,

Today, on this last day of the term, we have all been enjoying Carnival. One of the many wonderful things about this festival is the celebration of different cultures, nationalities and traditions. As we head into a well earned break, I think it is very valuable to reflect on this message, on the importance of respecting and valuing difference. One of the many strengths of our school is that we are such a melting pot of different nationalities and languages, and that the internationalism and diversity of our students and their families is seen by us all as such an asset.

I am really looking forward to catching up on my reading next week. As many students know, one of my favourite books of all time is Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". I read it when I was 14 and have re-read and dipped into it on numerous occasions in the 40 years that have since elapsed. Its many lessons and truisms ring as relevant today as they did when the book was written in 1960. One of its most powerful messages is told by the central figure, Atticus, when he is speaking to his daughter and tells her that, "If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.....Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it".

It is a message that we, at BIC, will return to again and again next term, and beyond.

Have a great weekend,

Alison Colwell,

Principal, BIC Sa Porrassa

Dear families,

What a fantastic way to arrive half way through the term, as we came together to celebrate Carnival and take time to understand and develop our knowledge of our local culture. The Spanish department led us on a wonderful creative journey this week culminating in our masked parade and dress up day. It was a tough job for the jury who were judging the overall winning designs!

Year 4 students have also been celebrating Chinese New Year in humanities lessons and they have had such fun with cultural activities such as learning some basic Mandarin and how to use chopsticks.

According to Chinese culture we now enter the year of the Ox. The myth goes that the Jade Emperor declared the order of zodiac signs would be based on the arrival orders of 12 animals. The Ox could have arrived the first but it kindly gave a ride to the Rat. However, when arriving, the Rat just jumped ahead of the Ox, and thus the Ox lost the first place. Oxen are known as the hard workers in the background, intelligent and reliable, but never demanding praise. Intelligence, reliability and kindness combined with humility are essential qualities that we uphold and continue to develop and encourage as core values for our students.

Happy New Year

新年快乐

xīn nián kuài lè

Ms Elizabeth Compton

Head of Primary

This week we have completed a ´Show What You Know´ piece of writing. This is a piece of writing we have completed much more independently and gives the children the chance to show how much they have learnt over the course of our Instructional writing unit in English. The children planned and wrote instructions for how to make porridge.

The children also completed an investigation looking at animal SCAT (pretend animal SCAT) to identify the animal . This they all found really funny! It was great to see the children bring together all their learning about animals and what they eat to be able to investigate which SCAT belonged to which animal.

The children also worked hard composing a rhythm connected to our ´ Welcome to My World´ humanities topic which you can see performed here. They composed their rhythm using the syllables in words they generated to describe the places they like to go and this makes them feel.

Year 2 had a terrific time not only writing but also illustrating their own comic strip based on the story ´Traction Man is Here.´

Year 2 have really enjoyed using puppets during storytelling week to retell traditional tales.

As part of our mini topic on Chinese New Year, Year 2 have made some fantastic dream catchers. We had to really concentrate as they were quite tricky, but the results have been outstanding as you can see below! Well done Year 2.

What a fun week preparing our Carnival parade! Year 2 have really enjoyed decorating our own carnival masks to be showcased during our Friday parade!

We worked together as a team to solved a group challenge in maths!

There was lots of drama in Year 2 this week, as we re-enacted the nail biting adventures of one of our favourite book characters Traction Man.

Year 3X are studying poetry and have enjoyed looking at performance poetry. We used a range of instruments to perform a verse of the poem and then we put it altogether as a class. We learnt about rhyme and rhythm in poems.

In Year 3W we have been performing a variety of poems this week and have enjoyed using expression and actions to entertain their audience.

We have also been preparing colourful Chinese dragons to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

As par of our busy week, in science Year 3 used iron filings to detect the magnetic field of a bar magnet. They also compared the strength of different magnets by creating paper clip chains and recording their results in a bar graph.

Well done Year 3 it has been a very busy week!

Year 4 spent a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon on Thursday, celebrating Chinese New Year. We had lots of fun learning how to use chopsticks properly. Some of us had more success than others!

The children made their own laisee packets and decorated them in black and gold. Laisee (red envelopes) are given as gifts during special celebrations such as Chinese New Year and contain money. Red is a lucky colour and symbolises good luck. The money given in them are usually in even amounts as this is also considered good luck! The children are hopeful that their laisee packets will come back to them with something inside!

The afternoon ended with all the children tucking into a bowl of noddles, using their newly found chopstick skills. During Chinese New Year, the noodles are never bitten off as this is considered bad luck, which gave a great excuse to slurp our food!

Year 5 pupils have been busy bees at school. They have had a fun and creative time making gorgeous Carnival masks and colourful paper hearts. In science the children enjoyed the practical investigations to find the link between weight and mass. The children have loved exploring the atlases and discovering the types of information that can be found in them.

Year 6 have been playing games in maths to help develop their mental maths strategies. They loved every minute of it!

Year 6 have been learning the importance of independent learning. They loved encoding and decoding messages.

This week we have had so much fun during Year 4 PE lessons. Pupils have enjoyed taking part in many different gymnastics activities whilst also participating in the inter House sports competition - Bleep test.

Year 1 Spanish with Ms Rodríguez

The Year 1 students have been learning the vocabulary on the topic of “My House”. Their spelling in Spanish is impressive, but even more is their ability to comprehend and translate nouns and verbs related to the house and household chores. The students have also learnt and sang a song called Mi casa. Here are some pictures of their outstanding work and a video of their song performance… be warned, it is very catchy!

New House Competition - Extreme Read

The Heads of House are very excited to announce the next House competition. Many of you will be familiar with this as it is a competition the school has run in the past - Extreme Read. The aim is to take a photo of yourself reading in the most extreme place possible. We have had some super entries in the past. Although we are a little more restricted this year, I am sure that our creative students will rise to the challenge and take some fabulous photos. We are passionate about reading and literacy and we hope to highlight how fun reading is.