BIC Sa Porrassa Secondary and Sixth Form Weekly News 19

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 Agustí. 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

In this week´s newsletter, I complete the second installment of last week´s ´Bucket List: 50 activities to do during the summer break´.

The bucket list is for our secondary students (and there are lots of these that our primary students can do, too), to check off and complete during long, lazy days!

Take photos of yourselves doing this and email them in to Ms. Tomlinson during the course of the break and we will put together a display of students completing their activities, for the autumn term.

Good Luck!

26. Identify some Mallorcan flora and fauna: Sea squill, the Spanish dagger, wild asparagus, Dwarf palm...https://viagallica.com/baleares/lang_en/flore_et_faune_baleares.htm

27. ...and some trees: Carob, Cypress, Pomegranate, Pistachio mastic

28. Get into bird watching and visit the best parts of Mallorca to see them: https://birdfact.com/spain/sites

29. Adopt a dog or cat! http://www.sos-animal-mallorca.org/en

30. Climb a tree: https://www.qualityunearthed.co.uk/blog/climb-trees/

31. Host a Murder Mystery. Either buy and download: https://www.hostamurdermystery.co.uk/ or get some ideas for free here: http://trevor-hopkins.org.uk/mystery/

32. This one´s for parents, too - the great British tradition of car treasure hunting! https://treasurehuntdesign.com/sunday-afternoon-car-treasure-hunts/

33. Get fit with the UK lockdown fitness sensation, Joe Wicks. Of course! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAxW1XT0iEJo0TYlRfn6rYQ

34. Geocache: https://www.geocaching.com/play

35. Follow in the footsteps of the Year 7 and Year 9 trips this Monday and visit the Caves of Drach: http://www.cuevasdeldrach.com/en/

36. Complete the ´Ruta de Arqueologia Mallorca´: https://www.click-mallorca.com/blog/actividades/paisaje/ruta-arqueologica-mallorca/

37. Go on a sunset hike or a night walk - bring torches!

38. Science experiments to try on your own: https://lemonlimeadventures.com/awesome-science-experiments-for-older-kids/

39. Do your own laundry! Sort clothes into piles and ask for help if you have never used a washing machine before. You will be glad you learned before you head off to university!

40. Solve a Rubik´s cube

41. Make a big piece of art on a canvas for your room

42. Create your own summer reading bucket list with Penguin´s summer reading guide: http://summerreadingguide.com/

43-48 Enter these writing competitions:

• https://lewiscarrollsociety.org.uk/writing-competition/ : Closing date, 3rd July

• The Silver Robin annual competition (search online): Closing date, 31st July

• https://poetrysociety.org.uk/competitions/foyle-young-poets-of-the-year-award/ : Closing date, 31st July

• http://www.stephen-spender.org/stephen-spender-prize/: Closing date, 17th July

• https://www.poetry-festival.co.uk/poetry-competition-2021-under-18/: Closing date, 15th July

• https://intercompetition.com/writing/ad/the-2021-hg-wells-short-story-competition,2002 : Closing date, 12th July

49. Be you. Love you. Write out your own bucket list of 50 things that you love about you and your life.

50. Rest. Stare at the sky, a tree, a flower, the sea, trees, mountains for 30 mins or as long as you like!

Last Saturday night, I was pleased to attend the Year 13 Graduation, along with many of my colleagues and a range of family members. It was a wonderfully positive event for our last formal goodbyes; the venue was excellent, food and staff were wonderful. Due to the on-going restrictions, we ate outside; the rain made a couple of attempts to dampen spirits, but it failed miserably as we were all so determined to have a great time! Well done to the Year 13 students who put the event together.

Year 12 (our new Year 13) have been back in full flow of learning and preparation for exams in 2022, with a full programme of lessons; these continue until Wednesday 30th. The only exception will be our University Focus Day on Monday. On the day we will be visited (virtually) by Hult International Business School, which has campuses in London, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Dubai and Shanghai; a representative of the university will lead a session on what students should think about when applying to university and when writing their personal statements. This week, the A Level psychologists were ‘visited’ by Leiden University in Holland; one of the most prestigious places in Europe to study psychology. It offers degrees delivered in English. Over the summer, we want the Year 12s going into Year 13 to be actively thinking about their post-BIC plans as we will need to make a rapid start on the application process in September.

As this is the last newsletter of the year, it seems appropriate to reflect on the highlights of the year just gone. I am particularly proud of the fact that we will have gone a whole year with face-to-face teaching. On the first day in September, I asked the students to commit to doing all the right things to ensure we could keep their learning within school. They have done it wholeheartedly and with positivity, acting as great role models for the younger students; we have all agreed that learning is most fun when we do it together. This communal commitment to high level learning looks set to have an excellent impact on the grades this summer. I am also proud of the Sixth Form teachers, who have worked so hard to enable our brilliant students to get the grades that match their potential. All have gone beyond the call of duty to ensure big smiles on the 10th August when the grades are published.

Other events that will stick in my mind are:

1. The Revision Conference for Year11, 12 and 13 last December; the commitment of the Sixth Formers also rubbed off on their younger peers and has given us the impetus to introduce vertical tutoring this coming September. They all showed there is a real value to sharing ideas and experiences.

2. The days when the Year 13 students received their university offers; it was just a lovely experience to share their joy with them.

3. The introduction of our BIC Broadcasts, with parents delivering thought-provoking sessions to our Sixth Form that stretch their thinking beyond their A Level work. We hope to continue this next year, so if you or a friend would be willing to offer a 20-30 minute session on a topic of your/their choice, followed by student questions, please do contact me.

4. The student response to the introduction of the International Project Qualification; I was hoping for a small cohort of 2 or 3 to start us off on this non-obligatory qualification, so I was blown away to have 11 students attend the opening focus day.

5. The hugely positive response from external students to the possibility of joining BIC’s Sixth Form; it shows that we are heading in the right direction and that word is travelling. I would like to thank you, the parents, for the part you are playing in the sharing of these positive messages.

Enrichment and fun will be the central elements of our improvements to the coming year. Hopefully, Covid restrictions are much reduced and we will have the chance to do many more different activities with the students. I really do want these final two years of the students’ education to be the best two of their school years; times they will look back on with fondness.

So, thank you all for your support this year. I wish you a fantastic summer, full of fun and memorable experiences. See you all in September!

John Barter

Head of Sixth Form

john.barter@balearesint.net

Our 5th outing of the term and we are really seeing groups bond and attitudes fortifying. This week students went to Finca Publica Galatzo near Es Capdella where they could improve map reading skills while trying to recreate photos from specific features. Groups were afforded more freedom than before and full use of walkie talkies was made as independence is a key feature of the award. We truly have some wonderful young people in our group and the positivity that they are displaying is exactly why myself and Mr Kingston-Bray love exploring our natural environment with them.

My favourite moment came from the fantastic Ava in Year 10. When her group was deciding between two routes to ascend the nearest peak, one on a clear path - one that needed clambering over rocks and an uncertain destination. She took the reins and shouted, ‘Yeah, we could go that way which is straightforward, but let’s go this way... as it ‘just looks more fun’!’

And that is the DofE in a nutshell, follow your heart with fearlessness and positivity.

Thank you to everyone involved so far - I can’t wait to share with you what we have planned for next year…

Alan Sparks

This term, 7I have been demonstrating all the knowledge and skills they have gained over this year in producing their own epic poems based on the longest epic poem in Old English, Beowulf. Please see a sample of the students’ brilliant poems below!

Creative writing is a wonderful way for students to re-cap key learning and deepen their understanding of topics. Year 10 are writing stories set in 1920s and 1930s America. They were given a choice of settings but had to mention at least 3 case studies that we have learnt this year. I was not surprised to find that gangsters and prohibition were popular choices. But many also wrote about the difficulties people faced after the Wall Street Crash. The pictures below show students hard at work.

The Year 7 students in Ms Rodríguez’s class have done some fun invitations for a Vampire party, using the near future tense,

Year 10 students Théo, Manu, Julius, Amber and Jasmine prepared a presentation about Mallorca to help some students from Roncalli School in New Zealand with their Spanish assignment.

Mr. David Hines, their Spanish teacher and myself organised a zoom call last Monday at 9.00, ten hours later down under, so we could all meet and enjoy both projects.

It was such a success that we are going to stay in touch to plan more projects together and a possible exchange.

After a fantastic year in performing arts this year for all students, this week we are focussing on the work of 7B. Students have been learning about rhythm patterns and structures and created their own body percussion performance using what they have learned - we can see them practising below!

I also want to take the opportunity to thank all students in creative arts, drama and music for all their hard work this year. I have loved seeing all your creativity, your progress and what you have created. I look forward to seeing your talents develop further next year!

What a delight it has been to work with your children this year. It was so very difficult to pick the highlights of the year. Thank you to the science department who have worked hard to put practical science at the forefront of what we do. Have a wonderful summer. We are all looking forward to making more memories in science together next year.

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