BIC Sant Agustí Weekly News (02/08/21)

Dear families

We have had a lovely week this week, sharing and telling stories for our National Storytelling Week. We have had traditional tales, new stories, individual stories, group stories and made-up stories. Younger children have had stories read to them by older children and teachers have been reading stories throughout the day. All in all, a lovely experience for everyone.

Over the last few weeks, as a school, we have been thinking about what makes Baleares International College, Sant Agusti, special -what makes us different? There is an English saying…”Out of the mouth of babes we learn”, meaning that children often, unexpectedly, say something very apt, intelligent or wise. When discussing what makes our school special, the children had some wonderful ideas, some of which I would like to share:

• Caring happy teachers who tell you interesting things
• Teachers who always help you and listen to you
• We use the playground and all the outdoor areas
• We have fun, interesting lessons
• We use polite, good manners
• We have different cultures, languages and religions
• We help others with donations and those less fortunate
• Everyone has fun and no-one is left out
• We have lots of friends and make new friends
• Everyone is unique in a good way
• Everyone has to try their best

And a couple of statements which I think really describe our school:

We are a small school but a big family.

And according to Bruno, in Year 3, “There are lots of schools on the island but this one is the best!”

This week has also seen the closing date for 2 of the competitions we have entered, so I would like to share some results with you.

In the Nabss art competition, “The 10 Top Tips for Learning during a Pandemic”, we had some great entries and the internal school results are:

• 1st Elia Year 3;
• 2nd Ella Rose Year 4;
• 3rd Sofia Year 5

Elia’s poster has now been sent to the Nabbs competition to represent the school - well done Elia!

The older children have been busy working on their entries for the COBIS Poetry competition entitled “Connections”. There were some super entries for this and the children should be really proud of their efforts.

There were 2 categories within the school for this competition and the following poems were chosen to be sent to COBIS to represent the school. Well done everyone, a really good standard!

• Age 10 years and under - Leo, Sofia and Kaitlyn.
• Age 11 years and over - Alex, Eadrick and Minu.

The Mangahigh Maths Challenge is ongoing so please encourage the children to have a go at home, so we can keep moving up the leaderboard!

Have a good weekend,

Warm regards

Mrs Short

Principal, BIC Sant Agustí

The Starfish class children have been busy as ever this week. We are learning about Planet Earth and its different weather types. We have found out about everyone's favourite weather type and I keep getting daily requests from one of the children asking whether we can please watch a timelapse of a real storm again and if we can find our school using Google Earth to zoom in up to the point that we are standing in front of the building. It is safe to say that all Starfish children absolutely love this topic.

This week we used paint, cotton wool and buttons to make rainy day art on paper and we have all continued practising name recognition and name writing. The main event, however, was definitely our ¨storm in a bottle¨ science experiment. It was super exciting and all children really enjoyed mixing different things into their plastic bottles until they were satisfied with the storm scene.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Another busy week in Seahorse class. First of all, we would like to share with you their amazing constellation models the children have made. Following our session, designing our own, we decided to take it one step further by making them in 3D! The children put so much care into them and the results are fantastic.

In Maths we’ve been learning about patterns; the children couldn’t believe that we can find them everywhere in our environment. In Phonics we are already using our new homemade resources; the children seem to enjoy them and at the same time they are learning, which is great. A huge thank you to all the parents and children for their contribution.

This week in school we’ve been celebrating ‘Storytelling Week’. We’ve been reading and telling lots of stories in different languages and at different times. The children have brought their favourite story books to school to share with their peers and they’ve been making their own stick-puppets to be used for story telling. But, certainly, their favourite activity has been going in our new den and using the story-dice to create our own “nonsense” stories all together. It has been such fun!

Have a lovely and safe weekend!

“To your stations Seals! “

This week the Seals class have been doing lots of station based learning! Literacy and Numeracy lessons now whizz by as the children go from one different activity to another. It’s all go! We are using our Maths Eyes to observe numbers in their environment and the children are practising their skip counting in 2’s 5’s and 10’s using fun IT games too!

We moved our beans out to the terrace to give them a little more sun in the hope they’ll grow! Maybe we need to sing to them too!

We want to say a big thank you to Mrs. Eccleshall and her Year 5 class for sharing their stories with us on Wednesday afternoon as part of Storytelling Week.

We go into the end of the week with some flower power art to link in with science as we learn about plants and flowers. Our oil pastel on black paper creations will be on display soon!

Happy weekend everyone!

Boss, boss, boss… All week we have been using our bossy verbs! We made paper aeroplanes with no instructions, we created instructions as a class to make paper aeroplanes (Mrs K-B´s did not fly very well!) and we have written our own instructions. We have flown them inside and outside. We have even started to decorate them…... we have had listening tasks and guided reading sessions full of bossy words. We have also exercised our memory, playing ´red word´ sorting and memory games during phonics.

In maths we have looked at standard and non-standard measurements. We found out that we can use anything to measure.

Mrs K-B showed us how tall we are and how big our feet are with two tricks! Did you know you are as tall as your outstretched arms, from fingertip to fingertip? Did you know that your foot is as big as your forearm?

It has been Storytelling Week and when the ´DEATS´

(Drop Everything And Tell a Story) alarm has sounded, we have dropped everything and listened brilliantly. We even had Year 5 come and share stories on the playground one day.

Have a great weekend, rest and get ready for the last week of this half term - where has the time gone?

First of all I would like to give a big shout out to Elia this week! Elia won the whole school competition for her fabulous ‘Top tips for learning during a pandemic’ poster. Elia said she had been working hard all weekend to complete it and she was lost for words when Mrs Short gave her a visit with the fantastic news! Elia’s poster has now been entered to represent the school in the international competition. Good luck Elia!

Throughout the week, we have been checking on our worms, making sure they have enough water and food. Our Science lesson this week consisted of identifying parts of a plant and their functions. We played a fun memory game to help us. Throughout the week, we have also been checking on our compost bins by making sure our worms have enough water and food! It was hard to see most of them as they love hiding in the soil!

During our Topic and English lesson, we continued to write our descriptions of Pompeii and discover what life was like as Roman.

What a wonderful start to the week we had visiting the forest! Year 4 Jellyfish had great fun finding different mini creatures which we then analysed during the Science lesson, finding out if they had a vertebrae. We found so many species of insects, including a super long millipede! After the analysis the children enjoyed putting the mini creatures in our very own bug hotel on the Lemon Tree Terrace.

In Topic, the Jellyfish have been working hard researching and preparing their presentations on Tropical Rainforests across the Continents. We then went “live and direct” to their chosen Rainforest for a detailed weather report. This included day and night time temperatures, humidity and average rainfall. What a great job they did, we all learnt so much from each other!

We have also been celebrating Storytelling Week and have enjoyed various activities on how to tell a story. Our favourite activity has been to collect 10 objects from around the classroom, the children then used their incredible imaginations to invent a short story about their objects. There were some extremely creative stories, including the dinosaur who didn’t know how to use a face mask and hand sanitiser, it was extremely funny!

We would also like to say a HUGE well done to Ella Rose who was one of the winners in the Nabss art competition!

Enjoy the photos of our exciting and busy week! Now it’s time to recharge after another great week of learning! Enjoy your weekend and our lovely springlike weather!

So good to bring our learning outside in nature! We love visits to the forest!

Whales (and Sharks!) have had a very magical week in Science as we found we all had a new superpower…….we can bend a ray of light and make the appearances of objects change! We learnt all about refraction and how objects appear altered when viewed through water and glass. We tested lots of theories we had about changing shapes and directions, hopefully they will have shown you´the magic´with their homework this week!

For National storytelling week we have been showcasing our reading skills to the younger pupils. We took storytime outside and enjoyed reading some of our favourite books to Year 1 and 2. We also made up one minute short stories using cards which gave us a character to include a location and a random item…..oh wow, their imaginations ran riot!!!

In maths we have started the Mangahigh Competition and are progressing well against other schools. This will be homework for the next 2 weeks so keep up with your activities!

This week a focus on French, to see what some of the Sharks (and Whales!) are learning. The children can already introduce themselves and talk about how they are feeling, their age and their favourite colours. Over the last few weeks we have been learning how to describe and introduce our families and here are the children having fun imagining they are members of each other’s family!

In Science, the children have been learning about refraction and how viewing objects through glass or water can change their appearance. When we viewed our drawn arrow through a glass of water as if by magic it changed direction. The pupils should have had fun trying out a similar experiment at home this week!

In Maths the children have been learning now to multiply and divide fractions, as well as competing in the Mangahigh Maths Challenge.

As part of Story-telling week, Year 6 are loving our class book ‘The Nowhere Emporium’ and we are already gripped by the exciting plot!

Esta semana hemos aprovechado que es la semana de la narración y en Year3&4 hemos creado unas historias a partir de un divertido corto de Píxar: El mago Presto; al que le hemos dado voz.

Los alumnos han trabajado por parejas y han creado narraciones muy originales y completas. Los compañeros han votado aquella narración que más les ha llamado la atención ¡y hemos tenido pareja ganadora!

También hemos llevado a cabo una simulación del concurso de ¡Boom! en clase de catalán Year 3 y Year 4 a modo de repaso de los conceptos trabajados hasta ahora.

Los alumnos han trabajado en equipo para conseguir NEUTRALIZAR LA BOMBA, pero cuidado… si cortas el cable de la respuesta correcta ¡la bomba va a explotar!

¡Vaya semana tenemos en la clase de español! Mientras los de año 1 y 2 están aprendiendo animales y vocabulario relacionado con la sabana africana, los más mayores hacen una clase por nivel en el lemon tree terrace. Tengo que decir que casi todos llegaron al nivel más alto, así que ya están preparados para analizar si las palabras son agudas, llanas o esdrújulas y si ponerles tilde o no. ¿Mejorarán esos dictados ahora?

Sunny days are for playing HOCKEY!

Pupils from Year 4 group are currently practising and perfecting their Floor Hockey skills during their PE sessions with Miss Izabella. Well done to everyone!

Three years ago Mr Edwards stumbled across Baleares International College, Sant Agusti, after returning from his travels in Thailand. The moment he stepped through the door he felt he was given the biggest and warmest welcome by the children, teachers and families.

Before working in education Mr Edwards was an Occupational therapist working in London in various rehabilitation and psychiatry hospitals, helping people to become more independent and increasing their ability to do everyday tasks.

Mr Edwards was first introduced to education and teaching when he worked in Gran Canaria teaching English to Spanish children in a primary school and then various schools and language academies in Palma. He feels from this experience it provided him with the confidence to help teach and support children from various age groups and nationalities. Working in an international school has shown Mr Edwards how an international education can help provide children with more open minded views and an understanding of the world and people around us. He feels he learns something new everyday from the children and it makes him smile when he sees them progressing through each year group, growing as individuals and becoming more aware of the world around them.

In his spare time Mr Edwards enjoys travelling, yoga, meditation, crossfit, watching 80´s films and music concerts.

Dear families,

Following the opportunities to tour the facilities at our schools, BIC Sa Porrassa and BIC Sant Agustí will be virtually opening their doors to all families who are interested in learning more about our student-centered curriculum, facilities, achievements and values that we promote daily in our schools as well as to gain a great insight into student life at BIC. This will be a unique opportunity for all families to connect with our Principals and senior leaders during a live Q&A session.

Dates and registrations:

BIC Sant Agustí

An Early Years and Primary specialised School located in the high-quality residential environment of Sant Agustí in Palma. The school has a capacity for 160 students from 2 to 11 years of age.

BIC Sa Porrassa

Accommodated in a large, custom-built school situated in the beautiful, rural environment of Calvià. The school is in a very accessible location on the southwest coast of Mallorca and has a capacity for over 450 students from 3 to 18 years of age.

If you wish to organise a tour at either or both schools, please contact us directly:

• San Agustí - office.san@balearesint.net | (+34) 971 403 161
• Sa Porrassa - registrar@balearesint.net | (+34) 971 133 167

We look forward welcoming you to Baleares International College