Your guide to all news at school.
Ms Alison Colwell, Principal
Dear families,
Over Christmas I read an interesting article by a journalist who, fed up of constantly walking past his bookshelves of unread books, set himself a challenge: to read a book a week for the entire year. I was really inspired and have set myself the same target. So far, I’m on track!
Encouraging your children to read really is one of the most important things you can do. Reading Week at BIC SAP is of course an excellent time to reflect on the many benefits and indeed joys of reading. What the article I read said was, much like setting any goal - to run a marathon, to learn a language, to climb a mountain - you have to have a plan, to make preparations, to train, to practice. In today’s busy world, with so many competing pressures, to set out to read a book a week needs a strategy. Some things have to go, be that watching television, or (highly recommended) coming off social media; I think we are all aware of how easy it is to while away (I’d say waste) time scrolling through our phones. To meet the challenge it’s important to build chunks of time each evening and at the weekends to read, and to set a daily target of the number of pages you’ll get through. I admit that on a week that looks especially busy I have chosen a shorter book! (I hope that’s not cheating, to me it seemed sensible.)
Ten weeks into 2022, I am reading book ten. My choices have been a mixture of novels and nonfiction (and if you’re interested my favourite to date has been “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett). You can see at the end of staff emails what books we are currently reading; I hope they give you some ideas of the next book you also may want to delve into.
Happy reading everyone!
Ms Elizabeth Compton, Head of Primary
Dear families,
´Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend´, and this week we have seen so many friends across primary! Reading Week has been packed full of exciting events, from snuggling up with a good book in our pyjamas, dropping everything and reading when we heard the Harry Potter soundtrack to meeting Serena and her puppets in the KS1 show. We even had a visit from Karen Golden who Zoomed in to us from Los Angeles!
Reading is such an essential academic tool. Educational experts agree that there is a strong correlation between extensive critical reading and higher academic achievement. Building that foundation and passion for books starts with us at a young age.
Please support and encourage your children to read in any language wherever possible.
Read on to find out more about the events across primary and indeed the whole school.
Have a lovely weekend and enjoy a good book,
Ms Elizabeth Compton
Head of Primary
Whole School House System news
House Points Totals Update - Term 2
| Winton | Galileo | Roosevelt | Parks |
| 864 | 1057 | 934 | 918 |
House Points Totals Update - 2021/22
| Winton | Galileo | Roosevelt | Parks |
| 1918 | 2548 | 2065 | 2115 |
A message from your Heads of House
I would like to remind all students about the next House event….The Dance-a-thon. It is an opportunity for everyone to focus on the school value ´compassion´ and help raise money to support the people in Ukraine by participating in the 20 minute sponsored Dance-a-thon. Please look out for the posters around school and on the school Facebook page. The email I sent to all parents contains the link to learn the dance and the sponsor form. Let's try to be the House that has the most students participating from our youngest learners to the oldest. I wish you all a lovely weekend and remember to start learning the dance.
Miss Mayes, Head of Roosevelt HouseI hope you all had a restful and enjoyable half term break, it has been great to see you all back in school displaying lots of positivity. This half term is a short but busy one, with practical GCSE and A Level drama exams, as well as language speaking exams. We are currently enjoying Reading Week, and our next House competition is coming up. I hope to see lots of you signed up to the sponsored Dance-A-Thon, raising money for those in need in Ukraine.
Miss Turley, Head of Galileo HouseIt has been lovely to see everyone again after the half term break. Keep on earning those House Points. The readathon competition is ongoing until Easter and the Dance-a-thon is coming up soon. Let’s get as many people as possible participating. It will be a fun event for an excellent cause.
I hope you all enjoyed your half term break and came back to school refreshed and ready to learn. We’re kicking off the term with the Readathon challenge and Dress -Up-Day in honour of World Book Day. There are many more exciting things to come including a charity Dance-a-thon to raise money to help those in need in Ukraine.
Early Years news with Mrs Wardle
What a wonderful start to the new term, celebrating World Book Day with pyjama day and a book character dress up day. We have really enjoyed reading all of the books the children brought from home and finding out why they love the books so much. The highlight of the week was watching Serena´s Puppet theater live at school. Serena brought many of our famous stories to life using her wonderful puppets and drama skills. It was so nice to see the children laughing and joining in with their friends
Next Monday, we will have a day at the farm to start our new topic, farm animals and their young.
Year 1 news with Mr Fairless
Year 1 has really enjoyed Reading Week. They have been very busy sharing books, brought in from home, and their own shoe box scene creations. We have all been amazed by the creativity and effort the children have put into depicting their favourite book.
Year 2 News with Ms Bakes
It has been wonderful to see how much Year 2 have loved Reading Week. They have enjoyed bringing in books from home and sharing them with their classmates.
We have been learning about different genres - fiction, nonfiction, comics, adventures, fantasy - and identifying which genre their books are.
The children created their own little books, in which they each made up an imaginative and creative story complete with wonderful illustrations.
They loved coming to school on Tuesday dressed in their pyjamas and having some time to snuggle together with their books and blankets.
Serena and her puppet theatre was a fantastic treat for the children on Thursday! As was being able to wear some of our favourite book character costumes to school on Friday. What a great range of characters we had in the classroom!
We have definitely had a fun-filled and exciting week to start the second half term!
Year 3 News with Mrs West and Miss Xidakis
Year 3 have thoroughly enjoyed reading a range of books this week. One highlight from this week has been the Zoom meeting with author Karen Golden who read stories to us and played instruments.
Student comments:
Kai P said “it was amazing”, Anna said, “I liked that she played music to us”, Massi said, “I loved her stories”, Mila, “I liked how she described the stories to use”, Igor, “I liked how she got us to join in with actions”, Nicholas, “I liked the demonstration of the doll, boat and the hat she made during the stories.”
Also, we enjoyed reading in pyjamas and outside in the sun where we shared one class book and took turns reading it. The drop down and read when we heard the Harry Potter music was particularly fun and we enjoyed role playing our favourite stories. It has been a very fun week.
Year 4 News with Mrs Alonso McGregor and Mrs Walsh
Year 4 were thrilled to see the broad range of books their teachers had brought in for them to browse through and we all enjoyed sharing our favourite reads. Many of these books were well loved picture books that they were familiar with from home. However, this didn't stop them diving in to read some old favourites when the reading music started every day this week, and we enjoyed time to read for pleasure! We all enjoyed reading in the comfort of our pyjamas too!
We enjoyed making book recommendations for others too and writing little post-it notes to share our favourite books with our friends. Perhaps you'd like to read some of them?
Activity Afternoon went off with not so much a bang as a slow fizz then bang. Year 4 constructed aerodynamic rockets then launched them on the school field with their kitchen friendly rocket fuel. They were excited to see them shoot upwards of 5 metres into the air!
Year 5 News with Ms Hodgson and Ms Demangeat
The diversity in the genres and types of books our students enjoy really came to the fore this week as we celebrated their favourite books. Year 5 stepped up to the challenge of creating a shoe box diorama that reflected an important scene from their chosen book. While presenting their creations to the rest of the class, we were reminded how important oracy is and what it takes to be a good active listener. The dioramas were so outstanding that pupils from other classes came to guess which book each scene was from. What a fabulous week we had; wearing pyjamas, talking about favourite books, having a visiting author and finally dressing as a book character.
Year 6 News with Mr Darlow and Mrs Von Waberer
Year 6 had so much fun last week filming and editing their ‘Groovy Greeks’ Horrible Histories sketch. We wrote the scripts before Christmas but had to postpone filming until now. However, they were well worth the wait! The children’s creativity, humour and technical skill have really shone through and we loved watching them together.
Book Week has been such a wonderful success with our Year 6 pupils.
We have enjoyed writing our own short stories to share with others. Year 2 loved listening to the older children reading with expression and delight.
In maths the children loved finding out the favourite book genres of Year 5 and 6 and learned how to represent the information in bar graphs. (photos sent)
We also loved discussing our favourite books with the class in our cosy pyjamas. We even went outside with Year 9 to read and discuss the wonders of books together.
We hope the children continue to read as much as possible and participate in our ‘Readathon’ House competition! They have their own forms to fill out.
Sports department news
It was World Book Day dress up day but our Year 4 students were still enthused and ready to improve their football skills with Mr Somers!
Languages department news
The Lengua Castellana group in Year 3 is learning nouns and their gender. As a final activity, we have been practising it with a wheel and cards. Students had to spin the wheel to get a number and choose the card with that number. Then it was time to classify the noun they had in masculine or feminine and singular or plural. ¡Buen trabajo, chicos!
