THE PRIMARY N E W S L E T T E RPrimary News from the Pupils and Teachers of The British School of Alicante

Message from theHead of Pr imary

Children today are regularly exposed to images, news and sights of pain and suffering in today´s turbulent world. It has now become essential to instil the value of charity in children from a young age, to help them grow up into compassionate, caring human beings.

Teaching children about charity is a valuable lesson. When they learn about charity they are learning important life lessons. Most children can readily relate to other children who are hurting. Involving pupils in events that help other children is a perfect way to instil a lifelong attitude of giving to charity.

The Year 6 Chocolate Charity Bake not only involved all of primary in the importance and joy of giving to others, but also the Year 6 parents, who willingly supported and helped their children to create such delicious recipes at home. By donating the 470€ to a local charity our pupils are giving back to their community.

Representatives from Nazareth visited school for a special assembly with year 5 and 6 and explained their work in the community. The children were given an opportunity to ask questions about their work with children, young adults and families. At the end of the assembly the money was presented to Nazareth by the 6 competition winners from Year 6. Not only did our pupils help and give back to their community, but they also experienced the joy of giving and learnt to sympathise with the pain and needs of others.

I hope you enjoy looking at the photos in this newsletter of our very successful Charity Bake.

Fiona ThomasHead of Primary

Carniva l2012

FEBRUARY 2012

Early YearsNewsThe Early Years children and teachers have been in the party spirit this month and had a great Carnival week. We enjoyed making masks, ties, carnival shakers, dancing, singing and dressing up.

The Nursery children have been very busy this month doing special investigations developing their Knowledge and Understanding of the World. They have been exploring magnets, torches and lots of natural and man-made objects.

The sand tray on the Nursery patio has been refilled now with sand and the children love making things and playing in the sand. At times the sand can get in the children´s hair or clothes as they get carried away with their playing. We advise that the children bring in a cap or hat to wear during sand play to help to avoid this happening.

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The Reception children have almost finished their topic of transport and have produced some fantastic charcoal pictures of bicycles. You can see all these hanging in the Reception corridor and Siesta hall.

The Reception children had a visit from the Year 13 students and they came to help us develop our garden area on the patio. We want to thank the Year 13´s as we really enjoyed working together planting lots of flowers, plants and vegetables. We are looking forward to watching them grow and promised the Year 13´s we would look after them and water them regularly.

All the Early Years children visited the planetarium this month and we thought it was like a big igloo tent. We were a bit frightened of the dark to start with, but once we saw all the stars and planets we thought it was very exciting.

Going Green, Lean and Clean!

BSA’s School Council members have been busy beavering away over the last few weeks, working in three sub-groups: Health & Safety, Healthy Me and Eco School.

The Health and Safety sub-group has focussed on making the playground areas safer and more attractive. They have highlighted litter as one of the major factors in spoiling the appearance of the playground, and, more importantly, presenting a danger in terms of people slipping on spilt food and drink. They have found that some pupils eat and drink on the Astroturf, and, accordingly, all teachers on duty have been asked to be vigilant about this. The group decided to make posters: one indicating what you should not do, and one indicating what you should do, to be placed around the playground. They also suggested a “Picking up Litter Rota” for the Juniors, to be monitored daily by the School Council representatives. With these initiatives in place it is hoped that the playground areas will become a better place in which to spend time.

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Thank you to the school council pupils and the class teachers who remind them about all meetings! Big thanks to all teachers and pupils involved in the school council work... it is certain that all this effort is going to result in a healthier, safer and eco friendlier environment

The Healthy Me group have been designing posters for display in and around the school dining room, reminding all children to wash their hands before eating and that a balanced diet which includes fruit is good for them! Early years classes have received hand-washing posters with jingles on them for the children to sing as they learn about hand washing and hygiene. The group has plans for a Healthy snack week which will run next term along with 2 planned sports and fitness events involving Reception classes along with Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 pupils. Lots of topic work is also being taught in classes, at present, about the body, exercise and healthy eating.

The Eco School sub group has been keen to see how all classes in primary can become more eco friendly. It identified that often teachers and children leave their classrooms without turning off lights; without switching off projectors; sometimes taps may be left running and the heat is escaping through open windows and doors. The group decided to create a check list for classes which would be placed inside the classroom and near the door. Before leaving the class, children would ensure that lights and projectors are off, taps closed and doors shut behind them. Regularly, Eco-warriors, members of the sub group, will patrol classrooms to check which class is eco friendly and which one is not. Classrooms not following the check list rules will be named and shamed and those being eco friendly will be praised and rewarded with an eco friendly certificate. The sub group aim to launch their proactive scheme in the first week of March.

Tuesday 21st was Shrove Tuesday or Pancake DayIn Nursery W we learnt how to make pancakes!

We read a book about pancakes.

We whisked the eggs.

We mixed in the flour and milk.

Then we cooked and tossed the pancakes.

Finally, we got to eat them! They were delicious!!!.

PancakeDAY

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Year 4 have been busy learning about human bodies in the topic “Bag of Bones”

CARNIVALPARADE

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PARADE

KEY STAGE 1MOMENTS

Year 2 Peaceful Words Year 2 Carnival Pilot and Air Hostesses

Year 2 Carnival Doctors

Spanish Staff Peace Day Puppet Show

Year 2 Peaceful Words

Year 2 Peaceful Words

Spanish Staff Peace Day Puppet Show

Year 3 are learning a variety of different melodies and rhythms on their recorders in preparation to perform an extract from the Russian Children´s story ´Peter and the Wolf´.

Below are years 3S, 3P and 3C in action.

NEWS FROM PRIMARY MUSIC

HOME MADEMUSIC INSTRUMENTS

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YEAR 6CHOCOLATETOPIC

This term, Year has been looking at the topic of Chocolate. As part of this topic children have been looking at the history of chocolate and the origins of the cacao bean; The process of making chocolate and in relation to this they recently visited two chocolate factories in Villajoyosa: Valor and Clavileño. The children have also become experts at using chocolate to make and bake their own chocolate cakes, biscuits and other delicious goodies.

On Tuesday 14th February all Year 6 children brought in chocolate delights that they had made at home; and to prove they had made it, they had to bring photos of them cooking throughout the process and they also had to bring in their recipe and method. Once they had brought the items into school, Mr Laidlaw, the Head Teacher and Mrs

Photos from the Chocolate Baking Sale

Thomas, Head of Primary, judged the chocolate goodies and awarded a certificate and English chocolate bar to a winner from each class. Children also came into school that day in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory costumes and the best dressed character from each class was also awarded a prize.

All the items that the children had made were then sold in school to children and staff, raising a phenomenal 470 Euros. This money has been donated to the Nazaret Fundación which is a youth and family programme based in Alicante which is aimed at improving the quality of life of disaffected children and families in the local area. Nazaret has been in existence since 1957. On Wednesday 22nd February, Nazaret came into school to do a presentation about their work to Years 5 and 6.

Photos from the Chocolate Baking Sale

For the rest of the term, Year 6 will be experimenting with chocolate and also creating their own virtual chocolate shop and learning how become our future business men and women! They will be creating chocolate related art work too. This has been a really exciting topic which children have really enjoyed.

The first chocolate factory we went to was VALOR.And we had lots of fun!

When we entered the factory we were amazed. We visited the chocolate museum and saw the chocolate in its different forms.

After that we saw the different machines it had. It was an amazing experience. Finally we went to buy chocolate in the VALOR factory. It was delicious!!!Furthermore we went to the chocolate factory of CLAVILEÑO and we had lots of fun too. We received an interesting booklet with the process of chocolate making! When we went into the factory they showed us how they did the chocolate in the old times.

When we got to school, we told our friends about our fantastic experience!

We hope that we can go again!

BY IRENE AND SARA

YEAR 6 TRIP TO THE CHOCOLATE FACTORIES IN VILLAJOYOSA

The 14th of February was the Year 6 chocolate cake sale. The Year 6´s are studying chocolate this term, and our project was to bake a dessert that was composed of chocolate and other ingredients. At the start of the day, Mr Laidlaw and Mrs Thomas visited the Year 6 classes to judge who had made the best cakes and come dressed in the best costumes.

The winners from Y6H were Irene and Noa, the 6G winners were Richard and Santiago and the 6F winners were Tess and Ethan.

After the judgement, the Y6s took their desserts to sell them. The desserts were yummy yummy and popular amongst the pupils.

In assembly on the 22nd of February, all the money raised was given to “La Sonrisa de Nazaret”, a charity placed in Alicante.

WE RAISED 470 EUROS ALL TOGETHER AS A SCHOOL!!

BY NOA AND MAFALDA

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Glorieta del Reino Unido 5Alicante 03008 Spainwww.bsalicante.com

email: carlos.lazaro@kingsgroup.org

Important Dates6th March – Reception Steam Train Trip

13th March Visiting Author for Year 6

13th March – Nursery and Reception Parenting Class – Eating Habits

16th March – Book Fair

16th March – Early Years Reports Home

19th March – School Closed

20th and 21st March – LAMDA Exams – Yrs 5 and 6

22nd March to 30th March – Parent /Teacher Meetings

3rd April – Nursery and Reception Parenting Class – Sleep Habits

3rd April – Primary Reports Home

3rd April – Last Day Term 2