Dear Parents and Caregivers,
It has been an extremely positive and productive first six weeks back in school. We seem to be in top gear now and the school is full of activity. Walking through school I have seen lots of smiles and learning happening. Learners have been particularly engaged in topic lessons where we have had everything from mess and muck being created to taste buds being tantalized in our ‘Scrumptiousdillyumptious’ topic and a teddy bear’s picnic. I have enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm exhibited by Learners to share their work!
Today we celebrated Think Pink and had our Year 5 and 6 assembly. As a school we have raised over BHD 500. I am extremely greatful for everyone’s support in rasing money for this amazing cause. I am also proud of our Year 5 and 6 learners who put on a fantastic assembly about ‘kindness’. What beautiful voices you have!
Half term holiday
The school’s half term holiday is from today with all Learners going home at 11.45am. School will resume on Sunday, 29 October.
Assessments and interim reports
Baseline assessments are now complete and will form part of the interim reports that come out today. Student-led conferences will be held on Wednesday, 8 November. Parents will be able to use this opportunity to discuss reports and their child’s progress.
Costume day
On Tuesday, 31 October we invite Learners to wear a costume of their choice. Children are also encouraged to bring sweet treats to share with their class. There will be a range of spooktacular activities and prizes for the best dressed!
Parent partnerships
Thank you to all parents who expressed their interest to join our Parent Teacher Association (PTA). I am pleased to announce that members have been confirmed and will have their first meeting after the half term holiday. I look for ward to working with the PTA group and supporting their quest to build a happy and engaged school community.
Uniform
It has been noted that many learners are coming into school with items of clothing and shoes that are not in line with the school’s uniform policy. Please ensure your child is coming into school with the correct uniform. Notes will be sent home after the half term holidays from teachers informing parents of items that do not adhere to the policy. We understand that the House of Uniforms has not had all sizes available until recently. This issue has now been resolved.
School ID passes
Thank you to everyone who has been wearing their parent IDs. Although we have had to remind a few parents to wear them, the majority are wearing passes. After the half term holiday parents and caregivers who do not wear their passes will not be able to enter the main buildings. I would like to please remind you to not forget your passes to avoid this inconvenience.
Kind regards,
Laura Murray BA, BCA, PGCE, M. Ed.
School Principal
EYFS
Nursery have had a fun and exciting month and are now all settled into their new classroom environment. Every morning they enjoy taking part in their daily routines including greeting each other in our circle time, counting our classmates and talking about ourselves. Our topic has been ‘Marvellous Me’ and we have been learning all about Ourselves, discussing and exploring what we like and what makes us unique. The students drew some amazing self-portraits! They love the outdoors and we have had lots of fun splashing in the water and engaging in many sensory activities together. They are working hard on strengthening their hands, and fine motor skills. They enjoy cutti
ng different materials and shapes and playing with the playdough. They have recently been introduced to the season ‘Autumn’ and have made a beautiful display together using leaves and Autumn colours with paint, they also discussed what type of clothing they wear when the weather changes. We are excited to explore and talk about our families and what they mean to us.
October has been a month of settling in and bonding in Reception. Our students have adjusted beautifully and had the opportunity to get to know more about each other. Exploring the ‘Me and My Community’ topic brought a deeper understanding of our surroundings. We thoroughly explored our senses, took time to understand the roles of our family members, and learned more about our school community and community helpers. The exciting educational activities, such as the fun-filled pool and popsicle day and the ice cream party, added an extra layer of excitement and enjoyment to our month! We are excited to see what learning is in store next month.
Key Stage 1
Year 1 have been very busy this October. Our topic Memory Box has helped us to learn all about memories from the past and how we have grown over the years. We shared some of our baby pictures and talked about our favourite toys from the past. We also made new memories with our friends at our Teddy Bears’ picnic at Budaiya Park. We had a lovely time with our teddies and our friends! In science, we have been looking at our five senses and how we use them to explore the world around us. We went on sound hunts, had taste tests and touched different objects in a feely bag. We have been focusing on our numbers to 20 and have started addition. We are really getting the hang of counting on to add two groups. We are excited to see where our learning takes us next!
Key Stage 2
This term, Year 2 classes have gotten messy and explored making a variety of mixtures in our unit, Mess, Muck, and Mixtures. We have worked with different materials, such as clay, ice, food, oil, playdough, baking powder, conditioner and more. Students enjoyed mixing, melting, and designing in our topic lessons. They sorted food in different ways and observed and created foodscapes. In English, students learned descriptive words and how to use them. They described food, themselves, characters, mixtures, and more. Students practised writing lists, recipes and instructions with imperative verbs, food riddles and acrostic poems with adjectives and created a story animation. In Maths, Year 2 have focused on number knowledge this term. We have practised place value in tens and ones, partitioning numbers, number bonds, using a number line, comparing groups of objects and numbers, and skip counting by 10s, 5s, 2s and 3s, all to one hundred. Year 2 students are ready for their break and excited to come back for the second half of term 1.
Year 3 students are well settled in their new classrooms and familiar with their school and friends. The past few weeks we have been focusing on building class culture, learning routines, and building relationships with our friends and teachers. Our topic for the term was “Scrumdiddlyumptious” – What a mouth full! We incorporated all the subjects. In Maths, we worked hard on addition, subtraction, place value, ordering numbers and have almost mastered our 2,3,5 and 10 times tables. We have been reading the book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and are loving it. We are very confident now with when to use cap
ital letters and where to use a full stop. We learnt about nonsense poems and enjoyed identifying the nonsense vocabulary. We had so much fun in Science, History, Geography and DT, exploring what excessive consumption of sugar can do to our bodies and teeth, creating food plates of the 5 food groups, researching James Lind, designing candy wrappers, making hot chocolate, and exploding chocolate drops! We also learnt about healthy lifestyles and discovered that exercise and Vitamin C is good for you. Did you know with a Vitamin C deficiency, you may end up with scurvy? We have had a fantastic half term, and we look forward to seeing what is awaiting us the next term.
The Year 4 has settled in so well! They have been working very hard since the beginning of the academic year. In Maths, we started with Place Value. Students learnt how to partition numbers, represent numbers on a number line and order numbers to 10,000. They also revised rounding numbers to 1,000. They enjoyed learning about Roman Numerals, where they explored the similarities and differences between the Roman number system and our number system. We have now started with our addition and subtraction topic. Learners have added and subtracted numbers with exchanges and completed problem solving questions when finding missing digits.
Our topic for this term was Blue Abyss. In English we explored and developed our vocabulary using videos, stories and poetry. Learners composed their own aquatic poems and wrote dilemmas stories based on the ocean. We have used a short film called ‘The Lighthouse’ to inspire lots of wonderful writing including, setting descriptions, diary entries and letter writing. We have covered lots of grammar aspects and will continue with this throughout Year 4.
In History, students loved learning about the Titanic. We explored primary sources and used evidence to decide who was to blame for the ship sinking. Learners also explored the different oceans and some seas of the Earth in Geography. Science has also been very exciting. The students learnt about MRS GREN (the 7 life processes) and we explored our school environment on a ‘living thing’ hunt to find natural habitats.
Key Stage 3
Year 5 have had a fabulous start to this academic year. I am proud of how well they have settled back into school life and become familiar with new routines. Our topic this term has been ‘Stargazers’. We have had numerous engaging learning opportunities with more to come. We began by imagining what it would be like to stand on the planet Mars, writing setting descriptions and character descriptions of an alien we met! Children have learnt how to use exciting adjectives to paint a picture in the reader’s brain and how to use similes effectively. In maths, we have been exploring place value in numbers all the way up to 1,000,000! Children have learnt how to read and write these huge numbers as well as add and subtract with them. We are continuing to work hard on our knowledge of times tables. We have continued our ‘Stargazers’ theme in our topic lessons where we have researched and created posters about the different planets in our solar system for science. In history, we have been learning about some of the world’s most influential scientists such as Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. We have created character profiles and discussed the impact they left on the world. It has been a term full of learning and laughter, and we look forward to the next one where our new topic will be ‘Allotment’.
Year 6 have had a wonderful start to the year. I am thrilled with how quickly they have settled in and how well they participate in lessons and follow school routines. Our topic this term has been ‘ID’. We have delved deep into trying to understand what makes us unique and how we can be identified. We have looked at how we can classify people based on physical traits and compared these results to the student’s physical abilities. We started reading the novel ‘The Goldfish Boy’ in English classes. We learned what inference is and how to make it. We searched for interesting, expanded noun phrases in the book and then created our own. All students know how to summarise a chapter and will write a weekly summary of the book they read. We also made a poster with the main character, Matthew. In Maths, we have recapped our knowledge of place value and learned how to write numbers up to 10 million. In the last few weeks of term, we have been practising using the column method to help us answer larger multiplication questions and have introduced the bus stop method to help us with long division. The class have worked very hard this term and have enjoyed year 6 so far. Next term, we will look into our new topic, World War 2.
Year 7 students had an exceptional first term at school, filled with diverse and engaging activities across multiple subjects. One highlight was their history project centred around the Battle of Hastings. As part of this project, the students were tasked with designing shields and swords that reflected the historical context of the battle. This allowed them to showcase their creativity and deepened their understanding of the historical event. In addition to the history project, the students had the opportunity to enhance their English writing skills. Through various writing exercises and assignments, they honed their ability to express themselves effectively and articulate their thoughts. This focus on writing in English provided a solid foundation for their language development and communication skills. These writing skills helped the students design their sketch maps of their home countries in Geography, expressing their knowledge of home and various attractions around the country by using their mapwork skills to apply the knowledge.
Furthermore, the term included a strong emphasis on physical education. The students participated in various sports and locomotive exercises, promoting physical fitness and overall well-being. These activities encouraged teamwork and sportsmanship and instilled a sense of discipline and perseverance in the students. The term also allowed students to improve their mathematical and scientific skills. Through experiments in science and operations in maths, they could use calculations and apply their knowledge to strengthen their understanding of these subjects.
The first term has been busy but very productive for the class of year 8. I have been very impressed with the students’ level of interest and maturity thus far, and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the year has to bring. The students consistently performed well in Maths throughout the term. They have a solid grasp of mathematical concepts such as ratios, algebra and multiplication and division of fractions and integers. They also have shown excellent proficiency in problem-solving. They actively engage in class activities and consistently complete homework assignments on time. Their dedication and effort in improving their mathematical skills are evident.
In Science, we covered a range of disciplines, including biology, chemistry, and physics. Students explore topics like cells and organisms and chemical reactions. They conducted experiments, analysed data, and developed scientific inquiry skills.
In Geography, the students studied the physical and human aspects of the world. They learnt about different ecosystems, climate patterns, population dynamics and global issues. Students also developed map-reading skills and investigated the relationships between people and their environments. In History, the students have shown a genuine interest in the subject. All the students actively participated in class discussions and used their ability to analyse historical events and the significance of Queen Elizabeth.
Students were very busy in English. We revised a lot of basic facts about English grammar and expanded our knowledge about pronouns, different types of verb tenses, homonyms, and collocations. Students started bringing articles from a newspaper to share some news of the week. We write a weekly book summary and will soon begin to read our first novel this year.
The students actively participated in Physical Education classes and consistently demonstrated good sportsmanship and teamwork. They have improved their physical fitness and consistently followed instructions during various physical activities. The student’s positive attitude and commitment to maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle are commendable.
Overall, the students have shown outstanding dedication and effort across all subjects. They consistently met or exceeded expectations and actively engaged in their learning. With continued focus and determination, the students are well-po sitioned to further their success through the year 8 academic journey.