BSQ Newsletter No. 10

What a wonderful first week back we had last week. With topics changing in the primary school, all the children are now studying the big question - How do natural phenomena help shape our planet? Each year group studies a different natural state ranging from a general exploration of weather in year 1 to an in-depth study of tsunamis in year 6. We all know that as our world gets warmer, there are places across the globe that are being significantly affected by the rising sea levels, rising temperatures and changing eco-systems.

By studying these topics, we hope that our students will be able to develop a deeper understanding of how the natural world works and be inspired to take good care of it.

Update on our eco projects.

As part of the RED Move group focus, later this term we will once again be categorizing our waste here at BSQ. Having worked hard to focus on reducing plastic use and developing a recycling culture here, we hope that we find we have reduced the amount of plastic and paper that appears in our bins on a daily basis.

• How can you help? Remember that every student should bring a reusable water bottle to reduce plastic waste and that food from home can be packed into washable and reusable pots. These are small actions that can make a big difference.
• What are we doing? We are forming an Eco Committee to find sustainable ways to change and to lead our work towards becoming an accredited Eco-School. We are keen to involve parents too and more information will be coming your way soon. Watch this space!
• What else are we doing? We are holding a Climate day on January 18 2020 where our activities will be inspiring us to have a deeper understanding of the impact of a changing climate and ways we can work to combat it.

Visitors and Coffee Morning.

As I mentioned in the newsletter last week, David Pottinger, the CEO of Orbital, will be visiting us this week and he will be joined by Karl Wilkinson, the Regional Head of Schools whom many of you have met before. We are excited to be able to show them our new spaces and the wonderful learning take place across our school. We will be having an informal coffee morning on Wednesday November 13 at 08:15 in the library. I hope that as many of you as possible can join us. Please contact Sandy to let her know of your intention to attend.

Exciting Orbital Exchange Opportunity

As we mentioned last week, we are excited to announce that in 2020 we will be participating in the first cultural trip to visit Moscow - another Orbital base. If you are interested in participating in this visit it will be open to students from years 5 - 10 and the dates are between June 14th and June 20th 2020. Please contact azambrano@britishschoolquito.edu.ec to register your interest by December 2nd so that we can communicate with our colleagues in Russia and set up a meeting to share more information.

Wellbeing and learning at BSQ.

The importance of wellbeing and mental health linked to good learning has been a topic of much interest for some time in the UK. Here at BSQ we are always looking for ways to support our students to learn with confidence and success and so I am delighted to introduce to you a new member of our staff team. Please see the attached letter for more details of this exciting project.

BSQ Trip Opportunities

We would like to invite you all to share the wealth of experience and knowledge of our community with our students. We have produced a short survey to fill out for those of you who would be willing to either come in to school to talk about your business and profession or for our students to come and visit your place of work to gain first-hand experience of the rich opportunities you can offer. Please state whether this is available to all school children or certain age groups. This information will be held in our school database and be shared amongst our teachers for enriching our curriculum. BSQ Trip Opportunities Survey

Our team- the Y5 and 6 team

As the primary children enter Years 5 and 6, they are both consolidating their knowledge and developing the skills and experiences that will prepare them for joining the secondary school here at BSQ. Our dedicated and professional team in these year groups do a fantastic job.

Continuing with our teachers and their stories about learning in the classroom this term. This week we hear from Ms. Sara Avent in Secondary and from Mr. Chris Ledbeter in Primary.

Ms. Sara Avent – Secondary Science Teacher

The students returned from break refreshed and ready to learn which is excellent because this week has been very busy in the science classroom. Year 7 have been learning about the human reproductive system which has generated a lot of interesting questions! Year 8 have been extending their learning about ionic compounds and are enjoying finding out what the periodic table can tell us. They have finished analyzing the results of their investigation into the Law of Conservation of Mass. Year 9 are investigating the requirements for seed germination with a lab using cilantro seeds and will begin to look at how characteristics are inherited and variation is produced starting this week. Year 10 biology students are finishing up their unit on the human digestive system by looking at how enzymes work and the factors that can affect their function. In ESS, the year 12 students presented their biome comparison projects to the class and I was impressed by the effort that went into a lot of the projects. We will be finishing up the Ecology topic by looking at zonation and succession this week. The students are also beginning their review in preparation for a unit test next week.

Mr. Chris Ledbeter – Year 3A Teacher

In this shortened week 3A have still managed to do lots of great learning. We have begun a new in literacy, non-chronological reports. The children have produced labelled diagrams of the features of these reports. In guided reading with have continued to use ‘Spin a question’ when children have to think of a question about the book starting with whatever word the spinner lands on.

In ICT the children have been practicing the key life skill of typing, taking the first steps to becoming touch typists. They showed their resilience overcoming the temptation to move one finger all around the keyboard. If you would like to have a go at improving your own typing skills try out the website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zf2f9j6/articles/z3c6tfr

Last but certainly not least, 3A had a fantastic end to the week with a pizza party rewarding the class who donated the most books.

November 11th – 14th – David Pottinger and Karl Wilkinson visiting

November 13th – Year 10 SSD trip

November 14th – 16th – Silver DofE Expedition

November 15th_ Year 13 Mock exams begin

November 16th – Bonfire Night

Emma Newman

Principal

We hope you found the Parent Teacher Conference last week informative and insightful. The partnership between teachers and parents is a vital one in your child’s education and having a common approach to your child’s development helps to ensure that they are fully supported. On Thursday this week we welcome Elizabeth Gaunt, a volcanologist from the Instituto Geofísico who will present to both Year 3 and Year 4 about volcanoes and earthquakes.

Then we have our next House Event on Friday so all the students are encouraged to wear their house t-shirt to school. ​​Following that we have our annual Bonfire Night on Saturday, where we hope to see many of you there to celebrate an infamous event in British history and join together as a community. We also welcome two visitors from Orbital to BSQ next week, Karl Wilkinson and David Pottinger, with an opportunity for you to meet with them at a Coffee Morning on Wednesday at 8:15am.

The staff and students are continuing our focus on keeping safe in the sun, with all members of our community expected to wear hats around the campus during the day. Please do ensure that your child has a hat in school each day and applies sunscreen in the morning before coming to school. Each classroom also has sunscreen available to reapply during the day.

Star of the Week

Marcus Madden

​Head of Primary

Model United Nations

This coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, our Model United Nations team will be representing BSQ at a conference at Colegio Aoericano. MUN is an internationally renowned and highly respected creative and academic exercise combining research, problem-solving, negotiation and debating skills with an astute awareness of current and historical global events and issues.

​Students gather together to ‘role-play’ the functions and processes of the United Nations, bringing a depth of understanding, a focus on the wider world and a skill-set unmatched by the regular curriculum. It is designed to allow good students to become excellent ones, and to develop their potential as leaders. We wish them the very best of luck.

The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award

We're very proud here at BSQ of being the only school in Ecuador to offer the world-renowned and highly respected Duke of Edinburgh's International Award. This award involves students taking part in service activities, learning new skills and being physically active, and culminates in an 'adventurous journey': a two-, three-, or four-day expedition which includes hiking, camping and cooking in the great outdoors. This week, we are delighted that a group of candidates for the silver award will be going out on their practise expedition, which will see them hiking and camping along the beautiful and challenging Ruta del Quinde on the western slopes of Pichincha.

Jim Wild

Head of Secondary

This week our school counsellor, Andrea Carrera, talks about ​how parents can help their teens cope with stress.