NewsletterPRIMARYKing’s College Alicante

Spring is traditionally a time when new things happen and the world wakes after the winter. It’s certainly been a busy springtime so far in Primary! March has seen our week long Literacy Festival, World Maths Day celebration, an Early Years Teddy Bears picnic, our Primary parent meetings and, as I write, we are preparing for the Year 4 production, “ Go for Gold”. This is all in addition to our classroom learning!

It’s important to join in the celebrations for World Book Week and World Maths Day. They are special occasions that help our children understand how fortunate they are to have the opportunity to learn at a good school. One of the lasting memories from my time in Africa is just how much education is valued, by children and adults alike. There was a real awareness that a good education holds the key

to the future and, for many people in Malawi, it was something they could not take for granted.

Taking part in the Literacy Festival and Maths Day this month helps our children to realise the importance of core curriculum areas such as Literacy and Numeracy. We want to emphasise just how important it is to be a good learner, to celebrate their successes and to challenge all our pupils to make the very most of their opportunities.

Best wishes

Mr. P.B. SloanHead of Primary

Message from the Head of Primary

MARCH 2014 / SECOND TERM

Maths Day!

charityworkAs a part of our ongoing commitment to the wider community, we are still supporting the local charity Cáritas and as such we are requesting donations. There are many local families who are unable to afford basic living items and these campaigns ensure these items are delivered to those families most in need. In order to avoid the duplication of items we have split the different groups of things between year groups. We would be grateful if your child could participate by depositing their donation in their respective tutor room or classroom, ready for the Sixth Form Committee to collect every morning. Cáritas will collect everything we have received at the end of this term, so please start bringing what you can as soon as possible.

KCA fundraising

It would be great if every student could bring in one thing from the suggested items, for example a pack of pencils or a notebook, a pack of cereal bars or a jar of baby food. If every student in King’s College contributed one thing we would be able to donate nearly 1,000 items which would be a big help to Cáritas and would benefit local families enormously.

Baby supplies: nappies, jarred baby food, baby formula (milk), etc.

Nursery/Reception Primary (Y1-Y6)

Stationery (not used): Pens, pencils, colouring pencils, rubbers, sharpeners, notebooks, etc.

Secondary (Y7-Y13)

Snack foods: Cola Cao, biscuits, chocolate, cereals, juices & milkshakes (in small cartons),

The Charity CommitteeFiona Barcenilla and Alba Espinosa

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Tickets still available

at the School Office

Literacy Festival

A week filled with fun ways of Learning English, Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening!

If you thought last year´s Literacy Festival was great, this year´s was even greater. Here in Key Stage 2, every class from Year 3 to Year 6 devoted their whole week to improving Literacy.

Mr. Sloan, Head of Primary commented, “The Literacy Festival in Primary, has really raised the profile of Literacy – children are buzzing with excitement – reading, talking in English and writing beautifully. Well done to everyone who made this week a real success!”

Mrs. Gandhi added, “This year´s festival has seen a real collaboration between year groups and Key Stages in Primary. Older children have loved reading to younger ones and putting on performances. Thanks to all the children and teachers for putting so much effort into the week.”

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.” Kofi Annan former Secretary General United Nations

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Literacy Festival in Early years

This month we have been very busy in Early Years. In Nursery we have enjoyed “Literacy Week” sharing many activities with Year 5 classes e.g. shared reading, puppet and traditional stories being performed. It was very exciting.

Also we have loved out topic about “Bears”. We had our fun theme day on Friday 21st when we did the Bear Hunt and we enjoyed our Teddy Bears picnic in the afternoon. We have done some fantastic artwork.

Now we are looking forward to the last week of Term and doing lots of Easter activities. Happy Holidays!

The week began and ended with whole Key Stage assemblies, Maia (Year6) tells about the special assemblies:

All through the special week (Literacy week) special assemblies were going on, for example: at the beginning of the week, we had a special assembly to firstly talk about what would be going on throughout the week. Secondly, Mr. Sloan asked a few

teachers what their favourite books were. Later on, we collected all the favourite books so that anyone who wanted to could read the book that had been recommended.

Finally, at the ened of the week, we had another assembly where many children were rewarded certificates for winning competitions, such as the handwriting competition. Then, the rest of the

teachers explained why and what was their favourite book. All in all, I think everyone enjoyed Literacy Week!

“Literacy Week was really exciting and I’m sure the children were pleased with the activities” said Mr. Sloan

One of the most popular and successful events was story telling where children from Key Stage 2 went and told stories to children in Key Stage 1. This involved the use of masks, puppets and play acting.

Gema (Year 6) investigated Story telling:

Throughout the week KS2 had the opportunity of telling stories to KS1 and Early Years. Year 6 and 5 enjoyed making masks, puppets and props which they used to tell their stories. Both, the

story tellers and the audience had a good time the little ones learning more vocabulary and the bigger ones being able to express themselves, while being creative and using their acting skills.

Mrs. Metcalfe said, "The children read the stories using capital letters and full stops and they didn't read like robots." Oskar (2M) said that they used sound effects in their voices when reading out speech like witchy voices. Guido (2M) commented, "It was very professional and the children really enjoyed it." Mrs. Tompkins (reception) concluded, “We all had a really good time.”

Literacy Festival KS2

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Another successful event during the week was the finale of the Spelling Bee Luis (Year 6) looked into this event:

Two weeks ago we had a literacy festival in our school in which we did diverse activities related to literacy. We had activities which involved: pronouns, verbs, adjectives but the one I’m going to tell you about is the Spelling Bee.

We did the Spelling Bee aiming to have a boy and girl champion in Years 5 & 6 and another boy and girl winner for Years 3 & 4. To do this, each teacher in each class had to (in register order) ask each student one by one to spell one word which the teacher said only two times. To make this easier, the teacher said one sentence which had the spelling word in it. If the child spelt the word correctly, he/she wouldn´t be eliminated from the game but if they didn´t spell the word as asked, they would be eliminated and wouldn´t have a chance to be the

champion of their Year group. If two boys or two girls spelt their word correctly, the same method would be applied: they would have new words to spell ‘till there was a boy and girl winner from each class.

During the Literacy Week the finals were held in Mr. Sloan´s room where the finalists from each class battled it out. At last a girl and boy winner from each year group was found.

We talked with Liang Liu (also known as Sam) who was the boy winner from Year 6. This is something that he said: “I was very nervous; my heart was beating a million times per minute. However, I also had to think about what I achieved, being the champion boy from my class. I am really pleased to be the Year 6 boy winner!”

Lucy from 6C said that she was so happy to be the girl winner from Year 6 – “I was excited to be in the final and loved every moment of it.”

Yang Jie Lin – Hu, another Spelling Bee Champion, this time from year 5, said that he was over the moon to win the Spelling Bee for his year group.

The winners of the Spelling Bee include:

• Year 3: Valentina (3W) and Noe (3D)• Year 4: Ana (4B) and Santos (4B)• Year 5: Haile (5H) and Yang Jie Lin – Hu (5H)• Year 6 Lucy (6C) and Sam (6G)

We know how much children love competitions and this year we held the popular handwriting competition (Handwriting winners work is displayed in the Reading Corner area in Key Stage 2) and the winners were:

Joan (3D), Adriana (3S), Paula (3W), Katherine (4B), Cayetana (4J), Soraya (4S), Sara (5H), Rafaela (5R), Lucia (5S), Marco (6C), Kosta (6G) and Cristina (6F)

And Speaking and Listening Competition winners were:

Isabel (3S), Hodei (3W), Claudia (3D), Raia (4B), Altea (4J), Sara (4S), Jaun (5S), Mateo (5H), Jorge (5R), Jimena (6F), Nereida (6C) and Noelia (6G).

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As well as reading and writing, it is vital that children are learning to listen to the English language and to speak eloquently too. During the week, we had non pen day which is always a challenge as teachers and children find it hard not to use a pen or pencil for the whole day.

In class 3S pencil pots were put away for the day and not a pen was in sight on ‘Non-Pen Day’, as their classroom was turned into a studio in preparation for 3’s version of ‘The Voice’.

Children took their performing roles very seriously as they took stage and performed to a panel of judges. There were many enthusiastic and confident children who impressed the judges and their teacher. Sandra & Adriana stole the limelight with their well-rehearsed duet of ´Call Me Maybe´ sung in English. Zach was the only boy solo act who bravely got up on stage and sang. Our 3 fiddlers of the day were Mia, Sofia and Adrian, who individually played their own chosen music piece on their violins. It was music to our ears to hear piano playing from our musicians Alvaro, Sara and Adriana. However the winning act went to Laura Inés and Sara, a trio who beautifully sang ´This is Me´from the movie Camp Rock.

It was an engaging and fun activity that was enjoyed by all the children and their children!

When the children entered school, they thought that they would end up using a pen, but, did they? They spent all the day learning without using a pen. Here are some examples of what different classes did:

3S: the children went up, one by one to sing songs and play their instruments like in “The Voice Kids”

Jose from Year 6 looked into how successful we were this year in spending a whole day just speaking and listening and not using a pen:

Brownies Year 6: they cooked some brownies because their topic is chocolate.

They learned how to make a brownie simply by watching their teacher demonstrate the method and by watching a video. They had to remember the method and then make their own brownies in their House teams. After the brownies were made, the teacher judged the best brownie and that House gained lots of House Points. After 2 days they had to write instructions for how to make a brownie. They also learned how to work in a team. In a recent Primary Council survey, children expressed how much they enjoyed non pen day and how they would like to do more without the use of a pen or pencil.

In other parts of Key Stage 2, children learnt how to make pancakes during the day by following verbal instructions from Mr Escott.

Irene (6F) said that it was fantastic being creative and not touching a pen all day.

Gonzalo (6C) said, “We should do non pen day more often, it really gets you communicating."

They learned how to coordinate their music with their songs.

5H: they were practising for a puppet show that they were going to do for nursery. They learned that you can have fun with little kids without having to use an iPad.

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PE Prepositions BY Kosta (Year 6)What is this?In Key Stage 2 there was a great activity that we called,”P.E Prepositions.” It was all about a race in which two people [each from the same “house team”] had to help each other out to win the race before other partners from other teams. The race was like an obstacle course, there were benches you would balance on and

go under [that’s why it’s called P.E prepositions] but you were Blind-Folded, and that’s why you had a partner that would guide you and say what to do. Also, some people helped by timing and writing out scores, the teachers also helped by creating the race and putting the obstacles together. Miss Snook, the teacher who put the course together said, “It is a fun way to learn prepositions!”

What did children think?

Yago (6C), “Couldn’t have been better, I really enjoyed it.”

Lucy (6C), “It was fantastic, I really like doing these activities with my friends”

Jimena (6F), “It’s great, I can’t imagine anything better than this”

Year 4 read “Funnybones” by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

Year 4 studied the plot of the story and then created their own version. Once they had edited their stories, they made books which they then read to the children in Year 1.

During Literacy Week we had World Book Day, a fantastic day where in KS2 Y3,Y4,Y5 and Y6 did fun activities that they enjoyed a lot. The classes of Y 3´s, Y4´s and Y5´s activities consisted in Mª Jose reading them a book and the pupils drawing and describing their favourite character. The Y6´s activity was to see a video where

famous authors and illustrators gave tricks and techniques on how to write a book or draw the characters. No matter which activity it was they all learnt something with it and had great fun.

"I felt really happy on World Book Day, also I learnt lots of techniques from the famous authors, which we, the year sixes, saw on the video... I had a great time." said Gema from 6G, but she wasn´t the only one that greatly enjoyed World Book Day.

"I was very excited because I love reading books, also I chose a very nice book of Greek mythology for Y3´s, Y4´s and Y5´s activity so it was lovely" explained Mª Jose School Librarian and the organizer of this wonderful and unique day.

Sofia (Year 6) tells us all about World Book Day which took place on Thursday 6th March 2014.

During the week, children were rewarded with house points for excellent work in Literacy and the winning house at the end of the Literacy Festival was FIRE!!!!Fire – The Winning House of Literacy Week

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Literacy FestivalKS 1

We began the week with an assembly introducing the week´s activities and the teachers talked to the children about their favourite books. During the week we had lots of fun and found lots and lots of different ways to enjoy Literacy. Here are some photos showing just some of the activities we got up to. We finished the week by performing to everyone in KS1; Year 1 sang “Jolly Phonics” songs and Year 2 did some Numeracy Karaoke, singing along to “Percy Parker”. We had a great week!

After reading a book about ladybirds Year 1 then followed a set of instructions to make their own ladybirds.

Year 1 Shared reading with the i pads

In Year 2 we told the story of the gingerbread man. We made up our own ending for the story.

After working on the Great Fire of London, Year 2 even had a go at being news reporters. Carolina and Sami are interviewing “Thomas Farynor” and “Samuel Pepys”.

The KS2 children came to visit every class and read stories from published books and stories they had also made themselves.

In Year 2 we used the I pads and the laptops to read stories, listen to stories and make up our own.

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Competition WinnersWe held competitions for handwriting and for the best coloured bookmark. Here are the winners with their rewards.

The Bookmark winners: Espé2F, Paola 2S, (Oskar 2M – not on photo), Nicolas 1W Nicoleta 1H,

The handwriting winners: Matthew 2S, MariaElena 2F, Cris 2M, Rayan 1H, Victoria 1C, Pau 1W

On Wednesday 12th March, Primary joined schools from around the world in marking World Maths Day. We do this to emphasise just how important mathematics is to us, not just in school, but in life.

Nursery and Reception enjoyed a whole host of mathematical activities. In Year 6, children made their own maths games and then shared them with pupils in the other Key Stage 2 classes. Key Stage 1 held an exciting maths trail around the school. To finish the day children in both Key Stages joined in a maths championship competition.

World Maths Day at King’s

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Monday the 10th of March saw our very first Chamber Music festival. 21 groups of students ranging from year 3 to year 11 took part in a morning devoted to ensemble performance. Performances ranged from Adele to Mancini and Delibes to Coldplay. All the performances were live, with no backing tracks allowed so the accompaniments were also prepared and performed by the students. Each group performed in front of our panel of adjudicators (Mrs. Laidlaw, who is a vocal specialist, and Mr. Walsh who performs regularly as part of an ensemble) who then commented on their performance. At the end of the morning our adjudicators selected 9 performances to take part in our Chamber Music Festival Concert.

Even to get to the Festival and perform in front of each other took a huge amount of work and effort so congratulations to all those who took part and we look forward to seeing as many people as possible at the concert on Wednesday the 23rd of May at 5pm.

“We enjoyed participating in this event. Although we were not chosen, all the groups were fantastically prepared. Those who were not chosen will have another opportunity next year. I hope the Chamber Music Festival will continue happening in KCA.”

Carla N, Manuela, Libertad (Year 7W)

“The Chamber Music Festival has been a very good competition and I’m sure that everyone has enjoyed it from the people who were selected to play in the concert and those that weren’t. My group and I especially liked it!”

Paula, Paula, Mayte, Carlos, Carlos, Maria, Cristina, Fernando (Year 5)

ChamberMusical Festival

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Author visitFriday, March 14th

Guillermo Caballero, the author and illustrator of the book Series “Carlota es Feliz”, visited our school and led a series of workshops for pupils from Y3 to Y6. Children in Y3 and 4 made book marks and badges, whereas Y5 and 6 had a drawing session.

At the end of the day, the author led a workshop on how to make your own illustrated book, with parents and children working together. It was a very successful and enriching experience and both parents and children really got involved in it. It is the first time that the library organizes this type of activity and we hope to have more like that in the future.

Parents could also have the chance to purchase his signed books and participate in a raffle for one of his original sketches signed by the author and dedicated to the child. The winner of the raffle was María in Y5S. Congratulations to her!

His sketches were also displayed in the library the following week for anyone to have a look at them.

At present, Guillermo is writing his third book and we are looking forward to invite him to present it in the school.

News from the library

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World Book DayThursday, March 6th

As part of Literacy Week, the school celebrated World Book Day on Thursday 6th March. KS2 pupils came to the library to listen to some lovely stories from the Greek Mythology, such us “King Midas’s Goldfingers”, “The Secret of Pandora’s Box” and “Arachne, the Spider Woman”.

After that, Y3, 4 and 5 pupils enjoyed drawing and writing about their favourite character, whereas Y6 watched “The Biggest Show on Earth” which is an online English TV programme that takes place every year, where well-known writers and illustrators talk. If you would like to view the programme just click on www.worldbookday.com and look for “The Biggest Show on Earth”.

They all had an exciting day with plenty of fun!

María José Sánchez, School Librarian

Year 4Go for Goal

The Year 4 children have been working hard to put together a spectacular show “Go for Goal”. The show reveals the history of the Football World Cup. The Year 4 children have put so much effort into learning their lines and the words for their songs and the results were outstanding.

Well done Year 4!

Year 4 have found out a lot about the history of the Football World Cup, did you know…

This year the World Cup will take place in Brazil.

An English amateur team - West Auckland- won the first World Cup in the year 1909.

The 1950 World Cup final was played between Brazil and Uruguay, Brazil were considered a great team, however they failed to defend and as a result Uruguay won.

England won the World Cup in 1966, the trophy was stolen and a dog named ´Pickles´ found it!

We all remember that Spain won the last World Cup…who will be the champions this year?

A huge thank you to parents for organising costumes and for Miss Anna Dell'Aglio, Miss Meena Meinel and Miss Annie Foyster for producing such amazing props.

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King’s College AlicanteGlorieta del Reino Unido 5

Alicante 03008 SpainTlf: 965 106 351

Fax: 965 108 096info.kca@kingsgroup.org

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Well done to Pavel Petrov in 5R who has just won the under-10 tennis competition for the Circuito de Tennis Mediterraneo in Alicante. Pavel travels to Madrid at the end of this month to take part in a countrywide tournament. Well done and good luck to Pavel!

Congratulations Pavel!