The Primary Update

Pre-K - Grade 1 May 23rd, 2013

WELCOME PAGE

Assessment Week

The week ahead is going to be a busy and important one for all of our students. Our Early Years team continuously assesses the Pre-K and KG1 students over the course of the year, as do our primary teachers. But we now enter the phase of the year where more formal assessment takes place. The teachers from KG2 to Grade Five will be administering assessments for reading, writing and numeracy, in a relaxed atmosphere, in a manner for which they are designed to give a true indication of a child’s individual attainment. Your child’s overall academic performance will then be reported in the end of year academic report.

In order to help your child during this time, please make sure that they receive plenty of rest and down time at home over this weekend. A restful nights’ sleep and a good breakfast will greatly help your child concentrate and work to their best of their ability. If you do have any questions with regard to the assessments then please do not hesitate to come in and ask either myself or your child’s class teacher

Tiger Training

We begin next week with a special assembly on Sunday morning, which will be focusing on bullying. Two visitors from a company called Tiger Training, Charlotte Gast and Cindy Van De Kreke-Freens, will be running an interactive and experiential workshop on how to deal with bullying, which will provide our students, teachers and the school with a model that goes beyond bullying alone. It's a method that boosts confidence, respect, security, well-being and success.

Tiger comprises of simple and straightforward techniques such as distinguishing between different behavior styles -with the aid of caps-, assertive communication, self-management, noticing impact and building positive relationships. Various studies and research show that effective relationships lead to: - increased positivity and productivity - elevated emotional and social intelligence - higher satisfaction and retention Our students will: - obtain understanding of what bullying is - gain a structure (steps) how to react to bullying - become aware of their behavior - learn how to become more "respond-able"(effective)

This Tiger training will offer JBS a common language, so children, teachers and the rest of the school are aligned, which facilitates anchoring the IPC Goals and Values. If you would like to find out further information with regards to Tiger Training please see the attached brochure. Science Day Wednesday 29th May will see us celebrate our annual Science day. Students are invited to dress as mad scientists / crazy professors or even famous scientists. Capturing such a look is easy. Dad’s old white shirt will make an ideal lab coat; backcomb and hairspray hair to recreate crazy hair or the blown-up experiment look; fake spectacles; plastic test tubes and any other type of science props are welcomed. Wishing you a relaxing weekend. Best wishes Miss Williams

PRE-K

‘Out and About’

We really enjoyed our trip to the flower shop. This trip was linked to the topic we are exploring ‘Plants and Flowers’. Walking through the lane the sent from the flowers was beautiful. The children noticed lots of different types of plants and flowers growing in gardens and over walls. We had a look around the flower shop. The lady working in the shop told us the names of some of the flowers. We asked about the ‘price’ of different plants and got to choose the ones we wanted. The children each had their own money and paid the ‘cashier’. They waited for a ‘receipt’ and some children had to collect ‘change’. We watched as the ‘sales assistants’ wrapped up our purchases. We really enjoyed our visit. When we returned to school we placed some of the plants and flowers we bought in our flower shop and garden center. It was amazing to watch the children playing in the shop after the visit. They were role-playing with much more accuracy and using much more specific vocabulary. A big thank you to our parents for accompanying us and to ‘Royal Flowers’ for their wonderful hospitality and patience. They gave each child a free rose to bring home!

KG1

KG1 have just finished the topic ‘Let’s Pretend’. They learnt all about many different fairytales, looking at the characters and settings. The children had great fun dressing up in the role-play area, pretending to be a Princess or a Prince, a Queen or a King and re-telling well known stories such as ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. As an exit point to the topic the children discussed settings within stories. They then created their own setting with their mums, dads, brothers and sisters at home using a shoebox. The children worked very hard to create these shoebox settings such as under the sea, castles, forests and many, many more. These wonderful creations are on display outside each KG1 classroom. Please come and have a look as the children worked very hard.

KG2

Last week in Kg2 we were exploring capacity through real life situations. The children had lots of fun in experimenting with water and sand in their outdoor learning area. They were introduced to new vocabulary and made estimations of the capacity of different sized and shaped containers.

As an exit point to our Literacy story ‘Man on the Moon’ Kg2 blasted off in their own hand made space rockets!! These are on display in the classrooms so feel free to come in and admire your child’s creative masterpiece.

Having fun experimenting with capacity

GRADE 1

The grade 1 children should be extremely proud of themselves for their participation in the speech competition. “Should schools start early or later in the day?” was the hot topic up for debate. Every child participated and delivered their speech to the class. It took a lot of encouragement from each child to stand up in front of the entire class and voice their opinions about the chosen topic. From here four children from each grade 1 class were chosen to deliver their speech to the entire grade 1! This was a fantastic exercise for the children to speak in front of a big audience. The judges had a very difficult job to choose 4 children to represent grade 1 against other children from grades 2 and 3. However Maddy, Matilda, Kiumars, and Yacine were chosen to compete in the next level. These four courageous children did a SUPER job on the day of the competition and we are all extremely proud of them!! Well done grade 1 on your achievements last week!

PE AT JBS

The primary swim squad have competed in 3 swimming galas over the last couple of weeks.

The students have been swimming against lots of different schools, showing off the skills they have been working on over the year.

The students train twice a week, one afternoon and one morning session – before school!

The students have showed excellent team work and commitment over the year, and have won several races at the galas. They are hoping for a good result on Thursday at their final gala of the season at Star International School.

ARABIC AT JBS

مجلة األسبوع الّثالث من شهر مارس

قسم اللغة العربّية والّتربية اإلسالمّية :

، كما قام قسم اللغة 3102ام و علقد قامت مدرسة أكادمّية المزهر بتكريم الفائزين في مسابقة القرآن الكريم على مستوى تعليم والتي تّم عقدها في الّثاني من شهر ماي

كادر الّتعليمي و مدير المدرسة . ال العربّية والّتربية اإلسالمّية بتكريم الطالب في مرحلة رياض األطفال لمشاركتهم في مسابقة القرآن ، وقد وزعت شهادات الّتقدير بحضور