We are a learning community, passionate about providing an International Education,which inspires and encourages learning and intercultural understanding.
We facilitate self-discovery and the development of unique interests, gifts and talents, whilst promoting service learning as a force for good in the world.
22nd March
School Calendar
| Friday 22 March | Diploma Art Exhibition – Hotel Club Maritimo de Sotogrande –18:00- 21:00 |
| Friday 22 March – Wednesday 27 March | D1 CAS week |
| Monday 25 – Thursday 28 March | M1-M4 Parent interviews by invitation |
| Monday 25 March | P2 Unit based trip |
| Tuesday 26 March | P3 Unit based trip |
| Wednesday 27 March | U9s Interschool football competition |
| Friday 29 March | M5 Personal Project Exhibition – 11:20 – 12:45 in Sports Hall (see Whole School News) |
| Friday 29 March | ‘Send a Child to School’ day & KP Enterprise Day |
| Saturday 30 March | Paul Templeton memorial – Sotogrande Church 14:00 |
| Monday 1 April | P3 & P4 Expressive Arts performance ‘Space Pirates’ – 18:30 – 19:30 in school theatre |
| Tuesday 2 April | P3 & P4 Expressive Arts performance ‘Space Pirates’ – 18:30 – 19:30 in school theatre |
Dear Parents and Guardians,
This week has been a very busy, but wonderful week with a huge number of trips, events and areas of celebration.
Our M3 students started their first week of action in relation to the Community Project. Their range of activities has been varied, with support and programming help for the online community, to revision support for the older students in Nabugabo, who are taking their exams to allow them access to high school. These projects are not only integral to passing the M3 year of the MYP, but they also have a huge impact on communities all around the world.
Meanwhile we hosted the first Ted X Youth event on Wednesday. I would like to publicly thank and congratulate Lucia in D1, who organized and led the event with great drive and determination. The freedom that the title of our event “the essence of a changing world” created allowed a diverse range of presentations to be delivered. It was also a wonderful opportunity for us as a school to link with one of our Inspired sister schools, St John’s, Belgium as two students travelled with their teacher to take part. This is the first time that students from our sister schools have visited; we hope it will be the first of many!
Congratulations to D2 student Carmela; SCAD University has been so impressed with her work across the curriculum that they have offered her a Distinguished Scholar scholarship to join them to study in the USA.
Tonight we will host the D2 art exhibition, titled ‘Vernissage’, and we would be delighted for you to join us to celebrate our students’ work from 6pm at the Maritimo Hotel in Sotogrande port.
Finally a reminder that the memorial service to celebrate the life of Paul Templeton will take place on Saturday 30th March at 2pm in Sotogrande Church. May I also remind you that there is a book at reception for personal message and memories, this will be given to Gendra after the service on 30th March.
We wish you a wonderful week.
Best wishes
Jak Kearney
Diploma Art Exhibition – TODAY!
Our creative and talented final year Visual Arts students will proudly exhibit their artwork in the ‘Vernissage Exhibition’ at Club Maritimo de Sotogrande. The exhibition is the culmination of the students’ hard work, conceptual and artistic skills development. The exhibition reflects the creative individuality that we nurture at SIS, with exhibits that show experimentation in each medium of painting, photography, film, sculpture, ceramics, print making and fashion.
I proudly invite all parents and friends to join us at the Exhibition opening at 6pm on Friday 22nd March, Hotel Club Maritimo De Sotogrande. See you there! However if not possible to come tonight, the hotel has confirmed that the art works will remain on display all next week.
Daniel Maloney
Art and Drama teacher
Cantina News
Last time the boys helped us to “design” the Cantina menu; this month P4 Paula Sánchez’ recipe has been chosen and it is none other than a delicious black rice with choco and alioli. Thanks Paula for your help!
Next month another student recipe.
Sharing Russian culture
It has been an absolute pleasure to organise an event at school to portray an element from the Russian culture through a variety of art forms: story telling, dancing, singing and culinary. We (Darina K., Elmar I., and I, Marija S.) also with the help of Russian parents and the Russian teacher Yulia Knottenbelt, have organised Maslenica, translating from Russian – Pancake Week, greeting the spring and saying goodbye to the winter! Firstly, writing a physical theatre play script, then performing it to the primary students as a way of telling them about our traditions through dancing. There were over 300 pancakes baked by students throughout the day and then, given out with jam, honey, etc. to everyone who wanted, for free! The pancake symbolises the sun and it has truly been an enlightening and a bright day! As for those who were organising, it was absolutely heartwarming seeing so many smiles upon faces of all ages, gender and culture, embracing our own.
New school buses on Marbella route
We would like to inform you that we have added an additional bus for the Marbella route and also a late bus to Marbella that will leave SIS at 5.10pm for students who have after school extracurricular activities.
If you wish to sign up your child up for either of these buses, please email emanzano@sis.gl .
Street Love
For her M3 community project, Chloe B has chosen to support the charity Street Love and has come up with a great way to raise funds. Can you help her? Visit her Facebook page @streetlovesotogrande to find out more.
Personal Project Exhibition Day – March 29th
On March 29th, we would like to invite all parents and members of the school community to visit our Personal Project Exhibition Day from 11:20 to 12:45. The exhibition will take place in the gym.
Diving Courses – 3rd Term
Summer is coming and it is time to go and explore the beautiful underwater world! Why not join the last diving course of this school year?
We will meet all the new students for the third trimester course at the SIS cafeteria near the pool on 28th and 29th March for subscription and information from 3:00 to 5:30 pm.
Let’s go diving!
Sports Round up
U13 Football tournament
Sotogrande hosted the final football tournament of the season for secondary students, this time it was the turn of the U13s. SIS was represent by one girls team and two boys teams. It was a very competitive tournament with the girls team securing 5th place overall. The boys B team managed a 7th place finish overall, drawing one and winning one of their 4 games.
The boys A team advanced to the semi final where they overcame Aloha College 1-0 in a very tight game. The final was played against Swans with SIS kicking against the wind in the first half, however they managed to absorb the pressure and score a breakaway goal to take a 1-0 lead at half time. In the second half, SIS stepped up the pressure and scored the second goal of the game to win the trophy.
All the teams showed great spirit and were a credit to the school, looking a million dollars in their new kit sponsored by the PTA
Local Rugby Team
Good luck to the local rugby team. They are top of the league and play 2nd in title decider this Sunday in Jerez. Marianistas (Jerez) v CR Estrecho (Pueblo Nuevo)
Congratulations to our M2 Dressage winner
Last weekend Sofia M. participated in the Andalusian dressage cup; this was Sofiia’s competition debut in Spain. Sofia with her horse Guardian showed excellent results… 66,250…a first place finish!
PTA News
Save the date…. Saturday 25th May
Fundamentals News
Celebrating World Down Syndrome Day.
Yesterday people around the world were wearing odd socks to raise awareness of the cause. Socks have been used as the symbol because chromosomes are shaped “like socks” and people with Down’s syndrome are born with an extra one.
Message From Miss Emma Butler
Exciting times for our Early Childhood and P1 teachers and students
To find out more please click on this link.
EC2 study the beach landscape
What incredible discoveries were made by the children in EC2! They had the opportunity to explore different landforms and view a range of landscapes. At the beach they participated in a child initiated clean up. This was in response to discussions had when The Nautilus Project kindly came to talk to us about plastic in our ocean. After visiting the beach we continued to look at how natural resources in our environment are managed.
P2 Exploring fossils
This week P2 were busy making salt dough fossils. They were learning about the evidence that remains over time as part of their Local Communities Unit ‘The history of communities can be discovered by exploring the evidence that remains over time’.
P4 Visiting experts
P4 were pleased to welcome two volunteers from The Nautilus Project in Gibraltar who came to talk to us about the effect of plastic pollution on the wildlife in the Straits of Gibraltar, particularly the dolphin and turtle populations. The Nautilus Project is a voluntary organisation run by marine biology students. For more information and to make a donation to support their work, please consult their Facebook page.
Update from the Primary Student Council
Over the last few weeks we have been discussing manners in school. We brainstormed ideas and we decided to start with how we behave in the cantina. As a group we designed this poster and next week we will be discussing it within our classes.
Space Pirates: Tickets update
Tickets will be on sale on Monday afternoon from 3.15-4.15pm and Tuesday-Friday morning from 8.30-9.00am. Tickets can purchased from Miss Maureen in Emma Butler’s office.
M2 Unit on sustainable systems of food production
In individuals and societies we strongly believe that units of inquiry should have an opportunity for action and solution focus. In other words it is important that students not only develop the knowledge and understanding relating to issues and challenges faced by society but also the role they can actively play as change makers. In a recent M2 unit on sustainable food systems students explored issues relating to food production and health including unsustainable, linear systems of food production and waste. Further inquiry allowed the students to consider how nature has developed sustainable circular systems of production in which nothing is wasted.
Students then went on to explore how we can develop more sustainable systems of food production by mimicking nature (biomimicry). In the first phase of the investigation students formulated their own research questions by selecting two related concepts (resources, systems, sustainable, recycling, biomimicry), for example, How can biomimicry be used to develop a sustainable aquaponics system? Further research allowed them to develop their knowledge and understanding before designing a micro-scale system of food production.
Aila and Erika designed their own system of aquaponics and built the system from recycled materials from home. Their ingenious design used water from a fish tank to irrigate mint and coriander plants that were supported above the water. After 4 weeks the plants and fish were healthy and the girls had clearly demonstrated how nutrients can be recycled to produce a sustainable system of food production.
Mark Barling
Diploma History trip
Last week DP2020 D1 history students visited London for 5 days as part of their IB history course. In that time we covered a wide range of activities in support of the course, their coursework and also in some cases potential university applications. We have been to lectures on Soviet history from professors from Cambridge, Durham and Warwick, a Cold War history workshop at Roehampton University and 20th century conflict research at the Churchill Museum, HMS Belfast and the Imperial War Museum. We visited Imperial University Medical Department for our prospective doctors in the group, and the Natural History Museum, British Museum and a bracing 8 km walking tour of London’s tourist highlights from Buckingham Palace to Covent Garden.
We were present at the global student environmental protests at the Houses of Parliament, watched an amazing movie “A private war” based on the real events of a journalist killed in the Syrian conflict and participated in the first ever Bridgeu Career panel at their headquarters in London. The students were amazing, with both university and Bridgeu staff complementing their attitude and approach. We returned on Sunday night, tired but with a wide range of new knowledge to benefit their learning.
A full description and pictures can be found here .. https://www.facebook.com/jason.mungles.9/posts/969901439879270
M3 Community Project Service Week part 1
This year M3 supervisors are impressed by the huge amount of activities that students are doing to take action as part of their community project. First of all we would like to highlight the volunteering work outside the school’s timetable. There are groups helping out in “the Kids club”, in Santa María Polo, dog shelters in the area, cleaning the beaches, supporting “Aprona” NGO in Estepona and more. In addition to this there are students involved on projects for Uganda, Ecuador and Hogar Betania.
During this service week M3 students held assemblies about the use of plastic, learning difficulties and autism, hypnotherapy, improving the facilities of the beaches in our community and “Homeless in London streets”. They also ran Chinese & Russian lessons for primary as well as some workshops and kickboxing lessons for secondary students. Congratulations to all M3 students for their hard work and effort.
M3 LOMCE Málaga trip
On Friday 8th March, the two groups of M3 LOMCE Individuals and Societies students went on an excursion to Málaga as part of our research unit “El espacio urbano”. The first place we went to was the Castle of Gibralfaro. There we visited the military museum. We were also walking through the wall and the battlements of the wall. From there, we could contemplate beautiful and stunning views of the Bullring of La Malagueta, the Port and the city.
Then, we visited Plaza de la Merced and from there, we walked to the Alcazaba. There we visited what was once the palace-fortress of the Muslim rulers of the city. To conclude the tour, we visited Calle Larios, where we surveyed the opinions of passers by and merchants on recycling and vandalism in the city.
With this tour we have been able to learn the history of the evolution of Malaga from its origins, learn about the passage of different civilizations to the present day and above all, the remains of monuments, forts, etc. that still remain, and that now form part of a precious city.
We are a learning community, passionate about providing an International Education, which inspires and encourages learning and intercultural understanding. We facilitate self-discovery and the development of unique interests, gifts and talents, whilst promoting service learning as a force for good in the world.
Copyright © 2019 Sotogrande International School, All rights reserved.
