School Newsletter 17.03.2017

Dear Parents and Guardians,

This week our M3 students began their Community Project. Students have been researching innovative and helpful projects all term and this week they began their action. They spent time collecting food for Hogar Betania, helping in Primary classes, assisting in Fundamentals, selling cakes, taking part in face painting and launching a new App called Litterati. The App focuses on the collective drive to take ownership to clean up our planet. To find out more please click on this link.

 

Congratulations to our Parent Ambassadors who completed their last session with Colin Hiles on Monday evening. They have 2 more sessions to complete before they graduate! We are looking forward to welcoming them into the PA team and using their skills with new families.

Today the vote will open for the parent and staff places on the Advisory Board. The purpose of the board is to help guide the school through operational issues as we grow, representing the different stakeholders. We have 2 board members, 2 students, 2 SLT members, 1 school lawyer, the head of the Parent Ambassadors, the chair of the PTA, 2 voted staff places and 2 voted parent places. I would like to thank all parties who have shown interest in the role. To find out more about who has shown interest from the parent body please click here. LINK

To vote, please click here.LINK  Each parent has 2 votes for their first and second choice. Following this vote the team will interview and decide on the final parent representatives who will serve for the next two years.

Finally, I would like to congratulate Loreto Villegas Maestro from M4 Visual Arts who has won the main prize in the Schools on the Coast Art competition, run by the Sur in English.

 

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and hope to see you at the PTA Race Night tonight.

Best wishes,
Jak Kearney

Car Boot Sale postponed

We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

 

Art Exhibition

Sotogrande International School is proud to present the 2017 IB Diploma Art Exhibition. You are invited to attend the opening at 6.30pm on Wednesday 22^nd March at the E-gallery in Sotogrande Marina. The Exhibition is a culmination of the creative talent of our final year students. The Exhibition celebrates a diversity of work, ranging through paintings, photography, installation art, sculpture, architectural design and fashion. Money raised from sales of the artworks will support the Kindred Project. Entrance free, drinks and canapés available on the night.

M3 Community Project

During this week all M3 students have been working very hard in order to complete the service activities for their project. Collaboration, organisation and communication skills have been put in practice with enthusiasm and commitment. Thank to all the community and specially M3 parents who have been driving for the kids!

Food – drop for Hogar Betania
Despite the weather, the food drop has been a success

Activities in Fundamentals

To collaborate with the community, our group has decided to work through games with children from the age of 2 to 3, as we think that in this short period of life it is very important to develop childrens’ minds and creativity for their future. For this, we went to the kindergarten, Fundamentals, where we played lots of creative and fun games in teams. We enjoyed being with them a lot!
Marta López, Aurely Van Leeuwen, Marta Fernandez.

Melampo dog shelter

For their project Mae Greenwood and Bernard Byrne are working for Melampo which is a local dog shelter in San Roque. The aim is to earn money to invest in 2 heated cages. The shelter believes that these are important to have for the weaker dogs who get cold easily, due to malnutrition from their previous owners. They are also trying to raise awareness of this amazing shelter. “We have connections with a dog shelter in Switzerland, which is where most of our dogs end up going,” said Mae G. If you are interested in adopting a dog or helping, please contact them.

 

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Message From Emma Butler

Celebration Assembly
Last Friday we held the third celebration assembly for P3-P6 students to celebrate their learning during Unit 3. Well done to all the students who worked hard and showed good progress and attainment within this this unit. A special mention goes to the following students, who were nominated by their teachers then received a certificate from me.

 

Unit 3
P3 Marina, Miguel, Raúl, Ella
P4 Daniella, Claudia, Luella, Egor, Alba, Isabella, Lily, Maia
P5 Fabiola, Tareq, Isabella, Lucia, Yusef, Noa
P6 Jose-Antonio, Ryan, Jiawen, Arancha, Ellie, George

Language-English
P3 Maria, Alexandra, Mikella, Marco
P4 Declan, Isabella, Daniela, Ariel, Yiftach
P5 Luna, Marta, Kiri, Hannah
P6 Sophie, Antonio, Elliott

Language-Spanish
P3 Ollie, Freya, Camille, Alexia
P4 María, Maia, Indiana, Egor
P5 Tareq, Marta, Oscar
P6 Alisa, Fernando, Clara

Maths
P3 Elsie, Kjella, Siamak, Isla
P4 Juan, Ella, Jonnie, Maria
P5 Eduardo, Robert, Timur, Alvaro

PE
P3 Angela, Ethan
P4 Isabella, Javier
P5 Alma, Matt
P6 Aila, Jago

Music
P3 Manu, Freya
P4 Lily, Daniela
P5 Tareq, Kiri
P6 Aashika, Jasmine, Ellie

Using Expressive Arts

Last week P3 began the Organise and Share part of their current unit which is based on stories. The students looked at the features of play scripts and revised how to use speech marks in stories. This week the students are writing their own play scripts of Fractured Fairy Tales.
To help them to prepare for this the students were invited to the theatre to see a fractured Fairy Tale version of Little Red Riding Hood. However in this version the Wolf was vegetarian and Little Red riding Hood wanted to make a fur coat out of him. During the activity the students were then invited to help find a solution to the problem.

Playing for Change: next week the Semi Finals

P3/P4 Monday 20th at 7pm in the theatre.
P5/P6 Friday 24th at 7pm in the theatre.
Tickets are on sale now. Please come and support this great Primary Student Council event.

For both of the semi-finals Sid Olivera and Gary Beaumont will be the judges that are going to take our children to the finals.
Sid Olivera is a radio professional with an impressive track record working for the BBC and then BFBS radio (British Forces Broadcasting Service) for 9 years with postings in Gibraltar, The Falklands, Cyprus and Kosovo.  In 2007, Sid joined Fame Games Radio syndicated by ABC Radio Networks in the USA as a presenter working alongside author, journalist, head of CowellMedia and brother of Simon Cowell, Tony Cowell. Sid is now in the process of putting together his own radio station Radiomix106.

Gary Beaumont is the editor and production manager of The Resident newspaper serving the western Costa del Sol from Estepona to Gibraltar and serving both the English and Spanish speaking population.

We have a surprise judge who will join the panel for the grand final in May.

Big Thinker 2017

Since Christmas, M1 students have been working on “The Big Thinker” balloon debate challenge. This year they were given the task of researching Big Thinkers who showed empathy for others, were altruistic, courageous and had created an impact on the world.

 

At the beginning there were 67 thinkers, then 17 and then only 8…the finalists, who battled it out in the theatre on Thursday 23^rd February. Our congratulations to all the finalists: Blanca (Mahatma Gandhi), Jacob (Muhammad Ali), Connie (Rachel Corrie), Marina C (Florence Nightingale), Marta (Malala Yousafzai), Fernando (Nikola Tesla) and Pilar (Jane Goodall), but particularly to Chloe (New York Fire Officer) who quite rightly won her place in the balloon. She showed that … Click here to read on …LINK

Congratulations to the Under 15 girls football team

The Sotogrande Under 15 Costa Del Sol football festival took place on Wednesday 8th March at ¨La Menacha¨ stadium, Algeciras.
Schools from all along the coast took part and enjoyed beautiful sunshine whilst competing for the cup.
Sotogrande girls team were victorious winning 3-0 in the final against Swans school
The boys were 3rd placed, losing a close game in the semi final 1-0 to Aloha College.
Huge thanks to all concerned for a great day of football.
Girls team: Shannon, Patricia, Caroline, Sara, Elise, Claudia, Marina, Sofia,
Stella, Mireya, Alba, Ana.

D1 Geography trip to Malaga

D1 geography students visited Malaga City last Thursday and Friday to examine disparities in wealth and quality of life throughout the city. In small groups they undertook detailed environmental quality surveys in several districts and interviewed over 150 residents regarding experiences of crime. The data will be used in their final internal assessments. Thank you to James McCann for his assistance and support.

D1 History trip to London

On the evening of Wednesday 8th March we left SIS for London, on our annual DP History trip. The focus this year was on the students’ Internal Assessment and HL options for the USSR and Inter-war years period, as well as paper 2 Conflicts. Due to French airspace being closed we ended up being delayed and arrived late and missed the tube service to the hotel so had to black cab it across London, racing each other down the Mall, finally arriving at the hotel at 3.30am our time!  Click here to read on …LINK

High School Musical  – 27^th & 28^th March

The M5 Drama group would love you to come and support their production of High School Musical. The students themselves have choreographed, directed, produced and designed every element of this dynamic and fun performance as part of their MYP course. We can pretty much guarantee you will enjoy this energetic and talented version of a musical classic!

News from the English Language Development Programme

Internal IELTS Testing
As part of our commitment to personalised learning and empowering students to be the best that they can be, the English Language Development (ELD) programme supports the learning of students who do not have English as a first language, both throughout their learning journey at the school and beyond into higher education. With this aim in mind, fifty of our M4-D1 ELD students sat an internal IELTS test on Tuesday, to track and monitor their progress towards their long-term targets in higher education. Interpreting these results allows us to set individual targets for improvement and implement specific support strategies in the short and long term.

 

Well done to all the students, who showed real focus and commitment in the reading and writing elements of the exam. Our particular congratulations to the following students, who achieved excellent results:
Pavel Belyakov M5
Boris Delev M5
Karina Shishkina D1

Arto Shabalin (Smithy) and Karim Imaliev (M4) also deserve a special mention for showing the most improvement.

If you have any questions regarding IELTS testing or academic English, please contact the ELD team. We’re here to help!
lmungles@sis.gl

M2 Service & Action

Apoyo Mutuo is a local charity based in San Roque that supports people in need, such as the many families affected by the recent flooding. Apoyo Mutuo provides essential items like clothes, furniture, domestic appliances and other basic necessities. Apoyo Mutuo has been established for four years, but not many people are aware of the important work that this charity carries out. As such this term the students in M2 have been working alongside Apoyo Mutuo, to provide them with resources to help publicise and advertise the great work that they do. At present the SIS students are producing a website, leaflet, video and resources to support them with funding initiatives. If you would like to find out more about how you can also support the work of this charity please click on the weblinks below:
https://www.facebook.com/apoyomutuo.sanroque/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AsociacionApoyoMutuoSanRoque/

This Easter join Sotogrande International Camps for some great fun activities. 
On the 10th and 11th of April, young cooks can improve their skills with the help of three great chefs from restaurants in our local area: InBoca gastrobar, Portobello and Ecco.link

There will also be a visit from someone very special from our school community.

On the 10th, 11th and 12th of April, our Tech Camp provides daily challenges around building and programming a robot with Lego Mindstorm technology.LINK

Places are limited, don’t miss out, sign up now!

Assist

Assist is a free service designed to help families from the school community to relocate, find useful contacts and benefit from discounts or privileges with local businesses and partners.

Assist acts as a fundraiser for the Kindred Project.

On the back of your SIS access card, you will find your Assist membership card that will allow you to enjoy many exclusive benefits.

New Offers !!

Helicopteros Sanitarios is offering 10% off on new signups during the month of March 2017.

 

More offers or privileges accessible at http://assist.guide/#offers

The Kindred Project News

Ecuador 2017 Expedition
There are still a few spaces available for this summer’s Expedition to Ecuador, open to students from M4 to D2. Make sure not to miss this life shaping experience! If interested, kindly e-mail: vstirling@sis.gl before the 31st March. Here’s a video LINK from last year’s expedition; we hope you enjoy it!

Education as a Force for Good
The Kindred Project team is delighted to share the article written by the IB about the work we do through The Kindred Project, “Education as a Force for Good”! To read the full article click here LINK

Rice Day
Yesterday saw Rice Day led by KP students. It was a great success, with a fantastic 85% of secondary students opting to eat rice! Money raised will go towards Help Refugees in developing an early childhood centre for the thousands of children still stuck in Greece. Thank you for supporting this student led initiative. It wouldn’t be possible without you!