Our main goal is to develop well-rounded, happy children. We believe that children have a unique combination of learning styles and multiple intelligences. We strive to recognise and nurture each child’s inherent abilities and emerging strengths, whilst also supporting their weaknesses. We provide as many opportunities as possible for our gifted and talented children to develop their strengths and we offer learning support to children who may need extra help.
Fruity Friday Healthy Snacks
All the classes enjoyed making tasty fruit snacks to celebrate Fruity Friday today. There were fruit kebabs, frozen bananas dipped in coconut, dried fruit mixes, mango sorbets and baked apples, to name a few. All were delicious and eagerly shared. The children were also invited to come to school dressed in fruity colours; some classes are wearing yellow and ‘Going Bananas’.
Fruity Friday is an annual awareness and fundraising campaign for the World Cancer Research Fund. Its long-term goal is to encourage children to lead a healthy lifestyle. Fruity Friday campaign is a great way to get across this message in a fun way. All the donations from our Fruity Friday Dress Down will be given to the local Turks and Caicos Cancer Society.
Year 1 Bowled over by Cricket Coaching
Year 1 have been put through their paces by English cricket player, Paul Baker. The fully-qualified coach has been helping them learn the game as part of their PE programme and the budding stars of tomorrow have loved every minute of it.
The sessions have been varied and fun and the drills simple and easy to learn. With every session, the teachers have seen the children’s catching, throwing, batting and bowling improving. The children have particularly enjoyed the little competitions and the actual game of cricket that each session ends with.
Paul, who was recently forced to retire from the game due to injury, commented that it had been a real pleasure for him to be helping out with the coaching and that he thinks the children have shown real talent and great potential.
Happy Mother's Day
Happy Mother’s Day to all our Mums throughout the school.
New Jumbie Pans a Resounding Hit
We are excited to announce that we have 3 new ‘Jumbie Jam’ pans to add to our steel drum set. These were purchased through various steel pan fundraising events and arrived on island with David Gettes, our steel drum tuner, last week.
The Jumbie Jams are superb beginner steel drums, with a really high quality sound, and they are a fantastic addition to our already established steel band. All the children have been extremely keen to come into the Music Room to try them out and they are a perfect size for the younger children in the school to play and learn on. They look like great fun too with their feet stands and bright colours. Apart from the blue colour that we presently have, they also come in flamingo PINK! It’s been particularly great to see our older steel drum players taking on the role of mentor, teaching the younger children how to play.
Yr 2 – What is Sculpture?
Year 2 have been developing their understanding of shape, form and texture as they learned about sculptures. They started the topic looking at the work of Bell, Rhodes, Eggmore and Goldsworthy and were inspired! They decided to sketch one of their favourite yoga stretches and base their sculpture on this pose. Can you identify the pose of the blue sculpture in the photo?
First the children used wire to create the form, and then they used lovely messy mud-roc to bring the form to life. Finally, they painted their sculptures in beautiful bright colours and added lots of sparkly bits!
Their intention was to brighten up our new outdoor garden with their calm, yet colourful creations which they most certainly did. A big thank you to the parents that came to view and celebrate these gorgeous creations – we hope you enjoyed the ice-cream too!
Year 6/7s Assemblage Art
Accompanying David, the steel pan tuner, was his wife Sonia, who is an accomplished artist in her own right. She specializes in an art form known as ‘assemblage’, which involves searching for and gathering discarded natural and man-made objects, then assembling them as a 3D ‘collage’.
As Year 6/7 will be working on an Art Unit involving working with the environment as stimuli, Sonia was particularly interested to work with those students. She shared her blog, showing them her work and explaining how she created each piece. She then encouraged them to ‘have a go’ using materials she had gathered from beaches in North and Middle Caicos. They had everything from discarded shoes to sand dollars; from rusty nails to pieces of broken plastic; from coral to shells. See some more photos of their artwork.
The students thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to work with a visiting artist and enjoyed listening to Sonia’s comments and suggestions about their pieces. We all spent a relaxing, fun and stimulating couple of hours with a lovely lady. Thank you, Sonia.
Our Steel Drums Sound Sweet Again!
If you were not aware, our steel drums have been in need of tuning for some time and David Gettes has been down this week from Philadelphia to tune them for us. David learned to play and tune steel drums with some of the best tuners in Trinidad. He is an excellent steel pan performer and tuner!
During his time here, David has also worked with some of the steel band members, helping them to develop their playing technique. He also did a presentation to the children, talking about the history of steel drums and answering the multitude of questions that the children wanted to ask.
We have a great band this year of young players who are well on their way to being ready to play out in the community on the newly tuned drums. Listen out for us at the annual Fools’ Regatta in June, if not before!
Going Under the Sea with Kindergarten!
Yr 5: Spice Up Your Life!
Year 5 have been looking at tales from other cultures in Literacy. They have been reading Grandpa Chatterji which is a story about an Indian family living in the UK. As part of this, the children were given ‘mystery spice bags’, and based on some given information, they tried to identify each of the spices. They really enjoyed this sensory challenge. They did very well and our classroom ended up smelling very exotic! Well done, guys!