A unique Primary School, offering a British based, child centred education in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Take a look at this fantastic Talk4Writing text from the Flamingo Class! As part of their World Exploration topic, students studied stories that take place in other worlds. They set about learning Where the Wild Things Are as a talking text. They were given simple visual prompts in the form of a story map and were challenged to create all the actions for their story independently.
Read on to read some Year 4 imaginary world stories that were inspired through this work.
Our annual PTA egg hunt was once again a phenomenal success. All the way from our youngest students, right through to our oldest, everyone enjoyed the egg-citement of searching our playgrounds for colourful eggs, filled with treats. In total almost 500 eggs were concealed, with a few ‘golden’ eggs with eggs-tra special treats inside. What an eggs-travaganza! Everyone was thoroughly egg-hausted at the end – no doubt especially the Easter Bunny, who came very early today to hide them all.
Walnut, our school chicken, took a break from laying today, but didn’t want to miss out on the hunt, collecting 5 eggs of her own! Well done, Walnut!
All in all, a lovely way to have some fun and celebrate the end of a hard-working and productive term – Happy holidays, everyone and see you all back on Tuesday 14th April!
What a wonderful display of spring bonnets we saw today. Each of our Toddlers, Preschool, Jnr. Kindergarten and Kindergarten children proudly paraded around the school, sharing their creative designs with the older students and a large crowd of mums and dads.
Congratulations – we saw bouquets of flowers, chicks, eggs and lots of bunny ears! We hope you everyone enjoyed creating these together with their children. What talents milliners we have!
In the last few weeks, we have been investigating healthy eating and our senses, as well as exploring instructional writing. We have investigate the steps needed to wash our hands, how to grow a sunflower and lastly, how to make a fruit salad.
During one of our Spanish Immersion sessions, we explored and investigated different fruits such as bananas, melons, mangos, oranges and apples with our senses. We had such a fun time looking and sorting the seeds of the different fruits! As a culminating task, we made a healthy fruit salad, which was delicious, and then together wrote the instructions for how to make it.
Please enjoy the pictures of the children enjoying their fruit salad. It was a very yummy treat, indeed!
As part of our Community Helpers Topic the J.K’s have been investigating and identifying local community people and their careers. We have extended our school culture exploration of the Animal Hospital in our Home Corner to visiting The Turks and Caicos Veterinary Clinic. The children have been able to explore their own ideas about how to care for animals while making links between their current understanding and their increasing knowledge. These meaningful experiences offer such enrichment to learning.
Years 5 and 6 were extremely fortunate to attend Brayton Hall and listen to a talk delivered by Rob Stewart. Rob Stewart is an enthusiastic advocate for sharks and the maker of the documentary film ‘Sharkwater’.
Feedback from students indicated the following:
‘A great way to show how children can be advocates for something in which they believe in.’
‘A well-prepared talk which was easy to follow and understand.’
‘Rob was clearly passionate about sharks and extremely knowledgeable about them.’
Following this, our Year 2-4s were also able to join in as Rob was able to squeeze in a time to come to the school and talk to them too – thank you Ali for arranging this.
Community members are invited to a public screening of ‘Sharkwater’ Saturday evening – see details here.
Writing to entertain: Horror Stories
Year 6 recently studied Roald Dahl’s short story: The Landlady. A story filled with mystery, intrigue and suspense. The story ends on a cliff-hanger and the reader is left wondering what will or could happen next. In Year 6 we considered how the story might continue. Planning out our ideas we got busy writing the sequel to this tale.
Please look out for the following features in our writing:
We dare you to read a selection of our stories! Click on ‘read more’ below to see them – we hope you enjoy them!
The whole of Key Stage 2 were recently lucky enough to have a second visit from the wonderful team at School for Field Studies (SFS) in South Caicos. This was a new group of students who have just began their time studying here.
As it was nearing the end of the whale migration season here in TCI, the students dedicated all their activities to educational information on them. The knowledge they had, along with the dynamic and entertaining way they delivered it to the children, was wonderful.
All our children loved the morning and didn’t want the students to leave. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about our wildlife here in the TCI, while also having the chance to interact with a different age group and learn about their studies.
“Have you ever wanted to know how to build a rocket?”
If your answer is “yes!” then you’re in luck! The Kindergarten class have been learning how to give clear instructions as part of their Destination Outer Space topic. Their Talk4Writing project focused on the proper way to introduce and organise their instructions.
Read on to see a couple of examples of the instructions that they wrote and to find out more about their next stage – adapting the text to ‘how to build a moon buggy’.
What a fantastic half term Flamingo Class has had with our topic of ‘Moving and Growing’! We have learnt so much about our bodies and how they work! It also led us to looking at how our bodies enable us to develop in sport.
Mr George introduced the hypothesis ‘Does the length of our leg affect the distance we can jump?’ This led to a lot of class discussions as you can imagine! So off we went with our Numeracy Investigation.
We started off with planning our investigations in groups. We then looked at all the variables that would affect the investigation and how we could keep it as fair as possible. After this, we measured our legs to the nearest 1cm and recorded our converted measurements in millimetres.
It was quite a while ago now, but here are a few photos from the distribution of the Christmas gifts, which were mainly donated by Provo Primary School to The Salvation Army, and which we distributed in the community on your behalf.
Cheers!
A balloon debate is a debate in which a number of speakers attempt to win the approval of an audience. The audience is invited to imagine that the speakers are flying in a hot-air balloon which is sinking. Everyone, bar one individual, must be thrown out in order to have one survivor.
Year 6 recently participated in their own balloon debate. The class were split into 4 groups. Competing with the other members in their group they had to speak on behalf of a famous person, author, fictional character and so on (dead or alive) in order to present their case and to convince the audience of their worth.
The toddler class embarked on their first field trip to Turner Farm. Farmer Liz greeted us and took us to see the rabbits. There we got to feed them carrots. Some of the rabbits were quite impatient and took the entire carrot from us! We opened the cage and found a surprise – bunnies! They were so cute and little.
Year 3 welcome you to the ‘Fruit Café’. We have been having a fruity time ‘estimating’ the weight of different fruits using g and kg this week. Each person brought in a different kind of fruit which we all got to estimate and weigh, using both balancing and calibrated scales. Our estimates were getting better and better each time. We even found that one of the melons weighed the same as an adult brain! – (1.5kg).
It’s so amazing to see so many of our Provo Primary Students performing in this amazing video – both past and present – all linked together and connected through dance. A true combination of talent, enthusiasm, hard work and dedication. Well done, everyone! I am thoroughly looking forward to your ‘Summer Showcase’ performance – Miss Sian.
Are you inspired to dance? Provo Performing Arts School invite you to read on to learn how this video came about, and to see details on how you can sign up for their new dance sessions starting in Monday 20th April. See the full programme details here. You’ll need to sign up by 3rd April if you want to participate in the ‘Summer Showcase’.
Although we value the amazing contribution that technology makes to our teaching and learning at Provo Primary, today as part of our Healthy Tech/Life Balance Week, we are having an ‘Unplugged’ Day.
We will be busy learning as usual – just without all of the technological support that we are accustomed to. It will probably not be much of an impact to our younger students, where real-life hands-on play-based learning dominates and technology use is much less a part of their day, but I am sure it will be a little more noticeable higher up in the school, where projectors and whiteboards, laptops and tablets play an integral role, alongside hands-on learning experiences. How will our teachers feel its impact?
How will it impact the administrative running of the school…?!? No computers or emails…bear with us as we find out! Just to note – this post was written yesterday and was scheduled to publish today without human interaction!
What an amazing level of participation – a total of 63 students, from Year 1 right through to year 6, entered the Amanyara Nature and Discovery Centre’s Shark Conservation Awareness Poster competition last week. The message was clear on every child’s poster – sharks are important to the marine ecosystem and we need to protect them, both here in the TCI and globally!
We were extremely impressed by the high standard of research, aesthetic presentation skills and the phenomenal level of creativity that went into each poster’s design. Recognition of the time and effort that each child had put into their poster was celebrated in a special assembly on Wednesday and each child received a special certificate – well done, everyone! All of the posters were displayed around the school and, at the end of the assembly, we all got the opportunity to view them together.
All the posters will be displayed at the Rob Stewart Sharkwater Talk and Screening event at Brayton Hall this Saturday and also at the Turk and Caicos Reef Fund Cocktail Party fundraiser on Wednesday at Provo Golf Club – we hope to see you there at either or both events. Our Year 5 and 6 students have been invited to a special Sharkwater school presentation this Thursday.
Join us on Monday morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for our traditional and popular ‘Walk to School’ event.
Meet at the top of the IGA hill for a prompt 8am set off.
Please accompany your child(ren) on the walk. Teachers will be posted at the road crossings along the route.
Tech to life ratio—What does your family consider a ‘Healthy’ Balance? We often hear the phrase – ’Screen Time or Media Time’, which helps to promote a happy medium that encourages children’s use of technology for learning, development and positive social interaction, while protecting them from developing addictive or compulsive behaviours with technology. During the week we will be exploring this theme through a variety of in-house activities.
As most of you will know, in Y2 we like to learn all about different cultures and the traditions they celebrate. On February 19th the coming of the New Year was celebrated throughout China and the world…and also in one classroom here in the Turks & Caicos Islands!
We did this with a Chinese New Year party! Thanks to ‘Chopsticks’ restaurant we were able to use their chopsticks to eat a feast of delights generously brought in by the Year 2 parents. We listened to traditional Chinese music, ate traditional Chinese food and all received a red envelope (a sign of good luck) with a 100 Yuan note inside…now all we need to do it save up the money to travel there so we can spend it! We topped off the afternoon with a performance of a Chinese song that the children had written and composed themselves…check out our video and see photos of us enjoying our party!
Music was in the air last week as the Kindergarten class were inspired to form a whole-class band by a single student’s rat-tap-tapping!
After a busy morning play filled with running, climbing and hide-and-seek, children could be heard around the garden singing our popular “How green you are?” song. Suddenly, however, their singing was accompanied by improvised percussion from one student. Then two…and, well, the rest was a perfect lesson in how infectious music can be!
Next week is World Osprey Week and we are reminded of our dedicated week of learning connected with this last year. Please take the opportunity to go out with your family to observe our local ospreys over this week and continue to promote the conservation of these majestic birds who live amongst us here in the TCI. There are a number of osprey nests to visit – at The Bight Children’s Park, in Grace Bay, Leeward and at South Bluff.
If you would like to reminisce on the activities we did last year at school then please take a look through our blog posts. You can also find out about WOW 2015 at www.ospreys.org.uk and follow interactive maps that track ospreys as they migrate around the world.
This year, our local week study will focus on Sharks. This will take place next term during 20th-24th April.
Hi Everybody! One of our much love stories in Preschool is The Gruffalo. For World Book Day we had an amazing Gruffalo day!
The children wore their owl head bands and we had 2 very special Year 6 visitors….the ‘mouse’ and the ‘Gruffalo’. We had great fun reading the story together and acting out the parts of the various animals.
Later that day, the children made up their own version of ‘The Gruffalo’, with help from myself drawing their suggestions on the white board. Enjoy and see you again soon!
Join us on Saturday 21st March for an evening of family fun, and support us in raising funds for our scholarship programme.
Enjoy live music with Pat Riel, view children’s art, bounce on our bouncy castle and play family games together.
Door Tickets are $15 per Person or $50 per Family (Mexican buffet included) Cash Bar.
Raffle Tickets $10 (Currently on sale) Prizes include: One Night stay at Parrot Cay, Two night stay at Villa Del Mar, Dinner for 2 at Beach House, Gansevoort, Blue Haven, Blue, Big Blue and Hemingway Gift Vouchers.
Scholarship Pledge Prize: Make a pledge to enter the chance to win a cruise on Addenda, a 40ft Hinckley Luxury Cruiser, for up to 8 guests.
All proceeds will benefit Provo Primary’s Scholarship Fund.
Talk4Writing isn’t only about storytelling. As our Year 5 students can demonstrate, this literacy technique is applicable across the curriculum for teaching language techniques in any written genre.
Year 5 students studied the “I have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. as part of their “Space and Segregation” topic. They were exploring persuasive writing in their literacy lessons and wanted to understand how this famous speech used powerful language and persuasive techniques to emphasize the aims of the Civil Rights protest of 1963. These techniques were then be adapted and re-invented by students in their own powerful, ‘I have a dream’ persuasive writing texts – read on to see some examples.