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Message from the Head
Dear Parents and Guardians, Last Friday we witnessed the first TV night at Sotogrande International School. The Secondary Student Council hosted a hilarious night with some family favourites, based on some themed TV shows from the past, including a version of Family Fortunes, Mr. and Mrs. and Blind Date. Between the shows Miss Laura arranged for a number of students to perform. Thanks to the families who attended and supported the evening. Tuesday witnessed the P3 – P6 and Wednesday the Under 13 El Rio football tournament. Over 30 teams from more than 10 schools descended on El Rio pitches for an amazing 2 days of football. Feedback from parents and other schools who attended was immensely positive. For some of the youngest players, this was their first tournament and the excitement with the Under 9 teams was immense! Congratulations to all of the teams from SIS who represented the school. You were fantastic ambassadors!
P6 have been active this week. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, The Kindred Project led 3 service learning trips to Hogar Betania in La Línea, a different class each day, to help with the centre’s ‘Garden Project’. After an explanation of Hogar Betania’s projects and full tour of the centre, students worked collaboratively to rehabilitate the outdoor space that will be used for recreational activities, as well as for an organic vegetable garden. I would like to remind you about some important up and coming events. On Monday March 14th at 4.15pm in the staffroom, parents of M3 students are invited to a meeting on the university process, careers and electives as students begin to make important choices for their study routes next year. On Wednesday March 16th at 9.30 am at San Roque Campus, I will be running an interactive session for parents across our school on Connected Learning. Come and find out more about our strategic driver; please note this will be interactive session and will involve active participation, discussion, movement and the wearing of strange hats!
Over the Easter break we will begin work at the front entrance to the school with the building of the long-awaited security hut! This will take approximately 6 weeks to build and will require us to close the main entrance. We will therefore open the primary (small entrance) further up the hill for the duration of the works. More information about how this will affect drop-off, parking etc. will be emailed to you directly in a letter next week. To enable the new system to work efficiently, please ensure you are uploading your photos to Managebac (following instructions sent our earlier this week and below) to allow us to produce security cards your you and your partners. Finally I would like to remind you that Friday March 18th at 4pm is the deadline for formally informing admissions of your intentions for next academic year, if you are choosing to withdraw your children. I wish you a fantastic weekend. Best wishes Jak Kearney Link to instructions for Parent photos in Managebac 2016
  
Whole School News
TV Night The Student Council would like to send a massive thank you to all those who attended and also everyone who helped out with the TV Game Show night last Friday. Congratulations to the Stone Family who are reigning champions of Family Fun and Dr. Kievit and Ms. Urrestarazu (Miss Pilar) who won the Husbands & Wives game. Finally, a big thank-you to our volunteers from the audience who took part in Blind Date.
M3 service week As part of Community Project M3 students will run their Service week. There will be assemblies, performance, games, bake sales, food-drop and more. Thank you in advance to all M3 parents for their support.  World Book Day celebration – 18th March Although the official date of World Book Day was 3rd March, we decided to postpone our celebration till the end of term and to combine it with ‘Send My Friend to School’ day. SOS Pererra (with Spanish Stray Dogs) Notice from the Primary Kindred Project Club: Inspired by Eileen Dick’s ‘Food Drop’ initiative, SIS car park is going to be a location for a dog food drop. If you would like to donate a bag of dog food during the last week of each month there will a van where you can leave your donation, and it will be delivered to the Dog Rescue Centre.
For this month, because of the holiday, collection will be next week ie 14th-18th March. Thank you for your support. The Kindred Project – Help for Dog Shelters Following this great initiative by students, KP started a sewing workshop this week to make blankets for the local dog shelters from donations of old school uniform. The workshop will continue every Thursday afternoon at 4pm, supervised by Ms. Andrea Bennett in her P6 classroom in the Primary building. This activity is open to any students in P6 and above. Thank you to all involved for your help and support. Fundamentals News
‘On Wheels’ Last Saturday we spent the morning ‘on wheels’, our children turned up on bikes, tricycles, strollers, skates and scooters for the adventure. With family and friends we explored the area close to Fundamentals before returning for a drink and healthy snack of fruit kebabs all enjoyed in the sunshine. Thank you to all the families who joined us – we certainly had a great time and hope you did too! SIS Career Convention  PTA News  Meetings
Our next monthly meeting will be on Tuesday 15th March at 9am in the school cantina; all parents and guardians welcome! Last Chance! Workshops and Talks for Parents of Teens and Pre-Teens The PTA invites you to an informative session for parents of teens and pre-teens to launch our exciting new programme of workshops for SIS parents.  Why do our teens and pre-teens behave the way they do? And how can an understanding of their grey matter help us to keep them on the right track? On March 14th our school psychologist, Dr. Kelly Lewis-Cole will be taking a close look at what really is going on inside the adolescent brain. This is a repeat of the sessions held previously, and will give you a greater insight into why out teenagers are such interesting characters. For more information about anything PTA related, please email us on pta@sis.gl Assist News Exclusive for Assist members! New SANITAS Health Coverage It is now possible to contract through the school two different types of health insurance available to the staff and to the families of SIS. The Sanitas Mundi replaces the current school insurance and covers medical expenses up to 80% outside the Sanitas network and 100% within the Sanitas network. The premium is €72,64 monthly per person.
The Sanitas network is a new proposal for a group health insurance offering the same coverage as above but restricted to the Sanitas network only, for a premium of €41,21 monthly per person. To be effective the group insurance must be subscribed by 75 people, but Sanitas will accept a minimum of 50 subscribers to start. Many parents and staff members have shown their interest in this exceptionally attractive health policy. If you are interested in signing up for any of these two policies, please contact Frederic: frederic@assist.guide Please note the deadline for enrolling into the new Sanitas network health insurance is 18th March. SILA News  Enjoy your learning!
Out of school experiential learning trips have been enjoyed by P2 and P6 classes this week. Experiences like these play an important part in learning, enriching our programmes and helping our students make sense of the world around them. Reflections from P2 Our current Unit of Inquiry in P2, How We Organise Ourselves, is an investigation into how and why communities change and so on Monday we set off to investigate Duquesa. We were looking for evidence of who had lived in Duquesa in the past, who was living there now and how it had developed over time. We started our investigation in Duquesa Castle with a knowledgeable guide who told us the history of the castle and showed us around. We had a wonderful time standing on the battlements of the castle pretending to be soldiers watching for Pirates!
We then visited an exhibition about fencing where the students fought a duel with one another with real foils! The Romans were the first to occupy Duquesa and although we were able to visit the ruins, unfortunately the museum with many Roman artifacts was closed for repair. We looked at Duquesa village and then walked down to Duquesa Port. This was very a different Duquesa with English signs and lots of restaurants, but very few holidaymakers as it was too cold! The clouds began getting darker and the wind stronger, then suddenly the rain poured down! We phoned for Javier who came to fetch us in the bus. The students took photographs with their iPads and the next day we made a timeline with the photographs showing the different areas of Duquesa and who were the inhabitants. Reflections from P6 As part of the current P6 unit each of the classes has been out on a trip to Hogar Betania this week. Our unit, Sharing the Planet, is an opportunity to investigate and understand how children across the world face and cope with challenges and adversity. The students were shown around the Hogar Betania Centre to learn about future plans and the types of challenges faced by some of the children in the area. They also gave some hands-on support to the centre’s current garden project, hoeing and weeding to prepare the soil for a lawn to provide a place for children to play.
World Book Day celebration – 18th March Although the official date of World Book Day was 3rd March, here at SIS primary we decided to postpone our celebration till the end of term and to combine it with ‘Send My Friend to School’ day. Instead of school uniform, all Primary students are invited to come to school dressed as a character from a book. There will be various KP and Student Council led activities and other book related events taking place in school throughout the day; however another activity you and your child need to know about in advance is known as Book Crossing. This activity will only be for P2 – P6 classes; children who wish to take part should bring to school a book they no longer want to keep (i.e. one that they are happy to part with) in order to exchange it for a different book brought in by someone else. This can be any type of book in any language, though we would ask that each book is still in a reasonably good condition. There will be an organised & moderated swopping procedure to ensure everyone has a chance to choose their ‘new book’ to take home.
Also from 3.15 – 4.15pm in the main patio, there will be a Sale of second hand books, organised by the Primary Student Council. They will be selling books for both adults and children, mainly some unwanted donations and a clear out of some ‘doubles’ and older books from the school library, and all at very cheap prices! Money raised from this sale will go to the Kindred Project. I would also like to record that much of the impetus for our World Book Day celebration, particularly the dressing- up and book crossing activities, derives directly from suggestions made and actions taken by some of our P6 students, and in particular Chloe Barnett. Primary Inter School Football Festival On Tuesday 8th March the PE Department hosted the Primary Inter School Football Festival. 30 teams from more than 8 international schools were involved. 300 children played football during this event and SIS is proud of hosting this special event at the beautiful venue of El Río polo fields.
Friendly atmosphere, sportsmanship and warm sunshine made this day a very special one for all. Special mention to our Under 9 Girls Football Team who managed to finish champions of their category out of 8 teams! Congratulations to all involved! A dream chance for singers!
This is simply an amazing opportunity! Find out more on www.meermusic.com/girlband and then contact Paul on SISmusic@sis.gl. Tuck Shop The Student Council will be re-starting the Tuckshop in the cantina. Items for sale will consist of chocolate bars, bags of crisps and sweets. The shop will be open during morning break on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Everything will be priced at 1€ and the profit will be split between charities connected to the school, such as The Kindred Project and Danni’s charity. Many thanks and we hope to see you there! The Student Council U13 Boys & Girls Football Tournament On Wednesday, SIS hosted the International Schools Football Festival at the impressive El Rio Polo Fields. Over 12 International schools teams competed throughout the day with some excellent individual performances from all represented schools. The P.E. Department wishes to thank all the SIS staff who helped make the day such a success. Parents, you are warmly invited to come and spectate at our U15 football event next Wednesday; enjoy a free tea or coffee, courtesy of deVere finance whilst watching your child play!
In other good news our Italy squad of Under 14 Boys travelled to Laude this week for a friendly match, arranged as part of their pre tour preparations. An excellent performance saw the team finish 3-1 winners with two goals by Alejandro Nestares Fontecha.
Boarding House News The boarders enjoyed the TV Game Show night at school last Friday and they followed this with an exciting trip to Fuengirola on the Saturday. In Fuengirola, they went karting, shopping and then finished the day off with a movie – where from among the four films on offer, Zootopia proved the most popular!
Sunday was a more relaxed day when most caught up on their studies, but we did manage to fit in an entertaining game of football at El Rio. |
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