By Adam Jozef 

(Head of Secondary School)

This week at La Garenne we started the week by marking World Kindness Day in our Monday Morning Assembly. Tim used the assembly to read a wonderful book called ‘Have you filled a bucket today?’ by Carol McCloud. He pointed out that we all carry kindness buckets with us, some people choose to fill other people’s buckets with acts of kindness, while others are ‘bucket dippers’ who take from other peoples’ buckets by being mean. Tim challenged us all to be ‘bucket fillers’ and not ‘bucket dippers’!

In combined Sciences this week, the M3 students have been focusing on Physics, exploring forces (moments & pressure.) To demonstrate how to calculate the moment of a force, or moment = (F) x perpendicular distance from the pivot - (d) the students became part of the experiment and used the school seesaw to illustrate the point!  

Things have been starting to get very real for the M5 students who have been thinking about their IB Diploma subject choices for next year and even university choices. It has been really interesting to hear all of their exciting ideas about possible career plans. Now they need to make sure that they are studying hard to get the grades that they want in their end of year MYP exams in the summer! 

As this long term nears an end, the students are all preparing for their end of unit assessments. When the assessments are finished we will use the last two weeks of the term to begin preparing the students for the new topics which they will study when they return in January. To help ensure that they maintain their studies over the winter break, I will send a holiday reading list to all La Garenne Families next week. Students should select a few texts from this list to read over the break - they also need to pay careful attention as they will complete a book report which they will present to their peers when they return!

In Maths, some children in the Primary School were given various challenges, applying what they had been learning in class, they had to measure and calculate, and they demonstrated excellent collaborative and enquiry skills.

These are just some examples of our primary students' Christmas artwork that they created in their Art lesson last week. Aren't they wonderful! Each design will be turned into Christmas cards and parents will have the opportunity to buy a pack from a company in the UK enabling friends and family to receive a personalised card during the festive period.

Resilience was the Guiding Principle we focused on this week in our Primary Assembly. We talked about how proud we were of our students who took part in the School Challenge on Sunday. They demonstrated Resilience and Collaboration during the challenge and showed a positive attitude throughout. Well done to Matvey, Aida and Mansur who completed the course in the fastest time. During the assembly, the students discussed times when they felt upset and had to face a big problem, we talked about how we can help ourselves bounce back and apply a resilient mindset at these challenging times.

On Wednesday the Year 1 & 2 class went to the Swiss Vapeur Parc in Bouveret as part of their IPC unit `Hooray...Let`s Go On Holiday`. 
They had a wonderful time riding the steam trains around the miniature village. The children enjoyed discovering the miniature buildings, all famous in Switzerland, and ridging over the bridges and through the tunnels. The Halloween decorations added to the exciting atmosphere!