Daria is a 10 year old student. This is her first year at La Garenne and she is a strong academic student. She is very passionate about chess and competes weekly against very high ranked players. Just last week, she came first when playing in a competition for the under 12 students. She continues to apply herself in all she does whether it be her chess or school life! We hope she continues to enjoy herself, well done Daria!

Next week we will be holding our Masterchef competition. The staff and students will prepare three different dishes, each will be judged at the end of the competition. We will update more photos on the day!

Andrei is a 10 years old Russian boy who is passionate about hockey and has been practicing since the age of 4. This is his second year with us at La Garenne and from the beginning he joined the Villars hockey team. He has since become the team's leading scorer and continues to progress continuously. He is also a very good student. We are all proud of him. Congratulations for your perseverance and your hard work.

The weather has changed, we have had our first snow and the Christmas decorations are everywhere to be seen in Villars. The arrival of the festive season and the winter holiday marks the end of the second set of this year’s IMYC units for Years 7, 8 and 9. 

On Monday the students will begin their end-of-term assessments. These will be in the subject areas of English, Mathematics, French, History, Geography and Science. Art and the Music rely more on continuous assessments and long-term projects that the students have been working on over several weeks.

The assessments are not formal examinations testing only memorised information. They are designed to assess the acquired Knowledge, Skills and Understanding in each of the curriculum areas. The students will undertake tasks related to each of these domains, in which they will need to apply these key learning areas to the specific units they have studied during the term.     

The week ahead is structured in such a way that the students will not have more than two written assessments in one day. These will be interspersed with active revision sessions during which the students will work with their teachers and peers to consolidate their learning and prepare for the assessments. 

The teachers will then be busy writing the reports for the First Term. These will reflect each student’s effort and attainment since the mid-term, as well as their level of performance in the end-of-term assessments.

When all the work and studying is over, everyone will then be able to enjoy a well-earned break.  Happy holidays to all! 

I enjoyed spending time in the Reception class last week. They had a busy week working on their counting and forming their cursive letters to write words to describe the characters from the story `Little Red Riding Hood`. The highlight for me was when the children had to create a zip line for Little Red Riding Hood to get from her house to grandma`s house so that the wolf wouldn`t catch her!