It was wonderful to see so many smiley faces entering Academia this morning. The children were excited to be back at school and they were motivated to start the second half of the term. We enjoyed hearing all about their adventures over the holidays.

We have got a busy week planned for the children; the Reception and Year 1 & 2 class will be visiting Labyrinthe Aventure and a local farm with their teachers on Thursday and Friday while the Year 3 - Year 9 children will be exploring Europa Park. Let's not forget our Halloween Party for the whole school on Saturday, look out for some spooky photos next week!

Let's catch up with our Year 1 & 2 class and see what they have been learning.

Lisa and Simon enjoyed recording sentences for their story to help them to write them. The children have been practising their beautiful handwriting using a range of different media and in maths they have learned how to sort 2D shapes using Venn diagrams through practical and interactive activities.

The Year 9 ‘Cruisers’ have now reached the halfway stage of their Mediterranean adventure. After driving over the Alps to Genoa, we boarded the MSC Meraviglia in Genoa.

An overnight sail took us to Naples, in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. Crossing the busy city, the group visited the ancient town of Pompeii, which was buried by a volcanic eruption in 79AD. The ruins that have been unearthed are like a time capsule, a snapshot of life in Roman times. Pompeii ceased to exist in a matter of hours but the ruins are so well preserved that we can truly imagine what life was like in that distant era.

Leaving Naples, we headed down the Italian coast to the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea - Sicily. Here we discovered the city of Messina and another volcano of a very different type - Mount Etna. Driving through the towns and villages on the volcano’s slopes, we reached one of the mountain’s multiple craters, only to find negative temperatures and snow! This surprise gave us a taste of the winter to come back in Switzerland.

We then headed south to Malta, visiting the fascinating ancient city of Valletta with its narrow streets, fortresses and grand churches and ancient public buildings. Tonight we set sail for Barcelona, sailing all day tomorrow across the western Mediterranean.

The cruise is totally living up to expectations, providing fun for the students and at the same time offering them a unique educational and life experience.

Meet our Student Council Class Representatives - Maya, Anastasia, Ella, Ludovica, Marousia, Tony, Mathieu, Rio

Student council is a group of students elected by their peers. Our school council members will bring ideas, requests, and feedback to the meetings. Students who participate in student councils learn about the democratic process, leadership, problem solving and teamwork.

The student council is the voice of the student body.

Express Yourself

As part of Express Yourself week each class decorated their door based around the book they have been reading. The winning class was announced in assembly this morning - well done to Year 3 & 4!

This week, as part of our special ‘Express Yourself’ celebrations, we have been focusing on reading. We decided that it is fun to read everywhere. Take a look where we took our favourite books!
The Reception children have been thinking about the initial sounds in words. We looked carefully for words beginning with different sounds and used our special Spotter Glasses to help us!

Exploring the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ has been lots of fun. We acted out the story and took on the roles of the pigs and the big bad wolf.

In the role play we worked on The Three Pigs’ Building Site and in The Architect’s Office. We were designing houses and then using the construction equipment to help us build our models.

The Reception children have been investigating the properties of different materials. We wondered which materials the big bad wolf would be able to blow the furthest. We used an air pump to help us gets lots of ‘huff and puff’! It was lots of fun and we found out that a house made out of leaves would blow much further away than a house built of stone!

By Kirsty Madison, Reception Class Teacher.

What a busy week this has been for the Juniors! Along with the Minis, the children in Year 7, 8 and 9 all took part in drama workshops on Tuesday, loosely based around the book ‘The Island at the End of Everything’.
Their work was presented to the rest of the school in a special Assembly on Wednesday morning.

We have also launched the new Challenge ‘Reading Ahead’ which focuses on the children reading six new titles of their choosing, then writing a simple review with a rating in their logbooks. Our Librarian Sue, along with the teachers, is always happy to recommend books to the children.

On Friday Derek judged the Minis’ door decoration competition. All the entries were of an amazingly high standard, the winner will be declared in the Mini Assembly next week.

The Usborne Book Fair was held in the Minis Lounge in La Garenne, and was a huge success with children and parents buying books of all genres.

Friday also saw the Year 7 and 9 children travelling with our Art teacher Donna, by train to the gardens in the local village of Bex where they admired the open-air sculpture exhibition that takes place every three years.

Next week is a short one, as we finish for the Half-Term holiday on Wednesday. During the break, the lucky Year 9 children are heading off with Derek, Mélanie and Baptiste on a cruise of the western Mediterranean, visiting sites connected to their studies, in Italy, Spain, Malta and France. We wish them bon voyage!