Kamyk Newsletter [18/10/2019]

We have had a busy couple of weeks in school, with the usual teaching and learning and also with various sporting events and plays.

You will read about the sporting achievements in the newsletter and I would like to offer my congratulations to everyone involved. Not only did we receive some silverware in Budapest, which is always nice but we competed with passion and enthusiasm. More importantly, with fairness and consideration. We received some very positive feedback from other schools.

This week we have had the IB Careers Programme Performing Arts One-Act performances at Libus. These are amazing and I really encourage you to catch the final ones tonight. The standard is superb. Today I watched the dress rehearsal for the Vlastina Year 6 play, Treasure Island. It was very impressive and was the audience was captivated for the full hour. When I mention that the audience was Early Years, it shows just how captivating it was! Vlastina Year 6 will do their full performance on Monday, so please come along.

I am sure you have all been following the developments with BREXIT over the last few days, weeks, months and years.

As part of its support of UK nationals in the Czech Republic, the British Embassy has been holding meetings in Prague and have offered to come to school on the 22^nd October, to share advice and offer guidance should there be a no deal BREXIT.

The meeting will take place in Libus at 4.45pm and will be open to UK staff and parents.

I appreciate that there is a Key stage 3 parents meeting at Kamyk that evening, however finding a free slot for the Embassy was very difficult so the 22^nd was the best option. If you are attending the parents evening and you are also interested in attending the Embassy meeting, then please make your teacher appointments early. If this is not possible, then please attend the Embassy meeting and we will be more than happy to schedule another time for you to meet your child’s teachers.

Best wishes

Michael Bardsley

Principal

On Tuesday we held an assembly for year 7 students. Mr Mason led the assembly and had everyone listening attentively as he discussed the mathematics of love! During the assembly we also introduced the new senior student leaders to the rest of the school. Ms Hamel held the first meeting with them today and I know they are all looking forward to getting started. They have plenty of ideas for the year and I will be watching them closely to see how much of an impact they can make on the school this year.

Many thanks to all the primary parents who attended the parent consultation evening this week. I hope you all found the meeting with your child’s class teacher useful. Please do not see these formal meetings as the only opportunity to communicate with the school. If you have concerns or feel there is something we should be aware of, please don’t hesitate to speak to the teachers. The parent session for year 7 students will take place on Tuesday from 4 – 6 pm in the Bubble. Please do not forget to sign up for appointments with each of your child’s teachers.

On Wednesday the PE department arranged the first house tournament of the year. The event was a football competition and there are more details below from Mr. Hayes. I was so pleased to see the students really enthusiastic about the event and really putting 100% effort into trying to win the games for their house. Both the girls and the boys tournaments ended in an exciting penalty shootout.

It was wonderful to watch the children choosing cakes at the charity bake sale today. Many thanks to all the parents who took the time to prepare cakes. Thanks also to our wonderful Friends Association for arranging the cakes for us. We raised an amazing 18,989 czk for our school charities which is an unbelievable amount.

On Thursday we held a session for parents on peer pressure. The session was led by the ‘Academy of Parenting’ who work closely with. It was wonderful to see so many parents attending the session and again I was delighted to hear the positive feedback.

Halloween Primary Disco

On Wednesday 6th November we are going to hold a special Halloween Day in school.

Years 1 - 3
1.30 - 2.30
There is no need to sign up for this disco as all the children will attend.

Years 4 - 6
3.10 - 4.30
Please sign up on the VLE if you wish for your child to attend.

Fireworks Night SAVE THE DATE

The traditional PBIS Fireworks Night will be happening on Friday November 8th at Libus. Fun for all the family. More information coming next week.

Kamyk and Libus Friends

Today we held our first charity bake sale of the year and it was a great success! We raised 23,410 crowns over the two campuses. Thank you to everyone, who baked, served or bought the sweet goodies. The money will be going towards supporting PBIS chosen charities as well as towards the events the Friends organise for students.

Next Monday morning we have our next Friends committee meeting. If you would like to get involved in the organising of future events for parents as well as students, come along. 08.30 in the Kamyk Parents Room.

Parent Workshops

Do you have a hidden talent you want to share with other Friends? Are you handy with upholstering? Can you cook a mean curry? We are organising workshops for Friends and if you would like to offer to teach something, you can tell us about it here.

Lorraine McIntosh

Chair, Kamyk & Libus Friends

2019 STEAM Photography Competition

We are excited to announce a new photography competition for all children in Early Years (Pre-Nursery- Reception) and Primary at PBIS. As part our collaboration with MIT, this year the children have been challenged to investigate image-capturing tools and to show a scientific concept in a new and interesting way.

Our challenge is based on the work of Felice Frankel, a research scientist at MIT, who helps her colleagues by creating images that not only convey information, but also engage viewers. The same methods that Frankel employs can help Nord Anglia students communicate complex scientific concepts to an international audience. So, we have challenged our children, at PBIS, to capture an image-up close (macro photography) and write a short caption explaining what their picture shows.

Every child has been asked to take part in the competition and to submit their entry, by email attachment, to their class teach. The deadline will be Wednesday, 6th Novemeber. All entries will be judged in a House event and the top 3 entries from each House will be enlarged, printed, framed and displayed around school. There will be a special prize for the top winners from each House. So, get snapping and enjoy the beautiful changes in nature that Autumn brings.

Miss Drummond, Primary STEAM Co-ordinator

Primary Reading Challenge

Today I have awarded the special reading challenge t shirts to 70 children who completed the challenge over the summer. I am really proud of the children as they all managed to read every single day of their summer holiday. The children are able to wear their t shirts every other Friday during our spirit days.

Primary School House Football Competition

Every year group in the primary school has now had one round of fixtures, and the house football competition has reached it’s halfway point. In Year 4 Karlstejn beat Lednice 4-2 and Konopiste beat Hluboka 3-0. Konopiste’s result moved them to the top of the table on 13 points, one ahead of Hluboka on 12.

After the half term break, each year group will have the chance to play another match against a different house team. There will be an update in the newsletter each week, and we look forward to finding out who will be crowned the Primary House Football Champions!

Maximum Music Day

The Maximum Musc day last Saturday lived up to its name - with 75 musicians from all three sites joining together for a day of workshops, rehearsals and a concert. Photos and videos can be found here! Well done to everyone who took part and thank you to parents for your support!

https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/the-arts-3/music/pbis-maximum-music-day

Primary School French News

YR 3 students started their colourful journey into the French world with colours and numbers. They can even rap in French about colours and numbers. Students became acquainted with things in the classroom, being able to ask and answer to the question “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

The Year 4 children have been learning vocabulary and grammar through a set of short comic’s book stories about Alex, Zoe, The Giant and The Dragon. Usually, they first read a story with their teacher, then by themselves, and once they are familiar with the vocabulary and the pronunciation they act the story out without the text. They are encouraged to speak naturally and to improvise if they forget their part.

In Year 5, the children follow the programme of Tip Top 2 textbook. They have started talking about their typical school day, the time and related activities. They have also revised numbers 1-60. Each unit is introduced with a dialog read by the teacher and then by the children. Finally, they act the situation out using their imagination. They are encouraged to speak naturally and to improvise if they forget the text. They love acting!

The Year 6 children have been learning about where they live, and how to describe their house and their room. They have also been talking about their routine, reading dialogs and engaging in class performances. During those performances, the students have to use French, and they are challenged to speak naturally, without their written notes.

Pre-Nursery

Another fun filled week for the Cubs! We continued learning about autumn and on Monday we started making autumnal glass jars. We also went on an autumn walk to the forest. We looked at the changes in nature and were lucky to see leaves falling from the trees. We even tried to catch them! We collected lots of natural materials that we used for autumn collage making on Tuesday. We also sang and acted out ‘Autumn Leaves are Falling Down’ using real leaves! On Monday we also had our first library session with our reading buddies and we really enjoyed the older students reading with us.

On Wednesday with Mr Alex we had a go at making some Michaelangelo style art. This meant we were laying on our backs (on cushions) to draw on paper which was stuck under the table! On Thursday we continued with the autumnal jars and we had our first music lesson with Mr Coleman. On Friday we made salt dough and did nature stamping by pressing the autumnal materials we had collected on the walk into the dough. Before snack we went to the bake sale where we all chose one cake from the wonderful selection.

On top of all this we were enjoying the changes that were made to our classroom and had a great time exploring the new open-ended area around the wooden house and ‘tough spot’ with minibeasts and magnifying glasses!

Nursery

This week we noticed that the trees outside are all changing colour, we’ve been talking about autumn, it’s such a beautiful and colourful season. We went for a walk around the school grounds and looked at all the different trees. We discovered that leaves come in different shapes and colours which we matched together, talking about are they the same or different and asking “how are they different?”. The children really enjoyed it when we shook the tree to make the leaves fall down, and we observed that the wind also blew the leaves off the trees.

The children have been taking part in a variety of autumn related learning experiences developing different skills. We collected a lot of autumnal objects such as conkers, acorns, different coloured leaves, fir cones etc. We sorted the objects and used them to make our own ‘Andy Goldsworth’ style art. Have a look at his work on the internet - this is something you can also do at home - and, the children did some amazing designs. Our mathematical focus this week has been counting using 1:1 correspondence. This is where we say one number name for each object that is being counted as young children tend to say the numbers too quickly and not focus on the actual amount of objects. We played a game where Miss Lesley had a handful of conkers, the children guessed how many conkers they thought were in my hand, I rolled the conkers down a tube and we counted them together seeing who had guessed the correct amount. We also played a game blowing tissue paper autumn leaves from a tube, then sorting them into colours and counting how many leaves of each colour there were.

This week we introduced the children to peer massage, most of the children really enjoyed the new experience and were very good at following the instructions. Peer massage helps the children to develop empathy by doing something nice for someone else, and also receiving in return. We will be doing peer massage on a regular basis and slowly introducing different massage movements.

Now that autumn is here could you please make sure your child comes to school with named weather appropriate clothing, ie:- hat, gloves etc. Many thanks and have a lovely autumn weekend.

Reception

After visiting a few different countries, this week we decided to stay closer to home and think about the Czech Republic. The children shared their ideas about places they had been and what they saw there, many of us have been lucky enough to visit museums and castles!

The children have been using their creative skills to make puppets and use these in their play to tell a story, so there has been lots of castle related role play and storytelling. We even had a special visitor: Mr Tomas Plekanec who plays ice hockey for the Czech Republic! He came and spoke to us about the countries he has visited and taught us all about his sport. He certainly inspired the children who decided they might like to have a go!

In phonics this week, we thought about the sounds ‘e’, ‘l’ and ‘h’. I wonder if your child can tell you any words starting with those sounds?

Have a great weekend.

The Reception Team

Year 1

Another fantastic week full of fun filled learning activities! In maths this week we revisited some of the concepts we have covered over the term to consolidate our learning. We raced remote control cars to learn about ordinal numbers, we were skip-counting in 5’s and we made scary monster hand prints to practise counting in 5’s.

In English this week the children stepped into the dojo to learn about Kung Fu punctuation. Using capital letters, finger spaces and full stops to construct sentences that make sense and correct mistakes in silly sentences.

Year 1 children got very creative in computing by programming bee bots and pro bots to make wonderful artwork. They even prepared an algorithm to program their teacher to walk across the classroom and pick up their coffee!

We have continued with our focus on geography in creative curriculum by comparing Czech Republic with a non-European country, looking at human and physical features, using lots of geographical terminology eg. hills, forest, cliffs, rivers, shop, city, town, port and harbour. We also forged our own passports in preparation for our trip to the airport next week.

Please remember to send in 50kc for the trip payment before Thursday.

Have a wonderful weekend.]

The Year 1 Dream Team.

Year 2

In English this week in year 2, we have continued to look at fact files. Some of the children created a fact file about a building they had invented and others created a fact file about animals. I am very impressed with the quality of work the children have produced this week as they have taken care to add rhetorical questions, interesting information and good punctuation. They children have also been working on editing and improving their work.

In maths, the children have been revising their maths work from the beginning of the year. In particular, we have been looking at number bonds to 20 and 100 and putting numbers on a number line. This week we have also been doing problem solving and the children have been drawing diagrams to help them organise their information neatly.

In creative curriculum this week, the children planned and created houses for the forest elves. We had a lovely afternoon following the elves’ trail to where they live and then we made beautiful houses of bark, sticks, moss and leaves. They children and teachers thoroughly enjoyed a warm afternoon in the wonderful Autumn forest nearby.

Year 3

This week in Year 3, the children have designed and created their 3D packaging for their very own chocolate bar. It's been a great opportunity for them to explore their construction skills - cutting, folding, sticking and re-engineering their net designs. They have enjoyed starting to advertise their chocolate bar in their English lessons too, after looking at the different features of successful adverts and trying to use some of the same ideas themselves: powerful adjectives, tempting benefits, alliteration and rhyming slogans. We have also been learning about homophones: their, there, they're, to, too, two, your and you're.

In maths this week, we have completed an internal half-termly assessment on the topics covered so far, and the children have really impressed their teachers with their understanding and perseverance. We ended the week with some problem solving activities to encourage the children to apply their mathematical understanding in different situations and take risks in exploring different ways of finding answers.

3A and 3Cz are excited about their Chocotopia Trip on Monday - please remember to bring a packed lunch (as well as your snack and water bottle) and a warm jacket.

Year 4

Trip

Classes 4B and 4Cz visited the botanical gardens on Monday and were blessed with glorious weather. The children had a great time sketching plants and flowers for their forthcoming Rousseau picture, and observing the noisy parrots!

Maths

In Maths, the children sat two assessment papers, one to test mental arithmetic and the other problem-solving. Teachers will spend time going through the papers with the pupils and will use the results of these to determine carefully each child’s targets and next steps in their learning.

English

The children wrote exciting rainforest adventure stories in English. Prior to writing, they looked at how to develop character descriptions, create interesting settings and organise dialogue. This piece of writing will form part of their writing assessment portfolio which will help to track their progress in writing throughout the year.

Remarkable Rainforests

Our Creative Curriculum topic is coming to a close. We have symbolically been ‘destroying’ our classroom rainforests whilst learning about the current threats real rainforest face from humans’ actions. Although it is an upsetting issue to study, it is necessary if we are to instil in our children the need for everyone to take action to help preserve these wonderful forests for future generations.

Please keep the wonderful contributions for our homework project coming in. The deadline for all work is the 6^th November, the same date as Show and Share! We look forward to seeing you all there to share the children's work.

PSHCE

In PSHCE, we have been discussing our Value of the Month – Honesty – and the students have been very honest in sharing stories of when they were sometimes economical with the truth. We tried to answer some of the following questions: Is it all right to lie sometimes? What does being tactful mean? What could the possible consequences of lying be? Does everyone lie? What the difference between a fib and a lie? What’s a ‘white lie’?

Thank you to all the parents who attended Parents’ Evening. It was lovely to meet and discuss your child’s progress. We hope you found the discussions useful too and have a good understanding of how well your child has settled in Year 4, and some of their targets for the remainder of the term.

Year 5

Year 5 have been out of this world all week!

In English, we have loved learning about and exploring the world of Doctor Who. Next week they will be continuing to write their own story about the mysterious Doctor Who and his companion as well as the inevitable battle with an evil alien. Please talk to your child about their story and encourage them to tell you about what they have written. Talking about writing always makes the process of writing easier and better.

Spellings next week: the children don't have any new words to learn this week. Instead we are asking them to review the ones they have done this half term and we will test them on a variety of them next Friday. They will get new words for after the half term.

In Maths, we have been assessing and reviewing the learning from this half term and using this to set new targets for after the break. We will complete some assessments next week to help us know what we have learned and what we need more help with.

We had an exciting trip to the planetarium this week to wrap up our 'Wonderful World' topic. It was amazing to see the night sky projected around us and to explore different planets through images and special effects. Have a look at the photos to see some highlights from the trip!

Please remember to send any interesting 'junk' you may have around the house for our project next week - we will be making our own buzzer games!

Year 6

Whilst the majority of focus this week has been on the first round of the Island Project presentations we have managed to squeeze some additional learning into the week.

Tuesday started our first round of pitches for the islands near the Shetlands and Hawaii, whilst Wednesday saw the pitches for the islands near Madagascar and Portugal. In the lead up to the big event the students learnt many new skills such as; how to work under time pressure, how to solve conflicts in a team and the importance of critical thinking. There was a mixture of nerves and excitement floating around the room during the heats (including from the teachers). There was a full variety of presentations in different styles and the effort put in by the students was very clear to see. The shortlisted groups were decided by a team of judges and announced in Friday’s assembly. See the winning groups below, who will take their pitches forward to the finale in Libus next week.

Portugal

Jevyb Island (Vanja, Edward, Yunie, Basia and Jindra 6B)

The Island of Jagella (Joesef, Ella and Agata 6C)

Hawaii

South Milasa (Ela, Theodora, Krystof, Martin and Alex 6B)

Dream Island (Danil, Rudolf and Elam 6A)

Shetlands

Island of Skylar (Elektra, Samuel, MinJun, Artemiy and Sayana 6D)

Falma Island (Filip, David and Annie 6C)

Madagascar

Tropical Heaven (Michelle, Shiba, Sara, Lmarina, Nela 6A)

The Magic Isle (Eva, Woojun, Peter, Anastas, Matias 6B)

Well done to all and congratulations and good luck to the shortlisted groups!

In math we have been investigating negative numbers, ordering them and finding rules to help us with calculations that involve them. We have also started to focus more on problem solving skills and linking our understanding of concepts into real life situations. This week we have been calculating the difference in temperatures around the world and within different climate zones.

In English we have been researching information about the country of Brazil and planning our layout for a travel brochure to encourage people to travel to Brazil. We have been thinking about combining information texts with persuasive writing. We look forward to completing the final product next week.

Finally, thank you to all who attended our first parents evening of the year, we had a great turn out and we hope believe was very informative for both parents and teachers.

Lower Secondary School

A word from Ms Hamel

First of all, I would like to feedback on my first meeting with the Student Leaders: what a great team we have this year! We talked about the reward system and they were interested in understanding the difference between stamps and merits. Stamps are given to students when they contribute to the school values and show good collaboration. We have agreed that the stamps will count towards our house system and Student Leaders will now be counting stamps on a regular basis. Merits are awarded for academic prouesse: good homework, classwork or participation in class.

We are also working towards the Winter dance that will take place on Friday 6th December.

We will celebrate Halloween on Friday 25th October. Students are encouraged to wear a scary costume to school on that day. We will be awarding prizes for the best costumes in the assembly that will take place at the end of the day.

On a different note, as you are about to receive your child’s report, please find below some information about the reports.

Parent-friendly report 

Year 7 parents will have the opportunity to meet with their child’s teachers on Tuesday. The event takes place in the Bubble, from 16:00 to 18:00. Make sure to arrange some appointments via our parents evening booking system.

parent friendly report INFO.pptx

Finally, I would like to draw you attention on the fact that as a Key Stage, we are all focusing on helping the students to be organized. Please have a look at the strategies we are discussing in class.

Helping the students to be organized

MFL French

Secondary French classes

In Year 7, we follow the textbook Adomania 1. Our first topic was about our hobbies, our musical preferences and ourselves. Video resources usually introduce both revision and new concepts that we subsequently explore and practise in class. The Year 7 students love music and here are their favourite top 5 French songs:

1. Ma direction (S. d’Assault)

2. Je suis chez moi (Black M)

3. Papaoutai (Stromae)

4. Est-ce que je t’aime (M. Gims)

5. J’adore (P.Katerine)

Year 8 students learn from the textbook Adomania 2. After revisions of last year’s vocabulary and grammar, they went on a journey through different cities, looking at maps and taking various means of transport. They have also talked about their daily routine and watched a video about how teenagers in France go to school. Year 8 love interactive activities allowing them to move around and to act out different situations.

The students of Year 9 follow the content of Adomania 3. In the first couple of weeks, we mainly focused on revisions of vocabulary and grammar from last year. Then, through the unit called “Le temps libre” we explored the topic of hobbies, money and duties such as house chores. The students have also discussed the importance of their best friends in everyday life. Regularly, they learn how to express their opinion in discussions and practise how to present their ideas to the rest of the class.

Photos:

Senior Art

7B have done some wonderful work on their recent self-image project, mostly inspired by Frida Kahlo. Do quiz them about the reasons we make mistakes in drawing portraits and the various ‘hacks’ (previously known as ‘drawing techniques’) used to get around them. See the images below for beautiful outcomes displaying all they have learned about the artist, her life and how she has influenced their portraits. Today, they (and Mr Buckley!) had fun ‘breaking the rules’ to take and print selfies as the basis for a very postmodern self-portrait of their own. More results to follow.

English News Senior School

I can’t believe how quickly the first half term has gone! All students have been working thoroughly hard on their novels and need to be congratulated for the efforts they have made and, I have no doubt, will welcome the rest.

The Year 7s have finished The Breadwinner and will be preparing a debate as to whether one of the young teenage girls in the novel should leave her family or a better life, even though her family will find it difficult to survive without her. They will have to find their way through the moral issue by using persuasive speech to counterattack each other’s arguments, which is something that should get the adrenaline running!

The Year 8s will be having a trail regarding the guilt of one of the characters in Noughts and Crosses. The novel has not been an easy journey for students who, again are being challenged morally, as they have had to consider if violence, in extreme oppression, could be a way to draw attention to the situation and finally resolve it.

Lastly, the year 9s will also be doing a trial by putting Lennie on trial for the murder of Curley’s wife. We will be rewriting the end of, Of Mice and Men and questioning whether a man who has mental difficulties can be found guilty of a crime, if he does not know what he is doing or, certainly, did not intend on doing it.

I’m really looking forward to lively debate and deliberation, which will hopefully tire the students out for the holidays. Enjoy!

Mrs Nathalie Bardsley

Head of Faculty: English

Senior School Ski Trip News

We are delighted to announce that we will be running two ski trips for the Senior students in 2020.

• Year 9, 10 & 12: Nassfeld, Austria (18-24 January)
• Year 7 & 8: Villars, Switzerland (7-13 February)

Details of these trips are on the VLE:

Year 7-8:

https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/school-trips-2/secondary-school-trips/secondary-school-trips-201920/year-7-8-ski-trip-2020-villars-switzerland

Year 9, 10 & 12:

https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/school-trips-2/secondary-school-trips/secondary-school-trips-201920/year-910-and-12-ski-trip-2020-nassfeld-austria

The sign up will go live on Friday 25th October at 19.00hrs. Please keep an eye on your emails and next weeks' newsletter for more details.

HALF TERM SPORTS CAMP IS BACK!!!

The half term is just three weeks away and registration is now open for our Half Term Sports Camp. Our four day, action packed sports themed programme is open to all children aged 4 - 13 years. Each day will run from 08:30 - 17:00, and the programme will include training in gymnastics, tennis, floorball and wall climbing!

The programme will be based at our campus in Kamýk, with a complimentary daily bus service available from our Vlastina site. For full details and access to the online registration form please visit the following VLE page:

https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/extra-time/holiday-programmes/half-term-sports-camp-2019

Portrait Photo Orders

This year's class photos are ready and can be seen at http://www.pbisphotos.cz Just enter the password (case sensitive): PBIS2019

Please note that the order deadline is FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, and that orders placed before the deadline should be delivered by the first week of December.

Prices for the photographs are displayed in the form. The final amount will be deducted from your child’s school account.

In the meantime, we hope you like the photos! If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please email pbisphotographer@gmail.com.