IES Schools SA Tag

“If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” – Roald Dahl

 

It’s that time of the year again where tests and exams are starting. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the pressure we feel as parents, teachers or students. We all want our children, students and class to do well, but it can be an extremely stressful time which makes it very easy to self-critique.

Do you ever catch yourself talking down to yourself? I know I do. We often motivate, encourage and compliment others – we should do the same for ourselves! Being your own best cheerleader is a much better choice than being your own best critic. When negative thoughts about yourself come into your head, quickly refocus to a positive thought about yourself. See your strong points and be proud.

According to the blog ‘Coffee Cups and Crayons’, figuring out how to be kind to yourself is trickier for children than it is for adults. Encourage your child to really think about things that help fill them up inside, not just 5 fun things they like. Talk aloud things you’ve noticed to help them start thinking in the right direction. Say things like, “I notice how happy and peaceful you get while you are colouring.” or “Dancing really brings a smile to your face.”

Older children may struggle with this even more. Life gets pretty busy for them and they may not know at first what they can do to be kind to themselves. Give them a day or two to brainstorm and “try out” some ideas to see what resonates.

5 Simple Ways To Be Kind To Yourself for Children:

1. Find something you love. Whether it’s a passion for football, baking, running or reading – engaging in a fun hobby can be one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves.

2. Talk about the good things. Ask each person in your family to say one good thing about their day. This helps us to identify and focus on positive experiences from the day.

3. Lend a helping hand. Helping others can be a great way to show kindness – and it can make you feel good too! Help your little brother get dressed, clean up your books, help mom wash the dishes or set the dinner table.

4. Be kind to your body. Eating healthy foods, like fruits and veggies, and being active by riding bikes, kicking a ball or playing on the playground are all ways to show our bodies kindness. Getting lots of sleep is important too.

5. Encourage yourself. Go me! It can be easy to say unkind things about ourselves when we make a mistake or do not do well on a test. Instead, try saying encouraging things like “At least I won’t make that mistake again!” or “I just need to keep practicing and I’ll do better every time.”

I would like to wish all the students that are preparing for tests and exams all the best. Be kind to yourself!

Ria du Plessis
Year 4 Teacher

In Geography this term, the Year 1’s will be traveling with Barnaby Bear to various countries across the World. His first destination was London, England.

The Year 1’s learnt how far Barnaby had to travel to get to London. He used many different modes of transport to get around to all the famous landmarks, like an airplane, the London Tube, a Black Cab, and a red double-story bus. It made me think of the movie ‘Planes, trains and automobiles’.

Barnaby sent us a postcard telling us about all the landmarks he visited. He first took the tube to London Paddington Station, where his famous friend ‘Paddington’ was found. There he saw hundreds of people playing music, drawing and shopping. This made Barnaby Bear miss home, so he had to call his mum from a red telephone box. This cost him a pretty penny!

Barnaby took a cab and went to the Palace, where he saw the Queen and her famous Yeomen. The students had a good giggle at their silly outfits. He rode the London Eye and felt really ill. He saw the Millennium Dome, Big Ben and the Tower Bridge. Barnaby watched for hours how the bridge lifted for boats to pass through.

Barnaby just had to visit the monument erected to remember the Great Fire of London, to prepare the students for Year 2. His last visit took him to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was largely destroyed in the Great Fire.

It was starting to get cold and rainy in London, as it is autumn there now. Barnaby really found it difficult to decide what he needed to take with him, so our Year 1 students helped him pack his case for the journey before he left. I certainly know that he was dressed right for the weather that awaited him.

We are looking forward to the next leg of his journey, where he will continue in London and look at art, culture, dress and food of the people that live there.

Wendy Menton
Year 1 Teacher

During the week the Pre-Reception students came together for our theme discussion to explore what we knew and what we still wanted to know about the sea.

Using our shared ideas, we started our investigation discovering life under the sea. We used books and online research, including videos and information to gain new knowledge about sea animals.

The Aquarium is a great way to teach students about the animals under the sea. We went on a virtual tour with Blippi to the Aquarium. We discovered facts about sea animals, the purpose of coral and a very important topic, pollution. We learned that the oceans cover 70% of the Earth and that it is our responsibility to protect the oceans.

Here are a few things that we can teach our students to do in order to help protect our oceans:

• Buy recyclable products
• Pick up any litter
• Stop using plastic as much as possible

For art, we created beautiful pictures to represent our knowledge and understanding and in numeracy we had to colour in a rainbow fish following a colour code.

This week has taught us we can all make a difference, no matter how big or small.

Martie van Dyk
Pre-Reception Teacher

Blouberg International School welcomes all our High School students, and their parents, to the final term of the school year.

The fourth term is always a busy and important one for both staff and students. Our Year 10, 12 and 13 students began their IGCSE and AS/A Level external examinations on the 29th of September 2020 with second language orals. We wish all our students the best of luck with their examinations.

It is also an important term for the rest of the High School as they will be writing their final internal examinations in November.

We wish everyone a productive and successful term.

Julian Harrison
Head of Academics High School

As we stride forward into Term 4, we can’t help but reflect on what the last three terms have taught us. We have learned many wonderful things but, most importantly, we have learned that we are entirely capable of doing anything we put our minds to! No matter how scary or daunting the task of an entirely different school experience seemed, we put our fears behind us and stormed forward into the face of the unknown…and absolutely conquered!

We are extremely proud of the independence and responsibility displayed by the Year 5’s as the year progressed. As they return for their fourth and final term of the year, we encourage them to recognise how far they have come and how many new skills they have mastered.

We look forward to not only a term full of hard work and success, but a term spent together as a family; supporting, encouraging and admiring each other – even if some of it may be done through a camera and microphone!

“Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm… As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” – Audrey Hepburn

Robyn Pieters
Year 5 Teacher

In Reception Year we had lots of fun making play dough words to recap on our knowledge of the blended letter sounds. First we went through some letter sounds on the board and thought of some words with a particular sound in it. We then sounded out each word and wrote them on a white board. The teacher drew a picture of each word on the board from the words we had previously written. We had to use our memories to try and make the word for each picture out of play dough.

It was so much fun and we couldn’t wait to pose for a photo so that we could share the fun we’d had with everyone.

Bronwen Nuthall
Reception Year Teacher

As the outgoing president of the Blouberg International School Interact Club, I would like to extend my gratitude to the BIS family. Despite the years’ immense regulations and restrictions, the support that we received from the staff, the parents and the students remained constant, if not increased.

At the start of the year we had a specific goal in mind: to support and empower people and children in need. It is no secret that 2020 has been an especially difficult and unfavourable year, and often in more ways than one. In spite of this, and because of this, we received hundreds of generous donations in aid of our initiatives.

The BIS Interact Club had 3 drives this year, the Bring-a-book Civvies Day, the second hand clothing drive as well as the sanitary pad drive. With the support of everyone in the school, we managed to collect over 1000 books, almost 800 items of clothing, 70 pairs of shoes and a box full of sanitary pads, diapers and underwear.

The books, that we collected earlier this year, were donated to the Vaatjie Moravian Primary school and the Sunshine Educare organisation. The proceeds from the clothing and sanitary pad drives were split between the Blouberg Rotaract Club and the Table View United Church for use in their outreach programs.

Good luck to the new Interact Board for the year ahead and please continue to support the Blouberg International School Interact Club in the coming years.

Katherine Lott
Secretary/Treasurer and Interact representative of the SRC 2020
BIS Interact club President 2020

As a school student, I hated English Grammar. I mean, did we really have to know if the verb was in the past simple tense, if it was an irregular verb or an auxiliary verb? Then there is the question of definite and indefinite articles. Most of the children who have been in my class, will tell you that Mrs. Coetzer says “English is a crazy language: For every spelling rule, there is an exception. What about two sounds which sound the same but are spelled differently? Then there is the matter of homonyms and homophones.

In all sincerity, English is one of the most difficult languages to learn and yet it is used universally, and we use these parts of speech without even realizing it.

Thankfully, the grammar taught in Year 2 is still fairly simple. To explain the importance of learning what a noun is, I asked various students to me bring me a ‘thingy’. Obviously, they were totally confused and kept bringing me different items in the classroom, with me rejecting each one. They caught on quite quickly and asked me to name the items I wanted. I tried another experiment and read them a story, leaving out all the adjectives and adverbs. They all agreed, it was a boring story. After I read it again, with the adjectives and adverbs, they told me they could imagine the story in their heads.

So, it appears that these parts of speech do play an important role in the English language, after all. As I always tell my students, we need to paint a picture with our words.

Kim Coetzer

Year 2 Teacher