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Following on from my blog on the 21st July, I am delighted to share with you the final design of the MakerLab as we have now selected the furniture and equipment.

Reading is a rewarding experience, whether you are hyped for a brand new release or revisiting an old favourite, there is something therapeutic about reading. It's easy to become so absorbed within a world where we lose our sense of time and place with: intriguing characters; heart-racing situations; and wondrous settings. As Dr Seuss once wrote: “Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.” As a little boy, Dr Seuss’ influence still holds value.

It has been an exciting start to the year for BCB Secondary School. On Monday, our Year 7s and new students started their induction into the school, meeting their teachers and tutor groups. Parents joined in too during our first zoom information meeting of the year!

Now more than ever before we all need a true sense of optimism, this may not be easy but it is far from impossible. We need to make the conscious decision to be optimistic. It is an active decision and one that needs to be worked on every day.

BCB is hard at work over this winter period to improve facilities in The Secondary School. With the pandemic making things a little harder than usual there has been progress in the building of a second science laboratory that will also be a Makerlab where STEAM activities will take place making use of Nord Anglia´s exclusive partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (www.mit.edu).

Have you heard the saying “ if you want a job doing, ask a busy person”? This saying seems somewhat paradoxical however on closer investigation it does seem to hold true.

I have just spent a very enjoyable hour watching a film made by our wonderful music teacher, Ms Bechara, of the Key Stage 1 entrants in BCB’s Got Talent. This is always a highlight in school as we watch our students take the stage and show us something special, something different and often something magical. Obviously this year it has been somewhat different, using the magic of IT rather than the magic of the theatre to exhibit their talents, nonetheless, the effort and dedication can be clearly seen and the emotion I felt watching them was one of inspiration and joy.

Recently I started to read a new book, or at least I thought it was new, not brand new, the book had been read before but I am a great lover of sharing books so a pre-read book was perfectly normal to me. I was about a quarter of the way through when some of the scenes had a sense of the familiar about them, I felt I had met the characters before, a few more pages in and I realised I had actually read the book before!

Children’s right to play is a human right On 1 February 2013 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted a General Comment that clarifies for governments worldwide the meaning and importance of Article 31 of the Convention on the Right of the Child : Article 31 “That every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. That member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.”

One of the aims of international education is to nurture our young people, developing them into productive, global citizens who can use their talents, knowledge and learned skills to support themselves and others. These learned skills can be seen on a day-to-day basis in the most mundane of places. What skills do you use when you make a purchase at a supermarket? Analyzing the health benefits of food, Science. Running a cost analysis in your head, Maths. Considering the implications of purchasing locally sourced goods, Geography. Seeking more information from a worker, the Languages.

Climate change; urbanisation; housing; an aging population; water scarcity; the energy-water-food nexus; pollution; global health; biodiversity; wealth distribution; are all major problems needed to be solved in the 21st Century. Therefore, scientists and mathematicians are going to be in high demand. So, what is the role of humanities in Twenty First Century education?

Technology at BCB always aims at working towards driving the cyber world to create a better future and discovering the silicon world of bits and bytes! This term our children are on the path of showcasing a wonderful aptitude towards programming codes to make different applications. Taking over from Robotics in the last term, designing and creating their own website through templates and codes is what our students are having up their sleeve and enjoying it to the fullest.

Today, Nord Anglia Education launched a brand-new podcast series called A Little Bit of Genius. In this series, student hosts discuss the theme of creativity with fascinating guests in a number of diverse fields. Nord Anglia’s podcast series is just one of the many incredible opportunities that we offer to students to ensure their education inspires them.

In a week when we hear of borders closing and people being kept in quarantine due to a new virus spreading internationally not to mention the UK breaking away from the European Union, my thoughts have turned to how we can work together and not work in isolation.

Learning, acquiring and experiencing an additional language is difficult. Often we try to make sense of it using our mother tongue or we look for other connections and rules to help us make a connection with the language. But what happens when the ‘rules’ make no sense? There are approximately 250,000 words in the English language, of which about 9000 makes up 95% of our daily use. 9000 doesn’t sound that many but it is not the individual words that students have difficulty with, it is how to combine them with the other 8999 words to make sense. One of the most challenging parts of learning vocabulary is understanding what we call ‘phrasal verbs’. Many of us know the word ‘ get’, but look at some of the ways to use ‘get’ that some of our EAL students have been researching:

To start term 2 Secondary had an assembly to welcome new pupils, returning pupils and to congratulate our year 11 cohort on the completion of their IGCSE mock exams.

In Secondary School as we come to the end of term one it is important to reflect on what drives us as part of the whole school community, our school vision.

On Tuesday our U12 boys football team travelled across the city to St Paul's to play the national sport we all love in Britain and Brazil, football!!!!

Last week I have been talking with our teachers about the power of vocabulary, about how we can help our students increase their vocabulary in order to be able to express themselves in the best way possible. As children grow and develop they also need to be able to describe every picture they see, to write about their lives, read about their lived reality and to speak into their lives their very hopes and dreams.