As we move into December, many of our families will be thinking about Christmas and how it will be very different this year. The core values of hope, family, celebration and the gift of giving remain though and this is something I am sure we are all looking forward to.
Our students have been working on chef’s hats, school uniforms, Black Lives Matter, climate change, gamelan music, mexican art, sunglasses! and one of my very favourite books, ‘Small Island’. Please read the rest of the newsletter to find out more!
With two weeks to go before we break up for Christmas we are still working towards our return to campus date of the 11th January. We are still waiting to fulfill criteria 1 and 2 (the govt allowing this and manageable levels within the valley) before confirming the current return to campus phase 3 date: Monday 11th January. I am conscious that this date has many implications for families, especially with regard to travel plans, so we will be in a position to make a firm decision on this return date on Monday 14th December. As part of this decision and in line with the Nepali government’s framework for a return to campus, we need to ascertain how many families would be willing to send their children back to campus. To this end, could I therefore ask every family to complete a short questionnaire by Monday 7th December. Please also review our which will certainly help to inform your choice.
Questionnaires below:
Have a lovely weekend and please stay safe.
Brian Platts
Principal
Recent and future updates
Library Booking
The ĢƵ library is a great resource, which we are sure our community has been missing during recent lockdowns. We are aiming to offer families the opportunity to access library resources in the safest way possible over the next few weeks. The library will only be accessible by prior booking and those visiting must adhere to our safety protocols.
News from our Student Leadership
A few weeks back, a group of ĢƵ students including the prefect team had the opportunity to participate in this year’s Qatar Leadership Conference. Here, Roisin, a fellow prefect member working in the compassion sector gives us a glimpse of her experience with QLC:
“As a whole, the experience of attending the Qatar Leadership Conference has certainly given me some fresh ideas on how ĢƵ can be improved. Primarily I saw some weaknesses in the community work we do. Although we do participate in community work; on occasions, there are issues with actually connecting with our community through the activities. From time to time, the activities that were planned would result in us educating them instead of actually interacting. In my opinion it’s incredibly easy to think we know best and want to educate others on what we’ve learnt. However, I think it’s important that we focus on interacting with our community; one of the workshops I participated in gave me the idea of perhaps using participatory art as a means of interacting and communicating with our wider community”.
Teacher of the Week:
This week we had lots of great nominations for teacher of the week, one of those being Ms Howell whose kindness and help was greatly appreciated by the students. Ms. Howell has also dedicated her time to organizing certificates for students who have completed their Duke of Edinburgh award. Ms. Howell has shown great commitment to the Duke of Edinburgh program by supporting and dedicating her time to help students with logging their records through the online portal.
Congratulations, Ms. Howell!
Weekly Fun Challenge: We’ve received loads of great answers for last week’s challenge. Congratulations to Tashi from Year 8 for being the first one to guess the location correctly! For this week, we have prepared something very special for you. Only the best of the best can pass this perilous challenge. We have in front of you five heads of five different teachers of ĢƵ. The challenge is to guess which head belongs to which teacher. The option of teachers includes : Mr Paul, Mr Jay, Mr Piaf, Mr Steenson and Mr Lowe. Good Luck !!!
Early Years News
Children in Foundation 1 are learning to tell a story using the Helicopter Stories technique. This is an approach to communication and literacy skills based on storytelling. This holistic approach uses the power of storytelling to develop key curriculum areas such as creativity, communication and language. Children dictate their stories which are written down exactly as they are told by children.
Our Early Years students are learning about ‘People Who Help Us’. They have been finding information about people in their community who help them in different ways. This week, during one of their Zoom sessions, Foundation 2 listened to a story about a chef and made their own chef hat by following instructions.
Key Stage 1 News
Get ready for the premiere of the most amazing virtual Christmas Spectacular ever released, next Friday, December 11th, 1:30 pm on Tapestry and Seesaw starring our Early Years and Key Stage 1 students! They have been practising incredibly hard. Today we will give you a little sneak peek from behind the scenes.
Lower Key Stage 2 News
Year 3 had a Design Challenge for this week: to sketch a uniform for ĢƵ. They needed to consider how it might differ for boys and girls, take account of the different seasons and choose which colors and materials would work best.
As part of their ‘Pictures, Paintings and Photographs Street Art’ topic, Year 4 have been considering how we use computers to manipulate images and create art. Inspired by artists such as David McLeod, Alberto Seveso and Sean Charmatz, they have been manipulating their own images using editing tools on their devices.
Upper Key Stage 2 News
Year 6 have been continuing with their work on their IPC unit ‘Champions for Change’ by moving on to thinking about the Black Lives Matter movement and the impact that it is having in the fight for racial equality – and how it links to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Students have conducted some excellent research and have presented their findings in a variety of ways.
Year 5, meanwhile, have been thinking about building models of Ancient Roman or Greek buildings – this week has been all about planning their designs. They have had to think carefully about materials that will be used, joins that will be needed and any other equipment. With such well thought-out plans, I can’t wait to see the finished designs!
Key Stage 3 News
It is starting to become difficult to think of new adjectives to describe the level of work Key Stage 3 has been creating. Once again, they have been excelling right across the board, producing fantastic pieces of work that deserve recognition. It really is a testament to the dedication of these young students to keep their work at such high levels. Key Stage 3 should be really proud of all their achievements over the last three months!
In Y8 Geography, the students have been looking at the effects of climate change and how it can impact the society we live in. Climate change is an ever present threat, that is affecting us all. It is great that such young students are really getting involved in educating themselves on the topic, so they can make a difference moving forward. Students were asked to create an infographic that went into detail about the impacts and effects of climate change.
In Year 7 Art, the students have been looking into Mexican artwork. They were tasked with drawing a Mexican doll freehand without the use of tracing paper or gridding. Maya’s work was absolutely spectacular. It is excellently proportioned and details well observed with outstanding use of graphite shading techniques.
Key stage 3 has been extremely busy in Music. The Year 7’s are looking at Indonesian Gamelan music. After listening to examples of that particular music, they were then asked to create a graphic that reflects the sounds that they have heard.
Following on from Year 8’s work on Raga music, they have been creating their own pieces and sharing it with their class. To listen to a piece of Raga music created by Y8 students please click
Similarly, in Year 9, the students have been continuing their studies of film music. This week Year 9 have been working on leitmotifs for Film Music: Using tonality to reflect stock characters like hero and villains.To listen to Dhika’s work please click . Dhika’s work shows a great choice of instrument and a flowing melody.
In Year 8 study skills, the students have been learning about revision techniques. They were looking at the importance of quizzing and how to use it effectively when revising. A number of the students managed to achieve 100% on the quiz that was set for them which is incredible. They also looked at the effectiveness of revision timetables. Urgyen successfully rearranged a sixth formers revision timetable to make it more effective.
A huge congratulations goes out to Zana (Y8) for getting student of the week. Zana has been incredible since the beginning of the year. She has been helping others and maintaining such high levels of work. Her report was amazing and it demonstrated how hard and well she has been working. Also, she has been great at making her voice be heard. She has not only been thinking about getting her own opinions across, but is constantly thinking about the whole year group. Little things like this really help to build the confidence of others, which is great. Well done Zana and keep up the great work!
When asked to give some advice to the other students in KS3, Zana said this:
‘Try your best in everything and never give up, because once you give up you will regret it your whole life’.
Key Stage 4 News
It has continued to be a bumper week for KS4 students, with positive comments and achievements literally flooding in for our students. There are some wonderful examples of work this week, both tangible and less tangible.
In PSHE, KS4 students have been continuing to work on revision techniques. It is important that Year 11 continue to work to find the best technique for themselves as the mock examination timetable has almost been completed. Once it is, this will be shared with students. It is also a great opportunity for our Year 10 students to find a technique that works well for them as this will stand them in good stead not only now, but also in the future as their mock examinations come around next year.
Moving forward, our great team of prefects will be looking at PSHE and designing and developing our PSHE curriculum based on their KS4 experiences. I love having students involved in many of the day to day activities within school as they, undoubtedly, have first hand experiences to share, which can only help to benefit students as they move up through the school.
With it now being December, the tradition of advent calendars is being kept alive by the Geogrography department, with daily ‘windows’ being posted on Twitter, and all Geography students have been shared this fun resource. If you don’t already have an advent calendar, and would like one, please feel free to explore the Geography advent calendar .
Year 10 DT students have been continuing to work on their sunglasses’ designs and, as promised, here a few examples of their finished designs. Which pair would you like? Here are designs from Himansu, Aanavi, Needadh, Aman and Aadi.
The GCSE music students have been working really hard on aural analysis in class this week.
They have made great use of jamboard, with students building on each other’s answers in their own colored sticky notes.
Miss Wynn is super impressed with their attitude to learning in class, and she says they are a pleasure to work with!
In Geography, the Year 10 students have been continuing their study of settlements and this week, they considered the function, or purpose, settlements can serve. Here are their thoughts on the functions of Kathmandu. Can you think of any more?
This week’s student of the week is Needadh in Year 10. Needadh has been praised by his teachers for being flexible, and asking for extra help if there is something he is not sure of. He has been working very well in Drama, DT and Geography specifically. In Physics, Needadh has also been displaying his great sense of humour and entertained the whole class with an amusing GIF about the topic they were studying.
Here is what Needadh has to say:I love seeing my friends in meetings and how we are still connected even though these are such trying times. The teachers always encourage me, and always listen to what I have to say.
I can’t wait for school to re-open so I can see Everton in person again.
It’s good to study and revise, but make sure you don’t study too much, it’s good to do the things you love as well. I was finding English a little hard at the moment in online learning so I emailed Ms. Siuta. She told me to do something I love and take a break from studying for a bit. I am so glad I did because it eased up a bit of my stress. It’s fine to stress at times, but make sure you tell someone. I love volleyball. If you can go outside, make sure you do and go play with your friends. I do this everyday.
As I said, the positive comments for our KS4 students have literally been flooding in this week. Here is a selection:
For Psychology, Shridha, Elana and Joshua in Year 10: All three students took on a very difficult text reading in the lesson. They graciously accepted the challenge without hesitation and fluently read, taking on new vocabulary without hesitation and being unperturbed by the level of difficulty of the text on Moral Development and the research of Jean Piaget. When they needed support with new words, they accepted it and continued reading without a misstep, re-reading the newly explained words without hesitation.
In Spanish, Ms Ajenjo has been impressed by the great work of Shivanshi, Ishan, Nabodita and Jetasri in Year 11.
And Jetasri has again been commended for her work in Physics where she completed lots of work during the independent Physics lesson on Monday. Ms Howell is impressed with her effective use of time and commitment to Physics. Ms Howell has also been impressed by Inseok (Isaac) in Year 11 who made excellent notes to help him understand the process of Nuclear Fission during independent work lesson.While Sachi in Year 10 has been doing her own revision for Physics lessons and she emailed her teacher to ask if an equation was correct.
Emm has continued to impress Mr Piaf in Psychology who says Emm always shows commitment and enthusiasm, but the way they self-regulate their enthusiasm for the rest of the class is what really makes this special for me. Emm has found a very productive and considerate approach in using the chat as a vehicle for enriching the discussion of the lessons in this way. They did this autonomously and without explicit guidance from me, and should be commended for developing this approach to contributing to the learning community while respecting the learning environment needs of their classmates.
Emm confidently and creatively linked the treatment of a transgender community in India with a discussion of the cultural relativism of morality during a psychology lesson on moral development. And all this while making the move from Malaysia to Nepal and settling in to life in Kathmandu this week. Well done, Emm!
It’s been a bumper week, and I look forward to sharing more success and highlights next week!
Key Stage 5 News
Thank you to the the ĢƵ prefect team who have been leading sessions with mentor groups. They are interacting with all secondary students on a fortnightly basis. This provides our secondary students with the opportunity to share their feedback which will be reviewed and acted upon by the prefect team.
Well done to Seoyun and Ritu have made excellent progress within their student leadership projects. Ritu is working on a positive behaviour and kindness policy to promote an even safer school environment.
Seoyun is looking to improve upon our existing PSHE curriculum to make it more appropriate and engaging for ĢƵ students.
Penang has impressed Mr. Melhado in his chemistry lessons this week He has participated and asked insightful questions.
Well done to Adya and Arya who have also been consistently solid in their performance in their Chemistry course.
The Year 12 media coursework is looking fabulous! The screenshot below shows Meena’s blog – it is looking very professional!
Year 13 media have been learning from their teachers and making use of Loom to record presentations on the history of music video.
A shout out from Mr. Jamieson who is really impressed with his Year 13 English students who have just finished our novel ‘Small Island’. They are in the process of creating their own revision guide.
Mr. Piaf would like to highlight Sam’s determination this week. He has been really impressed with his most recent work. A task was set that was particularly challenging so an extended deadline was given – Sam completed the task. His work, comparing different tools used for assessing obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms and severity, was clear and concise and fulfilled the purpose of being able to additionally be used as revision material. Great job Sam!
University Reminders
You need to meet with your mentors and share your plans and deadlines.
If you are applying through Common App – make sure you have added your teachers at recommenders.
Student of the week
Molly’s teachers have nominated her for student of the week as they are really impressed with consistent resilience and positive attitude.
She has shown fantastic effort in her subject and is making great progress.
Molly’s advice:
In the wise words of Joey Tribbiani from friends: “You can’t just give up! Is that what a dinosaur would do?”
This week’s student of the week is Needadh in Year 10. Needadh has been praised by his teachers for being flexible, and asking for extra help if there is something he is not sure of. He has been working very well in Drama, DT and Geography specifically. In Physics, Needadh has also been displaying his great sense of humour and entertained the whole class with an amusing GIF about the topic they were studying.
Student of the week
