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Each year, Down Syndrome International invites everyone across the world to wear odd socks to support World Down Syndrome Day. We encourage all of our Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ family to also support this and wear odd socks on Monday next week.

We’d like to say well done to every single one of you who applied for Prefect roles last week. It takes a huge amount of courage putting yourself out there and stepping up to challenge yourself with the prospect of a leadership role – we admire you all greatly for doing so.Ìý

To those of you who had interviews this week, a massive well done! Announcements regarding the next stage of the process will be made soon and we are all excited to see what’s to come.Ìý

This week:

The past couple of weeks, the Zonta Club also ran the application process for the next academic year. A huge well done to those who have applied – it was absolutely amazing to witness such enthusiasm from our students in all year groups in order to bring change to our school as well as the wider community. Congratulations to the new leadership team!

President: Anshu Pradhan

Vice President: Meghna Lahiri

Secretary:Ìý Amisha Bista

Ambassador: Aanavi RanaÌý

Treasurer: Abayaa Afful

We wish you the absolute best for the coming year! Looking forward to all the exciting changes to come 🙂

We were lucky enough to have a single-day break from school yesterday, in the midst of a busy week, in order to celebrate the festival of Holi. We hope that all of you enjoyed your day with your loved ones and friends and made the most of all the colours, water balloons and the joy that comes yearly with Holi.

Economics is a subject that constantly touches our daily lives. This includes issues such as tax and inflation, interest rates and wealth, inequality and emerging markets, and energy and the environment. Economics provides answers to a range of health, social and political issues that impact households and wider communities. At Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ we focus on bringing economics into practical, tangible real life scenarios through the use of case studies which range from the oligopoly of OPEC to the World Economic Forum.

Students have learned about how economists provide information and forecasting to inform decisions within companies and governments. This knowledge of economics – or economic intelligence – is based on data and modelling. It requires a careful balance between mathematical skill and conceptual understanding.

Over the course of the year we have examined the reality that businesses of all sizes and industries have to rely on economics, whether that’s for product research and development, pricing strategies or how to advertise. This wide influence means students are equipped with an understanding of many sectors of the economy, from agriculture to manufacturing, to banking and consultancy.Ìý

Besides this, many aspects of our examination of economics have been focused on the human factor – assessing how consumers behave is a vital part of the course. We use theories and models to predict behaviour and inform business strategies. For example, how to analyse ‘big data’ in order to see trends in supply and demand.

Ultimately economics affects the world we live in. Students have spent a lot of time developing an understanding of international perspectives – historic and current – which can provide a useful insight into how different cultures and societies interact. As many of our students have found, when it comes to being in an international setting, understanding the world economy is a substantial advantage.

Primary students have thoroughly enjoyed the week with many STEAM based activities going on. Year 4 have continued working on an IPC unit of work on coding, using Scratch to create algorithms and have been designing computer games for their peers to play. They have gone through the design phase, looking at the targeted age groups, aims of their games, how many players, sprites and what the outcomes would be. In addition, the students have been debugging their programs and evaluating the effectiveness of the codes.

Year 5 have been working on their topic of Mission to Mars, designing and launching stomp rockets; Mr Eades joined the classes for their initial rocket launching, before the students used their knowledge and understanding of forces, angles along with their evaluation skills to refine their prototypes. Once they had gone through a period of testing, where they used a fair test changing only one variable to see if their new designs improved the thrust and distance covered, they then had a Rocket Launching Competition! It was very impressive to see how much further their rockets travelled.

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Years 2, 3, 4 and 6 have also been designing their own apps as part of the COBIS Coding Competition.

The theme of ‘A difficult journey’ has inspired the students to think logically about the steps taken to code as well as the purpose of their app. They are able to continue working on this at home up until the deadline of the 22nd April.

Early Years have also been enjoying STEAM week by making structures, including the paper cup challenge, a volcano experiment, and woodcrafting using hammer and wood mosaic.