It has been an absolute delight welcoming students onto the campus this week. You should have received a detailed letter earlier this morning providing an overview of this Phase 3.5 provision and our plans moving forward, so I won’t repeat myself here. I would, however, like to thank the students and staff for making Phase 3.5 such a successful week through their continued efforts and endeavour; it certainly instils great confidence that we will be able to move towards an increased presence on campus over the next few weeks.
As learning has started again on campus, it continues online at home and it was great to read some year 1 acrostic poems, see the products of the ice engineering challenge in KS2, find out more about the ‘one lesson wonders’ in KS3 and dream about exotic beaches in KS4 (I was disappointed not to see Bavaro Beach in the Republica Dominicana not on the list though!).
I can’t wait to see some of the hard work and performances from the Speak Out Festival next week and I would like to wish all primary students the very best in their NGRT reading assessments that will also take place next week.
Have a lovely weekend, please stay safe and I look forward to seeing more students on campus next week.
Brian Platts
Principal
Recent and future updates
Library Booking
Please click on the link to book a library slot visit. Parents must book 24 hours in advance to visit the library and must book through the form
COVID Funds Update
We are always so proud of our ĢƵ community who has always extended hands to help our community partners as and when needed. We raised a pleasing amount for COVID relief earlier last year and are pleased to have been able to help so many families throughout the struggling times. Below is a brief illustration of where and how the money has been used so far. Please write to spandey@tbs.edu.np if you have any queries or suggestions regarding this.
Notice of Withdrawal
Thank you to those parents who have confirmed that this will be the last term for your child/children in ĢƵ. Early notice is a must and compulsory requirement as per the school’s policy as it does allow us to plan ahead for the new term and we can complete the clearance on time. Please let Ms. Bajracharya in the admissions office know should you require any school documents/references to provide in the new school. The last day of providing the formal notice either by email or in writing regarding the withdrawal of your child/children would be Friday, 26th February. Parents shall receive a clearance form to complete the withdrawal procedure nearer the end of this term. Failure to submit the form or returning the resources will partially affect the deposit.
News from our Student Leadership
Students of ĢƵ, we have finally made it to the end of exam week! All of us have been working very hard during these past couple of days, and now we can finally have a much needed and well deserved break. With exams over we will be more active on newsletters and prefect activities. We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Teacher of the week: The winner for ‘Teacher of the week’ goes to Ms Cockle. Ms Cockle deserves this recognition as she thoughtfully provides individual feedback to each student which helps them focus on specific topics that they struggle in. The students find the Drama lessons fun and engaging, which is hard to achieve on an online platform. Thank you, Ms Cockle!
Since we will be properly working and dedicating our time to writing the newsletters from next week we wanted to ask you, the ĢƵ community, for some feedback. It could be anything from; what you like or dislike about our section; anything specific you would like us to cover; or even ideas for weekly fun challenges! Please let us know by emailing us here.
“Weekly Fun Challenge’: As we have been working very hard this week to prepare for mock exams, there will be no challenge this week. However, keep an eye out for next week’s challenge.
Early Years News
So exciting to see our youngest students back on the school campus this week! They enjoyed exploring their new classroom and outdoor area and were really happy to meet their friends and teachers and to play and learn together!
Key Stage 1 News
We have been writing acrostic poems in Year 1. We started with writing an acrostic poem using our name and we also wrote about our topic. Can you see what we are learning about by reading these poems written by Kasvi, Amayah and Mayukh?
This week in our topic ‘People of the Past’, Year 2 identified the key features of famous portraits and used these as a checklist to create their own masterpiece. How amazing is Trishaanee’s drawing of Picasso? And Muntaqim and Valerie’s portraits of Mona Lisa with her lovely smile. Frida Kahlo is not smiling, but Ari’s portrait of her is stunning!
Lower Key Stage 2 News
For their ‘low-tech Wednesday’ activity last week, Year 3 completed an ‘Ice Engineering Challenge’. Using a variety of moulds, they froze water into different shapes according to plans they had drawn before assembling the shapes into animals. They then evaluated their designs, saying what they would do to improve them in future.
Whilst studying the book ‘Escape From Pompeii’ as part of their ‘Active Planet’ topic, Year 4 have been working on different ways of starting sentences to make a retelling more dramatic. They have been focusing on using similes and generalising nouns with adjectives to paint a vivid image for the reader.
Upper Key Stage 2 News
It’s been another busy week in Upper Key Stage 2 with our students beginning their preparations for the upcoming Speak Out Festival, along with the excitement of PE lessons starting on campus.
Since the beginning of the term, Year 6 have been focussing on decimals in their Maths lessons, this week starting to think about multiplication and division. It’s been really wonderful to see their skills with problem solving grow – along with their abilities to justify their answers.
To go alongside their IPC unit all about ‘Rivers’, in their English lessons, Year 5 have been focusing on non-chronological reports – this week focusing especially on the skill of note-taking. It’s really good to see how careful they have been with their notes and look forward to seeing their finished reports.
Key Stage 3 News
Once again it has been another extremely busy week for KS3. They have continued their amazing efforts whilst online and have continued to produce some fantastic pieces of work. However, the real excitement this week has been that we have finally had KS3 students back on campus! It has been incredible to actually get to see students on the school grounds, using the different facilities that the school has. It is so great to see the students being able to socialise with one another again but staying active whilst they are doing this. The smiles on the students leaving the gates after their session have been priceless and is a step in the right direction for reopening the school.
Even though the students have been back on campus, their online work has continued to be fantastic. They have not let their standards slip even when they have another commitment added to their calendars. I would just like to congratulate everyone on a fantastic return in ever changing circumstances.
Across the whole Key Stage, the students have been extremely busy in Music. This week year 7 has been learning about musical associations: musical tricks to force a listener to associate your music with a place, object or feeling. Mussorksy was a master of this and year 7 pulled out some key features that he used in ‘The Old Castle’ that made them think of old music. The clever year 7s then used those ideas in their own music to reflect european castles.
Tanushka chose a scottish castle for her music which has a drone backing, gradual melodic movement and thin texture to show it’s isolation. To listen to this piece please click
Ashlesha chose the foreboding Castle Kreuzenstein in Austria for her music which conveys the age of the building in the low pitched drone and choice of instruments. To listen to this piece please click
Avani used a low pitched vocal drone and contrasting piano for her interpretation of Burg Eltz in Germany. You can almost hear the shapes looming out of the mist! To listen to this piece please click
This term Year 8 has been step by step songwriting. They have looked at lyrics, rhythms and, most recently, chords. The year 8 classes learned which chord progressions worked best together before using ideas from artists Billie Eilish and Finneas Eilish to build their chords and basslines together.
Tashi, Urgyen and Manav have demonstrated how fast moving chords and bassline can create a great introduction to a song. We look forward to hearing their completed songs in a few weeks time!
Year 9 have been doing a series of ‘one lesson wonders’ on the evolution of music starting in the Middle ages! They have worked so hard over the last few weeks. This week they focused on Romantic Music (1800-1850). The teams chose a common idea from the Romantic period and collaborated on music software to create a piece of music. Subigya, Arshiya and Tarushree from Y9 did a particularly good job representing an ‘Extreme Emotional State’, a favourite of the Romantic Composers! To listen to the piece click
In Y8 Science, the students have continued their study of the phases of the moon. They have continued to present their findings to the rest of the class, not only demonstrating their knowledge, but also developing their presentation skills.
Our Student of the week goes to Amy in Year 9. So many teachers have spoken to me regarding the amazing start Amy has made to life at ĢƵ. In Drama and Music, the teachers have commented on how creative her ideas have been and the quality of her work has been outstanding. In Maths, Ms Morgan mentioned that she has been super engaged in lessons and has adapted to online learning so well. Well done Amy on such a fantastic start!
When asked to give the other students a little bit of advice, Amy said this:
“In my short time at ĢƵ I have felt so welcomed by the students, teachers and community in general. I think though this is a tough time it’s very important we support others, you never know how much you might be helping.”
Key Stage 4 News
It has been another busy week in Key Stage 4. The year 11 students have continued with their mock examinations for all of this week. It has been very pleasing to see how well the students have managed, and succeeded, with the campus guidelines, and it has been so lovely to see them around school again. With their exams finished, I am sure they are all looking forward to having a restful weekend. Meanwhile, their teachers now embark on marking all the students’ responses!
Having explored Rio de Janeiro and its favelas, year 10 geographers have started the topic of coasts this week. As an introduction to the new topic, students shared their favourite beaches and reasons why. Here are some of their favourite beaches. I hope we can all get to our own favourite beach soon!
In English, Mr Jamieson has been thoroughly impressed with his year 10 students who have recently started descriptive writing. Descriptive writing helps students to build upon both linguistic and structural skills. Using language to create pictures, atmosphere and feeling, and creating and ordering material to sustain the readers’ interest. Have a read of the Jamboards below. Hopefully, your interest is sustained!
Mr Jamieson has also been impressed with Nikita, Aanavi, Sunit, Shridha, Sharvi, Nimisha, Vani and Malte for their fantastic contributions consistently in class discussions and their insightful engagement with the subject material, which really pushes other members of the class and sets a great example.
Miss Suita has praised many students in Year 10 this week for their incredible work, and for being very keen and highly motivated in English Language and Literature. Well done to Daniel, Sachi, Niyanta, Jeebika, Lhakyi, Erin, Swati, Erin, Needadh and Ishan. She has also commented this week about numerous year 10 students (Himanshu, Daniel, Needadh, Serra, Swati, em, Ayus and Ishan) steadily growing in confidence and motivation in both English Language and Literature. They have all demonstrated a very proactive and mature approach! Well done, year 10s! And in Physics, Miss Howell has said that Aman provided excellent written answers in his Astrophysics workbook this week. While Ms King says that Vani and Yang have produced some outstanding work in chemistry so far this term.
100% effort has paid off with some truly detailed and meticulous homework.
Well done to all of you, and keep up the good work!
Year 10 Music students have started on their vocal set work – Music for a While by Henry Purcell- usingJamboard to work as a team from different countries! Great teamwork, musicians!
Student of the week
This week’s student of the week is Niyanta in Year 10. Niyanta has been praised by many of her teachers for her consistently excellent attitude to learning and work she produces. She has been especially praised for her work on DT and Biology. Well done, Niyanta! Keep up the good work.
Niyanta has chosen not to write anything about herself and has, instead, chosen some rather profound words to get us all thinking this week:
“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into awareness.”
And last but not least, is Shridha in Year 10 who is this month’s students’ student of the month! Here are just a few of the reasons why her fellow students have selected her: Shridha has been amazing ever since the start of the academic year; She’s always been passionate, hard-working, and kept on challenging herself. She has been hard-working all the time by asking questions in lessons or by doing extra research. She is also very compassionate towards others as she is always kind and ready to help others in the class if they have any problems.
Well done, Shridha! It has been amazing to see all of these positive comments from your peers!
Key Stage 5 News
All Key-Stage 5 students have been completing their mock exams this week. I have heard lovely feedback of how students have followed campus guidelines and been able to see their classmates for the first time in a lot of months!
All students applying to the UK have now sent their applications to UCAS and are awaiting offers from their universities.
Year 12 students will begin hearing a lot more from me about their university applications and plans for after school in the next few weeks.
Highlights
Mr. Piaf is constantly impressed by the teamwork shown by the students in Y12 psychology. Whenever a student has difficulties with communicating with audio or video, and resorts to typing in the chat, other students monitor and notify me. Today, Roisin supported Eliza this way. When this was praised and recognised by me, the entire chat erupted into a torrent of praise between all the students, recognising each other’s value to the team. They even called each other angels. And, while Mr Piaf has to admit that they’re sometimes little devils at times – in a good way of course, with their sense of humour and playfulness – he also wholeheartedly agrees with their collective assessment of each other. They shine.
Student of the Week
Ohjun has been really proactive in his Physics learning. He is really good at asking questions in class and for homework to clarify your understanding. He is eager to have a question solution explained to him, so that he can leave a lesson feeling confident.
He always does his homework to a high standard and shows his workings clearly.
Ohjun’s very apt advice for mock exams:
” If you don’t procrastinate, you can sleep for longer” 🙂
This week’s student of the week is Niyanta in Year 10. Niyanta has been praised by many of her teachers for her consistently excellent attitude to learning and work she produces. She has been especially praised for her work on DT and Biology. Well done, Niyanta! Keep up the good work.
And last but not least, is 
