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What an exciting week we have had in Primary! We ended last week with our very first virtual house assemblies, where we heard from the Year 6 students who were running for House Captains.

The presentations were superb and it was very clear how much work our Year 6 candidates had put into it, they had researched, drafted and rehearsed them and their hard work certainly paid off. Each and every one of the candidates represented themselves and their house so well and when it came to voting they had made it an extremely challenging task for their peers. However, after much deliberation, the students from Year 1 through to Year 6 voted for the candidates who they felt would be the ideal leader for their house. This was done on Zoom Polls, demonstrating the level of digital literacy of the Primary students.

The results were verified and the announcements were made. We are delighted to introduce you to our new House Captains for 2021 – 2022:

Congratulations to all of the candidates and to our new House Captains.

That led us into our exciting week of all students being back on campus for full days; it has been such a pleasure to see the students engaging in a range of activities and learning to work together collaboratively within our post-COVID world. We have seen remarkable learning in all year groups and have been so impressed by our Early Years and Key Stage 1 students who are showing such a great level of independence already. We have also been incredibly impressed by the mature and sensible attitude of our Key Stage 2 students who have observed all of our guidelines, ensuring the safe integration back into school.

We are also very excited about our first Whole Primary Zoom Assembly this Friday, we will have more updates for you next week.

Have a wonderful, restful weekend and we will see you for more exciting learning next week.

On Wednesday, we saw the return to school for KS5 students. It was fantastic to see the students arriving through the school gates with so many of them saying how excited they are to be able to return to school full-time.  For Year 13 students, this is a crucial year, potentially with far-reaching impacts. As such, all of their teachers are very pleased to have them back in classrooms.  As a reminder for any students who are self-isolating, quarantining or still out of the country, online (hybrid) lessons are still being provided.  However, in cases where students are absent from school for sickness (non-COVID related), students should focus on getting better and not be attending hybrid lessons.

With this being such an important year for our Year 13 students, we have welcomed Ms Gurung as the new Higher Education Coordinator. Ms Gurung has wasted no time in getting to know the Year 13s and their university choices and courses.  Unifrog has been reintroduced as a great platform for students to research courses and to see their possible university locations options based on various achievement criteria.  It also has some more fun aspects to it such as personality traits and tests, which then link up to possible career choices with suggested university courses.  Parents are invited to spend some time with their son/daughter and have a look at the endless possibilities offered through Unifrog. Please see information about the Parent Information Session later. 

Around the world, this week has been Bisexual Awareness Week. Our Student Leadership Team has put together a presentation for secondary students, which will be discussed in morning mentor time  soon.  It is encouraging that our Student Leadership Team takes these issues seriously and wants to improve the understanding of such issues with all of the secondary students.  Increased awareness is always a good thing! If you would like to know more about Bisexual Awareness week, please contact our Student Leadership Team. In order to not to spoil the presentation, here are a few slides of what students can look forward to:

Following on from this, it has been great to see our KS5 Curriculum prefects taking the initiative to set up meetings in order to discuss what they feel are important issues that should be discussed with all secondary students, if not already planned to happen.  Ritu and Meghna made some pertinent suggestions this week for  topics that could be added to our secondary PSHE curriculum. 

Our Year 13 Media Studies students have been busy.  Here is some of their recent work: a  video clip of students sharing their thoughts and ideas on The Handmaid’s Tale, and also considering some of the world’s ‘bigger’ questions about media. Interesting topics and worthy of thought by all of us! Different colours refer to different students and it is good to see them all working collaboratively and sharing their own thoughts and opinions with each other to improve and further guide their own work.

Science has also been particularly glad to have students back in school in order for practical experiments to be undertaken.  It’s been a while since that could happen!

In English Literature, students have also been sharing their thoughts about Shakespeare’s King Lear.  Here are some of their collective thoughts about Act 1, Scene 1:

What problems does Lear’s division of his kingdom present?

Meanwhile in Year 13 Psychology, Aavash has been keen to share what he has been learning about: In Psychology, we have been learning about leadership currently, which includes:  traditional and modern theories of leadership, adaptive leadership, Scouller’s 3 levels of leadership, and we have just started directive leadership. All of this has been really captivating to learn. We are getting to explore various styles of leadership, which is giving us a clear idea of what it’s like being a leader and what type of person is fit to be a leader.  Also if leadership is a skill that people have from day one or if people can be trained for leadership. All we’ve learnt so far has created a slot in my mind which will be in my thoughts long term as it has given me a lucid idea on what all it takes to be a leader and the styles of leadership a leader can follow. 

In Geography, as part of their Global Interdependence topic, Year 13 students have been considering trade and aid, and have looked closely at how aid can impact receiving countries and have been arguing the case for which type of aid works best, if any!  This has then led on to the history and growth of tourism globally and how interdependent it has made the world.  No study of tourism would be complete nowadays without discussion about the impacts of a global pandemic, of which there have been many, and which will, without doubt, be felt for many years to come.  The UNWTO predicted that export revenues from tourism would fall by $910 billion to $1.2 trillion in 2020. This will have a wider impact globally and could reduce global GDP by 1.5% to 2.8%. COVID 19 has undoubtedly had negative impacts for Nepal’s economy.  Based on the current evidence, UNWTO expects international arrivals to decline by 70% to 75% for the whole of 2020. In this case, global tourism will have returned to levels of 30 years ago, with 1 billion fewer arrivals and a loss of some US$ 1.1 trillion in international tourism receipts. This massive drop in tourism due to the pandemic could result in an economic loss of US$ 2 trillion in world GDP. So with this in mind, the Year 13 Geographers would like to wish you all a very happy Dashain break and encourage you to stay local, stay safe and help reestablish national tourism and boost Nepal’s economy. 

If you are in Years 5-9 there is an upcoming Maths Challenge to help you show off your Maths skills to the school! In groups of 3 to 5, you will need to create a 3-minute video to explore the evolution of technology through mathematics. The challenge details and scoring rubric will be shared with you by teachers on Monday. In the meantime, get your groups ready! Videos will be due by Wednesday, October 6th.

On Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th September, we will be holding the Primary Parent Teacher Conferences.  These will be conducted on Zoom and the full details have been sent out via email. Please remember to sign up for a meeting slot to speak to your child’s teacher to discuss their ongoing progress and learning. As always, if you ever have any urgent issues to discuss, do not wait for a PTC appointment. We are always happy to meet sooner as questions arise if you need support from our team.

On Tuesday 5th October at 9.30am, there will be an online parent information session focusing on the university application process for our Year 13 parents. We will write to Year 13 parents separately with the relevant details nearer to the time.

We would like to remind all parents to help us complete 2 very important forms regarding your child/children. Firstly, as part of 91´«Ã½â€™s protocol, we would like to have your consent for various school procedures. This includes photography, medical treatment, educational visits and a number of other issues which require your consent. Please follow this for further details and to provide your consent and contact Ms. Bajracharya at mbajracharya@tbs.edu.np for any queries. Secondly, we are also updating our records and are writing to request that you complete the Online for each of your children. The health form is confidential and mandatory for all the students. The health form enables us to ensure that we have the correct information and can support your child effectively. It also allows us to communicate with the appropriate staff about your child’s needs and react swiftly in the case of an emergency. Please feel free to contact our school nurses on nurse@tbs.edu.np or drop into the infirmary if you have any questions.