School Bulletin 10 – 14th of April 2023

Upcoming Dates

 
Whole School
Welcome to the 2^nd Quarter 
We would like to welcome all members of the BSCR Learning Community to our Second Quarter of the 2023 academic year.  We have many exciting things planned for this quarter including Book Week, the return of our Sports Festival (including the BSCR race), and the Secondary Spirit Week, which will culminate with our Student Council Talent Show.  We wish all members of our Learning Community a happy, healthy and enjoyable second quarter.

Staff Training Day
On Tuesday, the 11^th of April, all academic staff participated in a number of professional development activities on a range of topics which included continuing our work in implementing our personalised learning pedagogical approach as well as all teachers receiving a presentation on neurodiversity from Dr. Luis Jiménez (a recognised expert in the field), and Maureen Villalobos.  Thank you to all academic staff for their active participation in these valuable training sessions.

Book Week: Costume Contest
The Spanish, English and French departments, along with the Primary School are organizing several activities during Book Day, which will take place on the week of April 24.   We will have a costume competition with costumes based on literary characters on Friday 28^th of April. We encourage all Primary and Secondary students to start searching for or making their costumes for that day.   There will be other activities during breaks and language lessons to motivate the whole community to read, and share their experiences and talents.  Poster – Senior School

BSCR Sports Festival
The British School will be hosting its annual Sports Festival in the week of the 8^th of May.  During this week, we are planning a number of sporting activities including an opening ceremony, a range of sports matches against different schools and the Gran Clásica race, which will take place on Saturday the 13^th of May.  The form for members of our community to enrol in the race has been sent to parents this week via email.

Book Donation Campaign – Talamanca Health Area
As part of the activities for Book Day, the students of National Baccalaureate are working on a book donation campaign to support the project of Dr. Santiago Batalla in the Talamanca Health Area, which seeks to develop the habit of reading in children and teenagers, promoting the integral development of the patients he treats daily. We would like to invite you to be part of this campaign by donating books in Spanish, new (preferably) or in excellent condition, for readers from early years to adolescence. We will be collecting them during the week of 17-21 April to encourage reading among children with less access to books.

Sun Safety
In line with the School’s material list, sun safety policy and the sun safety lessons delivered in Quarter 1, we would like to remind all parents to provide their children with their own SPF30 (or higher) broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen.  Staff will remind / assist students during key parts of the day (break and PE) to apply / reapply sun lotion as required.

Receiving School Emails
Please pass on the following information to any other parent who is not receiving their emails on “Hotmail”.  During the last month, it would appear that Hotmail has blocked customers’ email accounts if “The recipient’s mailbox is full”.  We believe there are only two options to remove this block, either: i) spend hours deleting old emails from your account OR ii) subscribe, paying $19 per year for more storage space

Primary

Parent Teacher Meetings
You should have now been contacted by your child’s teacher to arrange a meeting to discuss your child’s progress. Please do email the class teacher if you have not received any information regarding making an appointment; as a reminder, meetings may be virtual or in person. Meetings will be taking place over the next two weeks though we do have Wednesday afternoon (April 19^th) planned for in-person meetings. On this day school will end at 12 noon for all students. Clubs are also cancelled on this day.

Primary Artwork
Continuing from last year, we will be exhibiting examples of our students’ art work each quarter via a special Art Gallery Website. Please do look at the website to view some amazing artwork that is being produced from Early Years 1 to Year 5: https://sites.google.com/bscr.ed.cr/bscrartgallery/home

Secondary

Official IGCSE Dates
Cambridge Assessment has informed us that the official external IGCSE exams for all Year 10 students will take place between the 2^nd of October and the 16^th of November, 2023.  Therefore, it is essential that all Year 10 students are available to attend School during this period as these exam dates are fixed by Cambridge Assessment and cannot be moved.

House Winners
As a reward for winning the 1^st Quarter House Competition, on Friday the 21^st of April all Secondary students from Arenal House are invited to come to school in non-uniform.  Ideally, Arenal students will attend school with a red shirt in support of their house although this is not a requirement.

Student Council News
On Wednesday 19^th April at 10:30 am, we will celebrate the inauguration of our new Student Council.  However, before doing so, we would like to thank our outgoing Student Council for representing students’ interests over the past year.
Past ….

 
We would particularly like to recognise and thank Lina who, despite facing enormous challenges throughout 2022, continued to initiate activities and lead the student government in a positive and effective manner.  The Council’s final contributions, organised by Lina, included the‘bolas choconas’ activity for Primary and Secondary (photo) and the purchase of the futbolín table which is now located in the Secondary School rancho.

Congratulations to our new Student Council, which has already begun to organise the end of semester Talent Show.  Best of luck for 2023-24!

Present and Future …

 
Parent-Teacher Meetings
On the afternoon of Wednesday 19^th of April we will be hosting Parent-Teacher meetings for all year levels.  Parents have the option of signing up for either in-person or virtual meetings following the instructions that have already been sent to parents.  Please note that classes will end at 12 noon on this day for all students in order to facilitate these meetings.  There will also be no after-school activities available.

Year 11 IB Visual Arts
On Wednesday 12^th of April, Year 11IB Visual Arts staff and students were invited to attend the Private View evening for the I.B. Visual Arts Exhibition at The United World College in Santa Ana, San José. It proved to be an outstanding event with an excellent and varied art work and themes that demonstrated a diverse range of media on display. 

Many thanks to Rachel Kirby, Head of IB Visual Arts, and Zoe Bullock, IB Coordinator at The United World College, for enabling our students to view the art work of their Visual Arts students. Photo