School News
Mrs Heather Bell, Head of the Sitges Campus of The British School of Barcelona, received the 2017 Outstanding Achievement Award at the Cognita's Global Education Conference 2017,
For the eighth year in a row, the BSB English Department held the much-anticipated ‘Spelling Bee Competition’. Twelve students who made it to the final!
Last Friday, 15th December, the Mayor of Sitges, Miquel Forns i Fusté, and the Alderman of Education, Sports and Youth, Eduard Terrado i Pablo, paid a coutersy visit to the Sitges campus of The British School of Barcelona.
On 9th November 83 Year 12 students and 8 BSB teachers took the winding road to Cardona for a two-day residential packed with activities designed around team building and getting to know one another. Mr Richardson; Director of Pre-U, tells us all about this fantastic new experience.
The week commencing 13th November saw the children experience an activity that is somewhat unusual for Primary school PE. All children in Years 3 to 6 at the BSB Sitges took part in fencing sessions delivered expertly by Club d´Esgrima Garraf.
On Saturday, 18th November, eight BSB students from Year 4 & 5 participated in a Basketball tournament of the Castelldefels Jocs Escolars programme. Proud Mr McLachlan, EYFS & Primary PE and Sport Specialist at BSB Sitges, tells us all about the experience:
During Building BSB Values Week, the children created a whole museum in the BSB Theatre. Watch the impressive gallery!
Juan and Paola shortlisted at BioArtAttacks Competition. Their works were chosen out of 70 high quality and exciting entries.
Now that our students and teaching staff are enjoying a well-deserved break, it’s time to reflect on the first half of this busy term at BSB.
On 24th October, our Year 13 A-Level Geography students went on a fieldtrip to Sitges to get a deeper understanding of coastal land forms, the hazards they produce and how different areas manage these hazards, three key aspects of their advanced curriculum.
Leading girl’s Bromley High School, in South London, visited the BSB during their regular music tour around Europe and beyond.
Trick or Treat? It’s only 25th October but Halloween is already lurking in our Primary school. The time has come for good-luck witches, friendly ghosts, jack-o-lanterns and black cats to show up!
On Saturday, 21st October, we welcomed the start of the ‘Jocs Escolars’ season of sporting events in Castelldefels with the 1st Cross Country run, historically the first event in the sports calendar, with many more exciting opportunities coming up!
On Tuesday, 26th September, the BSB held the first formal ABRSM and Rockschool Music Awards Ceremony. Mr Hebden (Director of Learning – Arts) and Mr Petrie (Head of Secondary and Pre-U) presented our students with their Music certificates in a very emotive session which will now become an annual event.
Iñaki Zubizarreta Tellería, former professional basketball player, came to visit us this week to talk about bullying to our Year 12 students. Iñaki is a current collaborator of a Spanish anti-bullying organisation called “No al Acoso Escolar”, since he was a victim of bullying himself during school days.
At BSB we enjoy celebrating our pupils’ accomplishments. We love when they obtain outstanding academic results, when they win sports tournaments representing the school, and when they come first in any of the various contests they take part in: maths, literature, science, physics… the list is endless. But we are likewise proud and delighted when they succeed outside school.
“The most fundamental thing is the quality of the teaching that happens in the classroom, sure. But all of the people around that, not just the teacher, are important too. So the ICT has got to work, the facilities managed, the right HR, admission, safeguarding systems.” Chris Jansen, Cognita's Chief Executive.
This has been another successful year for our Year 11, 12 and 13 students! Their excellent results in GCSE, A Level and PCE* external examinations last school year are the best possible reward for a dedicated year of determination and hard work.
Ms Coleman, Head of Inclusion for Primary at BSB Castelldefels, was recently asked to share her views about the benefits of play for all children. Her sound advice was included in a very interesting report where other educational professionals also explained their opinions about this topic.
Last July, Mr Petrie, Head of Secondary at BSB Castelldefels, had the honour of chairing a keynote talk at the prestigious Chalke Valley History Festival. This is the biggest History Festival in the UK and takes place over the course of a week in beautiful countryside just outside the city of Salisbury.
We are pleased to announce that our children, parents and school staff all together have raised 3,400 euros for AMIS, a local non-for-profit association of parents with disabled children, based in Sitges.
On Friday, 26th May children in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 of BSB Castelldefels enjoyed a full day of fun, interesting and educational Maths activities. The idea behind was ‘to cultivate an enjoyment and love for this subject, stimulate minds, develop mastery and problem solving skills, and encourage those who find it difficult and unenjoyable to enjoy it through interesting and exciting activities’, Mr Antcliffe, KS2 Maths coordinator explained.
The Theatre of BSB Castelldefels equaled a West End stage with a terrific musical extravaganza tribute to some of the finest and best loved songs ever. The ‘Magic of the Musicals’ show was the culmination of months of hard work of this Society who had been preparing this event all throughout the Spring term during society time and for three more weeks after the Easter holidays during lunch times.
Meaghan Allen, Lower KS2 Leader of BSB Sitges, has recently had an article about Metacognition published on the Ser Padres website, a leading online and print Spanish Magazine source for lots of family information about pregnancy, babies, toddlers and teenagers.
On Friday 19th May, 85 students from both BSB Sitges and BSB Castelldefels combined as teams to celebrate the launch of the new BISA Sports Leagues that will commence in September 2017. The sports that will be represented initially are Basketball, Volleyball and Football, with the latter sport being used as the opening event.
The BSB became home to 81 Superheroes during the annual Year 5 Summer Show in early May.
The Year 5 children performed their amazing production of The Superkids Strike Back! An all singing, all dancing spectacular written by Mr Antcliffe, Year 5 Maroon teacher, and directed by the Year 5 teachers, Miss Gilbert and Mrs Tomlinson.
On 8th May, all the Nursery classes of BSB Castelldefels enjoyed a warm lovely morning at the Castelldefels beach. The trip consisted of a walk down to the beach where the children used their buckets and spades to dig and make sand castles, and went down to the water for a paddle in small groups.
As part of the Year 6-7 'Transition Day' which took place on Friday 12th May at BSB Castelldefels for students from both year groups and both campuses to meet, mix and learn in a fun, varied day, Ms Kelly (Director of Learning for English and Languages) and Mrs Walker (English Leader for EYFS and Primary) arranged a visit by award-winning children’s author Rob Lloyd Jones.
To round off a brilliant period of creativity and exploration in the IB Visual Arts course, Year 13 students of BSB Sitges set up an exhibition to display their art work according to their intentions and the relationship they wished to establish between the art works and the audience. The result was a remarkable exhibition entitled ‘Viewpoints’ which included 8 art works for students, teachers and visiting parents to see, enjoy and reflect on.
On 3rd May, Year 8 students took part in an Inner Peace workshop, a brand-new activity organised by their Music teacher, Miss Hunter, to channel inner peace through the use of Indian music.
At the end of April, a cohort of 76 children from BSB Castelldefels and BSB Sitges set off on their traditional end-of-year trip to the United Kingdom. This trip is a reward/transition activity for Year 6 children to enjoy and have fun, whilst fulfilling many other curricular aspects, such as the PSHE element.
On the 27th April Mrs Lesley Walker, BSB English Subject Leader for EYFS and Primary, conducted a new Family Club Workshop for parents of 5-12-year-old children in BSB Castelldefels.
The ‘Reading at Home’ workshop was aimed at encouraging parents to read effectively with their children at home with an emphasis on reading for pleasure.
A record 120 Year 7 and 8 students of BSB Castelldefels and Sitges campuses took the UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT) Junior Maths Challenge at the end of April, out of approximately 200,000 entrants.
In April 46 “Sociales” students of BSB Castelldefels visited the Egyptian Museum of Barcelona. This is a regular trip in the subject curriculum, as it helps building on and enriching the students’ class work during the Spring term.
From Thursday, 30th March to Saturday, 1st April, the Silver International Award students went out on a 3-day training expedition with Mr Oldfield, Mr Woodward and Mr Taylor.
Building on the GCSE Drama course, on 20th March Year 11 Drama students ran their Practical Performances in front of an audience (parents, staff and fellow students) in the school Theatre.
