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In this issue
1.Roots & Shoot-ing for the Stars! A Chat with Ms Morgenthaler (Video):
One intrepid Young Journalist has been enjoying the changing weather lately and interviewed Ms Morgenthaler who assists with the Roots & Shoots CCA on Wednesdays. Tian Cheng was keen to find out what progress has been made on the garden lately and has provided a small tour too!
Click here to see video
2.Teacher Interview - Chatting up a storm with Ms Spencer, Assistant Head of Primary (Video):
Owam, Ethan and Michelle in Year 5 turned their sights towards our PLT team this week, choosing to ask Ms Deborah Spencer, our Assistant Head of Primary, for a few minutes out of her busy schedule. Luckily, she obliged and provided us with this lovely interview. Have a watch!
Click here to see video.
3. What’s Your Favourite Subject? The Primary School Have Their Say!
Have you ever wondered what our Head of Primary’s favourite lesson is? Between Monday 24th April - Thursday 27th April, we interviewed Year 3 and Year 5 students (and their teachers) to find out which subject they enjoy the most in school. We received many different interesting and varied responses, so read on to find out more!
Ms Nonie – Head of Primary – Guided Reading. “I like Guided reading because, a very wise and young person told me any sort of reading is like a holiday in your head, so I totally agree.”
William – Year 3 Student – Science. “I like science because it’s fun and don’t do so much writing, we just do lots of experiments. Also, it’s a short lesson with not that much hard work to do so that makes it fun.”
Miss Manning – Head of Year 5 – Topic. “Topic is my favorite to teach because I think topic uses all of the different skills from all of our other subjects such as Art, writing, reading and PSHE. I love finding out about cultures about different times, and in Year 5 we do a topic called Go Global, so we get to find out about our impact on the plant, and what we can do to be better Global Citizens.”
Owam – Year 5 Student – Maths. “My favorite lesson is Maths because, at first when I started to learn Maths I was like, “Oh I don’t like this, I hate it!” but ever since I started doing more Maths with Miss Manning each day doing or with Mrs. Diana or Mrs. Hua it starting changing the subject for me, it started being good and I started to learn a lot of things! Now it is one of my favourites!”
Mrs Thorp – Year 5 Teacher – English. “I like teaching English the way we teach it in school here using Talk for Writing, so our students normally really love doing story maps and acting using their actions, internalizing texts and I think it’s a great thing to teach particularly to students especially where English is not their first language!”
Jenny – Year 5 Student – Art. “I like Art because in Art we can enjoy different activities and different styles and there is no mistakes, only expression.”
As you can see, there is a wide variety in different tastes and that our primary school has something that appeals to everybody! What’s your favourite subject?
By Avani and Tashvi
4. The Milk Debate: Is there an UDDER way?
On Tuesday 25th April, BSB Shunyi made the decision to remove milk from the canteen in order to combat climate change. Students learned in PSHE about the effects on the environment that the production of animal’s milk has on our landscape, so the Young Journalists set out to find how students and staff felt about this new change by conducting a survey. Here are the results:
It is clear that most are noticing the absence of milk but there is a small amount of those who are happy with the decision. The Eco Committee have stressed in their assembly on Friday 21st that although milk is very popular at our school, milk production (and the amount of methane created by cows) is having a largely negative effect on our environment and we have a duty to do something about it. However, there are alternatives to animal-based milk, so perhaps this is something the school with consider implementing in the future. Clearly this is a divisive subject and it will take some time for students and staff to get familiar with milk missing from their meals!
By Justin, Johnny, Yeony and Daniel
5. CEO of NAE Visits BSB Shunyi After 3 Years
On 17th April 2023, Mr. Andrew Fitzmaurice, CEO of Nord Anglia Education (NAE) visited the British School of Beijing Shunyi to see what great learning goes on at our school. This visit was especially important as it was his first time visiting since the pandemic began in 2020. Although only visiting for a short period of time, he was able to visit both the primary and secondary schools, as well as the Roots & Shoots garden. The BSB primary flutes and secondary piano also put on a lovely serenade for him, including a performance from the parent choir at the end.
While walking around the garden, some of our Eco-Committee members were chosen to speak with Mr. Fitzmaurice about the newly-installed bird feeders around the pirate ship, followed by a tour of the garden.
Deputy Head of Primary, Miss Brown, was asked if she thought Mr. Fitzmaurice enjoyed his time at BSB Shunyi. She replied, “I think so, because he was smiling all day. I think his most favorite part was talking to the students.” When asked what she thought inspired him the most during his visit, she responded, “I think it was the nature garden. It was different from all the other schools.” We hope you learnt something new about Mr. Fitzmaurice’s visit to BSB Shunyi and we look forward to his next visit.
By Anni and Aditi
6. Environmental Events for Earth Week 2023!
From the 17th – 24th April, children across BSB celebrated Earth Week! Earth Week is a yearly event that takes place not only at BSB, but across the world in order to raise awareness of our environment and make it a better place. There were a huge range of events going on throughout the busy week.
On Wednesday, the entire school was encouraged to dress in green and blue and donate to a local charity. Later that day, the school also experienced an ‘hour without power’, where ALL devices were switched off between the times of 1:35 and 2:35pm – It made teaching and learning a little trickier than usual but all for the sake of our environment.
The Eco Committee also spoke to all students on Friday 24th, providing information about the reasons why we celebrate Earth Week, what problems are being created by our actions and how we can address them.
Afterwards, children got competitive as a food waste competition took place in the canteen. After a fierce battle between houses, the Romans came out on top wasting the least amount of food throughout lunchtime.
Everyone at the school hopes that both students and staff are now a little more environmentally conscious and change some of their behaviours for the sake of our planet.
By Alec, Sean and Ethan