Across the Board St. Peter’s School Magazine Spring 2013 Vol. 3 No.1

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St. Peter’s School Tel. (+34) 93 204 36 12C/Eduard Toldrà, 18 Fax: (+34) 93 205 48 0508034 – Barcelona, Spain E-mail: stpeters@stpeters.es

So what’s in the news...

IN THIS EDITION...

@ 2 Editorial & Index@ 3 We’re cooking on GAS!@ 4 NGO-ONG Making a Difference in 4th ESO@ 6 Busy Bees in Nursery 3@ 8 Darkest Secrets by 2 ESO@ 10 Class 3 go for Gold@ 12 The best Way to learn in Nursery 1@ 14 Kindergarden go Castle Crazy@ 16 Class 6 tell us about Ski Week@ 18 Students become teachers in 1st Bach.@ 19 Starting the Research Project@ 20 Feeling good in Top Infants@ 22 To act or not to act? -Class 2@ 23 Class 2 and 500 Swiss Cows

@ 24 The big Freeze in Nursery 2@ 26 Class 4 and the Creative Learning Project@ 28 Going out with a bang in 2nd Bach.@ 30 Class 5’s Trip to Montjuïc@ 32 Hair-raising Haunted Houses from 1st ESO@ 34 Notre Retour vers le Futur - 2nd ESO@ 35 Art Club with Miss Jacqueline@ 36 Language Matters...@ 37 New Adventures in PreSchool@ 38 Class 1 explores Miró@ 39 Recognising new teachers in Class 1@ 40 2nd Bachillerato put Víctor Valdés to the Test@ 42 3rd ESO go to La Molina@ 44 The International Programme takes off

Welcome to the latest edition of Across the Board, St. Peter’s very own magazine. There’s lots of news to read about life in School over the last few months, from freezing facts in Nursery 2 to a report on 2nd Bachillerato’s presentation of their Re-search Project -their last major piece of work before they finish Bachillerato and then face Selectividad. The short and scary stories by 1st ESO are not for the weak-

hearted but if you’re into history then take a look at the article from Kindergarden on a time when people lived in castles instead of flats or houses.Yes, as you will soon learn, School has been as busy as ever! We hope you enjoy the Magazine. Finally, a very big thank you to all those who have contributed in some way to making this a school magazine which is truly Across the Board!

Special thanks to our Across the Board Sponsors:

* Sastrería Aguilera * Sodexo * Autocares Solé

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We’re Cooking on GAS!According to the dictionary, this means to be making good progress and to be likely to suc-ceed, and that is sure what we aim to do at the “Grupo de Acción Solidaria” (G.A.S.) in St. Pe-ter’s School.

Undoubtedly there are many things to do and many campaigns to come, but at the moment we would like to give you a tiny update of the activi-ties done by the Group over the last few months.

As you may remember, before Christmas we ran a toy campaign that was a complete success. As well as the new toys that you provided, we were able to buy 200€ worth of school material with the money donated for the “Centre Obert Joan Salva-dor Gavina”. Toys that had been used but were in good condition were sent to the “Fundació Pere Tarrés” where they will have a second life in other children’s hands in “ludotecas” and “esplais”.

4th ESO have also started receiving lessons on audio-visual communication to produce videos for two NGOs, as their contribution to the “Mi-rades” project in cooperation with the FCVS (Fun-dació Catalana del Voluntariat Social). This is a project that we pioneered last year and our entry was chosen as good practice in the National Con-gress on Social Volunteering. Needless to say, it enhances our students’ social awareness and at the same time it’s an excellent way to learn about audio-visual communication and the technologi-cal devices involved in the recording of the adver-tisements or mini-documentaries for the NGOs.

Between the end of February and March we will be asking you to support the Food Collection Campaign, together with the “Caputxins de Sar-rià”. Last year we collected around 1,200kg of food. This year we want to beat our record, and hopefully, with everyone’s help we will!

And there’s even more! We continue to collect plastic tops. We are doing this to support the “Tapones Solidarios” campaign where the tops collected are sent to the “Fundación SEUR” for recycling. As a result, certain families have ob-tained resources to improve the quality of life of their disabled children.

I must admit that it makes me extremely proud to talk about these campaigns. However, I would not place the emphasis solely on the achieve-ments that we may accomplish but perhaps more importantly, I would like to stress all the learning this involves. Different campaigns are led by a certain class in the school, for instance while 4th ESO were involved in the Toy Collection Campaign, 3rd ESO are leading the Food Collec-tion Campaign. 2nd ESO are constantly emptying the plastic top containers, while obviously all the school is welcome to provide material.

Individual contributions to anything are valuable, but it is group work that counts most. Individual decisions build up to a large scale, and coopera-tion is only possible when we keep that scope. Our students are learning about group work and common goals, and that is extremely valuable in itself.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, if we think of the size of the school community, GAS is a relatively small group but just like in the common state of matter, a few individuals man-age to move freely and expand, taking up all the volume of the room where they are released, im-pregnating the environment around them and, in this case, imbuing the school community with the spirit of solidarity. Let’s keep up the good work.

Núria García

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NGO-ONG Making a DifferenceOur 4th ESO students are not only often the driving-force behind many of the School’s GAS campaigns but they also dedicated their last Cross Curricular Credit to the study of the world and work of NGOs.

This year we did a really exciting credit about the world of NGOs (non-governmental organ-isations). As you probably know, these organ-isations don’t make any profit but the money raised is used for helping those most in need. First of all, we were organized into 6 mixed groups. Each one had to select an NGO to visit, research and present. The NGOs which were chosen help different groups of people with specific needs. The visit consisted of go-ing to the NGO’s office, located in Barcelona. This visit enabled us to see first-hand how it operated and even in some cases talk to the people that the NGO helps. During the visit, we interviewed some volunteers and learned more about the organization.

After the visits, we returned to school where we began our written project. Each academic subject had its own section in it. Some exam-ples were French and Ethics, for which we had to look for a local NGO which protected animals and explain what role human rights play within each NGO. We had a whole week

to complete this project, during which there was a lot of suffering and hard work. Eventu-ally all of us finished it and handed it in on time.

Finally, the big day arrived! We had worked so hard and learnt so much in order to give the best presentation ever. We had to do it in front of parents and teachers. Each group talked about a section of the project, explain-ing what it consisted of, and presented their own NGO. All of us were terrified of something going wrong, but in the end, the presentation was flawless!

To sum up, we think this experience taught us a lot about the current situation of the world. In a way, it burst our own little bubbles of se-curity. It opened our eyes to reality, although it may sometimes be harsh. Ignorance may be bliss, though we would rather know the truth and in the future be able to help.

Alia Littles and Eva Robisco

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Last month we did a cross curricular credit based on NGOs. For part of the project we had to analyse the work an NGO does. We chose CEJAC, a non-governmental organisa-tion which helps poor people by giving them food. Every Wednesday the NGO gives the poor the equivalent of a shopping trolley and a bag full of food.

This NGO is located in the area of El Carmel, at C. Agudells, nº 85 and we went there to visit and discovered it is quite a small place, but big enough to keep all the food fresh and to teach Spanish, Catalan and ICT (Comput-er Studies). One of the psychologists at the centre explained how they manage the food collection and classes.

Then they gave us a tour around the facilities where we saw where the food was kept and where they taught their stu-dents.

When we left we re-alized that

not everyone is as lucky as we are. We also thought about becoming volunteers and helping those in need during our free time.

Paula Ferrer & Óscar Roca

Pour mon ONG j’ai écrit un article sur les chiens et les chats. L’ ONG protectrice d’ ani-maux en Catalogne que j’ai choisie s’appelle « asociación dogs-cats-lovers ».

Cette association est née il y a quatre ans et elle est située à Montgat, dans la province de Barcelone. Ils n’ont pas de lieu de refuge pour les chiens alors ils gardent les animaux dans leur maison jusqu’à ce qu’ils trouvent un endroit approprié pour eux.Ils sont à la recherche de familles d’accueil pour les aider à sauver des vies. Ils ont besoin

de partenaires pour 3 euros par mois comme ça ils peuvent obtenir de l’argent pour la sté-rilisation, les opérations, et d’autres choses qui sont indispensables pour assurer une vie agréable à ces animaux. Ils aimeraient aussi que vous puissiez adopter un animal.

Leur objectif principal est de sauver la vie des animaux mais surtout les chiens et les chats. Ils cherchent aussi à collecter des fonds pour être en mesure de sauver le plus grand nom-bre d’animaux ou trouver des personnes qui adoptent les animaux, leur donnent à man-ger etc….

Ce chien s’appelle Tommy et il a été adopté il y a deux mois

Si vous souhaitez aider cette ONG vous pouvez donner des vêtements, des couver-tures, de la nourriture, des vaccins, des jou-ets, tout ce qui serait utile selon vous. Vous pouvez aussi faire des dons, être une maison d’accueil etc.

http://www.dogs-cats-lovers.es/

Kenjii Farré

And a final thought on NGOs?

This Credit has really shown us how the real world works. I’ve been able to see that there are many people who need help and atten-tion but they don’t receive it. Thanks to NGOs, these people, little by little, will be able to have a more normal life.

Eva Robisco

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Every day Nursery 3 is very busy! We are learning all about colours, shapes, numbers, seasons as well as gaining the skills we need to move on to Kindergarten.

Circle time

Circle time is a very important part of our daily routine and it is when the children are at their most receptive. Children learn the calendar,

listen to a story, talk about special events in their lives, what our activities for the day are, look at flashcards, sing a song or do a move-ment activity. Another very important part of our circle time is:

Brain Gym

The children in Nursery 3 love to do their Brain Gym movements prior to a learning activity. It

stimulates stability, mobility, and sensor mo-tor coordination and prepares us to be more focused and enhances our learning abilities ready to start our busy day.

Every week we learn a new letter with Jolly Phonics. Jolly Phonics is a child centred and multi-sensory approach to teaching the al-phabet in Nursery 3. Children are introduced

to a letter and sound each week. Each letter has a song, story and fine-motor activity.

Busy Bees in Nursery 3!Our children in Nursery 3 have been kept very busy during recent months getting ready for their fast approaching move to Kindergaten. There’s lots to do before then and so there’s been no time to waste! Across the Board takes a look at some of the varied activi-ties they have been working on…

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We love gym with Miss Rosa

Children engaging in gym activities benefit emotionally and physically. The benefits of gym include encouraging co-ordination and balance, decision making, listening, creative movement, muscle building and creating a healthy habit of exercise but most of all… hav-ing fun!

Indoor and Outdoor Play

Play is essential to learning. Play is the main way children learn and develop ideas about the world. It helps them build the necessary skills for critical thinking and leadership. Play

is not a break from learning but is, in fact, how young children learn. When children play, they test their developing ideas, devel-op many concepts and skills together such as physical, social ,emotional and language skills and very importantly they learn from each other.

We have lots of fun dressing up! Playing at dressing up instantly transports children into the role of someone else -real or imaginary!

We really enjoy our lunch! In Nursery we are learning to be independent and have good table manners!

Creative Learning

Here, children are inspired every day to fol-low where their natural curiosity leads them — to explore, experiment and experience. They think they’re playing. In fact, they are do-ing much more than that, they are learning!

With so much going on in Nursery 3, it’s hard to see how they fit it all into a single day! Thanks to all the staff and children in Nursery 3 for giving us a look into their day at St. Peter’s!

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Darkest Secrets...In this edition of Across the Board, instead of finding out the “Darkest Secrets” of one teacher, the pupils in 2nd ESO have carried out several interviews. Here they share with us some of the investigative journalism they carried out...

Miss Carmen at work in her office

On Friday, 25th January we went to Carmen Peguero’s office to interview her. In the inter-view we spoke about her life and her opinions about it. We asked her five different questions...

What was your childhood like?I went to a school called Ramon Llull and then I moved to another one called Pittman. I learned different languages such as English, French, Cat-alan and, of course, Spanish. I went to a private school and it was quite small.What are your hobbies?My hobbies are listening to pop and jazz music; I also enjoy dancing, watching football, tennis and reading.If you had to start your life again, what would you change?If I had to start my life again, I would only change a few things. I would travel more, visit America and more of Europe and maybe even live abroad. But other than that, I would pretty much say that I’m happy the way I am at the moment.What exactly is your job at St. Peter’s?I’ve been working here in the office for more than 30 years. I am responsible for organising Gener-alitat exams, processing our pupils’ records and putting together their reports and grades. When we went to see Miss Carmen we found she is a warm, kind and loving person. We had a very nice time with her and we’ve found out a lot about her. We talked to her for the first time and discovered she spoke English very well.Interviewers: Toni, César and Jack

Miss Rebecca at St. Peter’s

The other day we interviewed Miss Rebecca a primary and secondary Learning Support assistant at St. Peter’s; she has been working here for five years. We spoke to her and we discovered she has a secret interesting and exciting life full of adventures.

Where were you born? I was born in New Market (England) which is a famous place for horse racing. I lived there with my parents, My mother was a primary school headmistress. I also had two older brothers who always annoyed me a lot. They were always tell-ing me nasty things, but don’t do it anymore!Where have you lived?I have lived in Spain for five and a half years, in England, in Ireland for one year and in New Zealand for one year too.What did you study at university?I studied Psychology. Psychology involves loads of things. What I liked most was Human Behav-iour and Criminal Psychology. It was really inter-esting.What do you like most about your job?I like my job a lot because I can do what I most enjoy: teaching drama and being creative.Where have you worked?I have worked in Greece for one summer during my gap year as a waitress, as a waitress too in an Italian restaurant; in the police and obviously in St. Peter’s school as a teacher.We’ve heard amazing things about your holi-days, tell us about them.I went to Iceland last year. It has amazing scen-ery, it was beautiful. I will never forget it! I’ve also been to India, in particular to the beach because

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one of my brothers lived there. I’ve been to Bra-zil, to Thailand to visit my brother, to Cambodia which was lovely, and I’ve also been to Poland and New Zealand.

After reading this interview do you think teach-ers’ lives are boring? Who wouldn’t like to have Miss Rebecca’s life, with so many experiences?

Interviewers: Carlota and Mariona

Srta. Carme in Reception

We went to Reception for a very special inter-view with Srta. Carme. She seemed very nice and agreed to give us an interview right away. Srta. Carme is 38 years old and she works in St. Peter’s School as a secretary and is also in charge of the school’s social media.

What did you study at university?I studied journalism and comparative literature.What about your private life?I live with my partner and my daughter who is 2 years old.Where were you born?I was born in a small town in Valencia. Afterwards I moved to Barcelona to study at university here.What are your hobbies?My hobbies are reading, writing, photography and doing yoga.What do you like about St. Peter’s School?I like the idea of working with young children and being able to share education and communica-tion.

Srta. Carme studied journalism and compara-tive literature at university, she enjoys writing and taking photos and she likes to relax by practising yoga. She likes being part of St. Pe-ter’s School. It has been very interesting inter-viewing her and we hope to discover more.

Interviewers: Noemí, Irina & Alba

Miss Sarah during the interview

Miss Sarah Dowsett, 50, was born in London, studied B.A. Honours in European Studies at Bath University. She’s worked for 19 years at St. Peter’s as an English teacher and a Cam-bridge Exams Officer.

Why did you come to Spain?I was studying my degree, and I had to come to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in Bella-terra to work on my degree. I made a lot friends and I met the person who is now my husband and so I decided to stay.Did you like to go out with friends? What do you do now in your free time? Do you like dancing?Yes I did. My friends and I sometimes went to the cinema, sometimes to the local pub and when there was a school disco I was always keen on going to it. Nowadays when I have some free time I like to dance with my husband. I also like reading and watching English TV programmes.Do you still like working at St. Peter’s?Yes, I do! Proof of this is that more often than not an hour’s class seems like five minutes.Would you like to go back to England?I would like to go back but when I’m a little bit older, but also as the expression says, I see the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and maybe if I return to England I would see the grass greener in Spain.Do you have any phobias?Well, yes I have two. One is that I have a little bit of a phobia about driving around Barcelona be-cause I don’t want to get lost and the second one is that new technology can seem daunting and I often have to ask my students or children to help me.

Our thanks to Miss Dowsett for her frankness during this interesting and at the same time in-formative interview.

Interviewers: Enrique & Marcos

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Class 3 go for Gold in Mas LLopInspired by the London 2012, Class 3 decided to put on their very own version of the Olym-pic Games! With P.E. kit at the ready, and everything set for some high-level competition, the children set out for Mas Llop to see which team would be St. Peter’s golden sports-men and women! Read out to find out who the winners were…

On the 22nd of October we went to Mas Llop. It took one and a half hours to get there. When we got there the moni-tors showed us a video of the Olympic Games. We saw this video because we were going to do the sports day.

After that the teachers showed us our bedrooms. Lucia slept with Mariela, Paula, Maila, Gina and Martina. Jennifer slept with Maria, Vasilena, Blanca, Lucia and Bingyu. Vic-tor slept with Bruno, Uri, Max, Oriol and Alejandro L. Next the monitors said in which team we were. There were four teams and they were China, England, Kenya and United States.

We went to eat and then we did activities. The activities were football, basket, volleyball, tennis, paddle tennis and lots of running. Then we had our supper. After that we played a night game. When we finished the game we went to sleep as we were very tired.

The next day we had our breakfast and then we continued the Olympic Games. After a while the mums and dads came to see us play. When we finished the games they announced

the winners. In fourth place was Kenya, in third place United States, in second place was China and in first place England. England were the winners!

We really enjoyed the trip. It was great fun to do our sports day in a different place.

Victor and Jennifer 3DV Lucia and Mariela 3K

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It’s great to see Class 3 take such a keen interest in sport. Will any of them one day take part in the real Olympic Games? Ask Miss Chantal for her predictions!

The USA team prepare themselves for Olympic action...

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Songs, dance and play: The best way to learn if you’re in Nursery 1!

We are now into our second term and set-tling back into our daily routine with our new children.

We are enjoying learning about ourselves, colours, shapes, animals, singing and danc-ing, playing in class and in the playgrounds. We are learning to share and tidy up our toys. We have had fun in gym with Miss Rosa and in music and movement with Miss Laia. Our first yoga session was very successful and we invited our parents to join us in February, for one of our classes.

We hope you enjoy these photos of the youngest pupils at St. Peters taking their first steps toward a happy and successful aca-demic life…

Probably the biggest step in a young child’s life is starting school and beginning to get used to being away from home. Discovering a new world without Mummy and Daddy can be a bit traumatic at first, but with the help of Miss Jill and Miss Louise our young-est pupils are soon enjoying the challenges of finding out more about it. Each day they recognize and learn new words and through varied activities make rapid progress. Their teachers tell us a little about the process…

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Alex learning painting can be fun! Sand play: Manuel, Santi and Helena

One of our yoga sessions Nursery 1 children busy building

Thanks to Miss Jill, Miss Louise and the other teachers who are making sure our young-est pupils start school on the right track. Keep up the good work!

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It seems that time travel really is possible! Our boys and girls in Kindergarten have been taken back to a moment in history when people lived in castles and their teachers have been helping them to see that fairy tales really can come true!

Kindergarten Go Castle Crazy!

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The Kindergarten children and teachers have been very excited by the topic “Castles” this term.

During our topic lessons we are learning about different parts of a castle and we have named our table groups in class around these names. We have been learning about how people lived long ago and what life inside castles was like. We are reading lots of tradi-tional fairy tales and castle-based sto-ries in class with Miss Noelle and we have been learning new songs about castles, kings and queens and princ-es and princesses with the help of Miss Laia.

The Kindergarten class-rooms have been trans-formed into magical king-doms where we had lots of fun making castles to play in. In Miss Elizabeth and Miss Frances’s classroom the cas-tle has a big tower with a win-dow where our class mascot often likes to sit. We had fun pretending that Patch was a princess in distress and in need of rescuing. ‘Patch, Patch, let down your long hair!’ We even made him a special crown to wear for the

part. We have taken some photos to show you.

In Miss Louise and Miss Noelle’s class, we have also gone castle crazy! We have built our castle but Miss Eliz-abeth’s class had better man the drawbridge as there

is talk of an attack between the castles in order to win the hand of the fairest maiden in all of Kin-dergarten!

In March this term we are performing our concert en-titled, ´The Princesses and the Dragon´. At the mo-

ment we are all working very hard acting and singing on stage in preparation for our big production. The children are having great fun draw-ing and painting castles with Miss Jacqueline. We also hope to make some special clothes and items that the people wore and used when they lived in a castle and we can use these when play act-ing in our classroom castles.

During the term we have plans to go and visit a real castle! When we go, we can even perform our concert again. How exciting!All in all we are having a fun term where the

focus is clearly on castles.

With so many castles, prin-cesses and dragons pop-ping up around the school, it’s good to think that in a few weeks’ time we will be celebrating the arrival or St. George to save the day! Let’s hope that the children in Kindergarten continue to struggle and fight for what is good in the world!

Kindergarten Go Castle Crazy!

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Class 6 tell us about Ski Week!At the end of January many of our pupils from Class 5 and 6 went skiing in Andorra. Some of them tell Across the Board about their special week!

On the 27th of January we went to Vallnord, Andorra. It took us 4 hours on the bus, but it passed really quickly. When we got there we went to our rooms. My room-mates were: Zaira, Ariadna and Irene. We had to unpack our bags and then go to have dinner. I re-ally liked the hotel’s food, it was really nice.

The next day we organised all the hired skis, boots, poles etc. We had a mini-test with the ski monitors so that they could see what skiing level we were on. They decided to put me in the high group, one group lower than the high-est one. I loved my group because I was with all my friends: Zaira, Lidia, Helena, Lorenzo, Xavi, David L., Alex and Lucas. The monitor was called Marta. She was very sweet. I had loads of fun ski-ing that morning.

We stopped at a restaurant and met the other groups. We had lunch at a place where there was a buffet. I loved the food and especially

their profiteroles. I really en-joyed this ski week. I had lots of fun skiing and being with my friends. Nina Rissi 6c

Ski week is a week when we go to Andorra to ski and have some fun in the hotel. My room was a duplex (a room with 2 floors) and I shared it with Albert Millet and Pol Ken. They put me in the highest ski group. On Sunday I went to school at 2 p.m. and I was one of the first to arrive. Finally, everyone arrived and we set off. Four hours later we arrived and we took all our skis, boots, etc. We saw our rooms. We had five beds and two TVs. On Monday we woke up at 7:15 and went for breakfast. We had to hire our ski equip-ment but I didn’t rent it be-cause I already had my own equipment. After 2 hours of skiing we went to eat lunch. After lunch we had a lot of free time so we decided to have a snowball fight. Later we skied for 2 more hours and went to

Caldea and had a lot of fun. On Wednesday after skiing we went ice-skating! It was my second time skating so I fell very often! Hiro Josep Farre

For those pupils who did not go to Andorra an alternative timetable was organised. Let’s let some pupils tell us about their week…

As I couldn’t go to ski week because I broke my shoul-der, I stayed at school. I had a great time! We went on trips and did many exciting things.

When I arrived at school, there was no one from Class 5 or Class 6, so I was nervous thinking no one would come. A few minutes later a boy from Class 5 named David arrived and I wasn’t so nerv-ous.

Srta. Isabel told us we were going to go to the computer room to find out things about where we were going tomor-row. After finding out informa-tion about the excursion we

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went to the Art Room. Miss Jacqueline was waiting for us. She told us we were go-ing to make clowns and they had to look good because they were going to be hung around School!

Wednesday was my favour-ite day because we had a great time! We got a bus to go to La Carretera de les Aigües . When we arrived we went up the road through a mountain area. We walked a lot until there was a time we didn’t know where we were! We found the Funicular and then arrived back at school.

On Friday we didn’t go any-where special. Instead we stayed at school and finished the clowns. Sofia Medina

On Tuesday we took a bus and we went to see “Las Fuen-tas Magicas de Montjuïc” and “La Dona y l’Ocell”. We took some photos for a com-petition. On Wednesday we went to school in comfort-able clothes and shoes. This day we climbed Tibidabo! We walked a lot. To school we went by metro and then some of us went by bus and some walked. I went by bus because I was very tired and I’m very lazy!

We went to the Plaza de Cat-aluña on Thursday and drew two monuments: “La Jirafa Coqueta” and “El Toro Senta-do”. Then we went to school and finished the clowns that we did on Monday.

Finally, on Friday, we made a collage of our pictures

Polina Drugachenok 6C

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Students become teachers...The 1st Bachillerato Post-Proficiency English students have been trying their hand at teaching Class 5 this term. Read on to find out more about the experience.

Throughout the past weeks, the 1st Bachill-erato Post-Proficiency English class has been involved in tasks such as teaching idioms to the Class 5 and making grammar videos. This project put us in our teacher’s shoes and turned out to be very challenging as it was dif-ficult to teach younger students without hav-ing previous experience. Therefore we had to prepare the classes and the videos very well and try to explain the subject as clearly as possible.

We aimed to choose a range of idioms, which would not only be useful in daily life but sim-ple to understand for the young students. For that reason, we decided to teach them idi-oms such as “it’s raining like cats and dogs” instead of “to pour cold water on something”. On top of this, we planned to make sure that we would keep the class entertained by be-ing funny and energetic but at the same time focused on transmitting the main message.

Teaching children helped us to realize the dif-ficulties of working in this field but also about the sense of freshness that children give off. Listening to their guesses, watching them make an effort to get their answers right, one realizes the thinking skills that these young minds actually have. Despite all of our plan-ning we adapted the lesson to suit the stu-dents’ needs. After our experience with the children we felt

motivated to continue working with them. That’s where we got our inspiration to start up our new project. It consisted of filming a small tutorial that covered some of the units the children study in English to vary their learning method a little and avoid their eve-ryday routine.

The specific topics we have made our videos on are the future tenses (going to and will) and the passive voice. Our aim was to try to teach the typical boring grammar classes in a more entertaining and interactive way, keeping them engaged throughout the whole class. We learned tons of new things while teaching Class 5. For example, we found out that being a teacher is harder than it seems. There’s lots of preparation to be done before each class, plus every class is different and you can never know if everything will go ac-cording to plan.

These are the idioms we taught…Do you know what they mean?

It´s not my cup of tea / It’s raining cats and dogs Sick as a Parrot / Crocodile tearsA piece of cake / To be in the same boat Learn the ropes / Eat like a pig To fight like cat and dog / To break the ice

Marta, Harry, Inés, Anna, Edu & Algirdas

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Starting the Research Project...Trabajo de Investigación, Treball de Recerca or Research Project. Call it what you will, this important aspect of Bachilerato is already under way for students in 1st Bachillerato. Two of them talk to Sr. Merín, the coordinator, about what it involves...

Víctor: ¿En qué consiste princi-palmente el trabajo de investi-gación?Sr. Merín: A grandes rasgos, lo definiría como un trabajo de largo alcance, de fondo, como por ejemplo un 10000 metros obstáculos.Ignasi: ¿ Cómo sería la es-trcutura o horario del propio trabajo?Sr. Merín: Empieza a principios de marzo, y termina a finales de enero, al acabar las vacaciones de navidad, así que practica-mente dura un año.Víctor: ¿Qué aprenden los alumnos al realizar este tra-bajo?Sr. Merín: Aparte de lo que aprenden del propio tema elegi-do, que acaban sabiendo más casi que los propios tutores o profesores, lo más importante que desarrollan y aprenden en mi opinión es un gran nivel de autosuficiencia y mucha au-tonomía, aprenden a sacarse las castañas del fuego básica-mente.Víctor: ¿Cómo hacen los alum-nos a la hora de escoger el tema y quién les ayuda?

Sr. Merín: Es una decisión to-talmente individual. Ahora, es verdad que las ideas que tienen los alumnos en mente son muy generales y el tutor y yo como coordinador a veces tenemos que centrar ese tema para con-vertirlo en un verdadero trabajo de investigación. O demasiado generales y con lo cual inabar-cables o demasiado especificos y con lo cual vacios o faltos de contenido.Ignasi: ¿Cuál es el rol del tutor en este trabajo?Sr. Merín: El trabajo del tutor básicamente tiene dos mis-iones. Respecto al coordinador en este caso es transmitirme la información de lo que el alum-no está haciendo y evaluar este trabajo, y por otro lado y, el más importante evidentemente, es el trabajo con el alumno, que es in-tentar guiarle, asesorarle en cu-anto a la biblografía que utilizar y filtrar la información necesaria o relevante de la irrelevante.Víctor: En su opinión, ¿es una actividad valiosa?Sr. Merín: Evidentemente es val-ioso porque el alumno aprende cosas, y como bien he dicho an-

tes el alumno aprende mucho del tema, pero entiendo que quizás sea un poco temprano para la edad o madurez que se necesita para una investigación verdaderamente seria.Ignasi: Y por último, ¿qué con-sejo le daría a su alumno ahora que empieza su trabajo?Sr Merín: Que elija algo que ver-daderamente le apasione. Que elija ese tema que por curricu-lum nunca llegará a recibir clas-es, aquella cosas que le gustaría que le explicasen pero nunca ha habido ocasión porque no entra en ninguna asignatura, eso, que aproveche eso, porque esa pasión e interés es lo que le mantendrá en un buen ritmo de trabajo.

Victor Rafel & Ignasi Alcbé

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Feeling good in Top InfantsBooks take on a special importance in Top Infants –the last stage of Preschool, before the move to Primary. Being a confident reader is really important, and is the base on which the rest of our school career is based. Developing social skills and working and playing with others, while taking into consideration our own and other people’s feelings, is impor-tant too...

Top Infants is an exciting and busy year! It is our last year in Preschool and before we go up the stairs to Primary we must learn how to read, write, add and subtract! Reading is a very big part of our day. We practise blending sounds to make decodable words by listen-ing to and saying the initial, middle and final sounds. We also learn to memorise unde-codable words known as ‘tricky words’. On a daily basis we read individually or in small groups to our teachers. We love vis-iting the library and taking books home to read with our Mums, Dads, brothers and sis-ters. Some of us visit the primary library and some of us find our own reading book in the Preschool Library – a skill that we will use throughout our school years. Many class activities incorporate reading such as copying off the board and using our phonics knowledge to attempt writing words. The interactive white board is a fantastic tool which reinforces our reading skills. The Jolly Phonics programme has many fun & interest-ing reading games that help us blend sounds together to make words. Other resources such as letter sound bingo, matching word

games and word books are other great ways to practise blending and to increase our vo-cabulary.

Most importantly however – even more than reading! – we are learning social skills. This means behaving appropriately, being re-spectful and treating others how we want to be treated. Our first term theme ‘Cultures’ taught us that even though we may come from different places, speak different lan-guages and believe different things, we can learn from each other and even be the best of friends.

Our second term theme was ‘Feelings’. Throughout each day, all of us experience a wide range of feelings. Sometimes we experi-ence them from hour to hour and sometimes from minute to minute! Through games, role-play, stories and discussion we have learned to identify and express our feelings in an appropriate way. We’ve had fun acting out everyday situations and brainstorming posi-tive (and negative) reactions and solutions to problems. This has helped us to consider the feelings of others and the consequences of our actions. How are YOU feeling today?

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Lots of food for thought there from our girls and boys in Top Infants. We wish them well in their last few months in Preschool and all the best for their adventure into Primary School.

Good luck to you all!

Can you recognise the feelings expressed by our Top Infants children in these photos? Who is...

ANGRY, EXCITED, BORED, HAPPY, PROUD, LONELY, SCARED, SURPRISED, THOUGHTFUL, WORRIED, SAD or NERVOUS ?

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To act or not to act? That is no longer the question (in Class 2!) Budding actors and actresses are emerging in Class 2 with the help of the Drama classes which started earlier this year. Teamwork and creativity are just two of the skills this addition to the Class 2 curriculum is developing…

This year has seen the introduction of Drama into the curriculum in Primary School. It is a welcome addition to the timetable alongside the traditional mainstream subjects.

Children love Drama and the benefits are nu-merous. They learn to express themselves and to use their imagination. It encourages the children to use specific language for the drama activity. It teaches children to work in a group and builds self-confidence. But above all, Drama is fun!

The lessons usually start with a quick lim-bering up session, followed by a few games. These encourage working as a whole group, and might involve the children doing a move-ment or saying a phrase in a circle. Through the drama activities the children learn different drama techniques. For exam-

ple, thoughts of the characters, giving advice to a character, using the body to make ob-jects.

Class Two used the idea of ‘finding a box’ as a starting point for their drama. They then build up a story about the box; what it looked like, who found it and where, and the story about how the box got there. It involved the children using a lot of imagination and they all really enjoyed creating their own stories. Through this drama they learned different drama techniques to add more ‘dramatic ef-fects to the story.’

The children are looking forward to the next project. I think introducing Drama into the curriculum has been a huge success.

Miss Niki

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How 500 Swiss cows made Class 2 very happy!Class 2 didn’t bother going to the supermarket to get their yoghurts. Instead they went to a farm near Olot to discover how this delicious product is made. Miss Jane uses her chil-dren’s own words to tell us about their visit to La Fageda, accompanied by some willing Collaborative Learning volunteers from 1st ESO...

La Fageda is a dairy farm which has its own yoghurt factory. It is situated in the mountains near Olot. It is a special place because people with specific educational difficulties work and live there. Class 2 went there in November.

Some people who work there had specific ed-ucational difficulties and some did not. There was a home for the retired workers. The fac-tory started because these people didn’t have work and now they do.There were 500 Swiss cows. All the cows had labels on their ears to identify them. Cows eat straw. When it’s wet the straw is covered in plastic to keep it dry. There was a special ma-chine for massaging the cows’ backs. In sum-mer water dripped down to refresh the cows. When we stroked the cows’ heads they lifted them up. We saw pregnant cows. A cow gives us milk

when it has a calf. We saw photographs of a calf being born. The cows’ horns don’t grow because they put wax on them when they are young. We noticed that the calves don’t have udders.

We saw how cows were milked in the dairy. They milk them at six o’clock in the morning and evening. It is important to clean the ud-

ders before they are milked. A machine sucks the milk out and into a tank. They put green iodine on the udders after milking.

There is a yoghurt factory on the farm. We saw a film about making yoghurt. We ate some which came from the cows’ milk. It gives us calcium for our teeth and bones. We learned a lot about making yoghurts with the milk from the cows. La Fageda is a beautiful place. As well as mak-ing delicious yoghurt, jam and ice-cream they also look after the people who have worked there all their lives. We enjoyed our visit very much.

Class 2, with grateful thanks to Tona, Lisa and Mikey and a special “gràcies” to Srta. Sheila and the Catalan Department for helping to make this excursion possible!

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This winter has seen some of the heaviest snowfalls in the Pyrenees for many years. Some of that chilly weather has reached St. Peter’s and Nursery 2 have had fun learning all about the coldest time of the year. Across the Board has taken a look at what they have been up to. Read on to find out more!

In January 2013 Nursery 2 was plunged into freezing conditions. Severe wintry, weather activities were spread throughout the month with widespread snow-packed fun. Miss Jane told us, “I don’t think that the children should be dusting down their sledges just yet as the activities are due to continue into February!”

As we all know, children learn best through play. We had great fun with snowball races (of the polystyrene kind!)

Lucia and Arina during a snowball race

We also made great paintings using blue ice cubes; a great sensory activity learning about the cold and the colour blue. They tasted pretty good too!

Ema and Aran trying tasty blue ice cubes...

Our classroom became a Winter Wonderland and even had an igloo for the children to play in. (See opposite)

We all worked together to create our wall dis-play of the snowmen using various textures and materials.

Finally, what is winter without our feathered friends the penguins? These are just one of the ‘winter’ animals we looked at during our investigation of “The Big Freeze”. We had great fun making the children into life size penguins by drawing around them on black card and gluing on a picture of their face and adding a triangle (our themed shape for Jan-uary) as a beak.

The Big Freeze!

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Whilst we have enjoyed our Winter Won-derland we do look forward in anticipation to the warmer weather so we can bring out our beachwear and have some warm water play in the playground. Watch this space!

Clearly it‘s been a busy time in Nursery 2. Thanks to everyone for all the hard work and fun! (Those blue ice cubes sound delicious!)

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Class 4 & the Creative Learning ProjectSchool work is not just about the subjects on the timetable we all expect like maths, writ-ing and history! Since September, Class 4 have been discovering a wide range of topics worth studying too. Let’s find out more about their Creative Learning Project and what the children and teachers think about this addition to the timetable…

The general idea of the Creative Learning Project was to give the children in Primary an opportunity for more creative activities where they would be in smaller groups and have lots of opportunities for hands on experience. The choices so far have stretched from jew-ellery and art to science to knitting to the five senses and from Greek theatre to healthy minds and bodies. Our children chose their activities from the ones on offer and have had great fun participating in all of these.

The teachers have been very positive about these activities. The following are some of the comments which they have made:-

“It was great to have an allocated 2 hours when the children could use their imagina-tion and creativity.”

“It has been good to interact with children from different classes and see them mixing well together.”

“The children come back to their own class well-motivated and keen to go to the next CLP day to continue what they are doing.”

“It has been enjoyable to have a freer more interactive atmosphere to work in.” But what has been the children’s reaction to Creative Learning?

Almost without exception, they have been very positive about these activities too:

“I loved Rappy Reporters because we got to do interviews.”

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“I liked jewellery because we made bracelets and earrings and each day we did at least two things.”

“I loved making and eating my own salad in Healthy Mind, Healthy Body.”

“I loved the ‘Viking longships’. We got to build things.”

“I loved the mouth part of the five senses because we got to taste lots of things.”

“I just love these science experiments – it’s re-ally interesting!”

….and when we had to stop for Christ-mas:-

“I’m sad it is finished.”“When will we start another one?”“What will we do next?”

So you may see us on a Wednes-day afternoon doing some very strange things but you can be sure that we will be trying things out for ourselves and that we will be hav-ing lots of fun learning in a differ-ent way.

Miss Jenny

As we can see, so far the Creative Learning Project has proved to be a huge success with pupils and teachers alike. Let’s hope that that continues to be the case!

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Going out with a Bang !Students in 2nd Bachillerato presented their longest piece of work to date to classmates, teachers and parents over two days at the end of January. Across the Board takes a look at some of their work...

Raquel Vila: My investigation project is basically about how babies sleep and the problems they (and their parents!) may have from when they are born until they are three years old. It also analyses how to solve these problems depending on what the child is like. About 120 parents were interviewed and surprisingly, most of them agreed that the best way to educate a baby, in order to get them to sleep all night, without making their parents suffer, is using the “Estivill Method”. This basically consists in letting the baby cry at night and following simple steps until the baby falls asleep. The parents have to continue doing this every night until the child becomes aware he/she has to sleep alone without external imputs.

Carla Garcia: Music has always been a cultural phenomenon in every civilization in the world. It may be, however, that education is not the only creator of an interest in music. Perhaps some innate musical capacities exist in humans. An interview with a second language acquisition specialist and additional biographical resources helped relate language to music and a further study of cultural music confirmed the power culture has in the modification of music. Physiological and emotional reactions while listening to music were tested, giving surprising results that led to even more intriguing conclusions.

Jan Pullido: The way in which businesses adapt to new technologies is a very important matter in society. Therefore the implementation of social network sites into a company should be relevant to everyone. There are many ways of doing this, but they all come down to the same idea: knowing peo-ple. SNS gives businesses the possibility of expanding the information they have about their clients and their potential consumers and thus, the combination of them both is highly beneficial for society. My research project looked into this phenomenon.

Andrea Elias: Have you ever wondered how ani-mals can help disabled people? Equinotherapy is one of the numerous options. This therapy uses horses as a means of rehabilitation for people, es-pecially children. It has an infinite number of posi-tive effects which not only benefit disabled people both physically and mentally, but also has an ef-fect on every person. To prove the usefulness of this therapy and gain a more personal view of it, a survey was conducted on the relatives of peo-ple who use this therapy. The findings were com-pared with the data that had been researched from books and websites.

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Albert Ginjaume: Whenever I had the op-portunity to see a wildlife documentary on TV or the internet, I was always very impressed by all the things those animals were able to do. Thus,it made me inter-ested in finding out about the animals in detail and seeing if the rights they had were sufficient for them to live in a fair way. However, due to the fact that there is a wide range of animals I chose two: the chimpanzee and the elephant. Moreover, I studied their empathy, altruism and af-fection in order to see how closely we are related to them. I made some surprising discoveries. Albert G.

Ariadna Castro: My investigation project is based on the means of communication that currently rules the world: social networks. I have focused on Facebook which is the social network with the most us-ers around the planet, directing all my attention towards those aspects that are worrying society such as security problems and the way the webpage is used incorrectly. To do so, the security settings, which many people are unaware of, were analysed and a survey was carried out to find out about this important aspect of Facebook. This helped me to find out many aspects of how people see Facebook as the new means of communication.

Let’s take a look at some of the other subjects researched by our 2nd Bachillerato students:

Blanca Roldán: Cocina tecno-emocional

Albert Martínez: Estudio del valor de la aceleración gravitacional

Laura García: Comunicación no verbal

Cristina Torras: Influencia política que ejercen los políticos sobre las noticias

Ignacio Biern: Desarrollo de un dibujo animado

Congratulations to all our 2nd Bachillerato students for a job well done and good luck in your future lives and studies beyond St. Peter’s.

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Class 5’s Trip to MontjuïcOn the road to a safer Barcelona

Barcelona has become a slightly safer place since Class 5’s recent trip to gain some prac-tical advice on road safety. The two classes learned about how to stay safe both as a pedestrian and a “driver” during the morning they spent with the Guardia Urbana, on the other side of Barcelona on Montjuïc...

It’s good to see that Class 5 returned to St. Peter’s as safer road users and more aware of the risks they face every time they leave home or school. We hope this will prove to be a lesson well-learnt.

Wednesday 13th February wasn’t a normal day and neither was Friday 15th February! Why weren´t these days normal? The reason was because the two Class 5 groups both went to Montjuïc Castle to learn about road safety with the Guardia Urbana.

The first class to go was Mr. Simon’s class and Mr. Peter’s went on Friday. Was this a case of saving the best till last? The two classes are still arguing about this!

Our two classes went by metro to Plaça Es-panya. Then we took a special bus that took us to the top of Montjuïc, where we enjoyed taking in the exquisite views of our city.

When we got there we met two policemen called Enrique and Bartholomew. They were pleasant and kind, but serious. They ex-plained to us what we had to do.

Before going to ride the bicycles we had to do something very important: tucking into a tasty breakfast of various delicious sandwiches.

Afterwards the policemen asked us a few questions about road safety and traffic signs. They were quite easy-well most of them were! When we finished the questions we were ready to get on the bicycles. At first it was a little bit difficult but after some practice we all got used to riding our bicycles around the circuit.After the house teams had had one turn each the policemen told some of us to be pedestri-ans. This made things a little bit more compli-cated but a little more interesting too. It was

still fun but not too dangerous because the Class 5 students were such wonderful, expert cyclists and pedestrians... of course!

Sadly, before we knew it, it was time for us to go. Our morning seemed to pass very quickly but we learned a lot about road safety. We thanked our two friends from the Guardia Ur-bana for their hard work, their explanations and their patience.

We hurried off to catch our bus back to Plaça Espanya. Class 5S then ambled up to Sants Station to board a number 78 bus back to school but class 5P returned to school by metro.We had a great time and we recommend this trip to others.

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Last term in Creative English, we did lots of drama activities. This was how we got the inspiration for our ghost stories. Through spontaneous improvisation, we explored dif-ferent stories about a haunted house called Darkwood Manor. Our teacher came into the classroom in character as an old woman named Mrs. Brown. It was great! She was try-ing to sell her Manor House but there were too many rumours of things that had hap-pened there. She tried to convince us to spend one night there in order to prove that it wasn’t haunted. She was very suspicious and nobody trusted her.

After a few lessons, she asked us to write a story. It had to be scary, entertaining and it had to keep your attention till the end. We ended up with some awesome stories!

Feliu IslandHere in Feliu Island, not much bigger than Gatwick Airport, adventures and mysteries are not common, unless you know how to find them... I’ve been living here since I was four and I know every single inhabitant and part of the island, but it wasn’t until last year that I met two brothers, Londoners, that came, to Feliu Island to stay with their aunt. The day I met them, adventures started to begin. No, every time Josh and Scott came, a new adventure began.We were on the beach celebrating the local

festival. Everything was calm and the sunset we were watching was beautiful. The boys and I were planning our next move, because, ever since Holworth Mansion had been dis-covered to hide a treasure, I was keen to in-vestigate more about it.Scott and Josh used to argue a lot but when they worked together they were geniuses, so between us we had everything prepared for the “excursion”. We decided to cycle to Hol-worth Mansion. There had been rumours for a while. Someone told me the key to the treasure was a riddle. Once inside Holworth, we discovered the chapel where Holworth’s body lay and in his pale hands there was a piece of paper, visibly useless, but it contained the “key”. I grabbed it and read it out: To my descendant, keep the secret in your heart. I noticed a cross on his chest and touched it. “Puff” a rock moved and we saw the cluster of jewels.Wait... If we’d just found the treasure by crack-ing an easy riddle, why hadn’t anyone else found it? Something was wrong. Footsteps, a man was coming...

Aisha Rubió

The house on the coast of India I´ll always remember the day I visited the old house by the sea. On 1st of November I went on the first ad-venture of my world trip : India a beautiful paradise, where strange things can happen. When I arrived I took a tour near the longest coast of In-dia, it was amazing. We´d been walking for more than one hour, so we took a break next to a little house. When we left I let the group go ahead because I was very interested in the strange little house. While I walked into the house I heard footsteps but it wasn’t me. I walked in to the living room and I saw

Hair-raising Haunted Houses...1st ESO have been using drama to make their creative writing more imaginative..Read on to find out more...if you dare!

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a little girl sitting on the ground next to the smokestack. She looked me right in the eyes and… I felt her pain she gave me the feeling of what it is like to be alone, I was scared. She said to me“I’m cold… I’m so cold BRRRRR”“HELP I’M SO COLD!” She screamed at me and her eyes started bleeding. From one moment to the next someone lifted me up by my neck, it wasn’t the girl because she was still sitting on the ground staring at me. While I almost took my last breath some-one whispered in my ear “I’m cold please help me I’m so cold” Then the room I was in, disappeared, whispers stopped talking and I closed my eyes. When I opened them I saw the girl holding me by my neck up in the air. In the background I saw war, I think it was the Second World War and I saw a little girl scared sitting on the ground looking at her fa-ther’s photos. At the same moment the group from the tour came in searching for me. I fell on the ground, the girl disappeared and the room went back to normal. I was sitting on the ground still looking at the smokestack. The people took me out of the house and I said that I had seen a ghost but they didn’t believe me, they thought I was crazy. The next day I went to the airport to take my flight to Colombia.On the flight a air hostess passed by, she whispered in my ear“I believe you, I saw her too…” Then I realised that the air hostess’ face looked familiar... She was the little girl!

Kiara Van Dinter

The First FloorI was crying in the shower, I hadn’t taken off my clothes, so when I turned the warm water off I started to shiver. Suddenly, I heard a soft noise coming from the first floor, it sounded like the front door opening. I looked at my clock and saw it was only four, so my parents

were working and my brother was sleeping over at a friend’s house, nobody else I knew had the front door key, who could it be? I start-ed to shiver, but this time it wasn’t because I was cold. I was starting to feel something building up in my stomach. Was that fear? I couldn’t tell, today I had only experienced rage, anger and loneliness. Today was my 18th birthday and nobody had remembered, I felt miserable.After a while, I realized that the footsteps had got louder. I didn’t dare to talk, I was para-lysed, and my body didn’t want to respond. I struggled to get hold of myself and walk out the bathroom, everything was dark, hadn’t I turned on the lights when I had come in? I walked blindly down the steps and stopped when the lights turned on, I froze, I couldn’t believe what I had in front of me, almost im-mediately after the whole house was vibrat-ing with the song happy birthday!

The Mystery of the Scary FactoryHeeeeelp!!!...somebody screamed in the fac-tory. In this factory, we thought they were making dangerous poisons and radioactive pills. We had to investigate. It was our job.I couldn’t breathe…The clock struck midnight and immediately something smashed loudly and I heard again the scream, but now it was under me. I shivered; I ran away without look-ing back …I began to feel worse and worse.The next thing I did was try to open the door next to me, but to no avail. Outside I was hearing screams, creaks, and crashes. I was paralysed. When I finally opened the door, I almost fainted. Near me was Johnny Depp.A horror film was being filmed at this strange and scary factory.

Anna Petrenko and Kate Kuzyakina

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Notre retour vers le futur: 22@Le 19 décembre 2nd d’ESO a fait une excursion dans les quartiers modernes de Barcelone. Nous avons fait cette visite pour faire un article de français et une maquette pour la classe d’art plastique. Nous avons visité la Torre Agbar, le Media-TIC, l’université et beaucoup de bâtiments modernes.

C’est une visite très intéressante parce que nous avons vu des bâtiments très innovants de Barcelone. 22@ = Futur, 22 c’est parce que nous sommes au 21ème siècle et le 22ème, c’est le siècle suivant. Et le @ signifie technologie. En 1992 pour les Jeux Olympiques, toute Bar-celone a été structuré grâce au plan d’Ildefons Cerdà et on a commencé à construire ces bâtiments.

La petite visite dans le quartier 22@: Nous avons commencé la visite par la Tour Agbar, et, le guide a expliqué que le quartier a fait un changement important passant d’être un quartier industriel à être un quartier futuriste. La Tour Agbar est comme une fontaine et c’est une source d’électricité. Après nous sommes allés voir un bâtiment gris moderne qu’est le HUB Design de Barcelone qui est à la Plaça de les Glòries. Le guide nous a expliqué que le 22 @ était un quartier industriel comme on peut en trouver à Manchester, où il y avait beaucoup d’usines et où les constructeurs ont décidé de faire un quartier moderne. Après nous avons visité des rues importantes. Nous avons vu une usine de briques. À côté de l’usine il y avait des petits logements pour les ouvriers.Ensuite, nous avons continué et nous avons visité l’université Pompeu Fabra, qui a une cheminée très ancienne héritée du passé. Dans l’université, il y a des bâtiments nou-veaux. Nous avons aussi visité une petite cour intérieure très belle. Les cours ont des fenêtres anciennes. Nous avons continué la visite et après notre guide nous a expliqué un bâtiment très moderne qui s’appelle Mediatic. Le Mediatic a des filtres avec un sys-tème très compliqué. C’est un bâtiment écologique, et c’est pour ça que le bâtiment est vert.

Le Projet d’art :En art avec la professeur Miss Giner, nous avons fait une petite maquette sur une ville futuriste. Nous avons utilisé des cartons, du plastique, de la peinture, des emballages etc. Nous avons fait des groupes et il y a des personnes qui ont fait des bâtiments et il y en a d’autres qui ont fait le sol avec des rues, des arbres, etc. Nous avons travaillé en groupe et recueilli toutes les choses nécessaires pour faire une maquette magnifique sur une ville futuriste.Avec la visite à 22@ nous avons appris beaucoup de choses sur le changement de Bar-celone. Nous avons découvert de nouveaux bâtiments très intéressants. Avec le projet d’art plastique nous avons appris à travailler en groupe.La visite nous a fait penser aux petits changements que nous pouvons faire dans le futur pour faire de Barcelone une ville plus belle et plus écologique.

Merci, Monsieur Sautour and thank you to Miss Giner for organising this project. Well done to our 2nd ESO pupils too!

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Art Club with Miss JacquelineHi! Paulina, Anais, Martina, Sofi, Fiona, Daniela, Mireya and An-tonio made these lovely, colourful rubbish bins in ArT ClaSs after school. All you need is cardboard, sticky tape, newspaper and PVA glue. Read on to see what the artists say and learn how you can make one too!

Follow these three easy steps to make your very own rubbish bin!

Step 1: Cut the base and sides from a card-board box and tape them firmly together like

this. Cover the bin - inside and out - with at least three layers of torn newspaper pasted on with diluted PVA glue. Leave to dry thor-oughly.

Step 2: Paint the whole bin white. When dry, design and draw anything you like!

Step 3: Paint, varnish and brighten up your home with an original, one-of-a-kind, environ-ment-friendly bin!

Martina points out, “The thing that I liked most was painting the bin. It is a very useful thing because I use it every day.” Thanks to you all for sharing this great idea!

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Language Matters...In her regular column on English in St. Peter’s School and the world in general, Miss Sarah takes a look at why we place such importance on official University of Cambridge examinations...

Language matters. Yes, it does matter very much indeed! That’s why St. Peter’s School, as an Inter-national Cambridge Centre, is keen to prepare as many of its pupils as possible for the Cam-bridge International Examinations.

University of Cambridge International Examina-tions is the world’s largest supplier of interna-tional examinations. These qualifications are recognized worldwide by both universities and employers. Taking these exams means opening up global opportunities for your child.

At St. Peter’s Secondary School these internation-al examinations are divided into two main blocks: IGCSE exams, typically studied for between the ages of 14 - 16 and the AS/A Level exams nor-mally studied for between the ages of 16 - 19. Examinations are taken in different subjects de-pending on the interests and ability of each, indi-vidual student. All subjects (with the exception of foreign language studies) develop skills in study-ing and communicating in English. In addition to the aforementioned examinations, St. Peter’s School is also preparing its Primary pu-

pils for the Cambridge ICT (Information Technol-ogy) Starters exams which follow through until our students can take the IGCSE level in ICT in 4th ESO.

Many universities worldwide require a combina-tion of Cambridge IGCSEs and Cambridge In-ternational A Levels to meet their entry require-ments. Furthermore, all UK universities and over 450 US universities accept Cambridge Interna-tional A Level qualifications, including Harvard and Yale, for example.

As St. Peter’s Secondary head teacher, Srta. Núria García, says :”Our students’ interests as a learner are at the very centre of St. Peter’s approach to education. This international perspective aims to encourage an interest in learning that will stay with our pupils throughout their lives. Our objective,is to produce learners who are confi-dent, innovative and independent.”

We wish all our Cambridge candidates the very best for their International Examinations which they will be taking during the third term of this school year. Miss Sarah Dowsett

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New Adventures in Pre-SchoolSt. Peter’s pre-schoolers are a busy bunch! Learn-ing to read, getting to grips with maths, learning music, art and gym. They are always on the go and learning something new. But we wanted to show them more and so, this year, we decided to introduce some new and exciting programmes to help enrich their busy little lives! Since Septem-ber, both Kinder and Top infants children have been learning about cookery, gardening and the wonderful world of stories!

We know that children learn in many different ways, namely: auditory, visual and kinesthet-ic learning, however, most people learn best through a combination of the three types. The important thing to note is that everyone is differ-ent and children need to experience the different ways, in order to reap the greatest benefits. So, we thought what better way to help them express their individual learning style than through expo-sure to these different, interesting and worthwhile projects.

In storytelling, last term we read, The Hungry Cat-erpillar, Handa’s Surprise, The Tiger Who Came to Tea and The Gruffalo. This term we are looking at classic fairy stories and tales. In small groups we read the story, and are introduced to the dif-ferent characters through voice, action and with the use of props and puppets. The children are given an opportunity to share their ideas, make observations and make guesses as to what might happen next. At the end, we talk about the main themes involved and look at what the story might be trying to teach us. Then through various activi-ties, the children are asked to re-tell the story in their words and we usually finish with a fun piece of creative work. It is fantastic to be encourag-ing a love of stories and reading, and the children learn so many new things whilst being immersed in a world of imagination!

In cookery class, we make a variety of different things, both sweet and savoury. Last term, we used the stories we had read the previous week as inspiration for our recipes and so we have learned how make a hungry caterpillar salad, delicious fruit salad, and sandwiches and mini lemon cheesecakes. For Christmas, we made cookies and decorated them very nicely. It is such a fun activity and the children get very excited about it. Little do they realise, that they are learn-ing about measurement, practising their ability to count, learning new vocabulary and developing their fine motor skills in this diverse class. All the

teachers have remarked to me that the children love this class in particular, and look forward to their turn each week. This term, we are hoping to make our own little cookery video starring our wonderful little cooks, as inspired by the tv show, “Big cook, Little cook.” Jamie Oliver and friends had better watch out for this future generation of master chefs!!

In gardening, our aim is to develop a little class garden where we plant flowers, vegetables and herbs. We have planted some lovely things, and our spring bulbs are currently rearing their pretty little heads in the boat playground. However, cu-rious little hands have been digging up some of our plants, which is a shame. We encourage all the parents to speak to their children about tak-ing care of the plants and encourage nurturing behaviour. We have planted peas, lettuce, wild heather and spring bulbs. Last week we planted some basil seeds and they are currently sprout-ing in our little greenhouse. The children love get-ting busy with the tools and are very excited when they see the seeds start to sprout. We speak a lot about taking care of nature, recycling and being responsible citizens of planet Earth. After all, these children are the future and it is important that we teach them, at a young age, to make healthy and responsible choices for the world we all live in!

All the boys and girls are learning hands-on, they are thinking on their feet and are getting to expe-rience the world around them in a very real way! And, whether they realize it or not, amidst all the fun and action, they are taking in many maths, science and language ideas! There is never an idle moment for our young learners in pre-school and we look forward to the term ahead with en-thusiasm!

Miss Noelle

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In the Infant Department we are fortunate to have three brilliant artists on our art syl-labus: Miró, Picasso and Ma-tisse. Whether through their use of colour, form or im-aginative interpretation of a subject these artists all have some characteristics which are immediately appeal-ing to children and it is easy for the teacher to draw the class into the world of their art, al-lowing them to quickly become in-volved in and inspired by these marvel-lous artists.

This term the Class 1 children were introduced to the work of the world famous Cata-lan artist Joan Miró and the results have been really good.

What attracts children to the work of this great artist and encourages them to ex-plore the possibilities which his work opens to them?

Miró’s use of bold primary colours is very important. At this stage the children are be-ginning to learn about mixing colour to produce second-

ary colours and the results, although initially interesting, quickly turn to sludgy khaki. Only allow them to use clean, bright primary colours and they produce work which brings them satisfaction.

E v e n children of this age can be quite critical of the art which they produce and if the re-sult doesn’t match up to their expectations they are quite happy to take a clean paper and start again.Miró’s use of shape in an imaginative way allows the children to work without in-hibitions. They feel free to

express themselves without painting a chicken which actually looks like a chicken and have great fun coming up with ideas about what the different elements in a piece of work represent.

As the children start to learn about identifying different

aspects of an artist’s style Miró’s use of easily iden-

tified symbols quickly catches their atten-tion. The star and the eye which are widely used in his work are easy to spot and repro-duce to good ef-fect in their own art.

Although he lived till he was ninety

years old, Miró never stopped experiment-

ing with new techniques and a variety of media. He

spent his life exploring art through painting, collage, sculpture, textiles, ceramics and theatre and is consid-ered to be one of the most versatile of the modern artists. We must allow children to do the same. Their very nature makes them want to experi-ment with new materials and techniques and achieve re-sults which they find exciting and love to share with class-mates. They generally lack

Class1 explores…. MIRÓ!Art is all around us and nowhere more so than in Class 1! The children there have been discovering all about Joan Miró and his bright and colourful works of art. They have been inspired by his work to create masterpieces of their own. Let’s take a look..!

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the inhibitions which may lim-it an adult. Miró’s sculptures using old chairs, branches and bric-a-brac are fascinat-ing for them. It doesn’t mat-ter if one week they are up to their elbows in papier mâche and the next there are bits of

string and hessian and twigs all over the floor – they can tidy it all up when they have finished!

Finally, the size of many of Miró’s pieces are a source of wonder for children – they love things which are larger than life so his huge sculp-tures and gigantic paintings are really exciting.

We are having a great time with our work on Joan Miró and that’s not just my opin-ion! I asked the class if they were enjoying it (unanimous and very enthusiastic YES!!) and why. Here are some of their comments:

Sofía: I love all of Joan Miró’s art because he uses imagi-nation. I love imagination and I love Joan Miró.Guiu: I like the painting of Miró because it has a lot of things and it is the best.Marina: I like Joan Miró be-cause he uses his imagina-tion and he uses a lot of pri-mary colours and he has his own ideas.Bruno: I like art because we have fun with the art of Joan Miró.Tanisha: I like Joan Miró to make his own things be-cause he is very intelligent.Leonid: I love Joan Miró’s sculpture because it is beau-tiful.

So now it just remains for us to wind up with what sounds like a very promising work-shop called “Un món de signes” in the Fundació Miró – we’re all looking forward to that! Then, next year……Picasso!

by Miss Julie

Recognising new teachersin Class 1In Class 1 the children have lots of specialist teachers to get to know, and so to help them they have been draw-ing pictures and writing about some of them. Can you match the written de-scription and the pictures to the Class 1 teachers?

Miss Lulu

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Off the Pitch, 2nd Bachillerato put Víctor Valdés to the Test...F.C. Barcelona’s goalkeeper took time out of his very busy schedule to talk to a small group of students in 2nd Bachillerato about football and life in general. Read on to find out more...

Elena: ¿Tenía alguna asig-natura preferida en el cole-gio?V V: Sí, educación física [ri-sas]…, el día que había ed-ucación física íbamos en chándal y ese era el mejor día de todos, y si no, me gus-taban ciencias sociales y nat-urales. No se me daban mal. Matemáticas y física y quími-ca todo eso era lo peor.

Rebeka: ¿Y era buen estudi-ante?V V: Tengo que decir que no; era buen estudiante, pero mi hábito de estudio cuando iba cogiendo cierta edad, no era bueno; yo me ponía delante de 5 o 6 folios e intentaba siempre memorizar en vez de aprender y me costaba mucho y eso me hacía ago-biar mucho, porque soy una persona disciplinada y lo que tenía que hacer, lo quería hacer bien, pero me defino como un no muy buen es-tudiante, sino un estudiante normal.Elena: ¿Tenia algún profe-sor que le gustaba más?V V: Hubo un profesor, yo

vivía en Tenerife, que fue un antes y un después en mi forma de ver mis estudios. Tenía yo como unos 12 años o así, y mi apretó tanto que hasta me hizo llorar, o sea un profesor duro, duro, pero al fi-nal me puso sobresalientes a final de curso, en varias asig-naturas que me daba, y a lo mejor el vio en mi un poten-cial raro, que me apretó de tal manera que al final lo saqué. Y recuerdo mucho a ese pro-fesor. Es un buen recuerdo ahora, entonces era duro.Jan: ¿Y de pequeño tenía algún ídolo, o pensaba ser como alguien?V V: Mi ídolo, como perso-na del mundo en la que siem-pre me fijaba, era mi padre, y creo que es el mejor ídolo que se puede tener. Luego como ídolos futbolísticos he tenido a dos, Oliver Kahn y a Cañizares, porque entre los dos reúnen las cualidades que tiene que tener un portero para mi ideal: la colocación, la actitud, el blocaje, la segu-ridad, las salidas por alto…Albert: ¿Desde el principio has sido portero?

V V: Sí, sí, empecé como ju-gador en el equipo federado de benjamines en mi pueblo, y una tarde no había portero y yo acabé poniéndome de portero, y no era una portería, sino que eran 2 barriles, que hacían una portería. Lo hice bien y me quedé de portero.

Rebeka: Y ¿cuándo se dio cuenta de que quería ser un futbolista profesional?V V: Yo tomé esa decisión, entre los estudios o el fútbol, con 18 años. Con 18 años yo era juvenil y entonces senté a mis padres y les dije que no iba a seguir con los es-tudios porque creía que no los iba a poder compaginar y porque me daba cuenta de que en verdad, por lo que quería luchar, era por el fút-bol. ¡Menos mal que me salió bien!Albert: ¿Echa de menos algo que debido al fúbol ya no pueda hacer?VV: Muchas cosas, sobre todo con el fútbol profesional la gente te reconoce más, y yo que soy una persona algo tímida, y cuando voy con la

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familia, o voy a dar una vuelta, a veces es un poco chocante que la gente te reconozca, y a veces te limita mucho la vida, entonces echas de menos eso, poder ir a un cen-tro comercial un sábado por la tarde con tus niños y estar tranquilamente.Albert: Hemos oído que has tenido estudios musicales y que te gusta la música, ¿es verdad?V V: Yo os explico: soy un fanático de la música, me gusta mucho el rock, y siem-pre lo que me ha gustado es aprender a tocar algún instru-mento. Toco la guitara, toco el piano, toco la harmónica, percusión, lo he probado todo, de dominar algo, ¡nada! Pero, bueno, de vez en cu-ando paso el rato tocando la guitarra o algún instrumento. Hice un año de piano, pero esto fue un poco para apren-der solfeo, pero de ahí a que ha hecho la carrera de piano Víctor Valdés, es mentira, [ri-sas..]Elena: ¿Qué significa para usted jugar en el Barça?V V: Todo, todo... Uno de mis primeros recuerdos con 5 años, es ver partidos del Barça sentado en el sofá, celebrando un gol del Barça, volvernos locos y la primera vez que pisas el Camp Nou, es como ir al cielo, y luego verte jugando en ese esta-dio con la camiseta que tú quieres, ¡imagínate! Jan: ¿Y le apetecería que alguno de sus hijos siguiera sus pasos como jugador profesional?V V: No sé, lo que decida él, yo lo voy a apoyar en todo, lo único es que no tendrá al típico padre pesado dicién-dole, “tienes que hacer esto..”

No, no, no, que disfrute y que haga lo que quiera, para mi mejor que haga Windsurf, (ri-sas)… ¡nos lo pasaremos me-jor!Mark: ¿Cómo quieres que sea tu hijo? ¿qué tipo de persona?V V: Como es ahora: muy buena persona, muy cariño-so, y sobre todo, una persona educada, que sepa compor-tarse, que sepa estar en los sitios, y disfrutar de la vida.

Elena: Y cuando acaban un partido, ¿qué hacen despu-es?V V: Bueno yo soy bastante normal, antiguamente cuan-do era más joven, veía el par-tido en casa, que era un error la verdad, ahora me pongo en casa una película……nada especial..Albert: Y ¿cuando gana un trofeo individual, ¿qué siente?V V: Yo solo he ganado in-dividualmente un trofeo que es el del trofeo Zamora var-ias veces, que es el portero menos goleado. Se dice que cuando el portero del Barça gana el trofeo Zamora es porque al portero le chutan poco, o porque los defensas hacen que le chuten poco. Es una forma de reconocer a

mis defensas todo el trabajo que han hecho.Rebeka: ¿Y el trofeo colectivo? V V: Eso es lo máximo, eso es lo mejor, porque al final lo celebras con el equipo, todo es genial, es muy bonito.Elena: ¿Participa en alguna ONG?V V: Sí, intento hacer algo solidario, tengo hace años dos niños apadrinados, y colaboro con la Fundación Josep Carreras contra la leucemia, sobre todo con enfermedades relacionadas con familiares míos, que me han tocado de cerca, e inten-to poner mi granito de arena. Este año también hemos he-cho una campaña de recogi-da de juguetes.El último proyecto que he-mos lanzado, es conjunta-mente con el Ayuntamiento de Gavà: son unas becas para el deporte, para que los niños practiquen el deporte extraescolar, y que ningún niño se quede sin practicar deporte, eso es una ilusión mía.Mark: ¿Cree que tiene un papel que desempeñar en cuanto a los jóvenes?V V: Sí, sí, la responsabilidad del fútbol no sólo es dentro del campo, por eso hago proyec-tos del tipo que os he conta-do. Llegas a darte cuenta que puedes ser un referente para muchos jóvenes, porque mu-chos jóvenes también ven el sueño de alcanzar la meta del fútbol profesional, o una meta cualquiera.

Many thanks to Víctor Val-dés for taking time to talk to Rebeka, Elena, Albert and Jan, our 2nd Bachillerato re-porters.

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At the start of the second term we went on a fantastic trip to La Molina with three members of staff: Sr. Closa, Srta. Lourdes and Sr. Gin-jaume and almost all of third of ESO. The aim of the trip was to work on our team building, improve our skiing technique and, of course,

to have a good time there. Luckily we did all three!

The journey to La Molina took approximately three hours, and after a break to have lunch in Berga, (which Jordi described as “not bad, it was nice!”) we arrived at the ski resort. We were surprised that the snow was artificial but on the positive side, it was really sunny most days!

Apart from normal skiing during the day, the group did several other activities. The second night we went up to a restaurant that was lo-

cated at the top of a mountain. According to Pep it was 2,100m above sea level. We ate a delicious cheese fondue while what Albert describes as a “famous” musician played the saxaphone. Afterwards we went skiing back down with flaming torches, aided by the lights of the snow motorbikes which helped us see the slope correctly. Miguel admits, “It was a fantastic experience but I wasn’t very confi-dent, although I didn’t fall.”

On Tuesday afternoon we went on a trip with rackets. It was exhausting but let us see some more of the area. Later the same day we went to a bowling alley where Ainhoa, Pol, Pep, Mavi and others enjoyed a different kind of sports activity.

Surprisingly, for some people on the trip get-ting up in the morning was the highlight: at 8 o’clock they woke us up with music from

3rd ESO go to La MolinaThe second term started with a ski trip to La Molina for 3rd ESO. Our pupils tell us about their short stay in the Pyrenees...

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one century ago! Maybe Albert is exaggerating just a little, but it was effective as an alarm as we were soon up and off to the slopes once again. While most people did normal ski-ing, some of us did snow-boarding. Enrico was one of them. “This meant a bit more freedom and the possibility to do free-skiing and I could go anywhere with Pep.”

So the overall view of the trip?

P e p sums it up as fol-

lows: “I found this trip very amusing and great fun, not just because

of the skiing, but because we did some very interesting activities

which I had never done before.” Miguel ended the trip wanting more: “My ovreall opinion is basically that it has been an excellent excursion that we could re-peat next year”. Enrico agrees. “I hope we do it again in the future and hopefully a full week instead of three days!”

Our pupils were sad when it was time to finally return to Barcelona. On reach-ing school once again, when asked to evaluate the trip several gave the outing a score of eleven out of ten! One of the highlights for the teach-ers was when the monitors spoke to them and congratulated the

group on their excellent behaviour. Final-ly, Sr. Closa’s only regret was that the pupils were so enthusiastic that they didn’t give him time to finish his coffee before it was off again for another descent!

Photography: Agata Albiol

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