T C S F O C U S 2 0 1 3 - 1 4 : E d i ti o n 1 8 t h S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 3

D a t e s f o r y o u r d i a r y

Q u o t e s o f t h e

w e e k … . . .

Miss. Vicky I must go as I

have to play with my

new friends!

(When asked by her father:

Who is your best friend

now?)

Everyone is my best friend!

Olivia Eccleston, PYP 2

P l e a s e a l s o s e e

James Koumbassa, PYP 4

Gabriella Hernandez-Luna, PYP 7

Parent Workshop: Introduction to the PYP: New Primary parents Thurs. 12.09.13—Library: 3.15-4.15pm

Parent Workshop: Introduction to the MYP: New Secondary parents Thurs. 12.09.13—Library: 4.30-5.30pm

Enrichment activities & after-school tutoring session begin Mon. 16.09.13

MYP & DP “Back to School” Night—first-hand experience for parents Thurs. 26.09.13: 4.00-6.30pm

Our Swimming Gala: Aquatic Center: 8.10am start– all welcome! Fri. 04.10.13

This year sees us welcome many new students and families, along with some amazing new staff. 2013-14 will see at least 55 new students join us from all over the world, including Barbados! We now have families from Luxembourg and Panama, in addition to the plethora of countries that are already represented in our school. New staff join from near and far, including the USA, the UK and Barbados. We are very lucky to now have Martin Rolls (Technology & Science), Nicole McClean (Maths), Anna Didier (PYP 7) and Kathy Posey (PYP 1 & 2).

This week they have all begun their journey with us and the students’ new class mates have welcomed them with open arms. The primary years now has: Shem Knight, Finlay Leedham and Cameron Lobo, all from Barbados. Olivia Eccleston, Sacha Coindre and Tristan Gajraj have arrived from Canada. Aoife and Jack Browne come to us from Ireland. The UK is now further represented by Sian Webb, Caitlin & Jonathan Hargreaves and Libbymae Sullivan. India Butt-Saldari, of Kenyan descent re-joins us too. The USA has brought us Austin Ross, Annabelle & Carolina Lucas-O’Malley, Jimmy Keene, Harrison Stanley, Erol Carver, Luke Humphreus, along with Arnav & Kiran Bhagwandin, James Koumbassa , Annika Rasmussen and Mason Williams (having lived in Egypt, Jamaica , Nepal and St. Croix respectively). Finally, but by no means least, we welcome Gabriella Hernandez-Luna from Spain.

The MYP is also further strengthened by Taylor & Kaitlyn Eccleston, Anais Gajraj and Sofia Hanley from Canada; William Sullivan from the UK, Natusha Thill from Luxembourg and Allison Keene, Yash Bhatt and Evan Williams from the USA, though recently Evan has been living in St. Croix.

The DP has now has an additional eight students: Manisha Thill from Luxembourg; Lukas Eckelmann

and Natalie Pereira from Barbados, Demi Mac Andrew from Surinam, Jayde Lindsay and Kitty Condon from the UK/Barbados; along with Fernando Asamoa from Zimbabwe (originally from the USA) and Taylor Brayley also from the USA.

In the next two weeks the primary years will also welcome Gabriella Barbacci and Jacob Anderson from the USA; though Jacob has recently been residing in Honduras. Beyond the next couple of weeks, we have families joining us from Spain, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and Mustique. We never know, maybe even more than that! We are so very pleased to have them all join us and make us their “school of choice”. Our community keeps on growing and we continue to work with national and international families alike. More new student pictures

I am happy that I am

at this good school!

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the entire Codrington community, parents, teachers and students, old and new to the new school term and to the first edition of the TCS for the 2013-14 academic year. It has been a short, but hectic week and the students seem happy to be back and are focused on and enjoying their classes. We have managed to avoid most of the rain and topped of the week with our Enrichment taster fair, which gave all students and some parents a chance to try out the activities on offer this term and speak with the instructors before making their choices. A big thank-you to Ms. Summer for putting the event together. I would also like to thank both returning and new families for the many positive comments that have come my way over the last couple of weeks and I have no doubt with energy, positivity and willingness to ‘pitch in’ within the community that this will be another very successful year at school. With regards to “pitching in” we are always looking for parents who can devote some of their spare time to helping out with school events, school activities or here at school. The vehicle for this is through the PTA. The PTA in Codrington, as in any school, is invaluable and really works towards cementing the educational experiences and opportunities for the students. We have a small and very dedicated group of volunteers who put many hours in for the school and they do need some help. I would encourage all parents to endeavour to be an active part of the Codrington experience and volunteer, in whatever capacity, through the PTA. Whether it is an hour, 3 hours or more throughout the year, we would truly appreciate your support and help. To get more information on volunteer opportunity or to sign up please e-mail the PTA atCodringtonpta@gmail.com It was also great to see so many families and students at the “Welcome back BBQ” last Saturday. It is always a wonderful occasion to touch base after the summer and meet and get to know new families and teachers before we start the school year. I would like to thank Rain Chandler and Annabel Morris for organizing the event and providing us with some hearty fare. and all those that helped with the food and drink. Thank you also to Dawn Arriola, Michelle Baker and Jeanine Van Anrooj for selling uniform items. A great afternoon was had by all; we managed to avoid most of the bad weather on the island and, as always, it was topped off by one of the annual highlights in world sport….. the parent – faculty football game. It was another closely fought contest with a few sparks of football in between the puffing, creaking of bones and tweaking of long unused muscles! As usual the parents superior fitness and youth shone through with a 3 -2 victory. The faculty took heart that we are embarrassing ourselves less and less each game (not really sure if we are getting better or the parents are getting worse) and we will be working hard to hopefully get a draw or even a win in the foreseeable future!

T C S P r i n c i p a l – M r . D a r r y l

T C S H e a d s o f S c h o o l - M r . P i e r s & M i s s J a n e t

High levels of humidity, rain and constantly looking at the National Hurricane centre pages or Barbados Weatherwatch on Facebook. When that happens to me it can only mean one thing - the school year is about the start. I was worried that it may be a washout after the downpours of Monday and Tuesday, but thankfully, it was only the DP students who had to suffer the rain, as they have been in school since Monday. Wednesday was lovely and sunny, and it was great to see old and new faces. Some of the students seem to have been fed far too much over the holiday and have grown at least a foot, so they now tower over Mr. Darryl and I and that’s just MYP2.

This year we have a very full DP class and most MYP classes are full or rising in numbers. This is fantastic and reflects the huge amount of work that has been done by teachers and administration to continually improve the teaching and learning, but also in letting people know exactly what a wonderful school we have here in St. John. You have all received a letter from me this week and have received, or will soon receive, a letter of introduction from your child's form teacher. In these, I hope we have answered any questions that you may have. However, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any further queries. Please remember, that this page on the TCS focus is where I will be keeping parents up to date with anything coming up in the school, so come back here every Friday! Mr. Piers

Welcome Back!!

This year we’re taking next steps with our literacy efforts. You will hear our staff and students talking about the Daily Five Program.

What this means is that our students will be involved with five literacy strategies (reading to self, practice listening, reading to others, working on

vocabulary, and writing) during the program wide literacy blocks on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. A Café menu of research based reading

strategies will be at the heart of these interventions. The program is all about helping students become more independent in their reading and

more involved in managing their learning. The reading blocks will be laced with read alouds to students that connect them not only to the

reading strategy being taught but at times to the unit of inquiry unfolding in the classroom. The writing centers will also be integrated with the

unit to insure that students become competent with the PYP goals and benchmarks. As part of this program, ongoing reading assessment will an

important part of this block. The assessment will begin with informal testing of the children’s reading rates, so that we can place children at the

right instructional level. This assessment will also take place at the end of each term so that we can monitor student progress and plan for next

steps. The Daily Five assessment involves listening to each child read once a week to set the weekly goals. We should as a result be able to give

you a little more information on your child’s reading development at the end of each term. This year we are adding a third student report at the

end of the second term. This report will be focused on the benchmarks and the learner profile attributes. A third student conference has also

been added to the calendar. This is another communication opportunity for you, your child, and our staff.

In summary, we are off and running with many new ideas and invite your participation as we go. There will be an

orientation parent evening on September 12th. Please join us to learn about the PYP program. We are looking forward to a great

year!

Ms. Janet

The mission of The Codrington School is to empower all children and adults within the community to become internationally-minded learners who embrace and respect academic excellence and a love of life-long learning and who exemplify the traits of the IB learner profile.

-

O t h e r a n n o u n c e m e n t s & n e w s … .

Please join and you can

always contact us at:

codringtonpta@gmail.com

Or keep informed at by

joining our Facebook page.

The Codrington School PTA

Parent and Teacher

Volunteers Committed to

Enhancing Your Codrington

Experience

Mondays:

PYP 6 - 8.00-8.30am

PYP 7 & 8 - 8.30-9.00am

Thursdays:

PYP 3:8.00-8.30am

PYP 4 & 5 will be 8.30-9.00am

Fridays:

MYP 1 & 2: 8.00-9.00am

More special visitors come to see us….

Friday afternoon also saw us welcome a very

special dignitary - Dr. William H. Scotti,

Regional Education Officer (REO) with The

Office of Overseas Schools at the US State

Department. Dr. Scotti is responsible for the

"America's Region" and is assigned to oversee

and be well-informed about schools attended

by U. S. citizen school-age dependent children.

He was welcomed by Mr. Darryl and two of

our older students Bradley Baker (MYP 2) and

Jose-Waimin-Almandares (DP 2).

Mr. Darryl spent some time meeting with Dr. Scotti and his colleague Mrs. Michelle Baker

(Community Liaison Officer at the US Embassy) and showing them around our beautiful grounds

and introducing them to our wonderful students.

Dr. Scotti proudly noted that Jose will be the first U.S. school-age dependent child to graduate

from The Codrington School, obviously this will be a very special occasion for the US Embassy,

us, Jose and his family!

We hope Dr. Scotti will visit us again soon! More pictures of the visit

CLASSIFIED ADVERTS

See the various classified advertisements

that those in our community ask us to

bring to the attention of all! Just click

above.

Enrichment at TCS goes from strength to strength…..

Friday saw an amazing event at the school, our very first enrichment fair. The fair was an opportunity for students and families to see first-hand the amazing activities that they will have the opportunity to partake in over this coming year. There was a real buzz, as we experienced a taster of Afro-Caribbean dance, archery, “artsplash” & Comic Club, basketball, Capoeira, chess, football, golf, guitar, performing arts, scuba diving, story-telling & puppet-making, surfing, Taekwondo, tennis, wire-bending, yoga and Zumba. Even though the horse could not make it,

horse-riding will also be on offer!

As ever, we are indebted to Miss Summer, for not only organizing the above fair, but also for ensuring that we have the menu of activities that truly do enrich our curriculum; along with giving our students the chance to enjoy such a vast array of pursuits. Thank you Miss Summer!

Please make sure that you get your requests to Miss Summer over the next few days, if you have not already done so. The deadline is Wednesday 11th September. More enrichment fair pictures

Swimming times!