Message from the Head of School (Mr. Daniel Brace)
This week saw the initial meeting of a brand-new Parent Teacher Association at Gorki which we have been trying to start for a long time, so my heartfelt thanks go to all those that were in attendance at the initial meeting – thank you all.
Please see the attached flyer and the dedicated boards in receptions to find out how you too can join this fantastic group. The first official meeting will be on April 12th at 1445 in the main building conference room – all parents are welcome to attend, please let us know in advance though so we can prepare accordingly please.
This week has seen the last of the snow and ice around the campus and now we are beginning the process of tidying and resetting our outdoor areas ready for the spring weather. There are a number of plans that will come into effect over the next few months so please keep your eyes open for changes and ways you can become involved.
Staff have been working tirelessly to prepare our senior students for their final exam preparations – only a few more weeks until we begin the final UK based examinations offered in Russia, good luck everyone, keep revising.
We are fully engaged with preparations for next year in Gorki and are looking forward to welcoming a few new faces to our community as well as planning for the improved curriculum options and additional IGCSE time on offer.
Primary will soon begin their excursion program swiftly followed by secondary students now that the weather is more friendly - I hope everyone has a great and engaging time.
Key Dates
12th April – PTA meeting at 1445, main building
17th April – UK curriculum exams begin
28th April – terms break begins
Primary
Message from Ms. Anna (Nursery Teacher)
Dear Parents,
These first three weeks in Nursery have been very busy with, for example in Numeracy, us doing a lot of revising and building upon topics covered in previous terms (such as using our knowledge of 2D shapes to start creating new shapes!) Meanwhile, in Literacy, we have now reached the letter ‘r’ and the class has enjoyed the Jolly Phonics song for this letter, pretending to be dogs tugging at a rag! The children have also done very well with exploring alliteration and syllables, and next week we will again be having fun with rhyming words.
This week, with the children’s homework, we also have our next ‘Family Projects’ activity for both Nursery and Reception to talk about and share photos from a recent holiday, whether they just went somewhere nearby to visit family or aboard somewhere. I look forward to the class sharing together their photos and experiences!
It was wonderful that Spring seems to be finally appearing as, in Nursery, we are exploring minibeasts and plants in our ‘In The Garden’ topic. Last week, we looked particularly at bees and how important bees are to us in making honey and helping more flowers to grow. The children had fun acting out our ‘pollinating’ activity with our little bee and flowers. Meanwhile, this week, we have been talking about how plants grow and a plant life cycle; how from a little seed, it grows a root, becomes a seedling, into a full-grown plant which then makes more seeds for more plants to grow! The children afterwards enjoyed finding pictures of plants in different stages of growth and putting them all in the correct order in the cycle. Next week, I look forward to us exploring butterflies and the life cycle of a butterfly, which is linked to the story we are currently reading in Storytime of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.
Our new school house event is also about creating artwork to celebrate the coming of Spring, and I can’t wait to see all the beautiful work that children in both Lower and Upper Primary create!
Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!
Ms. Anna
Message from Mr. Mariano (Year 3 Teacher)
Hello everyone!
We are happy spring is here and are looking forward to all the good things we are going to do this season.
This week, Year 3 has been hard at work with our current experiment that monitors the growth of plants. Students have planted either a muster, cress or dancing plant. Interesting results that confront our initial hypothesis are coming up. Originally, we thought the Dancing plant would be the fastest growing, yet we have seen how the mustard plant, has up to this point, grown the biggest.
In English, we are exploring scripts, with the aim of reading the script for the play students will put together in drama in the future. Students are very excited about the prospect of participating in the production of Aladdin.
On the other hand, in Math which is the favourite subject of several of our students, we are ¾ done with our unit on fractions (pun intended.). Despite this unit being particularly difficult for some students, we have managed an understanding of mayor concepts. Some other students have found this topic easy and we are even exploring concepts above their age group.
This has been a great term so far, and we expect nothing but great things in the rest of this term.
Kind regards
Mariano Arrea Salto
Secondary
Message from Marius Harmse (PE Teacher and Year 8 Form Tutor)
Dear Parents and Guardians,
With 3 months left on our school calendar, there are some exciting things to look forward to with PE and sport at Gorki.
For the PE classes, we are focusing on a wide variety of sports to further the students ball skills and knowledge of sport.
The secondary students are focusing on strength and fitness with circuit training that improves their stamina and focuses on different muscle groups each week.
As for the sport at Gorki, we are in the process of competing in our first event as a school against other schools. This is a big stepping stone for us, as we set ourselves a goal this year to have a team of our own that we can enter into different competitions. More information on this event will be given out at a later stage.
The year 11 IGCSE class is busy preparing for their exam, and we would like to wish them the best of luck.