BRITANNICA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL Friday 23th, November 2018

NEWSLETTER

Upcoming Events

Number 12

October

14th December

Reports out

19th December

Brilliant Britannica

20th December

Last Day of term

7th January

Term 2 Starts 8:20

Dear Parents

Welcome to this week’s Newsletter! The school term continues to fly by at Britannica. It seems only a short time

since the summer holidays and yet the Christmas season appears to be upon us, already, with the Christmas

markets operational and the television adverts full of ideas for presents. We have even had the first sprinkling

of snow!

It is a busy time for all teachers as report writing season has arrived and preparations have also begun for a

number of exciting Christmas events and assemblies.

Request for Work Experience Placements:

In order to provide Britannica’s senior students with an opportunity to explore career pathways before their

university applications, we would like to ask parents to support us in offering work placements. We have a di-

verse community of parents and we are hoping that, if we work together, we can provide our older students

with exceptionally unique experiences.

If you are able to offer a placement of 3-5 days in your work place, preferably between 1st

-28th

June 2019,

please email Mr. Shaun O’Keeffe [s.okeeffe@britannicaschool.hu] and Mr. AndorSpisak

[a.spisak@britannicaschool.hu] with your details. Please include the business name, location [this does not

necessarily need to be in Budapest] and how many placements you may be able to offer. Please see the table

below for some of

the industries stu-

dents here at Bri-

tannica are inter-

ested in gaining

experiencing in.

Absence requests

I am extremely proud of our attendance figures this year but by nature, I still want us to do better! As we ap-

proach holiday season, a reminder of the school’s approach to absence requests. Firstly, we would encourage

you, whenever possible to not take your child out of school during term time. I hate to repeat myself but the

link between attendance and attainment is well proven. If there are exceptional circumstances, please request

permission at least two weeks in advance. This helps the students prepare before their absence and gives staff

time to support them with this process should approval be given. Please note that approval and authorisation is

not automatic. This is particularly so in cases where students have several previous absences and their current

attendance stands below our 95% target.

Wishing you all a good weekend

Kind regards

Neil McGarry

Principal

Business, consulting and management Creative arts and design

Accountancy, banking and finance Engineering and manufacturing

Charity and voluntary work Environment and agriculture

Hospitality, events and management Health care, social care and education

Law and architecture Information technology and computing

Sport and leisure Marketing, advertising and public relations

Media and the internet Public services, administration and HR

Transport and logistics Science and pharmaceuticals

Secondary News

Welcome to secondary news, well it seems to be

getting colder, darker and wetter! I have told to

expect it to be very cold over the coming months,

certainly a significant change from last year in Abu

Dhabi!

While I’m mentioning weather, may I just remind

again about sending your children to school with the

correct uniform, particularly keeping an eye out for logos on jumpers and shoes, children get enough

advertsing to them outside school, it would be nice to not expose them to it in school. Thank you to the

vast majority of parents who are vigilant with this.

While I’m mentioning uniform, I’d like to also mention punctuality, again the vast majority of children are in school ready for an 8:20

start, which is great! However, I stand at the front gate most mornings and there seems to be a core of children who are almost

always late which causes extra work for tutors and means the children have a very rushed start to the day. It seems to be unfair to

sanction the children when it is parents dropping them off at this time, so please, please try and help them get into school before

8:20, my colleagues and I would be very grateful.

We had a very useful meeting this week with the secondary parents representatives, it was an opportunity for my SPG colleagues to

share with them some of our ideas for changes coming over the next the few months and for next academic year. As this is mainly

about planning for the future and ideas that are still forming, this remains confidential until the plans are fixed but parent feedback

is always very helpful for us. We will meet again next term and if you’d like to be part of our consultations, please offer your

services as a class representative to the PSA, I know they’d welcome you.

Have a great weekend!

Concerns and Queries

KS3 Coordinator – Years 7-9 Laura Peters l.peters@britannicaschool.hu

KS4 Coordinator – Years 10 & 11 Shaun O’Keefe s.okeefe@britannicaschool.hu

KS5 Coordinator – Years 12 & 13 Andor Spisak a.spisak @britannicaschool.hu

Please continue to contact your child’s form teacher in the first instance. You can find all email addresses under the teacher’s

picture on the school website:

http://www.britannicaschool.hu/Secondary-Staff

I am happy to meet with you if you have any major concerns, or even if you’d just like a chat about school in general! My email

address is g.barker@britannicaschool.hu

Next Week will be

Week A

Thank you

Greg BarkerHead of Secondary

14th December Reports out

19th December Brilliant Britannica

20th December Last day of term—2:30

finish

7th January 2019 Term 2 starts 8:20

Some Important Dates

Primary News

It’s been a busy week in Primary with the house swimming competition, filming for our Orbital

Winter song and Class Representative meeting.There was also lots of time for lovely learning in our

classes too.

Class News

Tamar have been exploring right angles, finding them around the classroom and looking for objects

which have angles which are greater than or less than a right angle. Our right angle monsters were

very hungry... nom!

Year Stour children are painting with their partner the planets of the solar system in a topic- art

lesson.

There has been some 3D shape exploring in Year 1, including spaghetti and playdough square based

pyramids!

Year 2 Medway have been planning their own weather reports. Watch out for photos of our

presentations next week!

Year 2 Medway created some pictures of the Northern Lights using chalk pastels

Year 5 Thames have been designing and making bridges to test their strength in Science this week. 4

out of 5 of our designs were able to hold 1kg!

In Drama Club, the children were playing with shadows and they animated some lovely animals.

Orbital Winter Song

This week in assembly, the whole of Primary sang ‘Let it Snow’ in Hungarian as part of our joint Orbital venture to create one song from many schools,

celebrating the diverse languages and cultures within our group.

Once the movie and all its parts are collated, we will share with our community via Facebook.

Many thanks to the music teachers, Katalin Balogh and Marie Haigh-McGarry for their support in preparing the children for the filming this week!

Important Dates

28th

November

Maths & Calculations

Parent Workshop

28th

November

Year 1 Trip to

Tropicarium

29th

November

Year 6 Zoo Trip

5th

December

Reading Parent

workshop

6th

December

Hungarian Poetry

compeition

12th

December

Key Stage 1 Nativity

14th

December

Reports out

19th

December

Brilliant Britannica

7th

January First Day of Spring

Term

Music Assembly Next Week

Staying on the theme of music, next week will be our music assembly which is always

popular with children, parents and teachers alike. All are welcome to come and sing

along with our children.

Class Representative Meeting

We held our first Class Representative meeting this week where we discussed a

variety of issues, including future plans for communicating key documents and

support for home learning.

Please ask your Class Rep for more details.

Maths Parent Workshop 28th

November

Following on from the successful Phonics Workshop last week, Mrs Brandon will be

leading a Mental Mathematics and Calculations Workshop on Wednesday 28th

November in the auditorium immediately after

drop off.

Mrs Brandon will be sharing some useful insights into how Maths is taught at Britannica, and will also give some top tips for how

to help at home.

If you would like to attend, please see the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/G2S8WCM

Assembly

This week’s assemblywas Year 5Thames’s class assembly on the theme of Magic. We also did some one-minute meditation with

Miss Lawson as a whole school.

Many congratulations to all of our Stars of the Week and children who appeared in the merit book. Check out the Britannica

Facebook page for photos of assembly.

Star of the Week

Concerns and Queries

This is a reminder to parents that if you have any concerns or worries, pleasecontact your child’s teacher. You can find all email

addresses under the teacher’s picture on the school website: http://www.britannicaschool.hu/Primary-Staff

The Key Stage Coordinators can also help: h.corrighan@britannicaschool.hu, J.bilski@britannicaschool.hu,

n.gorecka@britannicaschool.hu and of course, I would be happy to help too at m.moreton@britannicaschool.hu.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend with your families.

Marie Moreton

Head of Primary

1 Axe Kiki 5 Teme Phaedra

1 Avon Bendeguz 5 Thames 5 Thames

2 Medway Nidal 6 Trent Konrad

2 Mersey Isabel 6 Tyne Bartu

3 Tamar Lena PE Jake 2 Mersey

3 Stour Niccolo Hungarian Judit 3 Stour

4 Tees Annabell Drama Karolina 4 Taw

4 Taw Rory Art Sena 6 Trent

PSA Newsletter

Dear Britannica Parents,

A Big Thank You to all who attended both Mrs. Moreton's Primary and Mr. Barker's Secondary Class Rep meetings on Wednesday

morning. Productive discussions were held with both Primary and Secondary Class Reps. Again, thank you!

Speaking of Class Reps--a Big Thank You to Beata Jirkovszky for volunteering to be Y7B's Class Rep, and becoming an active member

of PSA.

We are still looking for parents to be class reps for Y6 Trent and Secondary classes. Remember, you can share the responsibilities if

you feel you can't do it by yourself. Co-class reps are certainly welcomed. Please don't let your children down and volunteer for this

important role.

The PSA Executive Committee held their meeting on the morning of 15 Nov. Some of the issues discussed included collection of

funds by Class Reps, Brilliant Britannica, swimming area cleanliness, school communication, and a Primary psychologist, to name a

few. Please contact Szilvia Nemeth or Izabella Iszlai for a copy of the meeting minutes. The committee will meet again in early Janu-

ary, 2019.

Brilliant Britannica (BB) will soon be upon us (19 Dec). Stay tuned for school announcements on timings and event activities. Please

mark your calendars and come support our school as the children raise funds to support a local charity.

LOST & FOUND - The lost and found boxes are still overflowing. They are located at the top of the steps on the right hand side to-

wards Mr. McGarry's office, by the gym, and swimming area. If your child is missing a uniform, shoes, jackets, coats, water bottles,

gym clothes, class materials, laptop, books, hats, etc. they might be there. There are many large boxes that are overflowing with

children's school items. Please take a few moments and see if any of your children's items are in the boxes. It would be greatly ap-

preciated.

We will tentatively schedule a Parent Coffee Morning for 6 Dec, after drop off, in the cafeteria. The date will be confirmed in next

week's Newsletter.

Until next week…

Respectfully,

Ray Rabatin, Barbara Belyo, Izabella Iszlai, Szilvia Nemeth, Maria Molina Sierra, Anita Ajan