GPS Newsletter

Dear Parents

Can you believe it - there's only 2 weeks left before our half-term break!  Doesn't time fly!!!!!

Monday's 'Shake-up and Wake-up' is always a hit and gets us ready to learn.  We will continue this for the entire year and feel free to join us!  Fruit Friday's are going  really well so thank you for your support - a healthy body means a healthy mind 🙂.

Keeping us safe - we completed our termly fire drill and as usual, the kids were amazing.  No panic, no running, and everyone in their place well within the allotted time.  I hope I never have to call a real response, but it is good to practice and know we can do it if we need to.

Our certificates were awarded to the Art Competition winners  (I must say you have some very creative kids!)  It was so difficult to judge. We also awarded the certificates to the Quran Recital Competition this week.

We focused on our value of "Compassion" this week.  Everyone wrote on their hand cutout how they can be compassionate. What fabulous discussions we had!  Just as a reminder our core values fit nicely into 6 categories and we call them CP3 - Curiosity, Compassion, Courage, Perseverance, Positivity, and Principles.  Please feel free to come in and see your child(ren)'s work at drop-off or pick-up time.  There's a lovely art exhibition going on after the competition.

Save the date:

Friday 9th February - Spreading the Love - Everyone to dress in red and white ❤️

Friday 1st of March - International Day - looking for volunteers 😁

As always, have a great weekend!

Ms Jan

Dear Parents,

As we were discussing about the importance of routine in life for mental wellbeing, I thought of giving you all a guidance in some ideas this week to set your child’s routine. A planner will help you set, monitor, and assess how effective is the routine. A planner doesn’t need to be complicated or filled with dozens of ideas for it to be effective. Below are some tips we have for following a routine, as well as ideas that you can add into your own planner.

Follow a Similar Routine to Usual: Following your usual routine as much as possible can help in consistency. For children, this can mean getting up at the same time every day to go to school, having all three meals at the same time throughout the day, and having structured times for other activities, such as for taking naps, exercising, and going to bed on a night.

Stay Active: Encourage your children to get up and move around while he/she is at home. If you can’t go for an awe walk, outside try to find new ways to move around at home. This could be anything from skipping in the garden, running up the stairs a few times, or engaging in more structured activity. As well as having physical benefits, such as strengthening bones, developing muscles, exercise also has several benefits for a child’s mental health. Exercise has been proven to improve a child’s self-confidence and self-esteem, has positive effects on their behaviour and their outlook, and teaches them the importance of exercising and remaining healthy from an early age.

Encourage Learning: Learning doesn’t have to be completely curriculum focused. Even asking your child to help you with preparing dinner can teach them a valuable life skill and about different types of food, reading a book is great for improving a child’s vocabulary and empathy, and encouraging them to be creative through other fun activities like colouring can help to improve their ability to concentrate and focus.

Stay Connected: Social interactions and connections are important for everyone. That’s what make us human. Try to get connected to family and friends. Talk about your family members and relation to your child so that your children will relate to family members even in a time of your absence in their life. Try to get your child to speak with their grand parents on a regular basis.

Manage Screen Time:  Ensure that screen time is well managed. It’s important to try and control the time that children are spending looking at screens, as well as ensuring that they are remaining safe online. It’s beneficial to build free time, which your child could spend on a game or on their phone, into part of their routine

Hope this helps you. Have a lovely weekend. 

Ms Jikku

Year 2 have had a great week. In maths we have now started money where the children have been learning to count pounds and pence. In english the children have been planning a non - chronoligical report about doctors and nurses. In IPC the children enjoyed learning how to read grid references on maps and then creating their own Island maps. In science we have been looking at how materials change shape and the children were excited to investigate how the different materials change shape. We are continuing our topic of significant explorers and this weeek the children were comparing explorations  of the past with those of recent times. 

Exploring the world of Paleontology. 

Investigating Soil Permeability. 

What we've done

Another fantastic week of learning in Year 4!

This week in Maths we have started to solve mathematical questions using the long multiplication method. It was definitely challenging at the start, however with perseverance, the boys were able to grasp the concept well and answer the questions much more independently.  

In English we began to compile our write up of Romulus and Remus. We have been piecing together each work we have done for our final write up and it is fantastic to see the progress made during this topic.

As mini scientists, we started food chains. We looked at the animals around the world and used key words such as producer, prey, and predator to distinguish where they are on the food chain. We also went on to create a food chain of animals in UAE.

In Geography, we started to look at the topic Somewhere to Settle. In pairs, we worked sorted cards on items that would be essential and desirable for the settlers thousands of years ago. We used key vocabulary to explain our answers. 

This week we have focused on our value of compassion. As a school, we all drew around our hands and wrote how we are compassionate. It was lovely to see the boys participate in this so well and come up with lovely ideas.

Please continue to read and practice handwriting at home!

Have a great weekend.

Ms Nimra 

Hello Al Ghaf Private School Community,

This week in our Arabic classes has been really lovely! In Fs : Year 2, students are learning more about Arabic sounds and letters. In Years 3 to 6, we're focusing on words about families, so students can talk confidently in Arabic. And in Years 7 and 8, students are getting better at talking about their families in more detailed ways. Parents, we really appreciate your help at home to make sure these lessons stick. Let's keep building a school where we learn lots of languages and share our diverse cultures at Al Ghaf private school.