Seniors Term 1 - 2020/21

Showcasing Talent

As we draw towards the end of what has been a very challenging term, I share with you some further BSB talent in the form of Alessandro Erbi in Year 9. He is an incredible guitarist and this is just one of many videos he has created to showcase his talents.

The second video explains our BSB National Anthem competition as part of the Bahrain National Day activities. I am very excited to see the entries from our students.

Our options information is now available for both Year 9 and 11 students and can be accessed on this blog using the seniors menu at the top of this page. Staff have created information videos on the option process and shared advice and tips, as well as all subjects being presented via a video presentation. Please take the time to go through these important videos before making your options choices. We encourage you to make contact with the team if you have any queries or would like to discuss your current thoughts further.

Year 11 students are coming to the end of their mock examinations, which have been their first formal experience following the school closure back in the Summer for their Year 10 examinations. I hope that all students have found the process useful, and I urge them to remember that the process is more important than the actual results at this stage. The main purpose of these is for teachers and students to work together to identify areas of strength and weakness, in order to refine revision plans to ensure maximum success come the Summer.

With just a few days to go and a whole host of events and activities, I remind all students to remain focused and vigilant, and not allow their standards to drop in these final few days.

Wishing all families a safe and restful weekend.

Mr Ridgway

"I pledge to treat people with kindness and respect no matter who they are" Yasmeen Almoayed 9G

"I pledge to always take action if I ever see bullying happen and to treat people respectfully" Zainab Khemira 8C

"All I want to do is to help the others" Zaynab Wish 7H

"I believe in friendship, teamwork and unity. I believe we can stop bullying!" Anonymous

Health & Wellbeing

Students taking some time out of their morning to increase blood flow and sharpen their minds for the day ahead.

The future of Formula 1? Lewis Smith

The FIA KARTING world championship is the highest level of karting in the world, with the best drivers in the world including multiple world champions competing using the high power OK engines. Lewis has represented the Kingdom of Bahrain, Bahrain Airport Services and the PRAGA team in this race weekend, showing nothing but high level of driving skill and commitment to improve.

This was Lewis first time racing in this level of international race, he immediately showed high potential and matching times of much experienced drivers and team mates who been racing this class and equipment for years. This was acknowledged by the PRAGA team manager Cash Van Belle, “ Lewis is a fast learner and have the right tools and foundation skills. It is a pleasure working with a young professional racer”.

To make things more challenging, the weekend had difficult weather conditions where it meant he had to deal with rain and wet track, being his first time racing with rain tires, Lewis took a very steep learning curve in the course of 3 days to improve every session, and with the help of the experienced PRAGA team he managed to grasp all the inputs given to him to improve every lap and every session, where he finished the second qualifying race in 15^th position out 30 drivers.

Lewis is ranked the 54^th best driver in the world. This is a very high achievement for himself and the Kingdom of Bahrain and as his manager and his coach from first day in professional karting, I’m very proud of what he achieved so far, and I’m confident we can achieve much more together in the future.

Khalid Alsaei

Team Principle

Absolute Racing – PRAGA Middle East

On behalf of everyone in the BSB community, congratulations to Lewis on this phenomenal achievement.

Inter House Competition

Congratulations to Hajar Zaidan, 7A, who is the winner of the latest Inter House Competition. The winning entry was in response to:

'Your challenge is to find a piece of writing or poem about people’s experiences of war and video yourself reciting it (max.3 minutes)'.

The student brief was 'to be creative in your presence, considering body language, facial expressions, background, costume etc.' -

Thank you to the Public Speaking and Drama Department for their organisation of this activity.

Competitive Sport!

This week has seen the start of The CrossFit games at BSB. A fitness competition for all students, both blended and remote learners, that will see BSB students compete against other students from around the world including Spain, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. All workout can be completed at home without any specialist equipment. Further information is posted on the students google classrooms and the PE team look forward to seeing some fantastic entries.

Weekly Enrichment Series

Coming shortly, we will be offering a series of virtual enrichment lectures for our 6th form students on a range of exciting and interesting topics, as chosen by them!

Topics such as: psychology, law, astronomy, literature and architecture and more, plus vital skills to prepare for university life will be delivered to enhance interest and knowledge. This series will be short and sharp - an introduction to topics to stimulate thought and discussion, with an opportunity to submit further questions. Lectures will also be recorded and stored for students to access at a later date.

I will write to all 6th form students and parents soon with a schedule.

We are supplementing this with a parallel series for younger students on a Wednesday, second break. The focus initially is on digital skills. Session 1 focused on using google calendar to manage time and zoom links. Session two planned to look at google drive and organisation of files and folders. This session will now be delivered after the half term break by our 6th form student digital support team.

The Monthly - Student Led News

Coming son! The 6th form head prefect team have been busy selecting their team to lead on all aspects of student news and will be going live soon with a publication that, in their own words, "will be solely to provide students with relevant news, information and give them a platform to voice suggestions and also show off their talents."

Upcoming Events: School Calendar

At the top of this page you can see our linked parent calendar for seniors. All upcoming events are viewable here in addition to various reminders and information that will be shared by the staff leading on different activities. Next up is our Year 13 parent appointments week, from 18-22 October, which will run differently to previous years. To provide maximum flexibility for you to speak to teachers at your own convenience, we will shortly be sharing an appointment sheet with all parents of Year 13. You will see a full school week of slots that are available for each teacher and have edit rights to book in your chosen time with the teacher. This document will also include relevant links to access the video conferences with each teacher. We hope that this will give you the access you need with teachers to receive feedback and maximise the three way relationship between teachers, parents and students to achieve the best possible results in their studies. Mr White will be writing to parents next week with further information and guidance to support this process. Year 11 meetings will take place from 8-12 November, with the same guidance being released in advance of those appointments.

Food Tech Inter House Competition

Congratulations to the following students who successfully took part in the inter house food technology competition. Some outstanding entries, well done to all who took part.

Year 10 1st Place Manu Narendran 10D Dragon

Year 10 2nd Place Lucy Hassett 10G Dragon

Year 10 3rd Place Safia Abdiwahab 10D Phoenix

Year 8 1st Place Muhammad Hafeez 8D Grifffin

Year 8 2nd Place Mariam Awad 8G Griffin

Year 8 Joint 3rd Place Christina Masri 8F Pegasus

Year 8 Joint 3rd Place Ryle Hassett 8B Dragon

Year 7 1st Place Hajar Zaidan 7A Dragon

Year 7 2nd Place Keshav Khullar 7H Dragon

Year 7 3rd Place Maria do Jesus Ceciliano 7A Griffin

You can view all submissions here.

WiseFlow

As assessments start to begin across the school, now is a good time to remind all students of the simple processes to use WiseFlow successfully. This simple log in video and participant guide should help students to prepare for their use of WiseFlow before attempting an assessment. This will reduce stress and help them to focus on what is important - their assessment!

If there are any issues, they should revert to the published guidance here and also the information on google classroom from teachers, including access passwords, then contact ithelpdesk@thebsbh.com if issues persist.

Device minimum requirements to access WiseFlow:

Operating Systems

• Windows: 10, 8, 7

• Mac: OS X 10.10 to 10.15

• iOS: 7.0+ (iPad only).

Device Memory

• Minimum 4 GB

*Note: WISEflow is not compatible with Linux, Windows 10S or ChromeBooks.

Social Distancing

Whilst we are delighted with our on campus provision and the discipline of our students and staff in following the guidance to keep us all safe, I have been made aware of some potential issues outside of the school campus. I respectfully remind all parents of the need for our students to protect themselves and others outside of school, by maintaining social distancing, avoiding large gatherings and avoiding sharing food and drinks. This will help to keep all of us safe and we are most grateful for your support in reinforcing this message home.

It was highly enjoyable to see the efforts gone to by our students during last weeks election process for the student council form representatives. The next stage has gone ahead this week, with the elected students campaigning to become the representative of their year group. These individuals will sit on the student council meetings and filter the thoughts and ideas of their peers to the Head prefect team. These results will be announced next week.

Simultaneously, Year 9 students were given the opportunity to express their interest in becoming Head Prefects for the middle school (Years 7-9), which provides a further opportunity to gain leadership experience, share their own and others' feedback and ideas, as well as work closely with the Head Prefects and student council. The whole process was carried out by the Head Prefects, interviewing the candidates both in person and virtually, discussing and selecting the final positions. I am absolutely delighted to announce the new team:

Middle School Head Girl: Alexandria Baillie

Middle School Head Boy: Ali Al Haddad

Deputy: Danish Khan

Deputy: Natasha Rashid

Middle School Ambassador: Hana Kadir

Middle School Ambassador: Alexander Mackenzie-Ross

I wish the middle school leadership team, form representatives and student council all the very best for this upcoming year, which will continue to provide challenges that they will be actively involved in solving with us.

I wish all families a safe and pleasant weekend.

This week has seen a big focus on student voice. Every student in Year 7-11 has been given an opportunity to campaign to become "Form Representative" for their class on the student council. During PSHE lessons, students shared their ideas in order to gain enough votes to earn the right to represent the class.

Student voice is a valuable aspect of our provision that has been so successful in the 6th form, where the head prefect team have overseen a number of initiatives and activities based on their own and their peers' ideas. The form reps are vital in this process as they represent the ideas of their class to make the school even better for all students. Below you can see an example of one such presentation by Nirvan D'Souza.

The results of the vote will be announced on Sunday at 12:30pm.

Please read the important letter from Mr Maguire regarding online safety.

I wish all families a safe and pleasant weekend.

Pickup Times

The republished Campus Reopening Handbook has addressed some important changes to the end of day timings for senior school, to take effect from Sunday 27th.

• • 2pm - bus students and students with siblings in infants - senior student should collect their sibling from infants

  • 3pm - students with siblings in juniors - senior student should collect their sibling from their juniors classroom

  • 3:15pm - Years 7-13

Health Reminders for students

• Ensure you take breaks throughout the day to stand up, stretch your legs and rest your eyes (with teacher permission of course if in school)

• Exercise regularly

• Drink plenty of water and eat a balanced diet

• If you are finding anything difficult, TALK. Find someone you trust and share your concerns. You will be amazed how many people feel the same as you

• Limit your social contact outside of school to your own bubble and AVOID large social gatherings

• Limit your screen time in evenings and at weekends - your eyes need a break too

I hope that everyone will continue to do their part to keep themselves and the rest of our community safe.

Year 11

I am delighted to announce that, from next week, Year 11 blended learning students are welcome to attend school on a Tuesday.

If any remote learning students and their parents decide they would like to change their option to blended learning, they should contact pa2seniors@thebsbh.com. They will be added to the waiting list and informed when a space becomes safely available.

As week 2 of blended learning comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you to our parents for their overwhelming positive feedback and suggestions to help us develop further, thank you to our incredible staff for their tireless efforts to keep the whole community safe whilst also delivering a world class education, and thank you to the students. It is as if they never left. They are demonstrating confidence, knowledge, inquiry and an insatiable love of learning that is shining through in every lesson that I have had the pleasure to see.

Those students working remotely should also be proud of their contributions to lessons. I have seen drama scripts being rehearsed collaboratively, art work being projected and discussed, literature texts being read aloud, science experiments being contributed to as well as public speaking activities taking place both in class and online.

Walking down the corridors brings a real sense of pride as I hear the sounds of different language being taught and spoken, see the joy of learning in every room and feel the warmth of the BSB community once more united.

Information for parents

• Water: Please make sure your child has enough water to last the day. Dehydration will make it difficult for students to concentrate, and can lead to headaches or fatigue.

• Blended learning: If you wish to switch your child to blended learning, please email pa2seniors@thebsbh.com to request this. A weekly review takes place to offer additional spaces on a first come, first served basis.

• Timetables: Using their BSB email address, students can access a pdf version of their latest timetable here. This displays the new rooms being used. The following is also important to note:

  • • • • Arabic/MFL/Islamic Studies/RE - these lessons, for Years 7 to 9 only, now appear on the timetable as a lesson called "language". The teacher name may be different to their actual teacher. This is so that your child can be safely registered in the physical room they are in, whilst connecting virtually to their actual teacher.