Thursday 27th December 2018

Highlights from Year 7 trip

Thursday 13th December 2018

Signing off for 2018

Year 9 students have been working on storytelling and Mumming performance, and during several classes over a week they shared their humours and comic stories. The stories range from Ancient Greek to traditional fairy tales performances in an exaggerated and interactive way. Mumming performers would visit different homes telling traditional stories using bright costumes, masks, exaggeration, audience participation, song, dance and stock characters (evil, hero and narrator). The year nines shared their stories with each other in the main drama studio to much laughter! The main objective was to give the students' confidence and performance experience to prepare them for working on Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Ceasar’ next year, which should be a challenging and rewarding experience. Thank you to Mr Bissell for his work with the students on this.

There's also been a lot of productive work. Ms Friend, our History and Geography teacher covering Ms Timmer-Arends' maternity leave, has seamlessly integrated with our Humanities team and has become very popular with her students. Her Year 7 students have been studying medieval Europe in recent weeks, and it culminated this week in the creation of a fantastic display of models of castles and medieval houses, and posters explaining what life in the Middle Ages was like.

Y8 enjoyed an end of year rewards trip to MJ's bowling and all staff and students had a brilliant time! Miss Gay felt it was important to recognise the positive, hard working attitude that the students have demonstrated in Term 1.

Mr McHugh, Mr Ridgway and Ms Jones would like to thank all students and staff for their hard work in Term 1, and wish our whole school community a well-deserved break!

Thursday 6th December 2018

Just one week to go!

A HUGE thank you to Ms Vardalia for organising an immensely successful and heartwarming fundraising and celebration programme for Bahrain's migrant workers, and in particular our own cleaners and security staff. The students worked immensely hard to make this a success - Ryle Hassett raised BD340 himself and many members of the Sixth Form aided Ms Vardalia in putting together the shoeboxes and bags for our workers and the wider community. Today the BSB cleaning and security staff enjoyed a meal and received gifts from a large number of our staff and students, who came down to say 'thank you' to arguably the hardest workers on the school site.

The BSB Senior School has donated almost BD400 to the appeal and we are proud to be supporting such a tireless group of men and women who keep our site safe and clean. We ask all parents and students to say hello to them, and thank them for their work. Speaking of tireless, Ms Vardalia has now spearheaded the Migrant Workers' Appeal at the BS for two years now and, like so many BSB teachers, she puts considerable time and effort into extra-curricular activities, charitable drives, and support for students that go way beyond her reponsibilities as a teacher. Mr McHugh was quite embarrassed today when some cleaners said thank you to him - Ms Vardalia was the star behind such a wonderful day, and she is the one to be thanked.

Wednesday 28th November

BSB 'enjoys' Marathon Relay!

The highly-popular annual running event promoting the value of team spirit and a healthy lifestyle across Bahrain took place on Friday 9th November, and the BSB proudly entered two teams - one staff, one student - to race against the other schools from around Bahrain. The day itself was very enjoyable with the clouds providing ideal running weather. The student team had a strong start with Omar Yehia completing his 2.6km in 9.44m, however the staff soon took over and seemed to accelerate into the distance (especially when there was a hiccough due to traffic and Lucas Moes clocked up an extra kilometer or so) until Ridwan Amozlouf got hold of the baton! Ridwan caught up with and overtook Mrs Smith on leg 13, completing the 3.1km in an impressive 10.12m. In the end, the students finished just ahead of the staff team. Congratulations to all our runners, listed below, and our fantastic support team of Mr Graham, and Mr and Mrs Marshall who were absolute stars!

Thursday 22nd November

The importance of effective study

This week, Smayan, Neha and Kamal from Year 12 presented to our Year 10 students, on the topic of studying hard. It is great to see our older students helping those beginning their GCSE journey, and the tips they provided them are so good, we thought we should share them with parents so that you can use them to support your own child(ren) at home.

Thursday 15th November

Swimming Success

Saif Tohami (8A) took part in the Nautilus Annual Swim Meet that took place in Muscat, Oman over the weekend 8-10th November, 2018. This was a 50M (long course, 8 Lanes) swimming pool at Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex, Muscat. Saif represented Bahrain Swimming Academy under the umbrella of Bahrain's Swimming Association.

The competition attracted a large number of participants from different GCC countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and the host country Oman, competing in different age categories and different competitive classes as well (Professional and Amateur). Saif competed in the higher category (the Professional one) and achieved the following results:

Saif participated in 6 professional races (in the 11-12 Age category) and achieved 6 different medals in all the races he participated in (3 Gold Medals, 1 Silver, 2 Bronze). He obtained his gold medals in 50M, 100M & 200M (Breast Stroke), his silver medal in 100M (Freestyle) and his bronze medals in 50M & 200M (Freestyle).

We are very proud of the boys' achievements and are sure that all members of the community will join us in congratulating Saif.

Thursday 8th November

Creativity and activities galore

The new half term started with a bang, as students across all many year groups got involved in the wide range of activities being offered.

Our Year 11, 12 and 13 art students had an exciting opportunity to be part of a community arts project with Artreach Bahrain. Under the guidance of Art Reach members, we were invited to explore the wonderful world of mosaic and create artwork for a garden display at the Children’s Psychiatric hospital. It was a very relaxing afternoon and our piece will be joined together with other schools and members of the community in one joint piece for the children and visitors to enjoy.

Over the half term holiday, our Year 11 Geographers travelled to Cyprus to conduct field work, ably led and supported by our Dream Team of Dr Slater, Mr Sheikh and Ms Cullen. The trip was a resounding success, with our students adapting well to a very different work environment, and both staff and students showing flexibility when the field centre needed to change their plans for our group slightly. Our sincere thanks to all staff who helped, but especially Dr Slater who planned and led such a fantastic trip.

Finally, continuing our fantastic track record in supporting local, national and international charities. Several Year 9 and 10 students organised a charity bake sale to raise funds for the Tony the Dog father Charity. They raised over BD200 for this worthwhile charity.