Message from Mr Williams, Head
Dear Parents,
This week, like last week, seems full of skiing. This morning, before most people were up, we had a coach-load of students and a few staff heading up the mountains for the SGIS ski races. I wish all of our students the best of luck and, hopefully, by the time this newsletter gets to you, we may have some medals heading back to GES.
If you or people close to you have children in the final years of Secondary school, you will no doubt know that this time of year is marked by the anticipation and emotion tied to receiving replies from universities. A lot of work by our students and teachers at Secondary has gone into writing the ‘perfect’ applications, practising for interviews and preparing for admissions tests. Our Year 13 students have offers from universities across the UK, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, as they finalise applications to universities in France, Switzerland, Germany and Canada, too. This week, we were particularly pleased that three of our A Level programme students received offers from the University of Cambridge – an impressive return for a cohort of 25 students, so well done to them and their teachers. Now the hard work continues to achieve the grades required to secure their places!
It was great to see Mrs Humphrey’s Year 5 class at our Secondary school yesterday morning. The children had a great time in the Biology and Chemistry lab (after a quick peek in the Physics lab) investigating how absorbent nappy fillings really are! Thank you to Mr Taylor and Mrs Lanfranco for looking after our young scientists so well.
I hope you have taken note of the following key dates we have shared:
- Online Safety Information Session for Primary and Secondary parents, delivered by an expert trainer from Childnet, taking place on Tuesday 13 February at 19:00 – please register for this session here
- Year 3 students are off to the Musée d’art et d’histoire on Tuesday 30 January
- Year 8 parents’ evening on Thursday 1st February – please sign up using the new system
Finally, our school will be having a compliance audit by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) during the last week of term, just before the Easter break. In preparation, we will be sending out a parent survey in a couple of weeks’ time. Responses to this survey will go straight to the ISI and form an important part of the inspection process. Students and staff will also be asked to complete similar surveys, either just before or just after half term. Thank you in advance for the few minutes you will devote to this process; as always, your support and feedback are greatly appreciated.
Have a great weekend,
Matt Williams
From the Primary School
Year 2 on the Move
Invasion games are games in which the aim is to invade an opponent’s territory and score a goal or point. These are typically fast-paced games that need teamwork in order to control the ball, keep possession, move into a scoring position, and prevent the opposition from scoring.
Last week, Year 2 students looked at some fundamental movement skills that play an important part in these games. Rotating between different stations, they worked on rolling, throwing, balancing and dribbling.
Why Did Man Go to the Moon?
Year 1 History lessons have been looking at the enquiry question “Why did man go to the moon?”
This week, students explored different types of evidence to prove that man walked on the moon, including newspapers, photographs and news footage, which our grandparents may have watched live in July 1969. Inspired by this, the children created their own moon pictures using different paint techniques, including sponging and spatter painting.
What a great way to bring history to life!
Des guérisseurs s'affairent à l'école
La salle de classe a été convertie en véritable hôpital des nounours cette semaine. A coup de sparadraps, de morceaux de coton et de plein d’autres outils mis à leur disposition, nos médecins en herbe ont traité tout type de bobos et remis sur pieds leurs doudous, tout en exerçant leur vocabulaire médical en français. Bravo les enfants !
A Savoury Treat at After School Care
There’s no such thing as “too many cooks spoil the broth” in our After School Care cooking sessions. In fact, our little chefs work together beautifully when concocting their dishes. This week, they prepared delicious cheese puffs!
Secondary Students Look Ahead to the Future
For their third Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education day of the year, our Secondary students looked ahead to the future in a series of workshops exploring subject choices for their GCSEs and A Levels, university applications and career options later in life.
Thanks to videos sent in by parents, Key Stage 3 students explored the different types of careers open to them in the future and conducted independent and group research on professions that might interest them.
Year 10 did likewise, with a particular focus on A Level choices and university pathways that would be useful for each career option.
The day was especially intense for students in Years 11, 12 and 13, who exchanged with experts from our partner Millie Group on future study and career options around the world.
School news
The Ski Season Continues
The first-ever race training day for GES took place this week in Morgins. Our group of 35 skiers from Years 3 to 10 received specialist coaching on a ski race course, which enabled them to learn more about the competitive element to skiing while preparing them for their upcoming SGIS races. We hope this is the start of a fantastic race season for GES!
A group of 30 Year 3 and 4 students also had their first GES ski day this week. Despite foggy weather conditions in the Jura, our skiers enjoyed their lessons very much.
Online Safety Information Session for Parents
We will be holding an information session for parents about online safety on Tuesday 13 February at 19:00.
Delivered by an expert trainer from Childnet, this session will take place online and will explore:
- Conduct: What children may be doing online, including screen time, digital well-being, online reputation, privacy settings, and the sharing of personal information or compromising images
- Content: What children may see online, including games, adult and extreme content, and unreliable material
- Contact: Who children may be interacting with, including online friendships, grooming, and cyber bullying and harassment
Please note that this information session is relevant for and open to parents of children in both Primary and Secondary. The advice, resources and guidance delivered regarding online safety is applicable to children of all ages.
If you would like to attend this session, please let us know by completing this short form.
Faces of GES
The ball is in the school court this week for our next Faces of GES as we present none other than our Director of Sports, Jonathan Sheppard-Burgess! Coming to us from sunny Dubai, where he was an Assistant Head of Secondary and Director of Sports, Jonathan is passionate about teaching P.E. and holds a degree in Sports Science. For him, seeing the happy faces of students when they achieve a sporting challenge or when they learn and participate in sports at all levels is the highlight of his work at GES.
His advice to students? To do something that interests them rather than what interests others, and to find a passion that they can link to their future careers. This advice is what Jonathan holds himself to every day, standing as an example for our students to draw inspiration from, just as they inspire him in his day-to-day. After all, the children of GES are what Jonathan believes are the best thing about our school, and we couldn’t agree more!
A fan of football and especially of Brighton F.C., Jonathan has a passion for anything scientific and enjoys finding out about how human scientific understanding has evolved through history.
