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In December, everyone was busy composing in the style of Ayano Uema. Each composition had to start with Ayano Uema’s theme, and use her scale and rhythm. The quality of compositions was very high and our judge, Ms Buckland, found it really difficult to choose our TBS composers of the month. Please enjoy listening to them.

Our Primary TBS Composers of the Month are:

UKS2 – Victoria 6L 

LKS2 – Anushree 3E 

KS1 – Kanna 2L 

Special mention to Sophie in Y1

EYFS – Josephine – F2

Happy New Year TBS! The relaxing, or exam stressing, holidays are now over and a new term starts. 2020 has been a tough year for all of us and we hope that 2021 will be brighter. We would like to congratulate everyone for being so cooperative and resilient during this tough period.

Prefect Notices – As the new year starts, so does exam season. Our fellow year 11s, 12s and 13s will be taking their mocks next week. We’ve all been working hard in preparation for these exams, hence we don’t have any other notices for you all this week. We would like to wish all students the best of luck for their exams!

Teacher of the Week – The winner for this week’s teacher of the week is Ms. Simpson. Students have said that Ms. Simpson is very kind and supportive in Art lessons – which are great attributes that students look for in teachers. If you would like to suggest a teacher of the week email us at: prefects@tbs.edu.np

Weekly Fun Challenge – This week for your challenge: Can you guess the name and location (country) of all 4 famous landmarks that are shown below? 

Please email your response to prefects@tbs.edu.np

Map reading is an important tool for building children’s spatial reasoning skills and helping them make sense of our world. This week the Foundation 1 students made a map of their living room. 

Foundation 2 has been focussing on communication and language skills this week. They shared their holiday news and drew their favourite part of the holiday.

The Year 1 students are learning about 2D shapes and 3D shapes, that some shapes are flat and some shapes are fat. They went on a 3D shape hunt and found lots of items at home. 

Can you work out what 3D shapes Kasvi’s ‘Robotty’ is made out of? 

Amayah had very exciting holiday news: her baby brother was born. Congratulations to Amayah and her family!

This week Year 2 have started their new topic ‘People of the Past’. They were challenged to be Fact Monsters and find out about a famous person from the past – lots of them also decided to dress like them too! Here’s Araya as Queen Boadicea, Ravi as Tenzing Norgay, Karunesh as Mozart and Brihit and Sanghamitta as Thomas Eddison!

This term, Year 3 are starting a new topic, ‘On Tap’, where they will use their Geography and Science skills to learn all about water, the water cycle and how we can get clean drinking water. Working from their home laboratories, they investigated dissolving this week, observing what happens when you stir different substances into hot and cold water.

Year 4’s topic this term is ‘Active Planet’ – using their geography skills to study the causes and effects of natural disasters on Earth. To get going, they made posters showing everything they already knew about natural disasters as well as making a list of questions that they would like to investigate.

What a fantastic start to Term 3 it has been! It has been so wonderful to see our students getting back into the swing of things so quickly after the break and with such enthusiasm – their resilience is always impressive. 

Year 5 have started off the new term with a new IPC Unit ‘Go With the Flow’ – a unit all about rivers. As their entry point this week, students were asked to create their own model of a river, with some fantastic results! 

In Year 6, meanwhile, students were given the chance to display their creative sides in their Low-Tech Wednesday challenge, drawing self-portraits, landscapes or other scenes; it was wonderful to see the range of mediums and techniques on display. 

I would like to wish everyone a happy new year and I hope you had a restful christmas break! Before we broke up for the holidays, the standard of work that was being produced was absolutely outstanding. Key stage 3 was excelling right across the board and coming up with some fantastic discussions and ideas in their lessons. It really was great to see the level of commitment and effort the students were putting in. 

Before we broke up, the students, in their mentor groups, were having a meeting with two assigned prefects about different things that are happening within the TBS community. This was a chance for the students to voice their opinions which then will be taken to a teaching committee and discussed. It is a great opportunity for us as a whole community to improve the learning provision for all of our students. This will be continued for the coming term to enable the students to get the best out of their learning and discuss any worries they may have in a safe space.

Although we have only been back for a week, there has been no let up on the standard of work that is being produced. In Year 9 Maths, the students have been looking into the ‘Spiral of Theodorus’. The spiral is composed of right angles, placed edge to edge and was named after Theodorus of Cyrene. They were tasked with creating their own spirals and doing some creative mathematical colouring over the break. Some of the results were fantastic!

In Year 7 Geography, the students have been continuing their study on Weather. Weather and climate impacts so much of our lives, ranging from the harvest in a year to natural disasters. It is great that such young students are learning about the impacts this can have on the world. Over the break, the students were tasked with creating their own wind vane. Many wind vanes are still used today to demonstrate the direction the wind is blowing. Here are two excellent examples of the work produced.

Finally, the students of Key Stage 3 have been extremely busy again in PAWs and Music starting their new topics. In PAWs, the students were tasked with looking into Popular music. This week they looked into what makes a good performance in this genre. Students were asked to evaluate three performances and it produced some really insightful conversation. Here is one of the evaluations completed:

In Year 7 Music, the students were representing famous pictures through sounds. They were at an online art exhibition and through looking at the pictures had to decipher sounds for each one. Aryanna came up with an excellent piece based on picture 1. To listen to this piece of music, please click here.

Our student of the week goes to Raghavi in Year 8. Before we broke up we saw the amazing performing arts assembly put on by the whole TBS community. Raghavi was one of the students that was selected to present and perform in the performing arts assembly. She spoke eloquently and in a very confident manner which was fantastic to see. Her performance was amazing, which involved her playing the piano and singing. Well done Raghavi on such an amazing performance and presentation!

When asked for some advice to give to the other students, Raghavi said this:

‘Work hard and try your best, but also take time for yourself’

Welcome back to school and to the start of Term 3.  I hope everyone had a wonderful break and managed to spend some quality time with family, and maybe even a few friends.  

This week has seen the return to school of a handful of Year 11 students who have been sitting their Art mock examination.  It has been lovely to have some students back on campus:  the first in almost 10 months!  With the Art mock examination now underway, we are all getting ready for the rest of the  mock examinations to begin in earnest.  Much planning has been done for this, and students have been shared information this week about the guidelines and procedures that have been set up to enable the mock examinations to be run safely on campus. Here is the link for the mock examinations timetable. It is important that students know when their exams are.  Please spend some time with your son or daughter to ensure they know when their exams will be. Oral exams for languages begin next Monday 18th January and the written examinations begin on Thursday 21st January.  Once the mock examinations begin for year 11 students next Thursday (21st January), they will not be required to attend registration or any lessons until Monday 1st February. 

Following on from this, all year 11 students have been asked to complete this Google Form.  Please could you check that your son/daughter has done this.  It is an important document as it will help school to plan appropriately sized spaces for students who will need to stay on campus between examinations.  The presentation for the mock examination rules and regulations can be found here.  Again, if you have a child in Year 11, please can you spend some time going through these rules and regulations.  While I understand that there are many ‘extra’ rules and regulations that have been put in place this year, we must be well planned and prepared to ensure the safety of everyone in the TBS community.  Your support in helping this be assured as much as possible is appreciated. 

Continuing on with the mock examinations, for various reasons, some students will be completing their exams online.  If students are sitting their exams online and in Nepal, given the season and the likelihood of more frequent power cuts, and the always ever-present unreliable nature of a stable internet connection, it is recommended that students have a good data package to help ensure that power cuts and unstable internet connections do not interfere with their ability to complete their mock examinations in the time given.  To this end, NCell currently has  a good deal: Get 20 GB e-learning data and more on Student Plan for online classes! Dial*17123# or visit https://buy.ncell.axiata.com to buy at Rs.319.23 and get 20GB data for ZOOM, Google Meet, YouTube & Teams, 2GB 4Gdata, 1GB 3G data, 120min daily talktime for 30 days within Closed User Group, 50 min talktime and more.

Many of our year 11 students may not have been on campus for a significant period of time, and I would thoroughly recommend that, wherever possible, year 11 students book a timeslot for the Library (see earlier for the booking link)  prior to mock examinations to ensure that the first time they are coming onto the school campus after an extended period, is not the day of a mock examination.  Being back on campus may raise a few surprising emotions, and it would be better to perhaps not have these emotions on a day of an exam! 

Staying with the theme of examinations (I promise this is the last mention of examinations for this week!), CAIE have released a few updates in the past week stating that the May/June examination series will run as planned.  As such, it is vitally important that all year 11 students do their best in the mock examinations.  As a school, we are keeping abreast of all CAIE updates, and will, of course, keep all stakeholders fully informed.

Moving onto something much more fun, Year 10 Music students have been working on ‘Blob Opera’.  If you would like to give it a go, more information about Blob Opera can be found here.  Krrish, Yang and Aryan have been working on their ‘Blob operas’. Here is Yang’s, and Miss Wynn says of all the boys:  “The Blob Opera they have created to explore common features of opera shows great musicality.  This shows a great start to the new term and new year!

While it may only be the first week back, positive teacher comments have not been short in supply!  

In Psychology, Mr Piaf says that Meghna  in year 11 has made an outstanding contribution, coupled with self-awareness, in lessons.  Added to these, she also has a wonderful sense of humour!  While in French, Malte, Aryan Erin, Niyanta, Yang and Anton  in year 10 have made wonderful documentaries about their houses written and commented in French.

Miss Howell has said that Tisha, Pratistha, Suyog and Meghna, all in year 11, did fantastic exam analyses in their independent Physics lesson. They marked other candidate’s responses and obtained thoughtful insights into the examiners’ reports for each question. 

This week’s student of the week (for the last week of last term) is Anton. 

Anton has received much praise from many of his teachers for both the level of effort and the quality of his work.  Despite being in a different timezone, Anton has done an amazing job at making sure he has kept up-to-date with all of his studies.  Well done, Anton!

Here is what Anton has to say:

At school I have been enjoying the creative and varied tasks set by my teachers. We often receive very unique and informative activities. After a very unique and challenging year, both academically and socially, I can’t wait until we get back to school after more than 9 months of homeschooling. It was difficult coping with the Lockdown in Kathmandu because the only way I was able to socialize was via social media and video games. These two things drastically improved my spare time after I finished and was confident in what I had learned each day. After school, I was also able to enjoy my hobbies like football, video games and examining minimalistic info graphs accompanied by dazzling bold texts. I think that comfortably understanding and being able to complete all the tasks set by teachers is a crucial factor in mastering the topics that we learned about. Making sure that we find time to do what we enjoy after a day of hard work has helped me a lot, and I encourage my fellow students to do the same.

By this time next week, we will have welcomed a number of students back onto campus.  Something I am sure we have all eagerly anticipated! Until then, I wish you a lovely weekend.

Welcome back to school everyone. I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday. 

Almost all of our Year 13 students have sent their university applications and many are receiving and accepting their offers for next year! It is a really exciting time but can also be a challenging time – juggling many deadlines around their school work. 

Year 12 students should take every opportunity to find out about the university process from their Y13 classmates. I will be sharing opportunities for virtual university events when they are shared with me – so look out in your inboxes!  

The most recent invitation we have received has been to the South Asia WebiFair on Saturday 16th January. There will be 40+ global universities present at the event and both students and parents are invited to join. For more information please follow the link: http://webifairs.info/SouthAsiaWebiFair

KS5 Highlights 

We are all so proud of all our students for their commitment and drive in revising and persevering throughout this difficult situation and online learning. The resilience they are showing is something that will help support them through any challenges they face in life. 

After Y13’s replication of present wrapping workshops before Christmas, Mr Piaf wrote to the original author of the research paper, Dr. Elizabeth Snuggs at the Business school of the University of Monash in Australia, and she replied today to say that she’d love to provide a zoom Q + A session to the psychology students on her work, as well as read the research paper that year 13 are preparing based on the workshops they ran before Christmas.

Mr Piaf and Mrs King would like to highlight Molly’s consistency in registering while in another time zone. She has really ingrained some habits and learned from the process so that she can see how easy it can be to make habits and maintain them. 

Mr Piaf would like to thank our students for and highlight the openness of our KS5 students. They are very willing to seek help and support when they face challenges and understand, through the help they receive, the immense benefits of teamwork. 

KS5 Student of the Week 

Ritu Samuel is our student of the week. 

She has been nominated by her teachers for her positive attitude towards her studies and the compassion she has shown towards her fellow students. She has made a really positive impact in her role in student leadership and working with her mentor group. 

Online classes have been really hard for me and I definitely can’t wait to be back in school, but for now I’d say make sure to spend time with the people you love (even if it’s only virtually), find a nice sunny place to study and try to go for a walk every now and then- that’s something I’d like to do more often too! 🙂