Hello students, teachers and parents of TBS. We would like to congratulate each and every one of you for being so resilient during these tough periods of time. Everyone in our community; including teachers, staff, students and parents have been remarkably positive even with everything going on, truly embodying the sense of unity in TBS.

Announcement:  The Prefect team now has a section on the newsletter where we will be keeping you all updated with the activities and projects that we have been working on. For today’s prefect notice, we will take a look at a youth led organization that our students have taken part of: Zonta. 

Zonta International is a global organization which works to empower women all over the world- and the Z Club at TBS is an official youth chapter of the organization. Last year the club worked with local businesses to distribute dignity packs- containing reusable pads and booklets about menstrual health- to our community partners, and organized an informational health camp as well. Additionally, we raise awareness about issues in Nepal and around the world, and run events like the Women’s Day Card Exchange. If you would like further information about the club email us here.

Weekly Fun Challenge: We are introducing “Weekly Fun Challenges” where we’ll have fun questions and hard riddles for you guys to solve! Today’s exciting challenge will be to guess where this picture was taken. Please name the city and the country of where the picture was taken. The winner of the challenge will be the first person to email us the correct answer. Email the prefects at prefects@tbs.edu.np.

Student elected ‘Teacher of the Week’: The Prefect team would like to start a new weekly event where students will be asked to elect a teacher whom they think has been exceptional this week. We want to make sure that all teachers get the appreciation that they deserve, as they have been working very hard to help motivate the students. Please send us an email here with the name of your selected teacher and a reason as to why you’re electing them.

Secondary students who need spare exercise books can collect them from the library. Students will need to book a library slot and then collect books from the secondary library desk. 

The link to the library booking for next week is here too: https://forms.gle/n7qnb6AEhy55mtL18

As a part of the Early Years topic ‘Around the world’, the Foundation 1 students went on a virtual trip to the Australia Zoo. After the trip, they drew some animals and gave clues for their friends to guess the animals. Lucie’s clue was: I swing from tree to tree and love to eat bananas. Can you guess which animal I am? The students of Foundation 2 learnt about African animals and made their own ‘Guess the animal book’. 

The Year 1 students have also been writing their own books this week by changing the characters, setting and adventures of the Lost and Found story. They are not only impressive writers but also very creative illustrators!

After using the eat well guide to design their pizzas last week, this week Year 2 has put all their creativity into practice and made these healthy pizzas, including a Christmas tree pizza. Don’t these pizzas look delicious?!

As part of their Temples, Tombs and Treasure topic studying Ancient Egypt, Year 3 have been looking at hieroglyphics. After decoding and encoding some practice words, they made their own sentences. Can you solve them?

Continuing their investigations into light as part of their Paintings, Pictures and Photographs topic, Year 4 have been constructing and testing Newtonian colour wheels. After dividing a circular disc into seven colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet), they spun the disc on string, mixing the wavelengths of the colours that reach our eyes. The disc appears white when spun very fast, showing that white light is made up of the wavelengths of many colours.

Linking to their IPC unit of Champions for Change, Year 6 have been exploring historical recounts in English – this week their focus was on a recount of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the impact it had upon the Civil Rights Movement in America. 

Meanwhile, in Year 5, students have been continuing with their topic ‘The Great, The Bold and The Brave’ – their focus for the last two weeks has been on the Ancient Greeks and democracy and they have been drafting persuasive speeches all about lowering the voting age to 16. 

Year 5 have also been working hard in their World Languages lessons, designing some awesome outfits for their teachers in Spanish – they also made nouns agree with the adjectives!

In Key Stage 3, we have had another extremely successful week. The students have been reviewing their targets that they set at the beginning of the year and deciding whether it is still something they feel they need to work on or whether they have met their original target and now to change it to continue to improve further. This is a great way for students to continue to progress and review how they are performing in school. 

We have seen the levels of work continue to be extremely high, with many students really impressing their teachers. It is great to hear all of the positive comments that are coming in for the students in Key Stage 3 throughout all of their lessons. I just want to say a massive well done to all of Key stage 3 for keeping this up for such a prolonged period.

This week saw the Year 7’s taking part in a FOBISIA fitness competition being run by Dulwich College in SIngapore. Students had to select a sporting activity and design a product that would improve either the safety, fitness or mental well being of the user. The students had to include three pieces of research in their project: a piece of research identifying the need for your product and a target user, a prototype of your product and a brand name and logo. Some of the results were absolutely fantastic and the students should be really proud of their final products. 

To see Eunkyoul’s product video please click here.

To see Prapti’s video please click here.

In Year 9 Geography, the students have been looking at hunger and food insecurity. They had to create infographics that delved into the detail of this crisis around the world. They included numbers and statistics that is a stark reminder of one of the world’s most prevalent problems.

In Y8 Geography, the students were looking into climate change and who are the major influencers that are trying to stop it. They had to research into these particular people and find out what they have done to try and stop the rapidly changing climate. It was really interesting reading about some very famous people and seeing their actions on such a topical matter.

In Y8 music, the students have been looking at Oral storytellers and their role in society. They then wrote their own ‘living newspaper’ poem in the style of a Jhyaure (Nepali folk poetry used by Gaines). The assignment was to imagine they were in a world where the internet and TV news didn’t exist and choose a topic that they thought would be important for people everywhere to know about. Some of the results were absolutely incredible.

This week’s student of the week goes to Haadiah in Y8. Haadiah has been consistently great in Music with all of her work so far this year. She has used ingenuity and creativity to create fantastic pieces that her teacher has been really impressed with. Open ended tasks need a student to put their own spin on a project, and she has achieved that throughout this term and the last. Also, Haadiah has been really impressive by her willingness to help other students. Not only is she excelling in her work, but also meeting all of the 5 C’s that the school is based around. Well done Haadiah, and keep up the great work!

When asked for some advice to give to others Haadiah said this:

“If you can stay positive in even the most negative situations, you know that the work that you do will be at the best of your abilities and the best you can possibly produce “.

It has been yet another busy week in KS4.

In PSHE, students have started to think about revision and are looking at revision techniques.  There are many different techniques that students can use, and it is important that they find the one that helps them to learn best.  Do you like knowledge organisers, colourful notes, making flashcards, asking friends and family to quiz you on topics?  Don’t be surprised if you start to see post-its stuck up around the house!  A great technique to help with focus and timing is the Pomodoro technique.  It’s not just useful for revision.  I know I use when I’m marking to help keep my mind focussed! Another great technique is Cornell notes.  For the remainder of this term, students will be working with their mentors trying different techniques and finding out which ones works best for them.

Recently students participated in the global FOBISIA Monologue challenge for Drama. We are thrilled to announce that Thilini, in Year 11, was given an award for her classical performance of Medea by Euripides!  Well done, Thilini!

Sticking with Drama, rehearsals are now underway and here is a screenshot showing some of the Year 10 students working on their contemporary monologues. This week, they spent a lesson responding to the feedback that they had been given and actively implementing it into their performances.

Year 10 geographers have been continuing their study of settlement, and have, this week, been learning about the difference between a capital city and a primate city.  Do you know the difference? Here are some of their thoughts.

In DT, Year 11 students have been continuing to work on the designs for their sunglasses. Look out for their final designs next week!

Meanwhile, Year 11 economists have been looking at the similarities and differences of the World Bank and the IMF.

Here are what some teachers are saying about our amazing KS4 students:

Miss Suita has been impressed with Jeebika and Niyanta in Year 10 who have demonstrated incredible effort in English Literature and produced exemplar annotations of poetry.

While Miss Suita has been amazed by the amazing contributions in every single English lesson demonstrated by Needadh and Serra. 

In Maths, Miss Howell has been full of praise for Nimisha and Lionel inYear 10 who made their Maths tests really easy to mark. They took time to upload photos of their workings and then cropped them to fit in the answer box for each question. Thanks for following the instructions!

This week’s student of the week is Fahad in Year 11.

Fahad has, so far, been excellent at having his camera on during lessons.  His enthusiasm and good humour has been praised by his teachers.  In Economics, Ms van de Kaa has been super-impressed by Fahad’s attitude to learning and his output of work. And in Physics, Mr Grunwell says Fahad is always friendly and amicable, and fully engaged in Physics Well done, Fahad!

Fahad has opted not to write anything about himself. 

And the difference between a capital city and a primate city?

A capital city is the city where the government sits.  

A primate city is the largest city in a country.

How many countries can you think of where the capital city is not the primate city?  Here are a few easy ones to get you started: Australia (Canberra and Sydney), The Netherlands (The Hague and Amsterdam), Switzerland (Bern and Geneva).  Can you think of any more?

Highlights : Conor in Year 13 has been nominated Psychology student of the week by his classmates. One of his classmates nominated him for ‘always showing determination, especially with being in another timezone. He has also helped me out with work that I have missed and has continued to motivate me during hard times.’  – Thank you for being such supportive classmates, Conor! 

Penang has also been nominated as psychology student of the week.  His classmate shared some lovely feedback as to why he has been nominated. 

“I would like to nominate Penang. He has always helped me when I am having any trouble not in just psychology but other subjects as well.Once,i didn’t understand something in class and he sent me a message saying that he can help me.I was very happy because as a new student especially in these time it hasn’t been very easy to connect to all of the friends so that gesture of him really made me feel more belonged.

Jinny, Roisin, Year 12: Resilience and constant engagement in both live and individual sessions. Insightful interpretations of the literature text; mature approach at all times.

Aavash, Y12: He is confident and solution focused in all his interactions. He never seems to hesitate to step up and considers the rest of the group when he asks for clarification of assignments. He isn’t shy to request extra guidance for the benefit of everyone in the team. He gently and politely guides me as a teacher to improve the structure of learning when I get a little imprecise with my instructions. I don’t think he even is totally aware of the grace he applies in every interaction. He is patient and thorough. He has submitted every assignment on time and with high quality this term, and this is just the start I am sure. If he continues to develop at this rate in psychology, we can look forward to some wonderful achievement. Despite being one of the students in Y12 that is new to psychology this year, his consistency and willingness to learn are putting him at a level equal to those that have previously studied it. Thank you Aavash. It is a pleasure to be a part of this team that you are working so hard to improve as a team player.

Rosin and Ishika, : Intelligent contributions and complete focus during psychology today. Insightful, creative and constructive contributions!

Wifi problems have been an issue across the board – even teachers! Mr Piaf was really impressed by his Year 12 class when his Wifi went and he was unable to continue his live lesson. The class completed fantastic work by reading the research paper and supplemented their understanding by using the textbook.

Eshaan: Eshaan was having wifi problems at home during his Economics live lesson, and he made a decision to run over to his friend’s house (another student in class) so that he could still join and take part in the lesson.

Joeun, Arya, Penang, Seoyun, Ritu, Anna, Mariya, Adya, Vibek, Erica:  These chemistry students created beautiful and informative organic chemistry reaction maps that fantastically demonstrated their learning. Mr. Melhado was impressed with their  work and creativity

Joeun, Adwita and Jason: Fantastic, detailed explanations in A level biology. Showing a really good understanding of the anatomy and function of the kidney.

University Notices : Gentle reminder for all students applying to UCAS to make 1:1 appointments with their mentors to share their personal statements and discuss their references.

Those applying to the US need to ensure their recommenders are aware of their deadlines and that they have added them to Common App. 

Any questions in regards to University applications, please contact Ms. Hemelik: ahemelik@tbs.edu.np 

Student of the Week : Jason Dhawkhwa is our student of the week. 

He has shown unwavering effort and commitment to his studies this year and his teachers have been inundating me with positive comments over the past couple of weeks. 

Mr Piaf has been particularly impressed by his well thought out responses to challenging assignments and he says he can see evidence of extra work showing he is going beyond what is asked of him and looking further ahead in the syllabus. 

I was also so impressed with his written answers to the extended questions in homeostasis and also his attitude to learning in biology. We had just learnt about the sliding filament theory of muscle contraction and Jason volunteered to explain the process and did so very confidently with great detail. 

 Jason advice for other students: 

 I find that the best way to feel good about yourself is by helping, which is such a simple gesture and should be done more often. As Anne Frank said: “No one has ever become poor by giving”.