As a school community we are completing the Great Himalayan Trail! We have currently ran, hiked and walked 735km towards our 1,700km challenge! So far, most of the student participation has been primary and we would like to see more of our secondary students getting involved! Please upload your distances to the form and add any pictures that you have of you and your family or friends completing the challenge.

The British Sailing Team are preparing to win the America’s Cup (the ultimate and most prestigious yacht race in the world). TBS has an incredible team of designers and engineers helping them create the fastest boat made from the best and most environmentally friendly materials. 

The TBS team consists of Malte (Year 10), Ashutosh (Year 10), Himanshu (Year 10), Ayus (Year 10) and Adhyayan (Year 9,) along with Mr Hannay and Miss Howell. 

So far the team has learnt the basics of sailing. They know how to operate a dinghy and have studied the points of sail from their living rooms. Students can tack and gybe using broom handles and fans to represent the tiller and the wind direction.

Following this, they have studied the materials used in the America’s Cup yacht carefully. Material properties have been carefully analysed, as well as their manufacturing process and recycling potential.  The TBS crew have been careful to design their yacht to give a limited impact on the planet. They have learnt about the principles of the Circular Economy and will continue to apply this to their design process. 

The TBS team has their hardest challenge yet to design all aspects of the yacht, so it can win the race. There are lots of aspects to consider such as the steering wheel and the hydrofoils. We wish them good luck and are really excited to see their final designs!

We are grateful to be able to support our community partners in different ways. This week by providing home learning packages for students who can not access online lessons and just before the Dashain holiday through hygiene kits and a custom made Basic ICT skills training delivered by the TBS ICT team. 

The F1 students have been practicing rhyming words this week. After listening to the story ‘The Little Ghosts’ they made their own hungry little ghosts and fed them some rhyming words. Lucie decided to feed the hungry ghosts two different rhyming words: house and mouse, pan and man. Bilashita’s fed her little ghost: sun, bun and gun. 

The Foundation 2 students shared their holiday adventures through drawings.

Year 1 will learn about Our World this term and started their learning journey by sharing their place on the map, from their house, city, home, host country and continent to their place on planet earth.

   
Year 2 had a great IPC entry point this week! The children enjoyed sharing their knowledge on why we need food and the importance of healthy meals. The children finished their entry point by designing and making their very own cafe which included a healthy menu.

As we start the new term, Year 3 are embracing their weekly Forest School opportunities. This week they started a project regrowing vegetables from leftover food scraps. From carrots to lettuce and onions to garlic, they are watching carefully to see if they can sprout roots and regrow their own plants.

 
Year 4 have made a colourful start to their new IPC topic: Paintings, Pictures and Photographs (Street Art). They were asked to think about “What is street art?”, choosing their favourite piece of art from a selection of photographs, recreating a sketch of it and then justifying their choice. They explained what they thought it was trying to convey, how it made them feel and discussed whether it is okay to create street art in a public place.

The start of the new term brings with it the start of new IPC topics across UKS2. Year 5 are going to be looking at ‘The Great, The Bold and The Brave’ – a unit which explores the Romans and the Greeks and their impact upon the world we know today. Students began this week by thinking about what knowledge they already had about these two civilisations and had the chance to do some research to find out a little more! 

Year 6, meanwhile, have started their new unit ‘Champions for Change’ – exploring different movements and influential figures that have brought about change. This week was a chance for students to become familiar with some of the figures that we will be looking at across the course of the topic, creating posters about the one they were most inspired by. They also thought about what they would like to see changed in the world. 

A warm welcome back to the whole of Key Stage 3 and the TBS community for the start of term 2. The British School hopes you had a relaxed and enjoyable time over the holiday. Last term, Key stage 3 demonstrated so many key skills that will go through life with them. They showed their adaptability with being able to cope with the changes that naturally occur from the continuous learning phase the school is currently in. The students displayed an abundance of resilience by always bouncing back and finding innovative ways to defeat challenges that they faced all throughout the term. Lastly, I thought that the levels of creativity that were shown whilst online were fantastic. It was great to see so many students getting so involved in different subjects, projects and thinking of new ways to show the high caliber of work they were producing. 

At the start of next week, the students will be receiving their grades for Term 1 and I would encourage all parents to have a look through these with their children. It is a great indicator as to how they are applying themselves and will inevitably bring up questions that can be asked to teachers at the different Parent Teacher Conferences that will be held over the coming weeks.

Even though the school term has only been back for a week, it is clear to see that the students have come back ready to work and show off their amazing talents across a range of different subjects. In Music, the students have been busy right across the Key Stage performing and learning about a range of different instruments. 

In Year 8, the students have been tasked with looking at the different instruments that play Raga music. They had to create different slides that explained the instrument and how it created a sound that fits.

Adding onto this fantastic work in Music, the Year 9’s have started a new topic of looking at Music and the media. This week they delved into that topic and were looking at iconic theme tunes to films. There are so many that come to the mind but the students really took to this and learnt to play theme tunes such as Star Wars, Harry Potter- Hedwig’s theme and Gravity Falls. It was great to see and hear the students learning to play the different theme tunes. To listen to the Star Wars theme tune by Lise, please click here. To hear Orry’s rendition of Hedwig theme, please click here.

Nitesh playing Gravity Falls on the Guitar.

Before the end of term 1, student of the week was given to Aryanna in Y7. Aryanna, right from the start of her secondary schooling, has really excelled and created some fantastic pieces of work. For PSHE, the students were tasked with creating a Graffiti Wall that looked into the key themes presented in a film of their choice. Aryanna chose to do it on the film ‘Wonder’ and she really portrayed all of the key themes in her work. Also, it is great to hear about how well she is working in all of her lessons. It is clear to see that she has a high level of motivation and passion to learn, which is amazing. Well done Aryanna and keep up the great work!

Welcome back to school and Term 2. I hope everyone had a relaxing Dashain break and managed to spend time away from screens and with family and friends. I am excited to see what will happen this term.  I am confident that KS4 students will continue to work hard and produce some excellent work. As you will know, all KS4 have now had their Term 1 reports.  If you have not already, please take some time to go through their reports.  Students will be working closely with their mentors in the next few weeks, using their teachers’ feedback to set some academic targets.  All students will be setting two academic and one personal target.  It is vital that all students set SMART targets as Year 11 are still scheduled to have their mock examinations in Term 3.  On that note, it is also imperative that Year 11 have a revision schedule and are actively revising for all their subjects.  Perhaps more than any other year, mock examinations could be crucial!

Despite it only being the first week back, students have been working hard and there has been some exciting learning, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Qatar Leadership Conference

With Ms. Eudes overseeing our school participants, a number of KS4 and KS5 students have been participating in the Qatar Leadership Conference this week. More details about the conference can be found here and in this video presentation.

There have been many issues and topics discussed covering a wide array of current world issues from politics to environmental.  Miss Eudes has said there was some amazing leadership and management training on Thursday evening and it was so good that Meghna could now probably run the school!

Here is a selection of quotes from KS4 about the various debates and topics that were discussed:

“Ayan was talking about ‘Bypassing glass ceilings’ which means breaking past this barrier that society puts on women especially, to ‘fit in’. She focuses a lot on the acceptance of people from diverse backgrounds, Women’s empowerment and Self-Acceptance.”

“Our ideas don’t have to be spread world wide, we can use it in our own backyard and make a difference. I look forward to starting this initiative in our school and in my community. I can easily think of ways to make beautiful artwork from these eco bricks to decorate our school compound.”

“Trying to avoid internalised sexism and embrace the fact that I am girl”

In PE, KS4 students have been completing Golf challenges.  Can you name all the items? Answers at the end!

Meanwhile in English, Year 11 have been studying and staging the famous gulling scene from Twelfth Night. We’d love to see these versions on stage for real! 

While in Spanish, Year 11 students have been  reading texts written by a peer and saying one thing they want to add to their practice.

And in Geography, Year 10 has started a new topic on Migration.  Undoubtedly, the events of this year will have had numerous impacts on much migration around the world, and students will be considering this in coming weeks. This week, they have been thinking about push and pull factors as to why people do migrate.

Year 11 Geographers have been looking at tourism in Nepal and some of the pros and cons of that.  Again, tourism has been severely impacted by events this year, and these impacts have been discussed. We’re all loving the new Jamboard feature on Google Meet!

Golf challenge answers:  How many did you get correct?

Student of the week for the last week of term 1 was Shaswat in Year 11, who has impressed many of his teachers with his amazing work ethic since starting Year 11.  He has often gone above and beyond what has been asked of him, and done extra research to help inform his classmates in various subjects.  Well done, Shaswat and keep up the amazing work.  

Here is what Shaswat has to say: I have had a very fun time learning online from home this year.  I personally think that online learning is more efficient for me as I have worked a lot harder and managed everything.  Despite my hobby being playing video games, I have learned how to manage my time better since these online lessons have started.  I would also like to thank my friends and teachers for helping me with the work that I missed and/ or ones which I didn’t understand.

“My advice would be to manage time properly and ask teachers or friends about anything that you don’t understand.”  This might not be motivating, but I would tell you all to enjoy and follow your hobbies and what you are passionate about.

Welcome back to school! I hope that everyone had a fabulous holiday and had time away from their laptops, iPads and mobile phone screens and managed to enjoy some time outside! 

Qatar Leadership Conference

As mentioned by Ms. Grieve in the KS4 news. Many of our students are completing the Qatar Leadership Conference. Our Student Leaders are all doing a really great job balancing their school work and webinar commitments. We are excited to see how their learning and development will be influenced by their participation in the conference. 

Feedback from Mariya, prefect: 

QLC conference was very well-managed overall and was also very informative and inspiring. It was a great opportunity to meet so many inspiring speakers and participants from all around the world! What was even more amazing was how many of the presenters were young people like us and had such amazing and heart-touching stories to share and how they’ve achieved so much in life which was truly inspirational!!! 

Overall, it was a great learning experience and a great opportunity to get to interact with such wonderful people from around the globe!

Fabulous work so far

Group work can be difficult to plan for during online learning but AS level English literature students have completed an excellent collaborative task in their English literature lessons. They have shown great interactions with critical writing in English and their shared work is shown below.  Well done Meena, Ishika, Shazahdi, Jinny and Roisin. 

Rachit  brightened up his mentor’s day consistently this year with his constant positivity every Monday morning and in his responses to registration questions every day since the beginning of the year!

Mr. Melhado would like to thank Adya, Penang and Anna for their  participation in chemistry as it has greatly improved our online learning environment and helped establish a positive risk-taking atmosphere in the class. 

Well done to Jason for his excellent interaction in psychology to clarify points and deepen understanding.

Vibek has been wonderful in seeking feedback on his knowledge of chemistry!

University Applications 

Those of you who are applying to the UK through UCAS need to have your sections completed by Wednesday 18th November. If you would like help with your application please make an appointment with Ms. Hemelik as soon as possible. 

If any parents have any questions or concerns regarding the university application process, please contact ahemelik@tbs.edu.np  

Student of the Week 

Brandon Dhakhwa 

Brandon has been nominated by his teachers for his unwavering commitment to his studies. He has juggled different roles, including head prefect this year and has managed to stay on top of his work. He responds very well to feedback and has made fantastic progress this year. 

(He has sent in a rather youthful looking picture… the toll of A levels!) 

Brandon’s advice: 

Balance. Balance your social, academic and sports. Work your hardest in each and make a schedule for yourself.