Cambridge International School
3/2015
Newsletter
We hosted important visitors at our school in
February, the British Ambassador Mr Andrew Garth and his partner, Ms Angela
Smith. Mr Garth told students about his
work as a representative of the United Kingdom and Ms Smith talked about her favourite
books. They were interested in everything –
how our school looks, how we use the smart
boards, and which books we have in the library. It was a lovely visit. Thank you .
Director’s Foreword
Upcoming events 2
Dear Parents,
Easter is just around the corner and spring is in
Past events 3
the air, yet just last week it was our school ski
trip to the mountains for fabulous skiing and
snowboarding. Students are very busy with
Competitions 7
school work however we can still fit in many fun
activities. In March they including workshops
with a performance poet ‘Spoz’ from England
What’s happening around CIS 9
and a young British explorer visiting the school
at the end of the month. Henry Evans, who
Your children in action 10
skied to the South Pole two years ago at the age
of 22, will be inspiring students with his talks on
science and of expeditions to far away places!
Peter Radoja
Features 17
Children’s corner 17
17.3.2015 | St Patrick’s Day
Upcoming
Events
March 17 is a day when all the Irish people wear green and shamrocks. We are expecting an imth
portant visitor here at CIS—Ms Anne-Marie Callan, the Irish ambassador to Slovakia, to tell us
about St Patrick’s Day from her own experience.
Our students will join in with the celebrations and hopefully won’t get pinched . One of the explanations of this tradition is that wearing green makes you invisible to leprechauns, fairy creatures who would pinch anyone they could see. People began pinching those who didn’t wear green
as a reminder that leprechauns could sneak up and pinch them.
27.3.2015 | Secondary ball in Great Gatsby style
Our Year 10 students are organising a ball in the style of roaring 20’s and 30’s.
“The parties were bigger. The pace was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The
Great Gatsby
2.4.2015 | Easter workshops
The last day of the Spring Term. The school will end at 13:30.
3.4.-10.4.2015 | Easter holidays
29.4.2015 | Art and music afternoon
All our parents and friends are invited to come and look at the art our children have created and to
listen to their musical performance. And to have fun, of course! 
2
Past events | Book Week
Book week at Cambridge International school was simply fabu-
You can see the children from
lous. The children had a wonderful time exploring and sharing
both Primary and Secondary
stories and books. Every day brought a new and exciting sur-
school listening to the teachers
prise for them—they changed into their pyjamas and had a bed-
reading stories in the photos.
time story afternoon w ith cocoa; had to dr op ever y-
Some of the children even
thing and read when a bell rang; attended a book fair; and
brought their favourite stuffed
dressed up as their favourite book characters.
animals, blankets and pillows 
More photos on our website and
FB page.
3
Our students competed for wonderful prizes in a number of contests. They created beautiful books in
boxes and really engaged their imagination, as you can see in the Quidditch Pitch box from Harry
Potter. They carved, painted, added stuff and created beautiful potato characters.
The children used their writing skills to
produce 50-word stories and their own
poems. We held a book fair with a great
variety of books from Usbourne Publishing. A number of our guests told us about
their favourite books at the Secondary
assembly. Mr Melia told us the incredible
story behind a book series by his uncle
Brian Jacques called Redwall. You can
find his books in our library.
4
Our school was beautifully decorat-
ed and the second first floor turned
into the magical land of Narnia.
Three of our teachers came as characters from the book—the White
witch, Mr Tumnus and Aslan. We
would like to thank Mr Ondrejka
and his shop Myparty, who helps us
decorate the school during our
events and donated the balloons for
our Book Week.
The children dressed up as
their favourite book characters on Friday. Many made
their
own
painted
costumes
their
faces.
and
They
stayed in the role the whole
day and carried their accessories with them wherever they
went. We commend Eithan
from Year 7, who wore high
heels the whole day as a part
of his costume .
5
Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day at Cambridge International School started with a Primary assembly and Year 4C telling us about St Valentine and why this day is so special. Our Valentine’s post delivered more than a
hundred beautiful Valentine cards; many of them homemade with little hidden presents inside. The
Year 10 students created a heart out of candles as a part of the project ‘Listen with your heart’ organised by the child safety line, in front of the school.
Our Year 12s organised a bake sale and donated all the money they raised to UNICEF. What made
the children the happiest from their selection were gummy sweets on a stick . The students also
had a chance to buy chocolate hearts and write a note to anyone they wanted. Our special Year 12
post delivered them all around the school on Valentine’s Day.
6
Competitions | Hviezdoslavov Kubin
The school round of Slovak prose and
poetry competition proved that we've
got many talents at our school. The chil-
dren competed in prose and poetry in 3
categories according to their age and for
the special Jury Prize. They made us
very proud and we are confident that
they will do well in the regional round
too.
7
Vsetkovedko
A number of our Primary
children took part in a Slovak general knowledge contest
called
competing
12000
‘Všetkovedko’
with
children
almost
from
schools all around Slovakia.
Twelve
of
our
students
ranked in the top 30% of
the contestants and received ‘Všetkovedko’ diploma:
Oliver (Year 5J)—10th place, Alexandra (Year 6E)—11th place, Petra (Year 6E)—11th place, Adam (Year
4C)—13th place, Marek (Year 4C)—23rd place, Doraid (Year 5J)—25th place, Paula (Year 6E)—28th
place, Samo (Year 6E)—28th place, Nelly (Year 6E)—35th place, Šimon (Year 6E)—38th place, Lucas
(Year 5J)—40th place and Ema (Year 5E)—42nd place.
We thank the participants and wish them good luck next year. A big thanks goes to Ms Lucia Pauková
and Mrs Zuzana Tiňová who organised the competition at our school.
8
What's happening around CIS
Plamienok visit
Our Secondary students were happy to welcome
the representatives of Plamienok at our assembly.
Plamienok is a non-profit organisation that helps
terminally ill children. They talked about the children they work with and how they try to make
their lives fun and help them do things they
wouldn't be able to anymore (e.g. by bringing Paris to them). We were proud to hand them the
wonderful €848.62 from the Christmas collection
from all of you. Thank you!
International Award
Our International Award group has had a couple
of informative meetings so far. On their last me-
eting the students were broken into 6 groups
and had to complete various fun activities. The
last activity of the day was ‘construct a tent’
competition. All International supervisors were
very impressed with how fast the students put
up their tents. The next meetings will be about
map reading skills and cooking meals while
camping. You can watch a time lapse from the
meeting on our YouTube channel here.
Adela and Nina
The
(Year
de-
12s had a
corated the loc-
‘Classy Fri-
ker
day’
friend
7)
of
their
Paula,
Year
and
dressed up
who was away
in
from the school
clothes.
.
9
smart
Your children in action
Primary school
Year 2Ds had a w o nder fu l
Book Week. The children shared
many of their favourite books
and we had some special visitors
who came and read some lovely
stories and made our week even
more special. The children loved
making their Dioramas and they
won many prizes in different categories.
It was great to see all the children enjoying reading as well as being creative and cooperative to design their ‘stories in the boxes’. Well done 2Ds ;-)
(Mrs Veronika Darwell, Year 2D Class Teacher)
In Year 2S Maths we started to count numbers up
to 100 and use tens and ones (units) to make
numbers. We used crafts stick and base 10 blocks
to make as many groups of 10 as possible, tying
bundles of 10 with a rubber band. Then, we placed
the bundles on a desk and put any leftover ones
(units) next to the bundles of 10. Lastly, we wrote
the number.
In addition, in Science, we are budding scientists.
We are so fond of our hands-on lessons where we
study things carefully, think, ask questions, try
things out and then see what happens. In such a
science lesson, our wonderful student teacher, Mr
Timo from Germany, got us engaged in a myriad of
experiments with light.
(Ms Katarína Schultzová, Year 2S Class Teacher)
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The children in Year 3W really enjoyed
book week. They read a wide range of
materials, fact and fiction, in Russian,
Czech, English and more. We really enjoyed the 'drop everything and read'
challenge. Most of the children begged
for the time to be extended because they
were enjoying their books so much. 3W
also had lots of fun hearing stories from
other teachers during our pyjama day.
We had a special visitor all the way from the UK—Mr Wells' mum! She also teaches Year 3 and enjoyed teaching the class all about Egyptian music and how similar Reggae music is. We learned a
song and were given Welsh chocolates!
We have been learning about forces during
science lessons. The children have had fun
learning about pushing, pulling, gravity, friction and air resistance. Despite going outside
to try experiments, our favourite thing
was watching a man sky diving from the edge
of space.
(Mr David Wells, Year 3W Class Teacher)
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There is an end to everything. Our Egyptian era is also coming close to its end. Year 3M showed what
they have learned about the Ancient Egyptians by the projects they brought in. Of course, this is not
all of it. They have also done fantastic drawings in their art lessons. We will have them on our display
board for everyone to see.
(Mr Masoud Motlagh, Year 3M Class Teacher)
Year 4s had a lot of fu n explor ing B r atislava Castle and finding ou t abou t its histo r y.
They found a 5000 year old statue foot in the Treasury as well as some old gold coins. They learnt
about the Slavs in our local area. They looked at old pictures of the castle and discovered it burnt
down, but was rebuilt to look like the castle we see today. They enjoyed learning about the music room with its big organ. Exploring the cellar and discovering many objects from the iron age onwards
was very exciting!
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Year 4 have enjoyed stu dying ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ story as part of their fantasy stories topic. Pupils enjoyed writing play scripts based on the story and then acting them in their drama lessons. Pupils also wrote persuasive adverts persuading the reader to come to Narnia.
When book week arrived pupils busied themselves with preparing decorations to turn the classes
and corridors into Narnia. We had a lamp post, Cair Paravel Castle, the Stone Table, the White
Witch’s sleigh and the Beaver’s house. Pupils also painted several characters including White Witch,
Mr Tumnus, Lucy, Edmund and Aslan. Pupils watched the film adaptation of the book and finally,
they wrote fantasy stories following the style of Narnia with great success. Take a look at some of the
pictures of Year 4 in Narnia.
(Ms Heidi Crowhurst, Year 4C Class Teacher, Ms Faye Smith, Year 4S Class Teacher)
In Year 5J this month we have started creating quite a
few models of what we have been studying. In addition
to our ongoing work on air-raid shelters we have been
hard at work creating a solar system for the classroom.
We began by learning about the earth, sun and moon,
and then looked further afield to the other planets in
our solar system. The children used a papier mache
mix to wrap around balloons of different sizes. The
children also drew diagrams in their books of the planets from photos of them which we used to paint the
planets to be more realistic. Each planet was created
by a pair of children and was a great opportunity to learn while working collaboratively.
(Mr Jason Harrison, Year 5J Class Teacher)
13
In Year 5E the children have been learning about WWII in Topic lessons. They learned about the
blitz and evacuation and compared different ways people tried to protect themselves during this
awful time. After discussing the pros and cons of different types of shelters, the children agreed that
Anderson shelters were the safest and most comfortable. In the photos below you can see the
children making their own models of these shelters. Even though this project was not easy to manage, it was a great chance for the children to improve their ability to work with others, to increase their tactile skills; it challenged them to communicate, plan and prepare, and to think creatively. Once
finished, we will get children from other classes to vote for the best model and then display all of
them downstairs for everyone to see.
(Mrs Edita Harrison, Year 5E Class Teacher)
Year 6E had a gr eat tim e du r ing bo o k w eek. Ou r
theme was Alice in Wonderland and the students really
worked hard to turn our classroom into a Wonderland.
They were so successful that Y6 won the certificate for the
best dressed classroom. On dress up Friday everyone
dressed as an Alice in Wonderland character so the room
was full of Alices, white rabbits, mad hatters, playing cards,
red and white queens and even a Tweedle Dum or was it
Tweedle Dee, we never did decide. In the afternoon we finished the week with a Mad Hatter’s tea party and enjoyed
a lovely array of food fit for a red or white queen!
(Mrs Judi Easton, Year 6E Class Teacher)
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Secondary school
Science
Year 8 stu dents ar e lear ning
about respiratory system during
Year 7 stu dents ar e stu dying different kinds of micro-
Biology lessons. Kornel is very
organisms during Science lessons.
vividly showing them what effects
(Mrs Mária Sirniková, Teacher of Chemistry and Biology)
smoking has on people’s lungs.
History & Geography
Year 7 students have been learning about life in
the Middle Ages. They have learnt about how poor
hygiene was which caused a lot of disease and life
expectancy to be short. They also have been learning about medieval food, music, pastimes and
fashion. Here is a photo of Bradley and his very
impressive model of the Battle of Hastings.
(Mr Declan Hayes, Teacher of History and Geography)
15
Art
February has been a busy month for us in the Art Room. We have created Chinese Dragons out of
Paper Plates with the Year 4 classes. Tried our hands on One Point Perspective, drawing cityscapes
with Year 5. We have learned about Colour Theory and the use of Warm and Cool Colours whilst
creating Landscapes and Still Life Paintings across the Primary and Secondary classes. One of the
most successful projects for the month has been introducing Zentangle, this new method of creating
beautiful images of repetitive patterns. Year 9 has also practised colour gradation, using tempera
paint and made this magical composition of patterned flowers and their colourful background. Welcome Spring! Nice work everyone!
(Mrs Csilla Conticello, Teacher of Art)
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Features
Mrs Rachel Reed, our English language teacher,
emotional needs
let us peek into her life. Take a look at what we’ve
who
found 
cope in ordinary
Which places have you been to (and what
schools. I've also
did you do there)?
taught
I've got one of those world scratch maps by my
schools in Paris.
desk at home, and most of Europe is coloured in!
Before I became
I've also been to the USA, Canada, Rwanda, Ken-
a
ya, Israel and Jordan. There's still rather a lot of
once worked in a chocolate factory, and ate a box
the world to see, and I haven't been to Asia, un-
of rum truffles a day.
less you count Istanbul, which is the only city in
Why did you decide to become a teacher?
the world that is located on two continents.
I had some inspiring teachers myself when I was
What jobs have you done and wherea-
at school, and wanted to be like them! I also
bouts?
thought English teaching would be a flexible job,
I've taught in more than 10 different schools.
which indeed it is.
Some were quite ordinary, others were very dif-
What do you do in your free time?
ferent. Probably the poshest school was a boys'
I love to spend time with my family. I have three
Public School in Harrow, just outside London
grown-up children; two sons and a daughter. I
(strangely, in the UK 'Public School' actually
also enjoy mountain walking, cycling and skiing.
means top class private). The most challenging
At the moment I'm busy writing a book!
couldn't
in
teacher
two
I
was a small unit in Portsmouth for children with
Children's corner
Look closely at who this teacher might be. Think of the previous entries as well, there aren’t that many male teachers unaccounted for
. Submit your answers to your class teachers by Friday, March 13th,
2015. As usual, a student from both Primary and Secondary will get
a prize for a correct answer.
Connect with us here:
P: +421 2 207 206 79
M: +421 918 121 892
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E: [email protected]