Charity boxes - We need your support!

We still have much work to do to meet our goal of 300 boxes for charity and I am asking for a big effort next week.

There are drop-off points for items at the school gates in both Junior and Senior sections of the school. The school would ask that all donations of second-hand items are clean and in good condition.

Below you can see pictures of Class 9T, who have already gathered a large amount of equipment for the boxes. This is the response we want from all of our students next week. 

And here are our Junior School House Captains with a reminder for their peers:

There is an unpleasant virus in our community at the moment and we wish to keep all students as safe as possible. Our cleaning team have worked tirelessly to sanitise classrooms and provide the necessary supplies to our students; however, we wish to remind parents to keep their children at home if they are unwell.

Students should not attend school for particular lessons or only to complete assessments as these can be rescheduled if a student is unwell and provides a medical certificate.

Year 9 have been developing their Humanity and Nature projects, some fantastic sketchbook pages!

Year 10 have made a strong start on their GCSE coursework, A Sense of Place and Identity. 

Year 11 have been putting the final touches to their Identity coursework. Some really fantastic work, the art teachers are so very proud of them! 

To recognise excellent effort and engagement in language lessons, the MFL department has an initiative called the Language Star of the Month. Teachers are asked to choose one pupil from each of their classes that has gone above and beyond in lessons and shown themselves to be a star language learner. We are so excited to have named 33 students from years 7-13 as our Language Stars of the Month. Their names will be on display on the board outside S204 for the next month to celebrate this achievement. Well done! ¡Enhorabuena! Félicitations!

We had a wonderful start to the festive season today, with the Key Stage One Production ‘Christmas Around the World”.

The children in Years 1 and 2 were amazing with their singing, dancing and speaking parts, especially as this was the first time they had presented on the stage due to the pandemic. My thanks go to the whole Key Stage 1 team, but especially to Ms Jenny Minnow and Ms Kay Faraz.

Click below for a folder with many more photos of the wonderful event, and there will be a full video recording available next week.

We are now looking forward to the activities we have planned for Christmas for all of the children in the next two weeks.

Junior School pupils were privileged to watch the legendary Egyptian puppet show “Eliela Elkibira” presented on stage by the National theatre House last week.

El Leila El Kebira forms an important part of Egyptian folklore due to its expressive and festive features.

Students and staff across the school are encouraged to dress up wearing something that represents the Arabian and Egyptian culture on Wednesday 14th December.

Get ready, and be creative - prizes will be awarded for the best costumes.

In celebration of the World Arabic Language Day, throughout the day, the children in Y1, Y2 & Y3 will enjoy storytelling in their Arabic lessons. The children in Y4, Y5 & Y6 will have a session with the author Amal Afifi.

Today, a Year 7 class of non-native speakers were preparing posters for the day about Egyptian customs such as Sham El-Nessim and Ramadan, while listening to the song “Zorony kol sana mrra”.

Over the past few weeks, the Under 11 boys' and girls' football, netball and basketball teams have had a range of friendly fixtures against AIS, MES, Evolution and Marvel. The girls beat MES in football and netball, but struggled against the AIS girl's football team. 

The boys lost football matches to AIS, MES and Evolution, but won against Marvel 4-3.

On Monday, the basketball teams played MES and the boys won 24-6 and the girls lost by only 4 baskets - 30-22. 

These teams are developing nicely and the boys and girls all played with fantastic attitudes and heart, making sure they represented the school as great ambassadors for BISC. 

Inter-House Sports

Next week, in PE lessons, we have a number of Inter-house events:

Year 3 Girls - Football Sunday 4th and Netball Monday 5th December

Year 3 Boys - Basketball Sunday 4th and Football Monday 5th December

Year 4 Girls - Football Tuesday 6th and Netball Wednesday 7th December

Year 4 Boys - Benchball Tuesday 6th and Rounders Wednesday 7th December

Year 5 Girls - Football Tuesday 6th December

Year 5 Boys - Football Thursday 8th December

Year 6 Girls - Football Monday 5th December

Year 6 Boys - Football Thursday 8th December

To play football, shin pads and the correct coloured house tops are needed. For basketball and netball - we will supply coloured bibs. 

Sports after the Christmas holidays

Years 1, 2 and 3 will do Athletics and Net/Wall games

Year 4  will do Athletics and Short Tennis

Year 5 will do Athletics and Basketball

Year 6 will do Athletics. with basketball for boys and netball for the girls

Athletics incorporates a range of track and field events that test, speed, stamina, explosive strength and technical ability. Pupils will race over set distances, throw objects as far as they can and compete in a variety of jumping events. They must persevere to try to beat their own times and distances and we record their best results. The Sports Days (in February) will allow us to show you some of the events they have been taking part in and will be their Inter-house event next term.

Three Year 13 students are preparing for their University of Cambridge interview which will take place before the christmas break. 

A special thanks to Ms Tweedley (a graduate of the University of Oxford) for arranging mock interviews for the History students with Dr. McIntyre of the University of Edinburgh, and advocate Baron Michael Way of Plean, graduate of Oxford, KCL and Edinburgh Universities. Also, a special thank you goes to Ms Smith, Mr Bradbury and Ms Hassanein for supporting Cambridge Historians with their applications.

I would also like to thank Mr Kuszynski and Mr Pearson for offering support with a  mock interview for our University of Cambridge Engineering applicant.

A polite reminder that the BISC university application deadline is Thursday 8th December and the last week of the term is necessary to proofread the letters of recommendation and documents to be shared with the US universities.

Careers support sessions are offered by Mr Raza on the following dates: 

Mondays

Throughout term 1, Mondays after-school 15:15 - 16:25 (this has been offered since September 2022)

Saturdays

Saturday 26th November, 13:00 - 15:00

Saturday 3rd December, 13:00 - 15:00

Friday

Friday 9th December,  15:00 - 16:30

Looking ahead to Term 2, the Careers team will meet with the Year 11 students to discuss their IB options, and will meet Year 9 students to discuss their GCSE Options.

Well done to our U13 sports teams, in action at the Egyptian Games last Friday. Our volleyball teams ranked 2nd and 3rd, while our girls' football team finished in first place! 

Also this week, both the Under 13 boys' and girls' football teams were in action against Alsson as they prepare to represent BISC in the BSME Games. 

BISC Boys 1 - 2 Alsson Boys 

BISC Girls 7 - 4 Alsson Girls

Recently our Senior School basketball teams enjoyed success at the World Schools Games in Abu Dhabi. 

Here is a wrap-up video made by the organisers, featuring many of our BISC students.

Congratulations to Rasheed in Year 6F, who won first place in the Republic Championship for Judo recently.

Well done and keep up the great work!

This week, Year 4, 5 and 6 students watched the Egyptian film Gharam Fi Al-Karnak” “غرام في الكرنك”.

Year 7, 8 and 9 students watched the film Ice Cream in Gleem.

For the second week in a row, students were encouraged to take part in Arabic activities during breaktimes.

This week Year 2 students were privileged to have Dr. Hamed Shamma reading a story in Arabic. Students were engaged, attentive and asked wonderful questions.

Key Stage 2 Parents are invited to a Christmas performance on Monday 12th December in the Theatre.

There will be two shows: 

Year 3 & Year 6: 13:30 - 14:00 

Year 4 & Year 5: 14:30 - 15:00 

There will be a 30 minute break between the two shows and refreshments will be provided. Siblings are also welcome to join.

Please be reminded that normal ASAs for Junior School students finish at 16:15.

It has been another very busy week in the Foundation Stage. The teachers have been observing and assessing the children's achievements this term so that they can accurately report their progress to you. 

The FS2 children have been making good progress learning their phonic sounds and have reached the sound /b/. They are on course to finish all the Phase 2 sounds before the end of year. This has been reflected in their progress in the reading scheme. We are very grateful to you for listening to and helping your children read at home. Alongside this, FS2 has been reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and have used this as an impetus for many related activities.

In FS1 we continued our Egyptian theme, and of course, no study of Egyptian life would be complete without knowing how Mulukhiyah is made and enjoyed.
Next week our Winter Fun activities will begin. I will send a separate schedule via Engage with the details.

This week FS1 continued learning about Egypt. We looked at Egyptian music, different towns and cities and, best of all, Egyptian cuisine. 

The children helped make molokhiya in the kitchen, and they all absolutely loved it!

FS2 have read the famous story of Jack and the Beanstalk this week. They have enjoyed acting out the story, planting magic beans and engaging in creative activities linked to the theme of growth.

A reminder for parents of the Winter Fun Activities coming up in Foundation Stage:

Sunday 11th December - Santa's parade (children only wearing a Christmas hat)

Monday 12th December  & Tuesday 13th December Winter Fun activities in the FS nature garden.  Parents are invited to attend this event as follows exact times for each class will be sent next week via Engage.

Wednesday 14th December - Arabic Day - Children should come into school in Arabic themed costumes 

Thursday 15th December - Christmas party - Children can wear their own clothes. Please send in party food for the class to enjoy. School will finish at 12:15 for FS classes.

At a recent parent workshop on cyber-bullying and Social Media, 75% of parents are worried about the amount of screen time children are spending on IT devices.

Therefore, we have decided to stop Junior School children using devices on the buses.

iPads should be kept in your children's bags and not used at all during their journey. Hopefully this will encourage the children to talk to each other more and develop their personal, social and emotional skills.

If parents would like copies of any of the photos you have seen in the Bulletin, please email s706@bisc.edu.eg.