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This week we held staff training on performance management. As a school we always strive to be better and to do this we all need to learn, reflect, and set targets to improve. We do this with our children on a daily basis, so it is important we do this as a staff.

There is only one major thing to celebrate this week, your children. It has been fantastic to see how well they have returned to school and settled into a full capacity environment.

Just 3 more days to go and we will fully open for the 2021-22 academic year, the tenth anniversary for BCB!

It is with great delight that we can confirm our ability to welcome back each and every child into full time school from Monday August 16th

Dear Parents, As a school, our students, parents and staff are committed to supporting charities and to take action to help others. This week we have two amazing charities and stories to share. One is led by our Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and the other a food drive coordinated by a student for her Global Politics Coursework. This is being supported by other students in Year 12 sorting donations as an action for the CAS aspect of IBDP, something all students have to complete. It stands for Creativity, Activity and Service and is a compulsory aspect in addition to their academic studies. I will write more about IBDP next week as we will by then have celebrated our first graduation ceremony.

Dear Parents, Lots of information and news this week, please read on.

Dear Parents, This week has seen the final IBDP examination take place and we are absolutely delighted that we had the opportunity to complete this session. It was a long and hard decision for IB to decide who could carry out exams and who might need to go down the route of self- assessment. Brazil thankfully was allowed to complete examinations. If not, it may have proved more of a challenge for us as this method relies on previous years data from the school, something we currently do not have. There was also a risk too that the pandemic may have affected us but with all the precautions we have in place, we have successfully reached the end.

Dear Parents, Each month we hold a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meeting and one of the continuing questions is about school development. This is something that was being discussed before my arrival, between much of the community and Nord Anglia, after the school become part of the Nord Anglia Education Group. Then came the pandemic and all businesses across the globe had to evaluate their position, schools were no exception to this. However, since my arrival there has been much work, developing various business cases and the paragraphs below explain in a little more detail the efforts we are taking for development.

Dear Parents, It is sometimes a bit tricky to find benefits of our current situation but every day I benefit from lessons that I would not normally see, and certainly not on such a regular basis.

Dear Parents, Around the world last Friday, 23rd April, school’s celebrated World Book Day. This was no different at BCB where all Primary staff and children enjoyed a fantastic time together, celebrating the joy of reading.

Dear Parents, 2021 marks the year of BCB’s first graduating students. This is a landmark moment for any school and especially for us as we are completing it during a pandemic. This has given us extra challenges but just further illustrates the qualities that an IB school, and IB students, have.

Dear Parents, Nord Anglia is taking its commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) extremely seriously. In the past year it has updated its policy, built a steering committee and appointed voluntary EDI champions in all of our schools across the globe. The steering committee consist of Dr Leslie Williams, Chair of Nord Anglia Education’s Global Equality Programme and High School Director at Windermere Preparatory School; Jenny McWalter, Nord Anglia Education Assistant Director; Jerry Singer, Group Head of Leadership, Talent and Inclusion and also Andrew Fitzmaurice. This is truly important work as in the words of Dr Leslie, ‘It strives to make all community members seen and heard, respected and represented. There is an effort to embrace diversity and inclusion with a focus on anti-discrimination.’

Dear Parents, It is almost a year to the day that we originally closed and so I have been searching for a positive topic to discuss with you all, something light-hearted, something not pandemic related. It isn’t easy at the moment, but I am inspired by the children and their positive growth mindsets. The ‘Not Yet’ motto, I haven’t learnt it yet, I am not fluent yet…all with the positive belief that one day it will be achieved, anything is possible.

Dear Parents, This week we held our monthly Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meeting and have some great news to share and thanks to give. Our PTA is also an officially recognised body and will soon receive its CNPJ enabling them to have a bank account to efficiently deal with finances.

Dear Parents, On Wednesday the Primary Leadership Team hosted an extremely successful Coffee Morning. We had listened to feedback and gathered questions before the meeting so we could answer the community questions we received. The team of Mrs. Priestley, Miss Mastrantone and Mr McDaniel, were all able to share experiences and expectations over the last four weeks since we have been attending school each day. We felt this structure worked extremely well and we will continue this for our future coffee mornings.

Dear Parents, We have had a couple of extremely successful weeks with our students who have engaged with the Nord Anglia Global Campus activities. Five BCB students have been recognised globally by not only Nord Anglia, but two experts in their fields.

Dear Parents, Hopefully today we can help clarify some of the current organisation and decisions made. We are only reporting on the situation today as we don’t want to add confusion. Changes, calls for feedback, and future changes will be communicated at the necessary time.

Dear Parents, I am delighted to write with the updated plan for operations from 1st February. The health and safety protocols will continue as before, temperature checking at the gate, wearing of masks, shields for staff, hand sanitizer all around the school, regular hand washing, and a distance maintained of 1.5M between people. We have been operating safely with the 20% extracurricular activities for some time now and are confident with movements in, around, and out of school. This message is to outline your children’s attendance.

Dear Parents, We have finally arrived at the end of our first term together. As I discussed with the PTA earlier this week, this is now the opportunity to have a complete rest with your families, no waking up and getting your children online, no worries about internet connection or technology, no multiple trips to school for the extracurricular learning.

Dear Parents, Today for Primary and next week for Secondary, you will receive this term’s reports for your children. As parents you eagerly await these to celebrate your child's success and also to support them in their stage of learning. Whether you are in your first term of school or about to take vital exams, we want to know that we are on the correct track. Academic outcomes are extremely important, and we do put an emphasis on these, but what I think is vital is the attitude to learning. Children with a positive attitude and growth mindset are going to do the best they can in the future. These features are reported in Secondary with a 1-4 scale and in Primary with their stage on the learner league. Please do celebrate these aspects with your children.