Issue 6 13th November 2016

In This Issue

Page 1 We are MES Cairo

Page 2

Foundation Stage Magic Moments

Page 3

Key Stage 1 Magic Moments

Page 4 & 5

Key Stage 2 Magic Moments

Page 6

Pioneers and Cougars

We are MES Cairo What’s clear, every time you set foot in MES Cairo, is how much our

children love their time at school. They are proud to be part of this place

and, in turn, we are proud of them and their achievements. It was great

to see the MES Cairo Cougar football teams pull on the blue and white

jerseys last week and represent our school so positively in their matches.

Not only did they perform outstandingly but they also sent a fantastic

message to our neighbouring schools with their effort, behaviour,

camaraderie and sportsmanship. Being part of MES Cairo matters and,

for our Cougar teams, this was plain to see; but, beyond that, in our

classrooms and playgrounds, there is a very real sense of belonging too.

Children apply themselves with determination and commitment to all

lessons and activities, engage in meaningful social relationships on the

playground, and contribute their talents, skills, enthusiasms and

endeavours to making this school great. This newsletter is full of such

experiences and remind us how lucky we are to be MES Cairo!

Issue 6 : 13th November 2016 Foundation Stage Magic Moments

In FS1 Violet…

In FS2 Violet…

2

…our topic for this month is

fantasy! We learnt all about

mythical beasts this week.

Our favourite beast was ‘The

Gruffalo’. We had the chance

to go the Sitara Theatre and

watch ‘The Gruffalo’ show.

The show brought the story

to life and we enjoyed every

single part of it. We learnt

some animal movements and

each one of us made a puppet

and took turns to perform a

part of the story on stage. We

were also introduced to

rhyming. We were able to

match some rhyming words

from the story such as ‘house’

and ‘mouse’. We had so much

fun and hope we can visit the

Sitara again soon!

…we’ve been saying “Ahoy ya mateys!” at the start of a very busy week of learning all about ‘Pirates’. A few weeks

ago, our precious dinosaur eggs were stolen by a cheeky pirate called ‘Pirate Pete’. We have plotted and planned,

making treasure maps of the school, writing letters and putting messages in bottles to throw out to sea in the hope

it reaches Pirate Pete. We have loved investigating real pirate artefacts and looking for different types of treasure

in our role play ‘Treasure Cave’. We have demonstrated courage and bravery when acting out pirate adventures.

Our enthusiasm and creativity was amazing, wanting to look just like real pirates; we even wanted to make our

own waistcoats. What an adventure it’s been, planning the patterns, cutting the material and even sewing them

together safely using real needles! To finish our week, we took part in a measuring maths challenge sent to us by

Pirate Pete. On Thursday, we got paper, pens, pompoms, cubes and measured all our body parts. We had great

fun drawing around our feet, hands and even Khadija! Then, using different objects to see our length we talked

about which ones were ‘longer’, ‘shorter’, ‘bigger’ and ‘smaller’.

Issue 6 : 13th November 2016

Key Stage 1 Magic Moments

3

In Year 1 Violet…

In Year 2 Violet…

…we have been busy superheroes, soaring through our learning and activities! We love the new topic and are using

all our 5R superpowers to support our work in class. We use our relationship skills when doing teamwork especially

in our topic activities. We’ve been working on identifying materials and sorting them in to groups as well as identifying

how they are used all around us. We now know how to compare between objects, identifying similarities and

differences, and we’ve learnt some pretty impressive vocabulary along the way! Transparent, flexible and translucent

are just some of the words we are now using in our lessons. In Maths, we were busy counting in multiples of 2 ,5 and

10, both forwards and backwards, and from any given number. Finally, in our English lessons we have been using Talk

for Writing to retell the story of ‘Banana Boy’, using actions and reading our story maps. On top of all this, we are

Team of the Week, working hard and behaving well … phew, what a busy week! Please could we ask all Year 1 parents

to help us with our superhero boat project by sending into school any recyclable materials you have at home.

…we are always ready to take on a

new challenge and grow our

mindset. Having had used a variety

of iPad apps already, it was finally

time to start mashing-up our

technological skills together! We

have just started our new Talk for

Writing topic, ‘Traditional Tales’, and

practiced retelling the story of ‘The

Magic Paintbrush’ collaboratively

using Puppet Pals on the iPads. Our

Digital Leader airplayed the app to

introduce it to the class and show

the other students how it works.

After recording our story recount,

we then used the Show Me app to

mash-up our work and reflections

together, finally Air Dropping our

work to Ms. Dean’s MacBook. We

are looking forward to challenging

our technological skills to build a

digital text map using the new

Visualize app next week in English.

In Year 4 Violet…

In Year 3 Violet…

4

Issue 6 : 13th November 2016

Key Stage 2 Magic Moments

…we have a new topic, ‘Funny Bones!’ We will be learning about skeletons, teeth, healthy eating and exercise. We

hope that this knowledge will help us to be super healthy and fit! To start with, we learnt about the main bones in our

bodies and their names. Ask us which ones we can remember. We made these skeletons to help us remember where

the different bones are. Did you know that children have more bones in their bodies than adults?

…we have been working really hard this week developing our research skills through the use of key terms, Internet

searches and book scanning! We used the information we found to create timelines and presentations about

Ancient Rome and its famous army!

Key Stage 2 Magic Moments Issue 5 : 7th November 2016

Key Stage 2 Magic Moments Issue 6 : 13th November 2016

In Year 6 Violet…

5

In Year 5 Violet… …we have been experimenting with new computing tools in

the classroom. Firstly, the Primary School Library has

Destiny Quest up and running; we can access the school

library catalogue and make use of new and exciting features

to encourage us to become more independent in our book

choices. Using the web address: library.mescairo.com, we

can access the library catalogue from home. New features

include: top ten books being checked out; new arrivals; the

ability to hold books; create a book list; review books and

the system even recommends books to the students

according to their searches. We were very excited about this

new development! Also, as a hook for a cold write of a

suspense story, students accessed a ThingLink page about

space debris. ThingLink is an online app in which internet

links can be placed on top of an image. The first link

provided information about what space debris is and the

growing problem; the second link was an animation of the

increasing amount of space debris over recent years and,

lastly, the third link was an excerpt from the opening scene

of the film Gravity. We used this stimulus to show Mr Cole

what we know about writing stories with suspense.

…we have been studying poetry in English writing lessons. We read poems written by famous poets, such as

Shakespeare. We developed our ability to write poems by reading poems out aloud and performing poems showing

our understanding through intonation, tone and volume. Besides using rhyme, we also learnt to use personification

to create a picture for the reader, similes and metaphors to create an image, and alliteration for effect. All of these

techniques will be applied when we write our own poems. Below, you can see a picture of us having great fun as

we learn all about poetry!

ASAs and App of the Week Issue 6 : 13th November 2016

6

Coming Up Next…

In Pioneers…

In Cougars…

20th – 23rd November

Years 1 to 6 Class Photos

Thursday 24th November

School Closed – Thanksgiving

27th November – 8th December

Primary Assessment Week

Thursday 8th December

Last Day of ASAs

…we have completed our first set of badges. There are a record number of gold badges to be awarded, which shows

the standards that we are aiming for is getting ever higher. In addition to that, for the first time ever, the Year 5

Pioneers achieved a complete set of gold badges! The teachers said it was the hardest set to award and they just

could not fault a single person! What an outstanding achievement! Very well done to those Pioneers, I hope you

are proud of yourselves!

…on Thursday 10th of November, both the Cougar girls and boys football teams had their first fixtures of the season.

The teams travelled to CES with a lot of confidence. The boys team controlled the game from the start, with much

of the play happening in the CES half. We went ahead in the first half after a good individual goal. The second goal,

which came in the second half, was a great team effort as the ball was passed around the midfield before eventually

being put past the CES keeper and into the top corner. The game finished 2-0 capping off a successful first game for

the boys! The girls team defended excellently despite having the pressure piled upon them. The midfield worked

hard, passing the ball between them. Unfortunately, late into the second half, CES found a way through. After great

work by our goalkeeper, MES were unfortunate to be a goal down. The game finished 1-0 to CES. Even though they

were all very excited, the boys and girls showed exemplary behaviour and sportsmanship during the day, as they

represented our school both on and off the pitch, and making their coaches and our school very proud!