Happy holidays!

Coming back to school after a wonderful Halloween holiday was something special for Upper Primary - we said goodbye to one student and warmly welcomed another from South Korea! To get to know each other better and further explore our city, we visited the centre of Ghent. In this way, we dived into our new unit in Literacy – ‘Fake News’! We had the opportunity to ask people on the streets about some articles and tested their fact-checking knowledge! To our surprise almost all the people fell for our made-up stories, believing them to be real. After some research we were able to recognise what fake news looks like online and in a variety of formats – from clickbait to propaganda. Later, students created their own satirical piece along with a guide on how to stay safe online. Finally we also had the chance to chat with a newly-graduated journalism student all the way in Croatia to get the ins and outs of the industry.

Chromebooks are a daily feature in our learning and this term students asked themselves just how these appliances can function - the answer was all to do with electricity! And so began our IPC unit of learning “Full Power”. We found out how to light up a bulb with a battery, investigating different types of circuits. Children discovered which materials are electricity’s ‘friends’ (conductors) and those which are not (insulators) and that electricity can be produced from different sources of energy. Students put all their knowledge together in the end to create a thrilling ‘steady hand game’ of their own design.

During November we were trying to be resilient, supporting each other and encouraging one another to be the best version of ourselves.  We also started counting down until holidays with the Secret Friend Advent Calendar 2022! Each day we were showing kindness to our secret class friends, our family and school staff! On 6th December Sinterklass visited us with sweet treats and thank goodness all of UP were on his ‘good’ list in the big book.  Just as fast as we were counting down, students were excited for the winter break and so too was Ms. Dominika who completed her Erasmus internship this term. A BIG thank you to her for everything she helped us with!

Happy holidays and see you in the new year!