February's Monthly Newsletter
Welcome to Kensington's February newsletter edition of the academic year 2021/22
WELCOME FROM THE HEADMASTER, Mr Duncan Giles
I am delighted to share news of what has been happening within Kensington this month.
As expected, all year groups have been actively engaged in their learning and making full use of the many resources the city has to offer.
It is an invaluable experience for students to contextualise what they have learnt in the classroom through educational trips and I am happy to see our subject teachers always looking for opportunities to do this. In the coming weeks, the Art department will be continuing their museum visits, leading on from their visit to the newly opened MoCo gallery with visits to the MNAC and then the Magritte exhibition in the CaixaForum. Biology and Geography examination students will combine efforts and undertake important fieldwork in the Gavá region with Form 2 and 3 students enjoying a dramatisation of Don Quixote at the centre in Sants.
The return of the long-held tradition of a yearly school ski-trip took place just before half term and it was encouraging to see so many of our students take full advantage of this opportunity. They not only enjoyed what appeared to be excellent conditions for skiing in Espot but also had the chance to bond with one another through their shared experiences. The school is looking to repeat these yearly and is already planning the Summer Camps for Junior and Senior school students.
My congratulations and thanks to our students in Key Stage 3 for the series of Shakespeare plays which were performed with great confidence and commitment. We hope parents and extended family enjoyed these as much as we did. 'The Tempest', 'As You Like It' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' all received the Kensington treatment and through their performance, our students were able to bring the Bard to life. Thank you to all who logged on and enjoyed the afternoon online.
The month concluded with our Carnival celebrations and it was encouraging to see students in both the Junior and Senior school joining together to make this a very special occasion. Through a themed approach, each year group in the Junior school were able to complement their learning through the creation of inventive and imaginative costumes. My thanks also to students in the Senior School, their excellent efforts ensured that Carnival 2022 was truly a whole-school event.
Looking ahead to March we have been glad to share with you the much anticipated reduction in Covid-19 restrictions. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will implement any changes as and when these are made known to us. For now, we have decided to increase our ‘bubbles’, allowing for more school events and activities to take place.
I trust you find this newsletter an enjoyable read, we always want to share as much school news with you as possible. I am also looking forward to opportunities to get to know more of you as well and we are working towards organising a coffee morning/breakfast meeting to enable this to happen -the school office will confirm dates shortly.
Kensington School Ski Trip 2022
70 Kensington students enjoyed a fantastic few days in the Pyrenees, skiing and snowboarding in the resort of Espot. We were lucky to enjoy two mornings of fresh snow and sunny days, which meant fantastic conditions for everyone.
A NOTE FROM THE HEAD OF JUNIOR SCHOOL, Mr Matthew Kelly
Despite being the shortest month, February has also been a busy one in the Junior School. It has been wonderful to see our new kitchen space getting so much use and with my office strategically placed next door, I have been treated to a regular supply of smoothies, crepes and a variety of creative edible treats from the Early Years.
J3 have had a busy month of trips, descending into the Gava mines and then visiting the Roman museum in Badalona, to further their understanding of how different people lived throughout history in the local area.
J1 and J2 have been enjoying their Forest School sessions, which are continuing to prove very popular with the children. After so much time indoors over the last two years, we are delighted to be offering pupils the chance to connect with nature and be outdoors and I believe that these sessions are extremely beneficial for them.
J4 have enjoyed testing their culinary skills this month, experimenting with creating different smoothie recipes using a whole range of fresh fruit, as well as making their favourite snacks and revising their vocabulary in Spanish.
As is our tradition at Kensington, it was wonderful to end February with a week of Carnival celebrations across the Junior School. Some historians date Carnival celebrations in Barcelona back to 1333 and while it hasn’t been celebrated for quite so long at Kensington, it is certainly a highlight of the year. After several days of children wearing funny glasses, painted faces, jazzy ties and silly hats, the week culminated with Friday’s parade, as the Junior School took to the streets in a variety of impressive costumes. This year’s Carnival theme was animals and we were treated to everything from insects to migrating swallows and mythical animals to turtles.
The children had a wonderful time and it was lovely to see so many parents come and join in the celebrations on the streets around the school. Thank you to all pupils, parents and teachers for their efforts to make it another successful Carnival week!
J1 & J2
Forest School
J1 and J2 have had lots of fun at Forest school. They gathered materials to make little houses for creatures or fairies in the forest. They even made some warning devices using sticks and stones and rope to keep away animals and warn them of strong winds.
J2
Art
The children in Junior 2 enjoyed copying this picture entitled Snow at Dusk painted by the child prodigy Kieron Williamson, (nicknamed Mini Monet), when he was just nine years old.
Junior 2 students also performed the ribbon dance to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Check out the video here!
J3
Junior 3 students have been on two trips this term!
The first was Gava mines where as part of the Rocks and Soils topic they went to find out about Neolithic people who made tools and weapons from rocks and stone. They saw how they used to dig out mines to search for variscite.
The second visit was to the Roman museum in Badalona where the students went underground and walked along the Roman streets to look at the remains of the buildings from over 2,000 years ago. They also visited a town house that would have belonged to a wealthy Roman family.
J4
Junior 4 students prepared their favourite recipes in their Spanish lesson. They have been studying the food vocabulary and this has been a nice way to put it into practice.
A WELCOME FROM THE HEAD OF SENIOR SCHOOL, Ms Vivien Canwell
February is always a much-anticipated month at Kensington. You will be able to read in the newsletter about the delightful and entertaining Key Stage 3 English drama performances that took place. Whilst we hope that next year we will be able to return to a live audience it was wonderful that so many parents and family members were able to watch via a live online link.
It is also the month of Carnival and an opportunity for each form group to work together on their themed fancy dress. It was great to see all forms participating from Form 1, who dressed up as planets and stars, to the Upper 6 who came as characters from the film Grease – with music and dance moves included. It was a very close contest and whilst Form 3 made a great impression with their Alice in Wonderland theme, it was the Lower 6 who emerged as winners with their depiction of characters from the book Holes.
I was very lucky to be invited on the ski trip this year. It is over ten years since I last went and it was a joy to spend time away from school with a group of such well-behaved and co-operative students. We were very lucky with the weather, enjoying the first snow that had fallen in two months, and I hope you enjoy browsing through the photos of what was a very successful trip.
Key Stage 3 Drama Week!
This month students in Key Stage 3 celebrated drama week at Kensington School. Students participated in dramatic productions which were live-streamed from the school theatre directly to remote audiences who can watch our students' creative interpretations of three classic Shakespeare plays.
The Performances
Fanciful fairies, scorned sorcerers, and a gender-swapping gambit. These can only mean one thing - the Key Stage 3 Drama Season!
This year, Forms 1, 2 and 3 overcame multiple adversaries in the form of covid quarantines, complicated Shakespearean language and their teachers' constant appeals for them to become the character, to put on three wonderful plays: The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It. After just four whirlwind weeks of rehearsals, the final performances were a testament to how hard the students had worked, not only on stage but behind the scenes on costumes, music and props preparation.
Congratulations to the talented actors of Forms 1, 2 and 3 on a wonderful set of performances!
F1
Maths
Form 1 have started learning algebra this term. This is one of the most important topics to understand as it allows you to follow a logical path to solve a whole range of problems. The students will be using algebra to solve problems in the geometry and shape work that we will be doing later in the term. To help them understand the idea of a letter standing for an unknown number the students all wrote an algebra story using expressions. You can see examples of their work below.
F5
David's Fencing Journey
David's Fencing journey is incredible to watch and we are extremely proud of his hard work and commitment to this extraordinary extra-curricular activity. As a school community we encourage and support every individual students passions and very much look forward to seeing David's future in Fencing.
We are delighted to share this article written by Form 5 Kensington Student, David.
It all started when I was young, about the age of 6 and my mom decided to sign me up to this club in which they ‘fought with swords’.
HAPPY CARNIVAL!
As is our tradition at Kensington, we had a wonderful end to February with a week of Carnival celebrations across the Junior School. Some historians date Carnival celebrations in Barcelona back to 1333 and while it hasn’t been celebrated for quite so long at Kensington, it is certainly a highlight of the year. After several days of children wearing funny glasses, painted faces, jazzy ties and silly hats, the week culminated with Friday’s parade, as the Junior School took to the streets in a variety of impressive costumes. This year’s Carnival theme was animals and we were treated to everything from insects to migrating swallows, mythical animals to turtles and stags to extinct animals.
The effort to create spectacular, eco-friendly and homemade costumes was, as always, extremely impressive. The resulting parade was a memorable one and I would like to thank everyone involved for their efforts across what was a fantastic Carnival week.
Check out the video below of the exciting activities and parades that happened across Junior school
Kensington Alumni
Kensington Relived with: Renée van Leeuwen '89
Welcome to our Kensington Relived Series where we chat with former Kensington School students. For our fifth interview of the series, meet former pupil, Renée van Leeuwen 89'.
It was a small school, it felt safe and familiar. It was warm, I thought the level of teaching was very high quality and the class groups were very small.
Renée van Leeuwen '89
Next Monthly Newsletter Issue - Thursday 31st March
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