Hosanna Rock!

Here we are practicing very hard for our Christmas Show - Hosanna Rock. Year 6 were also singing 2 carols in Spanish - one of them was Feliz Navidad. Have a look at our videos here.

Reading Day

Today is Reading Day and we are celebrating in style and in orange!

We started with an assembly to launch the island-wide Whistling Duck Book Award which is in its inaugural year. A selection of children's books have been chosen by a committee which incudes members from the CI Department of Education; Maples and Calder, the award sponsors and a consultatnt from Books & Books. There are three age catgories and our school will participate in two of those - 4-8 years of age and 9-12 years of age. There are five books per category and students are asked to read all five and write a book report. For our youngest They will receive a different wristband for each book read - and there is a special t-shirt for all students who read all five books. Schools will then let the organisers know the winning book in each category as selected by the children in that school. The results across the island will be collated and the award winners will be announced in April 2009. We are excited to be able to promote reading in this exciting way - and for our children to have an active part in deciding the winners. Please see the list of books being read on our Literacy blog.

Throughout the day children undertook a range of reading activities from buddy reading between classes to reading games to book reviews. Books fall open - we fall in!

Netball Season

Netball season starts in the Cayman Islands with the annual opening parade. Prizes are awarded for the best dressed teams. We won 2nd prize in our age group. Aren't we looking smart?

Annual Cayman Islands Spelling Bee

Congratulations to our three competitiors in the first preliminary for this year's annual spelling bee - and an extra-special congratulations to Starri who came a very commendable 4th out of the 18 competitors. The practice rounds gave the children a gentle lead in and then they were faced with some very challenging words. They are permitted to ask for a meaning and for the word to be used in a sentence to aid the process of understanding and, thus, to aid their ability to spell the words. Our admiration goes to them all - spelling words that you don't know would be a challenge for the best adult spellers too! Well done, also, to the 3 winners, from Savannah Primary and Montessori by the Sea, who will go through to the finals in December.

IB Units

Our IB Units for the next 6 weeks are ready to go! Reception/Year 1 will be finding out about Celebrations; Year 2 will look into Life Cycles; Year 3 will be researching their Island Home; Year 4 will study migration through their unit On The Move; Year 5 will be inquiring into Explorers; and Year 6 are finding about rights, how they can be protected and why some people need to fight for them. Through their units, the pupils will be asking questions and trying to find the answers to them. All have a central idea upon which the inquiry is based which will challenge and extend what the pupils already know. We look forward to sharing some of these inquiries over the next few weeks.

Mathematical Celebration

Today, Friday Sept 19th, we have had a fun day 'doing' Maths! Yes - all day! We have just received our order for lots of new Maths resources and we wanted to celebrate by using them! All classes had some time to use their new class Maths games; they solved clues in a Maths Treasure Trail; they read stories with a Maths theme; they danced and sang along with a times table CD; they learned how to programme Bee-Bots and Roamer; they took photographs of numbers and shapes in the school environment; and they produced artwork based on mathematical concepts. It didn't feel like doing Maths - but they learnt a lot! To see more photos - please visit our class pages.

IB Success

We are delighted to announce that North SIde Primary School is now an International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO), Primary Years Programme (PYP), candidate school! What is that, you may be asking? To find out more, please follow our link to the IBO at www.ibo.org/pyp . During the course of the last 18 months we have explored the possibilities offered by the PYP and have made some significant changes in the way we teach in order to meet their exacting, internationally recognised standards. This has been fully supported by the Cayman Islands Education Department and there are also 3 more primary schools on the island who now have candidate status. Currently we are developing our transdisciplinary programme of inquiry which guides our learning and teaching in school. Children are encouraged to explore a theme through units of inquiry e.g. our Year 3 class will be exploring a unit on Signs and Symbols as part of the Theme "How We Express Ourselves". Last year this class worked with a professional sign maker to design and make signs for around the school. We are very excited about learning and teaching in this way!

Hurricane Ike

This morning our thoughts are with the people of Cuba who have been hit by Hurricane Ike over the last 48 hours. You can read more and see pictures if you follow this linkhttp://www.cubaweather.org/index.php . The hurricane season is at its height and we watch and wait to see what other weather systems are forming and passing through the Caribbean. Our island, and our school was hit by Hurricane Ivan - a category 5 hurricane - in 2004. It can be a very worrying time for us all.

Welcome to North Side Primary School, Grand Cayman. Here you will learn about our school, our area and our island. Check out our class pages for information about who we are and what we are learning.