Students at The British College of Brazil, part of the global Nord Anglia Education family of schools, are celebrating today after receiving their long-awaited IGCSE results early this week.

It has been an exciting start to the year for BCB Secondary School. On Monday, our Year 7s and new students started their induction into the school, meeting their teachers and tutor groups. Parents joined in too during our first zoom information meeting of the year!

And finally, we start the academic year of 2020/2021!

We are restarting our new academic year and our teachers prepared a message for our Primary pupils!

Now more than ever before we all need a true sense of optimism, this may not be easy but it is far from impossible. We need to make the conscious decision to be optimistic. It is an active decision and one that needs to be worked on every day.

BCB is hard at work over this winter period to improve facilities in The Secondary School. With the pandemic making things a little harder than usual there has been progress in the building of a second science laboratory that will also be a Makerlab where STEAM activities will take place making use of Nord Anglia´s exclusive partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (www.mit.edu).

Have you heard the saying “ if you want a job doing, ask a busy person”? This saying seems somewhat paradoxical however on closer investigation it does seem to hold true.

As we are currently running as a virtual school and in public isolation, it is important to keep doing things that are different, educational but also fun. Therefore, we will continue to send students and parents a weekly challenge that students can do either alone or together as a family. This is completely informal and voluntary but it could give you ideas for creative and fun things to do at home.

Trabalhando o gênero "Poema" nas aulas, os alunos de Português da Mrs. Marcia Mendes McLean aproveitaram o isolamento social que vivemos para desenvolver o olhar crítico e produzir arte.

I have just spent a very enjoyable hour watching a film made by our wonderful music teacher, Ms Bechara, of the Key Stage 1 entrants in BCB’s Got Talent. This is always a highlight in school as we watch our students take the stage and show us something special, something different and often something magical. Obviously this year it has been somewhat different, using the magic of IT rather than the magic of the theatre to exhibit their talents, nonetheless, the effort and dedication can be clearly seen and the emotion I felt watching them was one of inspiration and joy.

Recently I started to read a new book, or at least I thought it was new, not brand new, the book had been read before but I am a great lover of sharing books so a pre-read book was perfectly normal to me. I was about a quarter of the way through when some of the scenes had a sense of the familiar about them, I felt I had met the characters before, a few more pages in and I realised I had actually read the book before!

Children’s right to play is a human right On 1 February 2013 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted a General Comment that clarifies for governments worldwide the meaning and importance of Article 31 of the Convention on the Right of the Child : Article 31 “That every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. That member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.”

This week in Secondary we launched Project Based Learning* (PBL) which is heavily influenced by the approach taken by STEAM and the collaboration NAE has with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In Year 5 we have many talented students. Including musicians, artists, athletes, singers; among many others.

We are delighted to share that our student from Cidade Jardim in Year 2, Sua Lee, has won the COBIS Art Competition 2020, under the KS1 category!

One of the aims of international education is to nurture our young people, developing them into productive, global citizens who can use their talents, knowledge and learned skills to support themselves and others. These learned skills can be seen on a day-to-day basis in the most mundane of places. What skills do you use when you make a purchase at a supermarket? Analyzing the health benefits of food, Science. Running a cost analysis in your head, Maths. Considering the implications of purchasing locally sourced goods, Geography. Seeking more information from a worker, the Languages.

Climate change; urbanisation; housing; an aging population; water scarcity; the energy-water-food nexus; pollution; global health; biodiversity; wealth distribution; are all major problems needed to be solved in the 21st Century. Therefore, scientists and mathematicians are going to be in high demand. So, what is the role of humanities in Twenty First Century education?

We had a special celebration of Design & Technology at the end of February. All classes on both campuses took part in projects linked to their Creative Curriculum learning and worked individually and collaboratively to design and make a variety of different products.

The annual performing arts production this year was a play, led by our talented drama teacher Ms. Boon. It was decided that it would be a good year to do a play rather than a musical to give our none singing actors a chance to shine. Ms. Boon chose a dark version of Hansel & Gretel and the students have been working on the performance since September, coming in on Saturdays and staying late to put together the show. Recently more teachers were involved in painting & building the set, producing costumes, working out makeup requirements and working backstage during the event. It really has been a community effort.