PORG Gymnázium a Základní škola
It's September and you know what that means - lots of smiles and lots of noise in the corridors of school again!
This year, we welcome back most of our previous pupils and many new faces too. Although last year's older pupils have moved on to the next stage of their educations, we are still proud to have pupils from half of the World's populated continents in our classrooms this semester.
It is wonderful to see the newcomers being accepted and circles of friendships enlarging. Everyone has lots of questions about life in the countries they have come from and they in turn are eagerly learning about life here.
We have had a little time to get to know each other and find our way around and now we are ready for the serious business of making this the best year of school ever!
Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th September
Science is all about the world around us, so we believe the best place to study it is outside in the world around us!
For two days, we are heading out to a local forest park to learn about flowers, insects, soils and rocks, animal habitats and ecosystems while the weather is still nice enough to be outside. We will focus on revising and practicing scientific methods and fair tests in preparation for the rest of the school year.
In the mornings, we will conduct practical research and experiments based on our science curriculum, as well as collecting samples to be used in the classroom later in the year when it is too cold and we have to study indoors.
In the afternoons, there will be competitions and races to combine PE with practical English and Maths topics and give our older pupils a chance to experience some leadership and responsibility while they help the younger ones.
Finally, when we return, the older children will be able to use the skills they are learning in computing to catalogue and present their findings in a professional manner.
This week, PORG International School had a visit from Zoe, at the Usbourne Book company, who brought along a fine selection of their publications for us to look at andchoose from.
We had a reading from some children's books, filled with engaging pictures and stories, followed by time to browse through all the titles on display.
The children had plenty of time to look through the books and make a list of ones which they wanted to buy. This year, non-fiction seemed to be the most popular category, particularly about computing. It was very pleasant, after a more than a year of relying on computers for information, to see how enthusiastically the children looked for information in books.
To add to the atmosphere, the fair was held outside for the first time, allowing us to enjoy the late summer sunshine as well. In the end, it was hard to drag everyone back to school - there's just something about a good book that the Internet cannot replace!
