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NEWS Primary

13/12/2019

Global Perspectives

Global Perspectives promotes many different skills, such as collaboration, communication and critical thinking

Form 6 students finished their Global Perspectives Programme by designing their last challenge, which must be triggered by a local issue to change, improve or eliminate.

We share some of these challenges:

Violence in sports around the world and mainly in Uruguay. To tackle this challenge they designed fliers and posters so as to inform Stella Maris students about the issue and how to contribute to stopping it.
How to make children in hospitals happier. In this case they promoted a toy campaign and they will be taking all the toys collected to Pereira Rossell Hospital on Christmas Eve.
Plastic pollution. They did research about the situation around the world and also in Uruguay, and they decided to raise awareness of this issue. They found a way to re-use old plastic bottles and turn them into lovely Christmas Trees. They worked with Prep kids and they displayed their crafts in the Primary hall.
Alternatives to technology addiction. They did research and got very worried about the consequences this addiction might lead to. So they carried out a survey among the children in Form 4 and they found out that in spite of their young age, all of them recognised they spent more hours than they should on technology devices. Luckily, they were very creative: they thought of, and promoted, many ways to change this situation, such as turning off notifications , activating parental control, outdoor playing and spending more time with family and friends.
Promoting volunteer work in orphanages. For this challenge they got in touch with "Fundación Canguro". Luckily, there were lots of volunteers already, but the foundation thanked their idea to collaborate. So they decided to speak to other groups and encourage them to share not only toys, but mainly time with children who do not have the same chances as them.
Litter produced at schools and contamination. Here, they came up with a proposal for the government: to open official recycling plants and to provide schools across the whole country with classifying containers, so as to make the recycling process easier.
"Donating for a smile" consisted in collecting different kind of materials so as to make toys for the children from Santa Eugenia neighbourhood. One of the team members’ sister does volunteer work there and the children are getting together during their holidays so as to donate the toys before Christmas.
Animals in danger of extinction, specifically pandas. In this challenge they found out that due to bamboo deforestation in China, this species is about to become extint. They presented their findings to Form 3 and they even designed a game, using "scratch" programme, which consisted in making bamboo grow. Form 3 kids were very interested and they also had fun.
Global warming, its causes, its consequences, and how we can make a difference by tiny things like riding bicycles, reusing, recycling, turning off lights and taps when not needed.
Beaches conditions regarding litter. They did research and learned about how other countries make use of garbage to produce electricity and even to make roads. Finally they wrote a persuasive letter, addressed at the community, in order to persuade us all about the importance of cleaning up beaches.

We share some photos of the challenges:

https://www.stellamaris.edu.uy/es/#gal113-1

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Our curriculum

Our Primary school curriculum strives to promote a suitable climate to encourage our students to always do their best in all their undertakings. Our teaching staff work hand in hand with our Learning and Pupil Support Team (Departamento de Psicopedagogía) to ensure we follow each and everyone’s learning processes while providing constant stimulus and carrying out systematic appraisals of our students’ individual achievements.

With a focus on collaborative learning, respect, love, commitment, confidence and trust, our tasks revolve around real project work, which is meaningful and responds to a global and interdisciplinary vision; this allows our students to establish relationships which add complexity to their learning and make it interesting. Our curriculum allows our students’ active participation in the construction of concepts in different areas of knowledge.

From the different curricular areas - Spanish, English, Pastoral and RE, Art, Physical Education and Sports – we approach the acquisition of knowledge through tasks which will favour this vision, promoting research and the development of critical thinking skills.

Within this framework, assessment plays a fundamental role in our school as it implies following up individual processes as well as the design of action plans that the College can put in place to enrich our students’ learning experience.

• EDUCATION IN ENGLISH

• PASTORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

• PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORTS

• ART

• INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) applied to education creates different physiognomies and educational environments which influence our students’ learning process.

Religious education

WE ARE CALLED TO BECOME DISCIPLES OF JESUS

In accordance to the general objectives of the Catholic Church’s Pastoral Care, our curriculum in Primary school is as follows:

Nursery School and Reception:

• Working in our group, we discover the presence of a God who is close to us and generous with the gifts He bestows upon us. Our family, the others, Nature, are all signs of God’s kindness, who invites us to respond.

First year (Year 1):

• We meet the Child Jesus who is born, grows up and lives like we do, and invites us to know and love His Father and the others.

Second year (Year 2):

• We further explore Jesus as a person together with His message, and we perceive Creation as a gift from God.

Third year (Year 3):

• We accept Jesus as our Teacher who invites us to be His disciples and become part of a community.

• We recognise the Sacraments as meetings with God; we value the Sacrament of Baptism and renew our baptismal vows.

Fourth year (Year 4)

• We discover Jesus in the different faces of poverty and we receive His Commandments as guidelines to follow on the path of our life. We celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time.

Fifth year (Year 5)

• We affirm that Jesus is the true God and true man. We celebrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist as a sign of Christ’s presence which demands our commitment to live in the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Sixth year (Year 6)

• We proclaim that God, present in our history, makes it a History of Salvation. The disciple adopts a Christian life, inspired in the values of the Gospel, celebrates the Sacraments and bears witness, with gestures and words, of the new life among men.

Physical education and sports

RUGBY

First year (Year 1): a weekly practice.
From Second to Sixth year (Year 2 to Year 6): two practices a week.
Matches take place on Saturday morning. The calendar is scheduled around the fixture list organised by L.I.D. (Liga Intercolegial de Deportes – Interschool Sports League).

FOOTBALL

First year (Year 1): a weekly practice.
From Second to Sixth year (Year 2 to Year 6): two practices a week.
Matches take place on Saturday morning. The calendar is scheduled around the fixture list organised by L.I.D. (Liga Intercolegial de Deportes – Interschool Sports League).

HOCKEY

Hockey practices start in the 1st year (Year 1) after spring half term break, and they are scheduled at the same time as Games. They consist of a short introductory course to the sport and its basic technical foundations.
Hockey-specific practices start in the 2nd year (Year 2) of Primary school until the 4th year (Year 10) of Secondary school.
To practise hockey it is compulsory to wear shin pads and a mouthguard.
There are two weekly practices.
Matches take place on Saturday morning.
The calendar is scheduled around the fixture list organised by L.I.D. (Liga Intercolegial de Deportes – Interschool Sports League).
In the Sixth year (Year 6) we organise a two-way sports exchange with Colegio Northlands, (Northlands School, Buenos Aires, Argentina).

HANDBALL

Handball practices start in the 3th year in Primary school.
There are two weekly practices.
Matches take place on Saturday morning.
The calendar is scheduled around the fixture list organised by L.I.D. (Liga Intercolegial de Deportes – Interschool Sports League).

ATHLETICS

Starting in the 2nd year of Primary school (Year 2) until the 4th year of Secondary school (Year 10), we participate in interschool exchanges organised by the two leagues to which we belong: L.I.D. and A.D.I.C.
From 2nd to 4th year of Primary school (Years 2 to 4) we organise "Mini-athletics" days in which all children take part.
From the 5th year of Primary school (Year 5), we form teams that have regular practices after school. These practices are scheduled in a seasonal rota before tournaments.

BASKETBALL

Starting in 5th grade Primary school.
There are two practices per week.

ARTISTIC GYM

From 1st to 6th year of Primary school, students can choose to be part of the Artistic Gym team.
Practices take place once a week after school.
During the year we take part in interschool competitions organised by ADIC.

Education in English

In Primary school we follow Cambridge Primary, University of Cambridge international education programme for learners aged 5 to 11 years.

This programme is completed in the 6th year of Primary education (Year 6) with the following international examinations:

Cambridge Primary Checkpoint

* English as a First Language

* Science

* Mathematics.

Our students’ first contact with the English language is through stories, songs, poems, games and multimedia resources.

We also apply Jolly Phonics, a programme which favours the early acquisition of reading and writing skills.

As part of our English Language syllabus, each student will watch, listen to, speak, read and write the following range of texts:

FICTION:

• Stories

• Myths

• Legends

• Poems

• Scripts

NON-FICTION: • Letters

• E-mails

• Reports

• Speeches and talks

• Advertisements

• Instructions, manuals, etc..

The Science syllabus is inquiry-based and it includes the study of:

• Biology

• Physics

• Chemistry

We coordinate our Maths syllabus with the Maths syllabus in Spanish, aiming to familiarise the student with the language of Maths in English, as both syllabi share most of the contents.

To complement the University of Cambridge’s programme, we also offer Social Sciences in English:

• History

• Geography

And Performing Arts in English:

• Drama

• Singing

• Irish dance Spoken English Certificate

To complement the written assessments of CPC, in the 5th year of Primary school (Year 5) all students complete an internal oral assessment with a native English speaking examiner.

Weekly teaching hours

The weekly teaching hours in English comprise around 50% of the total teaching hours.

Learning Support

The English Department has a team of specialised teachers who provide in-class and out-of-class support to students with Special Educational Needs.

Art

The College offers the students a wide range of extracurricular activities.

MUSIC AND THE CHOIR

Music is an essential part in the development of a child. We understand music as an agent which stimulates our students’ sensitivity promoting the liberation of their emotions and the fortification of internal states. It is an excellent means for our students to express themselves. Our lessons have a multi-sensorial approach where we make use of especially selected music. In this process, we start from aural perception, through comprehension of the musical language (motifs and musical phrases), to finally add movement of arms and hands to accompany the signs indicated on the music sheet with precision. This kind of task favours and further enhances our students’ aural skills; their ability to listen, and to understand; their aural, visual and muscle memory; their fine motor skills and their laterality. Music fosters emotional balance and leads to a state of concentration and of the soul which can be appreciated in the group’s improved progress.

Our choir’s repertoire aims to relate contents from the different subjects; through the use of different texts we work on the promotion of human values, which in turn stimulates and fosters the sense of rhythm and beauty.

DANCE

It is a fun and creative space in which children will awaken and discover their motor skills, develop respect, equality and tolerance, and express their inner world. This kind of activity allows our students to relate to one another while feeding back motion, thoughts and feelings, accepting their differences and understanding their bodies as a whole. In our 45-minute long lessons, we work on the recognition of the body, time and space, sense of rhythm and musical sense, creativity, sensitivity and communication.

DRAMA (SPANISH LANGUAGE)

Our drama lessons aim to provide the students with a fun space which allows the development of their creativity, sensitivity and imagination. Drama is a fundamental tool for the rediscovery of one’s body as a means of expression and communication. Our lessons involve both individual and group work, promoting the construction of an open-minded and tolerant atmosphere where everyone is valued.

ART

We understand art as a vital tool in an individual’s education. In the Art Workshop, children share personal and group experiences in an atmosphere of permanent exploration with different materials, colours and shapes. All activities foster our students’ self-esteem, a positive work environment and the continuous search for new artistic answers to the different challenges posed.

DRAMA (ENGLISH LANGUAGE)

Our workshop’s aim is to help our students know and develop personal tools in the use of their body, voice and expressive range. Through fun exercises, group work and personal and/or group creation of characters and scenes, students will explore and develop their sensitivity and imagination. At the same time, within the frame of an immersion programme in English, the workshop offers a meaningful context which supports and complements the work done in the English Language lessons.

Staff

Documents

E-mail: secretariaprimaria@stellamaris.edu.uy

Phones: 2 600 0702 - 2 601 0746 | ext. 1003 | ext. 1409 | ext. 1403