I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. William Wordsworth
Dear Families and Students,
This week in school is Poetry and Arts week. This is because UNESCO marks World Poetry Day on 21st March, marking an annual initiative to promote linguistic diversity, cultural heritage, and creative expression through verse. The verse above comes from one of my favourite poems by William Wordsworth. In Britain, we notice the turn of the seasons, the end of winter and the beginning of spring with the growth of beautiful daffodils. Spring is around the corner, although all the rain this week means we have to wait a little longer here in Cyprus.
Students in our school explore the arts, including poetry, novels, theatre, visual arts and music. These subjects are an integral part of our curriculum in all three programmes. In some schools, the arts take a back seat to Mathematics, Language and Sciences but at The Island School, we value all disciplines and we actively promote the arts. As part of our afternoon programme, students can enjoy attending clubs in our Arts academy: they can learn an instrument, join a choir or a band, or perform in one of our many shows or plays which take place regularly through the year. Waldorf classes produce a play or an art exhibition at the end of each year and build their performing and artistic confidence from an early age. In Montessori and Waldorf children enjoy woodwork and handwork in addition to receiving music lessons from specialist teachers. In IB PYP , MYP and DP children learn about visual arts, drama and music as part of their curriculum. Last weekend the DP students displayed beautiful, thoughtful and creative artworks as a culmination of their DP Visual Arts course and it was amazing! Children also learn about poetry and have opportunities to create their own in their English, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek and Hebrew lessons. This week children from PYP2 and 4 made poetry books to mark the theme of the week.
This week the Montessori primary class performed a beautiful assembly, including reading aloud about famous peacemakers in history, singing the Montessori peace song “Light a candle for Peace’ and speaking in many languages, honouring the home languages in their class and creating paper doves. This assembly embodied all the arts and was thoroughly enjoyed by their parents.
This week we also had our service week, which was delayed from its original date a couple of weeks ago. Students in Grades 7 and 8 went on trips to the Williams dog shelter and Generation for Change in Nicosia. Grade 9 and 10 worked with a visiting speaker from Life for Unity Charity based in Kenya to develop ideas for promoting and developing the charity.
PP3B class visited the Planetarium as part of their UOI on ‘How the world works’ and PP1 visited Limassol Zoo. This weekend 5 students from MYP 5 and DP1 participated in a Pan Cypriot Science Festival in Protaras along with many other schools from across the island. Also on Saturday, the pre-primary Robotics club will be attending a robotics festival in Nicosia at the European University. On Wednesday, The Island School hosted a Cypriot chess competition in our after school programme. What a busy week but what a lot of opportunities for all of our students!
Finally, our Muslim families and colleagues have celebrated Eid-Ul-Fitr this Thursday evening as Ramadan has come to an end. We wish them all Eid Mubarek and a blessed time with their families and friends.
I wish you all a wonderful weekend full of art, poetry and celebrations!