Newsletter 14.02.2025

Written on 14 February 2025

This newsletter comes with best wishes for today's Valentine's Day. A greeting has also been left in the staff room to mark the occasion.

An assessment centre for the newly initiated Excellence Scholarship Programme took place for the first time on 8 February. In this selection process, talented students had the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in various areas.

In the coming week, 19 children and young people from grades 2 to 7 will be guests at GISA for two trial days to familiarise themselves with the school environment and to be assessed further. We look forward to welcoming the potential scholarship holders for the trial days at GISA.

The GISA Teen Club enjoyed an entertaining afternoon at the cinema with Mufasa: The Lion King. The teenagers loved the film and snacked on delicious popcorn. It was a great afternoon and everyone is already looking forward to the next event, which will take place on Saturday 22 March at Bliss!

Last Sunday afternoon, parents and their children enjoyed a lovely coffee and cake party at the Swiss Club. The children had fun in the playground while the adults relaxed with coffee and cake. It was nice to see new faces and spend a happy afternoon together.

Headmaster Rainer Kropp-Kurta was in Stuttgart this week at the Didacta education trade fair and reported many good discussions with the partner schools, people interested in Ghana and Africa and, in particular, new team members for the coming school year.

Excitement for the new playground

The core idea of the playground is inspired by nature and incorporates design elements that mimic natural systems, patterns and structures to create an engaging, environmentally friendly space for children and adults alike. The patterned wood structure installed is modelled after a beehive and is designed to be modular and grow in size over time.

Many thanks to the volunteer parents who are making this great project possible for the benefit of our children!

French-speaking reinforcement for the pedagogical team

I am Rostelie Mavoungou (Miss Ros). I love reading, hiking and exploring nature. I am a dynamic and helpful person who loves to learn and have fun. I am passionate about teaching and want to inspire young people. I believe that teaching is not just a job, but an opportunity to have a positive impact on the future.

With six years of experience as an educator, Bernard Prah Mensah is passionate about creating engaging and immersive language learning experiences. A firm believer in learner-centred teaching, I strive to make French language learning enjoyable and accessible through interactive activities, storytelling and cultural exploration. My philosophy is based on the idea that education should inspire curiosity, build confidence and promote lifelong learning. Outside of the classroom, I enjoy listening to music, singing and playing football. My favourite subjects in school have always been French, Government and Literature as they allow for in-depth discussions and cultural appreciation. Apart from my passion for education, I enjoy eating banku with okra soup, a dish that brings him comfort and joy. I look forward to being part of the school community and sharing my love of language and learning with the students.

On 27 February 2025 from 3 pm, our Ghana Family Festival will take place on the lawn in front of the Swiss Club and invites you to an afternoon full of fun, culture and culinary delights. In addition to the exhibition of current art projects from the Ghana project period, there will be rousing performances from the student body.

Participation is expressly encouraged: you can try your hand at traditional fufu pounding. Culinary highlights such as grilled tilapia with banku, local drinks and much more will give you a taste of Ghana. Pottery and batik workshops are offered for a small participation fee. We look forward to an eventful afternoon with you!

Kindergarten and nursery:

This week in the nursery, everything continued to revolve around colours and shapes! On Monday, we learnt more about triangles. The children have been busy trying out where they can discover triangles in everyday life. On Thursday, we looked at the quadrilateral. Together we looked at different quadrilaterals and compared them. The children then worked on a worksheet in which they were able to connect similar shapes. To consolidate the colours, we read the book ‘The Little White Fish’. The children had a lot of fun naming the colours and remembering the story. Next week we will continue to work on colours and shapes.

In kindergarten this week, we have continued to work intensively on the topic of farms 🧑‍🌾🌾🐴. To consolidate what we have learnt, we looked through our word cards again and continued to work on our ‘Life cycle of a chicken’ posters🐓.

The school children came to visit again this week and brought their books 📕 to read to us. We were divided into seven small groups for this. We also started learning the Ghanaian national anthem 🎶, which we are practising for our upcoming performance in the coming weeks.

As part of our learning time, we have been working intensively on the Ghanaian flag 🇬🇭 and discussing it. We then had the opportunity to colour in our own flag. We also worked on pronunciation by telling stories independently using picture cards. In another group, we worked on rhyming. We used picture cards to find out which words rhyme.

This week we also made our own pizzas 🍕, which encouraged our fine motor skills and creativity. First, we cut out different toppings and then decorated the ‘dough’ according to our own ideas.

In the DAF/DAZ course, we worked with picture cards, determined articles and formed rhymes. We also came up with our own creative stories based on picture cards and told them in the language circle.

Friday was our toy day. We were able to use the toys we had brought with us and share them with other children. Of course, there was also lots of crafting, painting 🎨and romping around. During the party break, we had a lot of fun when they played ‘rock, paper, scissors’ and then danced to our favourite songs 💃🏾.

Primary school:

Class 1/2 had a great week. Class 1/2's music lessons included a musical guessing game with the boomwhackers. The children's knowledge of songs, their sense of rhythm and their musical ear were put to the test. On Wednesday, we had a joint play and reading lesson with the pre-school children. That was a lot of fun. On Friday, many children were caught - caught being nice. Many children prepared the class independently to have a nice class council. This weekly ritual involves saying thank you, apologising and also criticising. The letters from the class mailbox are then distributed. This brings the week to a close and the children can relax for the weekend.  

In German class 4, we have continued to work on the spelling strategies of prolongation and derivation and will be taking a small test on this next week on Monday or Wednesday. In Maths, Class 4 continued to practise written division, while Class 3 worked on non-core multiplication tables. Science was represented this week by Laura Lützeler and Deike Akorful and we looked at important key points in our lives in the past, present and future. We also sorted our needs according to importance. In English, we presented our self-written poems to each other together with the pupils from Year 7. In art, the masks and costumes were finalised and planned. We are looking forward to the new children coming to visit us next week.

Secondary school:

Class 5/6 are proud of their plants. We spent some time planting them this week. They have been wonderfully watered and cared for by the pupils over the last few months.

IT and ethics currently go hand in hand. We are looking at companies, products, sustainability, capitalism and, in particular, product development. In small groups, the students create a product that they later pitch to the class. It's about inventing something new or rethinking something that already exists. It's also about being convincing. We will then analyse and critically examine the 10 largest companies in the world and reflect on our own products.

The projects are going well. This week, some students had the opportunity to spray Adinka Signs on the wall. There is also a lot of dancing and/or playing. We are looking forward to a nice celebration together at the end of the month.

This week in German, the seventh graders examined a bar chart of the ten most spoken languages in the world, analysed the information it contained and summarised it in writing. They then carried out a survey in class to find out how many languages are spoken in our class and by how many people (native and foreign languages) and recorded the results in their own bar and column charts. Based on another factual text, the pupils visualised the milestones in the ‘development of writing’ with the help of a timeline.

In Physics we looked at electricity and identified some basic electrical components and their uses. We learnt the difference between open and closed switches. In science we learnt about mass and weight differences, units of measurement and instruments. Students learnt that mass and weight have been used incorrectly in our daily lives. But they understand what mass and weight are. The difference between floating and sinking was made clear and it was made clear that astronauts float when they go into space and go about their daily activities on the International Space Station (ISS). These helped the learners to learn more about activities that take place on the space station. Finally, we watched a short video about astronauts in the space station. In the end, the students visualised the milestones in the ‘development of writing’ with the help of a timeline.

Outlook:

Thu, 27.02.2025                       Family party ‘Made in Ghana’

Fri, 28.02.2025                         School carnival

Mon, 03.03.2025 -
Fri, 07.03.2025                         Spring holidays

Mon, 10.03.2025                      first day of school after the spring holidays - according to plan

Wed., 12.03.2025                    GISA Cup Kids Edition

Sat., 15.03.2025                       GISA Cup

Thu, 22/05/2025                     Musical ‘Hercules’ at the Goethe-Institut