Newsletter 17.01.2025

Written on 17 January 2025

The second teaching week of the year has already come to an end. In a town hall meeting on Thursday, there was a valuable exchange between parents, school management and the board - many thanks to everyone involved!

At this meeting, we also explained our new scholarship program, in which we want to give excellent students from Accra a new school home.

At the same time, the school continues to grow and a number of vacant positions have been advertised until mid-February.

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our new afterschool program, kicking off this February! We’re continuing with the same great activities and dedicated teachers that your children know and love, while also introducing some exciting new activities. From January 27th to 31st, we’ll be hosting a try-out week where students can try all the exciting activities we’ve planned. By the end of that week, we’ll need all registration sheets submitted to Sara Debackere to secure your child’s spot in the program. We’re looking forward to an amazing semester filled with fun, music and sports!

Download AG Kindergarten Semester 2 2024-25

Download AG Schule-School Semester 2 2024-25

The Harmattan is also making itself felt again and is unfortunately also making itself felt through increasingly poor air quality. We are monitoring the situation closely and, in line with the recommendations of the German embassy doctor, we will move all activities indoors when the air quality reaches 200 AQI or higher and stop sports and swimming lessons. Breaks are also to be spent indoors. Since this year, the daycare center and classrooms have been equipped with air purification filters.

The Swiss Club is currently used as a clubhouse and can be rented by parents for private events. The rental fee is 70 euros per event day (without playground use) or 100 euros with playground use. If you are interested, please contact the administration. We look forward to your inquiries!

After consulting with the security at the President's House, the passage remains closed until further notice and will not be reopened in the near future

Please also make a note of the dates for our Ghana Family Festival and Exhibition on Thursday, 27.02.2025, the DISA Children's Carnival on Friday, 28.02.2025, the GISA Cup Kids Edition on Wednesday, 12.03.2025 and the GISA Cup on Saturday, 15.03.2025.

And maybe we'll see you tomorrow at the walk for children's rights in Jamestown?

Kindergarten and nursery:

We welcomed a new child to our group in the nursery. We also did yoga together, which was great fun for the children and strengthened their body awareness and gross motor skills. We were able to play a lot in the garden and discover nature. Another highlight was the creative handicrafts, where the children glued paper onto colorful circles. This allowed us to practise our fine motor skills and express ourselves creatively.

This week we started our new topic “Feelings and Diversity” in kindergarten. In our morning circles, we learned about different feelings in both German and English, made matching facial expressions and thought about the situations in which we have felt certain feelings before. We identified similarities and differences between us and created a mandala together from various materials in the middle of our circle. We also sang the song “I love my body” and made rage balls out of balloons and sand.

During learning time, we played instruments at different volumes and speeds, made emotional monsters and told stories with the help of picture cards. In English Club this week, the beginners sang the “days of the week” song. We worked on the numbers 1-10 by counting forwards and backwards. Then the numbers were mixed up and the children had the task of recognizing certain numbers. Last but not least, we looked at and repeated word cards on the topic of “farm”. On Friday we finally had our sports day again. In a large course, the children were able to jump over “crocodiles”, avoid “ravens” and “snakes”, cross a “river” while balancing and fly together with “parrots”.

Primary school:

In Grades 1/2 Science, we began the week with positive feedback and reflection on our learning. We are working on creating two aquariums—one with real fingerling fish and another with model fish. This week, we started crafting our model fish and identified the materials needed. In Math, Class 2 did an excellent job understanding the concept of multiplication (extended addition). The children successfully translated practical stories into multiplication problems. Soon, memorizing multiplication tables will also be helpful. In German, students of class 1/2 tackled a variety of tasks, from working in Lies mal booklets and independent work in the Lola books to writing and digitizing stories and practicing reading comprehension. During project time, new projects began. Here’s a glimpse into the weaving project: students from all grades showed great skill and creativity.

This week in German with Laura Luetzeler we wrote our German paper on reading. In German with Alex Bergfeld we are preparing for our test next week (more information will follow) and are working on pronouns and verbs. In math we have started with multiplication. So please repeat the multiplication tables with your child at home. In English with Laura Luetzeler we have started with the topic of tenses and the rule: “He she it das s muss mit”.

With Clemencia Mayoga, we started with learning about poetry, the vocabulary we use and an introduction to haiku poems. In science, we started the week with a positive spirit and feedback. Students learned the difference between mixtures and solutions and how mixtures and solutions are put together. The students learned again that solutes are solids and solvents are liquids. The solute and the solvent form a solution, the solute and the solvent form a mixture. In a practical exercise, the third and fourth graders understood the concept very well and participated enthusiastically. Please encourage your children to find more examples of mixtures and solutions at home so that we can teach them next week. In art we are preparing for our mini musical “The Lion King” and making matching masks. We look forward to seeing some of them again tomorrow for the run through James Town.

Secondary school:

In German, the majority of the classes worked on the “Theater of the Oppressed”. Trainee Lennard Brodner created and performed a good play on the subject of poverty/wealth. The special thing about this type of theater is that it is performed spontaneously and freely. There are no set texts. It's more about finding a solution to an existing problem together - by slipping into roles and expressing ourselves spontaneously and creatively. In science, we started with high expectations, with students learning about solving solutions and mixtures. Students learned the difference between soluble and insoluble solutions and between soluble and insoluble substances in solutions. Again, students learned the difference between floating and sinking.

The learners were enthusiastic about it, we did practical exercises to gain a comprehensive knowledge about it. The learners were also given some homework to identify more soluble and insoluble substances in solutions in their everyday life to be discussed in class next week. In English: writing a blog versus a journal. We have identified the language and structure to use. In math, we are working with decimals, arithmetic rules, and quantities. The Germanic tribes entered the world stage in History and in Geography Europe's states were presented. A calendar is currently being created in Art.

In Year 7, the pupils were very excited about the start of school. In physics, we have been working on the topic of space, with one pupil presenting to his classmates about space, in particular the solar system. During the lesson, the students learnt the difference between the waning moon (Waning Crescent) and the waxing moon (Waxing Gibbous), which was very exciting.

In Chemistry, the students studied solutions and the rate at which insoluble and soluble substances form heterogeneous and homogeneous solutions and mixtures. The students did practical exercises to develop a deeper understanding of this.

In science, the students learnt how two reactants can form a product. Here too, we carried out practical exercises to deepen our knowledge. We did some exercises on chemical changes to deepen our understanding and the concept of the lesson.

‘Comma placement can make the difference between life and death!’ - Based on this hypothesis, this week the seventh graders investigated why we need commas in the first place and discovered that the same sentence can take on very different meanings depending on how commas are used. Using a continuous detective story at stations, the pupils worked out the rules for forming sentence sequences and sentence structures. Finally, they applied what they had learnt in a self-written ending to the story.

The class started this week in maths with a new topic. The pupils worked on various maths assignments. The focus was on proportional and antiproportional mapping. They also worked on the rule of two and rule of three in order to continue the assignments.

In biology, the pupils are looking at the metabolism of the human body and are currently working on posters about the basic nutrients, which will be presented next week. The difference between weather and climate was explored in geography, while in history individual presentations of medieval topics such as the plague, Vikings, castles, guilds and knights were created.

On Saturday there will be a children's rights rally in Jamestown, which the pupils have been preparing for by looking at children's rights and talking about basic needs. We will meet tomorrow at 10am at Wonderful Street Academy.

 

Outlook:

Sat, 18/01/2025                            Demonstration for children's rights

Fri, 31/01/2025                              Issue of half-year information (school reports)

Thu, 27/02/2025                         Exhibition ‘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