Newsletter 28.03.2025

As a thank you and in recognition of their great commitment, the GISA Cup organising team and the GISA team were invited to a special football experience on Friday a week ago. Together they attended the World Cup qualifier between Ghana and Chad. The atmosphere was rousing - pure enthusiasm, team spirit and genuine football fever. Ghana impressed with a strong 5:0 victory and gave the fans an unforgettable evening.

Last Saturday’s Teen Club meet-up at Bliss Trampoline Park was a fantastic success! We had a record number of teens join us, and the energy was incredible from start to finish.

From high-flying jumps to exciting games, everyone was fully engaged and having a blast. It was amazing to see how much fun they had challenging each other, trying new tricks, and simply letting loose. After all the action, we wrapped up with drinks and snacks, giving everyone a chance to relax and chat. It was wonderful to see new friendships forming and the group bonding so naturally. A huge thank you to everyone who came—we can’t wait for the next event!

Eid Ul-Fitr will be celebrated next Monday, 31 March 2025 and Tuesday, 1 April 2025. Eid Ul-Fitr is a public holiday in Ghana and therefore both days are free of school.

An open day will take place on Saturday, 12 April 2025 from 3 pm to 6 pm. Please share the invitation with interested families.

Our Year 6 and 7 students are preparing for their first Cambridge Checkpoint exams, which will take place from 14 to 17 April. As pioneers in this programme, we are confident that they will do us proud. They recently completed a 30-minute training session on how to approach the questions and understand the marking scheme to boost their confidence and give them the skills they need to succeed.

Save the Date: King's Day – Saturday, April 26!

We’re excited to announce that, this year, we’ve been invited to join the Dutch School’s annual Culture Day in celebration of King’s Day!

• Join us for an exciting morning of sports and traditional King’s Day activities! Children from outside the Dutch and German Schools are more than welcome to participate from 9:00 AM at the Swiss Club. Registration is required, and all registered kids will receive breakfast and a snack. Parents are welcome to relax, enjoy a breakfast at the Swiss Club, and connect with the wonderful community of the Dutch School.
• From 11:00 AM, parents and children can buy and sell second-hand toys, books, clothes, and more. Everyone is welcome to set up a stall—just remember to bring your own change and manage your space. Delicious snacks and drinks will also be available!
• The Culture Day will conclude at 12:00 PM.
• For some extra fun: Come dressed in orange!

Want to join the kids' program or sell at the flea market?
Contact Sara Debackere at sara.debackere@dis-accra.org or 059/755 6847 to register.

North Ridge Cafe is ready to introduce its new menu for the month of April:

Due to the short school week and Pascal Bonsu's funeral service, the next newsletter will not be published until Friday, 11 April 2025.

Kindergarten and nursery:

This week in the nursery we completed our theme of colours and shapes and looked at the rainbow. We made a rainbow fish by spraying crepe paper with water and observing how the colours mix. Singing ‘Colors of the Rainbow’ was a fun way to learn the colours. A special highlight was our experiment with kitchen roll. We painted them in rainbow colours, got them wet and watched with excitement as the colours slowly ran and changed. We also created a colourful rainbow out of crepe paper and added a fluffy cloud of cotton wool. The children had great fun and were proud of their work of art!

In kindergarten, the hot air balloon pictures that we started last week were finally completed this week. We also learnt even more new terms for different vehicles. We discussed where the vehicles drive, swim or fly, what they are used for and whether we have ever driven or flown with the respective vehicles. A special highlight this week was the short musical about ‘The Lion King’, which the children from class 3/4 performed for us. We were really impressed by the costumes, the music and the dancing! On Friday, it was toy day again and the children played extensively with the toys they had brought with them and the toys from the kindergarten and came up with new, creative play ideas together. During learning time, we learnt about even more new instruments with the help of picture cards and were of course allowed to try out our instruments again. The children were able to train their fine motor skills by gluing pictures out of beads and we practised recognising number pictures by painting by numbers. As the children had so much fun rhyming last week, we made up even more rhymes this week and also repeated the syllable clapping.

Primary school:

There was a lot going on in class 1/2 this week! In keeping with the season, we have been making Easter baskets with lots of fun and creativity, led by our own crafting expert from Year 2. We have created real works of art that everyone can be very proud of. We were also able to celebrate two birthdays. The birthday children were honoured with songs and of course celebrated three times. The second-graders worked intensively on the topic of lengths in maths lessons. They measured various objects, practised using rulers and learnt to use measurements such as centimetres. In science lessons in year 1/2, the children have been studying the exciting topic of rocks. They learnt about different types of rock and discussed what they look like and what they can be used for.

This week, the topic of object description was further explored in class 4 German lessons. The pupils designed creative ‘missing person adverts’ for their own fountain pens - an exciting and entertaining task that encouraged linguistic expression. For some of our DaF children in class 3/4, the topic of birthdays took centre stage. Together they designed invitation cards, sang songs and learnt lots of new terms relating to toys. So the next birthday can come! A special highlight of this week was the music lesson: the opening song from The Lion King was performed as a mini-musical with a great deal of diligence and enthusiasm. The loving preparation paid off - the performance was a great success! As Easter is slowly approaching, a creative craft project was also launched: The pupils designed colourful Easter baskets. An eventful week has come to an end for Class 3/4, and now everyone is looking forward to the long weekend.

Secondary school:

This week was challenging because it was characterised by tests. With this in mind, a big well done to all the pupils who gave their all. Year 6 are currently working a lot on grammar in German. We want to expand our basics and are therefore looking at s/ss/ß and creating mnemonic devices to help us to be more confident in dealing with these often confusing spelling rules in the future. In geography, we virtually travelled to African countries and named important bodies of water. The presentations on Roman history look set to be fantastic and we can look forward to next week with excitement. The pupils are becoming more and more considerate in their dealings with each other and class teacher Alex Bergfeld would like to praise them for becoming better at accepting criticism in the class council and creating a way of dealing with it.

The students prepared for the upcoming Cambridge exams in maths, science and English. Preparatory tests were organised to help the students prepare for the exams and consolidate their knowledge in the respective subjects. In geography, students' heads were spinning during a class test on climate and climate diagrams. In PE lessons, the focus was on promoting cooperation and teamwork. Various co-operation games were carried out in which the pupils were able to develop their teamwork skills. These exercises not only strengthened cohesion within the class, but also promoted communication and trust between the pupils. Overall, it was an educational and varied week that emphasised both academic and social skills. As the week draws to a close, Class 7 would like to wish everyone a great weekend and a happy Eid al-Fitr to all those celebrating!

The DaF class at secondary level (the motivated pupils in years 5, 6 and 7) made their Easter nests this week and learnt vocabulary relating to handicrafts. Further steps in the German language were vocabulary relating to place of residence, address, origin and the conjugation of regular verbs and the verb ‘sein’ in the singular. This Friday, the DaF group again wrote a learning objective test on the topics covered this week.

Outlook:

Mon, 31/03/2025 -
Tue, 01/04/2025                             Eid Ul-Fitr - no classes

Sat, 12/04/2025                              3 pm - 6 pm: Open Day

Mon, 14/04/2025 -
Thu, 17/04/2025                            Cambridge exams

Fri, 18.04.2025 -
Fri, 02.05.2025                               Easter holidays

Tue, 22/04/2025 -
Fri, 25/04/2025                               Easter camp ‘Jungle Adventure’

Sat, 26/04/2025                             Dutch King's Day at the GISA

Mon, 05/05/2025                            First day of school after the Easter holidays 

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