Students make a big splash at the BSB Summer Fair splash at the ...

ead more 

on page 24 

The British School of Bucharest Magazine 

Students make a big 

splash at the the BSB Summer Fair 

The Summer Fair this year was a bustle of 

activity as blue skies and warm weather 

ensured a record turnout to enjoy the many many 

food food and and novelty novelty stalls stalls and wide wide range range of of 

fun activities. One of the highlights of the 

Fair Fair was was undoubtedly the Pool Climb, where 

Contents 

· Editor’s Note 2 

· BSB Charity work Review 2 

· The Front Desk 2 

· Principal’s Report 3 

· Secondary School Update 4 

· KS1 End of Year Report 4 

· Head of Primary 5 

· Foundation Update 5 

· KS2 End of Year Report · Maths Activities for the 

5 

Foundation Stage Child 

· Foundation Parent 

6 

Workshops 6 

· The Learning Community 6 

· Easter Bonnet Parade 

· Foundation Stage 

7 

Swimming Lessons 7 

· Preschool and Crèche put on 

Giant Bake Sale 7 

IGCSE 

Art Exhibition 

· The Monster Munchkins 

Toddler Group 8 

· School Inspector 

Gives Final Okay 9 

· Ringwood’s 

Secret Garden 9 

· Student in the Spotlight 10 

· Where Are They Now 10 

· Primary Student Council 

End of Year Report 11 

· Secondary Student Council 

End of Year Report 11 

· International Award 

Students Camp out 12 

· Healthy Schools Week 13 

· BSB Clubs 14 

· BBS Students Enjoy Science 

Day, 2009 16 

· G&T Students 

Teach Key Stage 2 17 

31 

The end of the year is always a very busy 

time and this was certainly true for the 

IGCSE Art students as they rushed and 

readied themselves for for their annual IGCSE 

Art Art Exhibition. This year it was was Alex, Nour 

(Year 12) and Isabella (Year 11) offering 

their work up to the BSB BSB public eye. 

students pitted themselves against a vertical 

incline suspended above the BSB pool, 

before eventually dropping into the pool 

beneath to cool off on what was a very hot 

day. In the picture above Anthime, Year 6, 

contemplates his fi nal few moves to the top. 

· Willkommen zu BSB! 18 

· MFL Spanish Assessment 19 

· Chole the Guide Dog Puppy 

Visits the Primary School 19 

· Junior Library Students 

Experience the Joy of 

Reading 20 

· Craze of the Week 20 

· Author John Malam 

visits BSB 21 

· Anthony Frost 

Book Token Prize 21 

· Year 3 Sinaia Trip 22 

· Year 4’s 

Trip to Poiana Brasov 22 

· Year 5 trip 

to Moeciu de Sus 23 

· Year 6 Sojourn to Italy 23 

· The 2009 

BSB Summer Fair 24 

· BSB Radio Show Update 26 

· 3P Perform ‘Brush’ 

in Key Stage 2 Assembly 26 

· Story in Four 

· Drama Students Perform 

Monologues at School 

27 

Assembly 27 

· Mamma Mia had 

the crowd in hysterics 28 

· The History 

of the Orchestra 29 

· Private Piano lessons 29 

· DT from a Year 7 

Point of View 30 

· Year 10 Art Students look 

to National Military 

Museum for inspiration 30 

· IGCSE Art Exhibition 31 

· Adult Art Classes 32 

Issue 4 - June 2009 

Visit the BSB website at www.britishschool.ro 

28 

Mama Mia performances 

exemplify comic parody parody 

The Secondary School this year was a 

particularly memorable affair as as the series 

of short skits, connected in some way by 

the common theme of Abba, evoked a 

plethora of emotions emotions from the captivated 

audience. 

· BSB Students attend 

International Conference 

on Higher Education 32 

· Adult English Classes 32 

· BSB Work Experience 33 

· Reception Transition 

to Year 1 34 

· Year 7 help Year 6 Students 

prepare for the jump to 

Secondary 35 

· Garden Design 

university course 36 

· IQ University Course 36 

· Day 5 Report from Madrid 37 

· PE Dept. Review 

· BSB are runners-up in 

38 

ISB Lumina Cup Football 

Tournament 38 

· Swoosh! 39 

· BSB Sports Day, 2009 40 

40 

BSB Sports Day a success 

despite poor weather 

Each year BSB students don their house 

colours and and head out onto the athletic 

fi eld to do battle and and this year was no 

exception, despite the poor weather. 

On Monday Monday June 8th students entered a 

variety of track and and fi eld events over the 

course of the morning before rain fi nally 

interrupted interrupted proceedings, proceedings, forcing the the fi nal 

events events to to be run over over the proceeding days. 

· Key Stage 2 

House Captain review 42 

· Primary House 

Competition Update 42 

· Secondary House 

Captain review 43 

· Danube has Victory in its 

sights 43 

· Class pages 

· BSB teachers receive 

44 

‘International Award’ 

Training 52 

· Teachers Celebrate 

Successful ISI Inspection 53 

· BSB TAs win 

International Open Air 

Cooking Competition 54 

· PTA 2008-2009 55

BSB Charity work 

2009 Review 

The Charity Committee would like to thank 

everyone at BSB for their fantastic support and 

the many contributions made during the academic 

year 2008-2009. Thanks to the combined efforts 

of the students, staff, and parents, we have been 

able to make a difference to the lives of many less 

privileged people around us. 

Our charity drives this year have included Jeans 

for Genes Day in support of children with genetic 

disorders, the Shoe Box Appeal, to help the 

orphaned children from the Concordia Children’s 

2 

Editor’s Note 

I can hardly believe that we are at 

the end of the year already. Year 

10, 11, and 12 have now finished 

their IGCSE exams and I am about 

to head off on the Madrid Trip with 

The Front Desk 

Ms Kemp and KS 3&4 students. 

This busy end to the year is 

reflective of the entire year as it 

has been go go since September 

2008. I really can’t remember 

having had a year where everyone 

at school worked so hard, and 

this is evident in the fact that we 

have achieved so much in one 

year. The ISI inspectors could 

not believe that this is only our 

second year in Pipera. Indeed, 

the mind boggles when I look to 

the future and ponder what we 

might achieve in the end of next 

year ahead. Mr Mulvany and Mr 

Kelly did a fantastic job with the 

school productions. Ms Kemp 

and Mr O’Brien did a wonderful 

job improving the PE department. 

Ms Kemp also did an incredible 

job developing the DT curriculum 

organising the DT Days and the 

weekly DT classes. Add to this the 

fact that we have a new DT room, 

a new set of classroom laptops, a 

new climbing frame and play area 

for Foundation, thousands of new 

books for the schools libraries, a 

set of 20 or more new keyboards 

and a host of other instruments, 

the new Adult Classes, and the list 

goes on, and it is clear that it has 

been a very good year for everyone 

here at BSB. 

It is therefore fitting that with such 

a busy and successful year that we 

should finish on a high note. In the 

last month we have had the School 

Fair -a huge success, the School 

Productions, times five, Sports 

Day, a host of school trips, the SAT 

and IGCSE exams, Science Day, 

Space Day, and many other events, 

all of which you can read about in 

Farm, the Christmas Bazaar and last but certainly 

no least, the BSB Summer Fair. We were able to 

raise money for various charity organisations 

like St Stelian’s and Leslie Hawkes. The success 

of the two fairs was, to a great extent, due to the 

outstanding organisational skills of the PTA which 

has been headed this year by Cathryn Henderson. 

Thank you once more for your commitment to this 

task! 

Students have also played a very important role 

in ensuring the success of all these initiatives; 

they have even organised and run their own 

fundraising events. Natalie and Naomi (Year 7) 

have sold second hand books to raise money for J 

K Rowling’s Children High Level Group and Tudor 

and Mihnea (Year 9) have sold self made sushi and 

waffles to raise money for the Children’s Hospital. 


this issue, the first Newblast issue 

to exceed 40 pages! This in itself is 

evidence of the incredible amount 

going on at BSB. 

To end, I would once again like 

to thank all those who helped to 

make this Issue the great read that 

it is. In particular, I would like to 

thank Mr Brad Hamacher for his 

many contributions to this issue. A 

big thank you also to Mrs Calthrop, 

Ms Kemp, Mr Leese, Mr O’Brien, 

Ms Hussain, Ms Greenwood, and 

Mrs Wells for your help. And last 

but not least, thank you to all 

the students who contributed to 

this issue, especially Ana Year 

7, Noor, Year 9, and Senia and 

Andreea, Year 10. Have a great 

summer break and see you all in 

September. 

Happy reading 

Mr Kendall Peet 

Parents have generously donated clothes, toys 

and shoes throughout the year. These items 

went to Remar, an organisation that works 

with homeless people. Thank you for all your 

donations. 

I would also like to thank my lovely and energetic 

colleagues from the Charity Committee, Ms Kath 

Homer and Ms Rocio Marti! Our work has taught us 

that there is nothing as rewarding as being able to 

inspire a smile of gratitude on someone’s face. 

We look forward to making a difference to the lives 

of those in need next. We hope you will join us in 

this task. 

Ms Dorothea Draser, 

Charity Committee 

If you need any information or help in regard to your 

child’s education and support at BSB, please do not 

hesitate to contact our office team during normal 

working hours, 8.00am-5.00pm, Monday-Friday. 

For general enquires or about sports and clubs 

please contact: 

Tanya Biryukova, Office Manager 

or Adina Suciu, Office Assistant 

Email: office@britishschool.ro 

Tel: 021 267 8919 

Fax: 021 267 8969 

For specific help relating to school transport and 

student lunches, please contact: 

Diana Udor 

Email: services@britishschool.ro 

Mob: 0728 133 432/3 

Tel: 021 267 8919 

Fax: 021 267 8969

Jo Wells 

“ We have enjoyed our 

time at BSB very much. It 

has been most interesting 

to see the school and all 

the hard work which has 

gone into it. We would like 

to thank the students, staff 

and parents for all the help 

and information which we 

have been given and wish 

you all the very best for the 

future.” Dr Martin Bradley 

&the ISI inspection team 


Principal’s 

Report 

“ Recently we underwent our 

first ISI (Independent Schools 

Inspectorate) inspection. It is an 

undeniably daunting task putting 

together all the correct paperwork 

that the inspectors require, and 

then there is the obvious stress of 

the visit to follow. 

However I actually felt very 

honoured to present our school, 

it’s teachers, teaching assistants, 

maintenance personnel, 

administration staff and mostly 

importantly the students to the 

inspectors. 

During the visit I was asked what 

I felt was the school’s biggest 

accomplishment. It would be easy 

to quote grades and SATs results, 

and looking at our ongoing 

assessments it would be simple 

to show the great academic 

progress the children have been 

made. 

Yet education is not simply about 

exams and being able to recite 

information that is forgotten by 

the end of the summer, it is far 

more about creating citizens 

who hold true to their values 

and have a moral purpose. At 

a presentation on Open Day I 

witnessed a new student to our 

school, step forward in front of 

parents, teachers and his peers 

and take part in a small play the 

students had written that day. The 

boy had little to no English, his 

time at BSB could be measured in 

minutes and hours yet supported 

by his new friends, who had 

written a part for him that would 

allow him to speak in his native 

language, he held the floor 

delivered his speech and joined 

in. In those few minutes, for that 

student, challenges had been 

met, problems had been solved 

and self-confidence and selfesteem 

had been heightened. 

Later, he was to tell me that he 

felt he had finally come home 

that day, after experiencing 

some tough times at his previous 

school. As I am sure you can 

imagine I could not have been 

more proud of this young student 

and what he had achieved that 

day, but also of the other students 

who had shown such a great 

degree of empathy for him and the 

way he must have been feeling 

on his first day at a new school. 

This is what I told the inspector in 

answer to his question. 

I wish you all, teachers, children, 

staff and parents, the most 

relaxing of summers where you 

BSB Management Team with ISI Inspection Team, May 2009 


have time to catch up with family 

and friends, and for our returning 

families, that you come back 

safely to us, rejuvenated to tackle 

the exciting challenges of a new 

academic year which always holds 

such magic and promise. 

For our students who are moving 

on this year, we obviously wish 

you all the very best in your new 

schools and hope that you have 

many warm memories of your 

time at BSB, you will always be 

part of the fabric that makes up 

our school’s history and we thank 

you and your family for the valued 

contribution you have made to our 

community.” 

Jo Puddy-Wells 

3

4 

Secondary 

School 

Up-date 

It is hard to believe that I am once 

again writing my final message for 

the year. Time has flown by and so 

much has been achieved by our 

students during this time. The last 

few weeks have been hectic and 

fun, and teachers and students 

alike feel exhausted by all the 

activities, trips, productions and 

event days. As always, the end of 

the year has made all of us aware 

of the international nature of the 

school, and there have been sad 

farewells to students who are 

leaving the British School to study 

elsewhere. We wish success and 

happiness to all those who are 

moving on. 

Key Stage 1 

End of Year 

Report 

Well it has been another great term 

in Key Stage 1. I can’t believe the 

summer holidays are here already! 

We have all worked extremely hard 

this term and the children should 

be proud of their achievements. 

Well done! 

There has been some fantastic 

learning going on and it’s 

wonderful to see the children so 

enthusiastic to learn more. We are 

lucky to have a great team who 

put together such creative and 

inspiring activities and even luckier 

to have such receptive pupils. The 

children had fun exploring a range 

of different activities on Science 

Day and were particularly energetic 

on the Forces Assault Course. 

This term the Secondary School 

has hosted transition days, sports 

events, participated in the Summer 

Fair, had fun during activity week, 

with our students finishing this 

term with the Awards Assembly 

and a BBQ during the last week of 

term. A group of students enjoyed 

a week touring the many famous 

sites of Madrid and have returned 

with many photographs and stories 

of their adventures. Alongside all 

these activities, the students have 

also been working extremely hard 

with their studies. Our current Year 

11 and 12 students have taken their 

external IGCSE examinations and 

now have to wait patiently for the 

results which will be announced 

during August. Our Key Stage 3 

students have taken their end of 

year examinations and the Year 9 

students have made their subject 

choices for the IGCSE courses next 

year. This year they have been able 

to choose from additional subjects 

in Separate Sciences, Drama and 

English Literature, which have 

been added to the Key Stage 4 

curriculum. 

They were all very enthusiastic on 

Sports Day and I was pleased to 

see some improved sportsmanship 

skills between teams. 

The Key Stage 1 team and I hope 

you all enjoyed the End of Year 

Celebration on the 17th. Staff and 

children had a blast performing the 

songs and dances and it was great 

to see so many of you joining in! 

We all enjoyed our Barnaby Bear’s 

Picnic too and the best bit was 

making our own tasty lunch. The 

sound of happy munching could 

be heard across the lawn (bears 

are very noisy eaters)! After our 

picnic lunch we played party 

games together including pass the 

parcel and musical statues. What 

a gggggggrreat day! 

I would like to thank all our parents 

for their support throughout the 

year, many thanks for helping out 

with costumes and sets for our 

show. Your help is always very 

much appreciated. 


The whole school has recently 

undergone the Independent 

Schools’ Inspection (ISI) and as I 

eavesdropped on conversations, 

I was delighted to hear the 

inspectors comment on the 

delightful behaviour and manners 

of the students in the secondary 

school. They were equally 

impressed with the eagerness 

and willingness of the students to 

learn and participate in classroom 

activities. Prior to this, I requested 

that an independent secondary 

OFSTED inspector visit Crawford 

House. She too had only praise 

for the students. This is a fine 

testament to what we, as teachers 

in secondary, already know. As 

parents you can be very proud of 

what your children have achieved. 

In ending, I would like to take 

this opportunity to wish you all a 

very happy and relaxing summer 

vacation and I look forward to 

seeing our returning BSB students 

on Wednesday, September 2nd. 

Ms Jane Greenwood 

Head of Secondary 

Finally it’s a goodbye from me as 

this is my last term at BSB. I have 

had a wonderful 2 years here and 

will take many happy memories 

with me to my new school in 

Malaysia. I have thoroughly 

enjoyed working with Mark, Stuart, 

Helen, Livia, Dalila, Andrada and 

Valentina and would like to thank 

them for all their hard work over 

the last year. I have been fortunate 

enough to teach many wonderful 

children here at BSB and I hope 

that both the spies from ‘Spy Club’ 

and the survivors from ‘Survival 

Skills’ will remember the skills 

learnt and use them at some 

point in the future (watch out)! 

My biggest thank you goes to the 

present 2B who remain, by far, the 

most energetic and enthusiastic 

class I’ve ever taught! 

I wish you all a very happy, safe 

and restful summer and wish you 

all the best for continued success 

at BSB. 

Thank you for the memories. 

Ms Lindsey Banks, 

Key Stage 1 Coordinator

Head of 

Primary 

Foundation 

Update 

As the 2008/2009 school year 

comes to a close I am happily 

reflecting on a very successful 

year. The entire Foundation Stage 


Key Stage 2 

End of Year 

Report 

It is with a sense of regret that 

I write this update as it will be 

my last for the Newsblast. I have 

thoroughly enjoyed my time here 

at BSB and look back on this year 

with a feeling of pride. In each of 

these updates through out the 

year I have taken time to comment 

on all of the wonderful things the 

children in Key Stage 2 have done: 

Cinderella Rockerfella, Oliver, 

Sports Day, Mathematics and 

Science Days, residential trips and 

As the final Newsblast is about 

‘Achievement’ there are obviously 

an awful lot of things that I could 

talk about. This year has been 

packed with achievements for 

individual students, classes, 

teachers and the school itself. 

At our Awards and Leavers 

Assembly on the last day of school 

we will be celebrating some of the 

many achievements made by the 

children by giving certificates and 

trophies to honour all the hard 

work of the year. This year has also 

seen two inspections, as well as 

numerous assemblies, productions 

and special days which could all be 

referred to as our ‘achievements’. 

In addition to these, we could look 

back at all the things children have 

team has faced the challenge of 

putting into place the new EYFS 

curriculum and we have not 

just managed this successfully, 

but I believe we have excelled. 

How do these changes manifest 

themselves? Foundation Stage 

students now have much more 

input into their educational 

journey. In essence they are 

designing their own curriculum 

(at least a large proportion of it), 

which in turn demands that they 

have an individual education 

plan. As we all know, every child 

is different. They have different 

needs, interests, motivations, 

and learning styles (could this 

list be endless?). The Foundation 

Stage staff are now expert at 

observing those individual 

differences and plan to meet 

their student’s diverse needs. We 

are all able to recognize those 

powerful ‘teachable moments’ and 

understand that, even though we 

have made an incredibly detailed 

House Competitions are just some 

of the many accomplishments the 

children have been apart of this 

year. 

In Term 3 each year group went 

on a residential trip, with Year 6 

spending a week in Italy! We all 

participated in a very successful 

Science Day and also a very wet 

Sports Day! Along with all these 

enjoyable events the children also 

had their end of year assessments, 

achieving some outstanding 

results! Without naming any 

individuals, we have children in 

every year group far exceeding the 

national average for UK schools. 

In this final update, I’d like to 

thank my teaching staff who have 

made this year a true success. The 

accomplishments of Key Stage 

done to be ‘stars of the week’ or to 

earn House Points and Smiley Faces 

on an almost daily basis. These 

too are achievements that should 

be celebrated. Not least because 

they highlight what I feel is our 

biggest achievement as a Primary 

School. The best way I can describe 

this is as the ‘atmosphere’ of the 

school; the sense that the children 

are working hard, that they care for 

each other, that they are happy to 

be at school and that they want to 

do the best they can. For me, this 

is the biggest achievement of any 

year and I am happy to say that 

children, staff, parents and the 

wider community can all share in 

this success, as without everyone’s 

contribution, this would not be 

possible. 

plan, if the children are interested 

in something entirely different, 

then their interests are more 

important than the need to stick to 

our plan. 

A personal anecdote: I brought a 

budding Amaryllis plant into the 

classroom for the children to draw 

if they wished, not expecting this 

activity to take off as it did. Many 

children chose to draw this plant 

over a week or so, noticing and 

sharing the changes as the flower 

opened. They were particularly 

interested in the pollen and lots 

of new vocabulary was learnt. The 

flower began to decay and many 

children continued to be interested 

in this process. Then, as it was 

Inspection Day, I had very carefully 

planned what the students in my 

class would be doing (very, very 

carefully planned!) and none of 

this planning included the dead 

Amaryllis. However, I had to drop 

everything as the children decided 

that they wanted to take the 


2 are a result of the hard work 

these teachers have put in each 

and every day. We have worked 

very well as a team and have 

supported each other throughout 

the year. Our Teaching Assistants 

also deserve acknowledgement. 

Their hard work and dedication 

is integral to the success of Key 

Stage 2 and so a thank you to all 

the TAs. 

Finally, I would like to thank the 

children. I will remember many of 

you. Good luck for next year. 

Kia Kaha tamariki, ke marohi 

akoranga, o taringa! Ka kite ano. 

Be strong children, study hard, 

listen carefully! I will see you 

again. 

Mr Patrick Kennedy, 

Key Stage 2 Coordinator 

So thank you to everyone. For the 

children for being such amazing 

students, for the staff for doing 

such a wonderful job and for all the 

parents and community members 

who help out whenever they can 

and support us in everything we 

are doing. I feel like this has 

been a wonderful year and reading 

through the contributions from 

this, and every previous Newsblast, 

highlights just how much has been 

achieved. 

Have a wonderful summer, all 

the best to those who are leaving 

Romania and I look forward to 

seeing everyone else in the Autumn 

so we can go forward and achieve 

even more. 

Ms Naima Hussain, 

Head of Primary 

plant out of the pot, clear away 

the soil, examine the roots and 

finally cut open the bulb to see 

what was inside. It was a perfect 

‘teachable moment’ – no matter 

how experienced we are we just 

cannot plan for these things – but 

we can learn to identify them and 

use them to support children’s 

learning. I know for sure that every 

Foundation Stage teacher and 

teaching assistant at BSB will have 

their own similar stories. 

It has been wonderful sharing 

this learning journey with a great 

team of dedicated professionals. 

Thanks to all of you for working 

so tirelessly this year to provide 

the best possible start to our 

students’ education. I know we all 

wish all of our BSB families a safe 

and enjoyable summer holiday and 

we look forward to working with 

you again next year. 

Ms Angela Harvey, 

Head of Foundation 

5

Maths Activities 

for the Foundation 

Stage Child 

Many parents ask what they can do at home to help 

their child with maths. The answer is simpler than 

you might think. Foundation aged children respond 

best when learning is embedded in their play. 

Just like at school taking a play-based approach to 

teaching your child mathematics at home will make 

their learning fun and much more effective than 

more static approaches. Here are some activities 

you might want to try: 

Foundation Parent Workshops: 

The Learning Community 

Foundation Stage teachers shared some of their 

great ideas for learning activities that parents 

can do at home during a parents’ workshop held 

on the morning of Thursday 21st May. There was 

a great turnout but we also understand that 

not everyone can attend a morning session so 

handouts from the workshop were emailed to all 

Foundation Stage families. 

During the workshop Deanna Beggs (Reception 

Teacher Pipera Site) guided parents through the 

understanding of how important listening and 

speaking skills are to later reading and writing, 

whilst Gina d’Entremont (Preschool Teacher 

Gafencu Site) helped parents to understand the 

importance of sorting their washing with their 

6 

• Count cars, animals, houses, people, signs 

while driving or walking 

• Identify numerals in the everyday world: on 

license plates, food packages, etc. 

• Provide opportunities for one-to-one 

correspondence: setting the table, matching 

socks 

• Identify shapes in the everyday world: an ice 

cream cone is a sphere and a cone, a yield sign 

is a triangle 

• Practice a variety of counting rhymes that are 

available on the internet 

• Use vocabulary related to quantity, size, shape, 

measurement 

• Allow opportunities for students to explore 

capacity: provide various sized containers to fill 

and empty in the bathtub; allow your child to 

measure ingredients when you are cooking 

Parents join our learning community by participating in the Foundation Stage workshop. 

child, and other great mathematics activities. We 

laughed during the workshop, listened intently 

and tried to remember when we learnt to read and 

write. 

Most of us can remember handwriting practice 

but not truly learning to read or write. Please do 

share with us some of your memories of this. 

Since the workshop, I have remembered being 

taken to my brother’s class (two year’s older 

than me) and shown his handwriting with the 

question ‘Why can’t you write like this?’ Oh the 

effects of early labeling – ‘Angela the girl with bad 

handwriting’, although I also remember the health 

visitor telling me that my feet would win a ‘foot 

beauty competition’ if such a thing existed – so I 


• Talk about things that are heavy and light: show 

how a scale is used when measuring body 

weight or buying produce at the market 

• Talk about future events, create a countdown on 

the calendar, discuss past events: what came 

first, next, last 

• Provide opportunities to order objects by size, 

length, height, weight 

• Provide shape & space resources such as 

puzzles, blocks, shape matching games, etc. 

• Point out patterns in the everyday world: on 

animals, fabrics 

• Create patterns together using materials found 

around the house: buttons, coins 

• Use positional terms such as on top, under, 

below, behind, beside, left, right 

• Identify symmetry in the everyday world like 

body parts 

Ms Gina d’Entremont, 

Foundation Stage Maths Coordinator 

Deanna Beggs shares her ideas on Communication, 

Language and Literacy at Foundation Stage Parents 

Workshop. 

became ‘Angela with the lovely feet and the bad 

handwriting’. I am definitely digressing here…. 

I would like to thank you all for inviting us to be 

partners with you in your child’s education and 

to draw your attention to a quote that was shared 

at the workshop “A parent’s qualifications or job 

are less of a factor in the child’s progress than 

the parent’s desire to help the child interpret 

their environment.” Kathy Sylva, Professor of 

Educational Psychology and member of the EPPE 

team (Effective Provision of Pre-School Education 

Project). 

Angela Harvey 

Head of Foundation Stage

Easter Bonnet 

Parade 

Foundation Stage Pipera and Key Stage 1 all enjoyed 

wearing their Easter finery for the annual Easter 

Bonnet Parade. The children made beautiful Easter 

hats at school or at home and showed them off to 

a wonderful turnout of parents in the playground 

behind Ringwood. 

Searching for hidden eggs 

The children paraded through the playground before 

sharing some Easter songs and stories, as well 

as taking it in turns to show off their wonderfully 

creative hats. There were plenty of bunny ears, 

chicks and eggs on show and the children all 

enjoyed coming together to celebrate Spring and to 

mark the start of this important holiday. 



The Sooner the better: 

Foundation Stage 

Swimming Lessons 

The sun was shining and the excitement was 

high: the day had finally come for Foundation 

Stage to start their swimming lessons. It had been 

proceeded by lots of excited conversations about 

which swim suit the girls were planning to wear and 


Preschool and 

Crèche put on 

Giant Bake Sale 

Bianca, Ayesha and Samuel 

about to put the biscuits in the oven 

Crèche and Preschool C and H agreed to join 

together for their Term 3 bake sale with each 

class having its own wish list. Top priority 

for Preschool C was a new home for their Pet 

Hamster, Rocket, as his current accommodation 

was in serious need of upgrading. 

who exactly owned spider man swimming trunks, 

but the planning was over and now Reception B 

were ready to show off their water skills. 

Ms Tinneke Janssens, who is a trained swimming 

instructor, joined BSB staff to lead the swimming 

lessons, as the class teachers had volunteered to 

be in the water: a member of staff is also always 

present at the side of the pool and TA’s were ready 

to help children change. Classes are split into 

groups with a maximum of 8 children in the water at 

any one time. The swimming sessions are designed 

to be both safe and fun, increasing the children’s 

confidence in the water while allowing them to gain 


In the end the Bake Sale was a great 

success and so Rocket is now enjoying life in a 

very fancy new cage, Preschool H have brought 

things for their classroom, and Crèche have 

added some new toys to their garden. 

We would like to say a big thank you to all the 

parents who baked and helped run the stall. 

However, they were not the only ones cooking 

this time, as the Crèche students baked some 

delicious cookies, and had great fun doing 

it, and Preschool C students also combined 

counting practice with baking and produced 

some very tasty ‘Number 4 cookies’. 

Cakes going fast! 

Thank you to everyone for their support. 

Foundation Stage students learning to swim Using the safety tubes 

Mrs Claire O’Brien, 

Class Teacher 

new skills. 

Reception B certainly enjoyed their lesson, 

especially a game called flip the pancake where the 

children had a chance to be a human pancake. They 

also worked on activities to achieve a horizontal 

position while moving through the water and 

putting their faces in the water. The first lesson 

was a great success and I was very proud of the 

effort the children made and I am looking forward 

to seeing all the Pre-School and Reception children 

take to the water very soon. 

Mrs Helen Calthrop, 

Foundation Stage Co-Coordinator 

7

8 

Activity 

David 

Lilly 

Making hats 

The Monster 

Munchkins 

Toddler Group 

The Monster Munchkins toddler group was set 

up by a group of parents in October 2008 after a 

need was identified to provide early development 

opportunities for children aged 1-3 years. Well 

subscribed now with 30 members and two sessions 

a week, the purpose of the group is to introduce 

toddlers to a slightly more structured, formal 

Timothee 

Callum 

Emma with a montage of pics from other mothers 

Group photo 

setting than they might experience at home. 

In preparation for school and with the active 

involvement of all mums, the aims are to develop 

motor skills though a variety of craft activities, 

encourage imagination and communication, and 

further social interaction (particularly promoting 

sharing), and our sessions follow a structure that 

the children have come to know and enjoy. The day 

starts with something creative, with a different craft 

activity each week. These usually involve sticking, 

painting or cutting. In the past, we have painted 

rocks, created collages, made musical instruments 

and a whole variety of other things too! Creativity 

and imaginative play are core themes, and 

playdough and drawing are available as an option 

at every session. Toys provide the opportunity to 


Leo 

Playing outside 2 

Water play 

Tibor 

improve manual dexterity as well as encouraging 

imaginative play. Mid-way through the morning, 

we tidy up together and all sit in a circle to share 

a snack. This encourages self discipline, together 

with good manners, healthy eating and appropriate 

eating habits. After snack we go outside to the 

crèche playground to enjoy cycling, sand, water and 

climbing activities. Finally, the session is brought 

to a close when we go back inside to enjoy a story 

together and to sing fun action rhymes. These 

photos show some of the things we do. If you are 

interested in joining us in September, please email 

monstermunchkins@hotmail.com. 

Mrs Alison Power, Parent

School Inspector 

Gives Final Okay 

Between the 27th and 30th of April, BSB was 

visited by Ms Joyce Taylor, our independent school 

inspector, to help us in our final preparations for 

the official ISI Inspection. Ms Taylor has been 

visiting BSB annually for the past four years, 

providing support to the teachers and helping 

BSB to formulate an effective development plan. 

She says that it has been very enjoyable visiting 

BSB over the years and she has seen the school 

evolve in so many areas. On her visit this time, 

she said that she was particularly impressed by 

the beautiful campus, with the two impressive 

buildings and the well-maintained gardens, and 

even more impressed with the current staff and 

incredible amount of work everybody is doing, 

“from the Crèche and Foundation Stage, right 

through Primary and Secondary.” 

When I asked Ms Taylor about her background, 

she told me that she was born 10 days before 

Christmas, in the north of England. When she was 

very young, she moved with her family across to 

the East coast. Along the years, she has worked 

he way around the world, but recently decided to 

return to the East Coast, where she enjoys living in 

her house close to the sea. She has three dogs –a 

situation that she considers a bit mad– two that are 

hers, and another greyhound that she is fostering; 

they all love playing on the beach. She considers 

the sea to be important, because “when you get 

there, and you see an expansive coast and the sky, 

it makes you feel good inside”. 


When I asked her about her work, she said that 

she started her career in education about 30 years 

ago, teaching secondary students Art and Design 

and being a specialist for foundation and primary 

students – she considers teaching has changed a 

lot since then. One of the most important changes, 

in her opinion, was the implementation of the 

National Curriculum in the UK, which she feels 

made learning a lot easier for students. 

She taught in a number of parts of the UK, moved 

to Africa to teach for a couple of years, and 

then eventually returned to the UK, where she 

developed her career as a teacher, becoming a 

Deputy Head Teacher and then a Head Mistress of 

a school, before eventually going on to become a 

school inspector. In order to do this, she moved 

to another area and became a self-employed 

inspector and has been working as an independent 

school inspector for the last 15 years, inspecting 

schools all over the UK and a number of schools in 

Europe. 

In her opinion, one of the advantages of being 

an independent school inspector is that you can 

decide when you want to work and this means 

she has more time to keep up with her friends 

and hobbies. One of her hobbies is gardening, as 

she really enjoys planting and growing her own 

vegetables, and of course eating what she grows. 

She also enjoys reading and writing. She reads a 

lot, as she finds reading very relaxing. She has also 

just recently written some short horror stories for 

teenagers. 

“ I would like to wish you all a fun-filled summer 

holiday. See you in September!” 

Ms Taylor. 

Senia, Year 10 


Ringwood’s 

Secret Garden 

Do you recognise the children but not the 

place? I am not surprised because the photo is 

taken in Ringwood’s very own secret garden. 

If you toured the school last year you might 

have seen an overgrown vacant space behind 

our Foundation/Key Stage 1 building. Survival 

club had ventured into it several times and 

Year 4 had undertaken an archaeological dig 

in it, but the Foundation Stage, never happy 

to waste any thing, soon came up with a plan 

to turn it into something very special. Never 

one to say no, Mrs Wells asked for a little 

time and soon the skills and hard work of 

Mr Lupu’s maintenance team undertook the 

transformation. 

A wonderful place for a snack 

In May the garden was ready for the children 

who now have a lovely grassy area, complete 

with a hill and tunnel. Two new wooden 

houses are already popular spots for role play 

or having a snack during break time. We have 

lots of space to dig, and finding worms is a 

very popular activity. Preschool C have already 

been busy planting, and so fingers crossed we 

will soon be enjoying home grown tomatoes 

before the end of term. 

Pre School C planting flowers 

Do feel free to come and visit the garden when 

you are next in school as we would be very 

happy to share our secret garden with you… 

it’s through the wardrobe at the very back of 

the school. 

Helen Calthrop, 

Foundation stage Co-ordinator 

Pipera 

9

Student in the Spotlight 

Engin, from 3P, is 8 years old and 

works very hard in school. Engin’s 

favourite sport is Tennis. His 

favourite food is yummy Pizza and 

his favourite drink is fizzy Coca-Cola. 

I am his best friend and his favourite 

game is Club Penguin. He likes music 

a lot, especially Rock and Roll. 

Can, 3P 

Rosie, from 3L, is 8 years old and 

comes from England. She has been 

at BSB for 2 years. She was born 

on November, 28th 2000. She 

hates fish, however she loves fish 

fingers. Her best friend is Hannah 

from Year 3L. She is very good at art 

and her favourite food is ice lollies. 

Unfortunately, she has just moved 

back to England and she will be 

missed by everyone. 

Fanni 3L 

Where Are They Now 

10 

Ioana, also from 3L, is 7 years old. 

She was born in Bucharest and 

has lived in Romania her whole 

life. Her favourite sport is football, 

her favourite food spaghetti, and 

her favourite movie High School 

Musical. She is a very nice person 

and a great friend. 

Matei, 3P 

Anna, Year 7, has just turned 12, 

on the 24th of May, and joined the 

BSB family in May. She was born in 

Macedonia and moved to Bucharest 

from Switzerland. She has 1 brother. 

She likes to listen to Pop music and 

loves eating Sushi. Her favourite 

movie is High School Musical, her 

favourite sport swimming. She says 

that if she won a million dollars she 

would buy an expensive Sports Car 

a ticket to Miley Cyrus’s Concert. 

She speaks Macedonian, English, 

and German. Her favourite subject is 

Mathematics. 

Jonathan, Year 8, known to his 

friends as Jojo, joined BSB in March 

2009. He moved here from Germany 

with his family, including two sisters. 

He was born on 12 May, 1996, in 

Germany. He speaks 2 languages, 

including German and English and 

can read Latin. His favourite movie is 

XXX ( triple X ). His dream country is 

America, saying that he would love 

to live there someday. He likes to 

play Basketball in his free time. His 

best friend is Mesar; his favourite 

food is Spätzle with sauce (a German 

dish). 

Edoardo, Year 10, known to his 

friends as Eddy, is 15 years old, was 

born in Milano, Italy, but currently 

lives in Romania. He has been 

attending BSB for 2 years and says 

he is enjoying it. He also has a little 

sister named Bianca, who is 10 years 

old and is currently in year 5T. Eddy 

likes to music, plays the guitar, and 

“ I’m currently working at The English School for 

Girls in Salwa, Kuwait, which has 450 children and 

32 teachers. The school is only for girls and there 

are no male teachers, technicians or cleaners. The 

only man is the gate man for security. I’m the Head 

of Primary and so my days are spent supporting the 

teachers, interviewing new children, supporting 

the Principal and working with all the children in 

my care. I get to do all the assemblies, and I have 

already taught the girls some of my games, like 

Miss S Says! 


says that his favourite bands are 

Blink 182 and Green Day. He also 

likes to watch movies, especially 

comedies, such as Borat and Mall 

Cop. His favourite colour is white 

and he likes tigers. If he could go 

anywhere in the world, he would go 

to New York because he likes big 

cities as you can find everything you 

like there. 

Maria, Year 10 

Chi Bum, Year 9, joined BSB in late 

February. He is 14 years old and 

comes from Korea. He has lived 

in Austria for 5 years. He likes 

playing basketball and football. His 

favourite football player is David 

Beckham and favourite basketball 

player is LeBron James. His hobbies 

include watching movies and 

exercising. He also likes listening to 

pop music and watching movies; his 

favourite movie is School Of Rock. 

His favourite subject at school is P.E. 

He says he likes living in Romania 

because it has many beautiful parks, 

loads of greenery and the weather 

here is cooler than in Korea. He also 

likes the teachers and students very 

much as they are all very kind. He 

loves eating Spaghetti and Pizza. 

Noor Faisal, Year 9 

My first day at school was also the same day as the 

Childrens’ Festival they have here, so I was given 

about 40 bags of sweets!! I am really enjoying 

school and love the variety that each day brings. I 

am also lucky enough to live only a ten minute walk 

away from school and my apartment has a gym and 

a swimming pool in the complex, so there is little to 

complain about. Even the weather is great! 

I do miss my old class, teachers and friends at BSB 

though, but am also enjoying the new experiences 

that being in the Gulf area provide me. I am even 

learning Arabic again! 

Have a great summer everyone.” 

Ms Sara Snocken

Primary 

Student Council 

End of Year Report 

Student Council has had a very busy year. Here is a 

list of the things that we have accomplished: 

a vegetarian menu for school lunches, fundraising 

for School Garden, Friendship Day with Candy 

Grams, Craze of the Week, Summer Fair Sing Star, 

and Summer Fun Day. 

We have also made zones for the playground and 

have devised a way to select ‘Playground Helpers’, 

which will both start next year. It has been hard 

work, but we feel that we have made BSB a better 

place. 

Oscar, 4H 

Secondary 

Student Council 

End of Year Report 

Over this school year the student council has 

achieved a lot. From juice sales to winter parties 

the Student Council (SC) have made a difference 

to BSB. From the second week in the new school 

year the SC held elections for a chairman and 

vice-chairman and decided that the SC should 

meet once every two weeks. We also set up a 

notice board with the meeting dates and other 

information directed toward the SC and students. 

Throughout the year the student council have 

dealt with the needs of their class, the school 

and other miscellaneous requests, raising money 

(for charity or for the school) and in general 

making BSB a better and more enjoyable place to 

study. Here are some examples of what we have 

achieved this year: 

Winter party 

Several classes brought up the idea of a winter 

party towards the end of Term 1. The main points 

the SC had to deal with were getting permission, 

finding a location and funding. Once we had 

received permission, it was decided that the 

location should be in the school to reduce costs 

and take advantage of the facilities we have in the 

school. We then proceeded to carry out numerous 

surveys on what students would like at the party. 

The year groups were in charge of the following: 

Year 7 food 

Year 8 advertising 

Year 9 decoration/drinks 

Year 10 music 

Year 11 activities 

Most of the work was voluntary and thanks to 

hard work from students, parents and staff 

alike the party was a success. Everyone enjoyed 

themselves and the secondary school look 

forward to another such party. 



Scott, Anna, Oscar watch on as Ms Doina and Ms Catalina compete in a game of ‘Singstar’ during the Summer Fair 

Friendship day/ 

Valentine’s Day gift sale 

The council prepared small gifts to sell on the 

day before Valentine’s Day. This proved very 

successful indeed, and we are looking forward 

to a repeat performance next year. As with 

the school party, any money raised will be put 

towards a permanent gift for the school from the 

Student council of 2008/2009. 

Fruit juice sale 

The SC and classes considered a fruit juice sale 

would fit in nicely with our healthy school policy. 

A juice machine was kindly donated by Ms Wells, 

and there was nothing left to stop us. 

Ellis Hannah and BSB 

The fruit sale was to be at lunchtime one week 

on, one week off. Two different people were 

nominated each week to buy the fruit and each 

was given a certain sum. Overall, it was very 

successful, the students enjoyed the juice and 

some money was raised too! 

Current projects 

at the time of writing this article, the Student 

Council were currently working on four different 

projects including a stall for the Summer Fair 

(Team twister), the end of year party, ‘Green’ 

letters (using emails rather than paper), the 

distribution of the playground during breaks. 

Mr Ellis would like to thank the members of the 

Secondary School Council for all their hard work, 

and all the students, parents, and staff who 

contributed to school council events this year. 

Louisa, Year 9, 

Vice-chairperson 

11

International Award 

Students Camp out 

For our IA Bronze Certificate we were obliged to 

go on a camping expedition. We all thought this 

would be an educational, exhilarating, exciting 

opportunity, but knew there was a lot to organise, 

including: 

• the date and times 

• the route we would take 

• the necessary equipment 

• the food we would need 

• the announcements to parents 

This done, we met on Friday the 8th May, divided 

our group up into 3 sub groups each with a 

different route and accompanying teachers and 

set off for our overnight adventure. 

The hike 

We were dropped off at Mega Image and headed 

immediately into the woods. All the groups had a 

lot of fun and luckily no one got lost, though one of 

12 

Group shot before the walk 

Returning from the walk 

the groups was temporarily misplaced toward the 

end of the hike whilst trying to find Casa Alba and 

as a result missed out on eating ice cream with the 

other two groups! 

Overnight at school 

Back at school, we started putting up the tents, 

deciding that it would be better to get it done 

before it got dark. Afterward we all got to enjoy 45 

minutes of free time on the climbing frame or just 

relaxing. 

Over the next hour or so everyone took a shower 

and got started on preparing our dinner. The 

students and teachers prepared their meals 

separately, with most of the students ending up 

eating pasta, whilst the teachers appeared to be 

feasting in style on steak, chicken, salad, baked 

potatoes, and Greek Kazani, which they thankfully 

shared with us hungry students. After we had 

cleared up, stored our food and got changed 

into our pyjamas, we all thought of a story or put 

together a short skit or play and entertained each 

other for the rest of the night until lights out at 11; 

though many of us continued to laugh hysterically 

in the tents for some time before sleep eventually 

took hold of us all. 

Saturday 


On the walk 

Alizee glad to have made it home 

Our morning alarm clock was Mr Power, who 

proceeded to wake us up with his lovely morning 

songs, which I think we would all say did a good 

job waking us, but didn’t leave 15 sleepy teenage 

kids very happy. It was 7 in the morning!! 

After a quick breakfast we took down the tents, 

dried those that needed drying, and packed our 

bags, having 45 minutes free time to talk and sort 

the last things out like brushing teeth. 

The final activities we did included Star Wars 

(dodgier never-the-less a cooler version of 

oddball) and other team building activities like 

Make a bridge! 

At 12 our parents arrived to pick us up and so we 

said our last farewells. I think everyone on the 

trip would say it was a lot of fun, educational, and 

really good because we all got to know each other 

even better, so a big thank you to all the teachers 

who made this experience possible! We hope 

there will be many more trips like this to come. 

IA Team

Healthy 

Schools Week 

March 30th - April 3rd 

Healthy School Week was yet again a successful 

event. Healthy Smoothies were sold throughout 

Primary and Secondary all week, house matches 

were organised on top of scheduled PE lesson and 

Key Stage 3 ran emotional well-being workshops 

with Early Years and Foundation and Primary. During 

PHCSE Key Stage 3 had been looking at emotional 

well-being and the power of self massage to help 

improve focus and concentration and to improve 

their ability of remaining calm during periods of 

stress. Key Stage 3 became emotional well-being 

trainees during Healthy Schools Week and passed 

on the knowledge they had gained with Early Years 

and Primary with special self hand massage cards. 

In Early Years Miss Kath explained to the Year 7 boys 

that very young children really respond to these 

types of activities in order for them to gain your 

trust. The Year 7 boys were amazed by this! Thank 

you to Early Years and Primary! 

Ms Jen Kemp, 

Healthy Schools Committee 

“ During Healthy Schools Week we had lots to do! 

The secondary students sold fruit smoothies and 

taught us how to give hand and face massages. 

There was also exciting activities at lunch time 

including a Tug-o-War contest and lots of different 

games. Tuesday was the best day because there 

was a football tournament. At the tournament 

Mures won the competition between the Year 3’s 

and 4’s and Olt won the Year 5’s and 6’s. I loved 

Healthy Schools Week!” 

Fanni, 3L 


Alex from 4K winds up for a huge shot 

for Danube against Olt. 

Antoine playing for Olt and Alessandro for Mures race to 

the ball, while Patrick watches helplessly. 

Bsb house matches results time healthy schools week 


Our House Team Tug-o-War contest! 

The Girls of Mures hold their trophy high after winning 

the Primary House Team Football Tournament! 

Hannahand Amelia give a big CHEERS for healthy fruit 

smoothies. 

Year 7 Emotional Wellbeing Traniees 

13

BSB Clubs 

Each term the students at BSB are given opportunity 

to join one or more of the many BSB clubs that run 

Monday to Friday, 3pm-4pm. Each term we offer as 

many as 50 clubs, ranging from sport clubs, such as 

Football, Swimming and Table Tennis, to language 

clubs, such as Greek, Italian, and Spanish, to a 

wide range of other general interest clubs like 

Chess, Gymnastics, Fencing, Music, and many, 

many more. Club participation is an important part 

of the BSB curriculum and students are encouraged 

to join more than one club. 

Here is a quick review of just a few of the clubs 

offered at BSB. 

14 

BSB Drama Clubs 

Drama Clubs take activities that are discussed 

and performed in class to a superior level. This 

means that in Drama Club children still play the 

games, only the more complicated variations of 

them. 

May and Bethan (Year 9) 

working on a script in Drama Club 

The younger children in Key Stage 1 play more 

complicated focus, attention and concentration 

games as warm up activities, games that involve 

the whole group rather than just two children at 

a time. 

Daniel (5T), Rhea (6D) and Scott (6U) 

playing a Drama game 

These games require, in general, a bigger effort. 

After warm up, children are involved in activities 

that are based on a script; the plot is explained 

and the children engage in the game, having to 

find a suitable ending to the story in progress 

and to act it out; problem solving is the skill 

brought into the spotlight. 

Football Club 

Reception and Pre-school 

Football club for the youngest of our dedicated 

football fans last term saw a huge improvement 

in the player’s skills. Miss Deanna and Miss 

Helen kept the boys very busy with practice skills 

that helped them to become more in control 

of the ball. Harry from 6U came to be help us 

and we practiced scoring goals. All the boys 

were delighted to sneak a goal in passed Harry, 

though it wasn’t easy. 

Every week we had a mini game, to put our new 

skills to the test, what ever the score we all 

finished Mondays happy if a little exhausted. 

The older children in Key Stage 2 also play 

more complicated games. Sometimes, 

Improvisational Theatre games are added to 

the KS2 club activities list, as they are a lot of 

fun and the children request them. All Drama 

games, Improvisational or regular, build on the 

same skills (focus, teamwork, listening) but in 

different ways. Regardless of the approach, they 

are always fun to play. 

Eda and Natalie (Year 7) 

reading a script in Drama Club 

Key Stage 3 kids go on to the next level and 

act in an actual play, creating characters and 

conflict, stepping into the parallel reality of the 

script. This term we are working on an old script 

I wrote some time ago, and we will have the play 

ready for a KS3 & 4 assembly. 

Doina Antohi 

Drama Teacher 

Puzzles 

and Construction Club 

The children had a lot of fun this half-term! 

They built train tracks, aeroplanes, rockets, 

and race cars. 

Puzzles were also a big hit. 

There was a lot of consideration and making 

friends going on as well. 

The younger children enjoyed showing the 

older ones the toys available in Foundation 

Stage. And the older children were eager to 

help the smaller ones. Good job, everyone! 

Ms Bremer, 

Reception Class teacher 


Tae Min tries to get a goal past Miss Beggs 

Football club 

The Girl’s football has been great fun and we 

have learnt lots of different things. We have 

learnt how to dribble the ball, to pass the ball 

to another person and to shoot at the goal. 

We have also played lots of real games. We 

really like this club - it is one of our favourites. 

Hannah, Pelin, and Amelia in fierce competition 

during Girls Football 

‘It has been really learn how to play and now 

we can join in with the boys.’ 

Key Stage 1 

Homework Club 

Amelia Spackman, Pelin Turkmen, 

Hannah Berry and Mariana Bonito 

Miruna, Irini, Oskar, Alexander and Ester from 2B 

In the Key Stage 1 Homework Club we met 

once a week to go over our spellings and 

times tables and catch up on any of the work 

covered during the week It is a very clam 

relaxed club intended to give students a 

little extra help where they need it. 

Ms Lindsey Banks

Key Stage 2 

Science Club 

Science Club is a fascinating club where we 

do fun and exciting experiments! Each time 

we come to club we start we do a different 

experiment. Then we continue with other 

projects that we designed ourselves. The first 

week of club we planned which group to be 

in and what project we wanted to do. Then 

we began working on our projects. Some of 

the themes of the projects are underwater, 

rocks and minerals, phases of the moon, and 

the planets. We all have fun in this amazing 

club and have accomplished our mission to 

learn about and discover wonderful earth 

shattering science. 

Aliss, 5B 

Romanian for 

native Speakers Club 

Hello! We are 6 children during this Club and 

the teacher’s name is Miss Dalila. We are 

learning how to write properly the Romanian 

words. We do a lot of funny things like playing 

games by counting until 100 and back. We 

are writing interesting things to practice our 

handwriting and to learn how to say correctly 

all the Romanian words. Sometimes, we 

read Romanian stories which have a lot of 

neologism words and remind us that this 

language is very rich and beautiful and we are 

happy because we choose this club. 

The Key Stage 1 Romanian Club 

“ I like Romanian Club because it helps me 

how to write correctly the Romanian words 

and I have a lot of fun when we are playing 

the funny games with the numbers and the 

days of the weeks.” 

Alek, 2B 


The PS 

and Debating club 

The PS and Debating club has a mixed 

age range, year 3 to year 9. So far we have 

debated a variety of topics including the pros 

and cons of junk food and school dinners. In 

term 2 we heard speeches prepared in the 

year 7 lessons to give the younger members 

and idea and we have looked at some winning 

school debaters from India and Australia. 

We have reached the stage of writing in 

teams now and the younger members are 

teamed with an older student in order to train 

through peer example. There are 12 in the 

club and they are enthusiastic and energetic. 

It is mixed in gender and the girls and boys 

happily work with each other. We plan to 

participate in debates and public speaking 

competitions in Bucharest next year. 

Swimming Club 

Mr Kelly, 

Head of Drama 

Hello! My name is Seoyoung and I am year 

4k. I do three clubs. One of my favourite clubs 

is swimming. 

Seoyoung just before her swimming lesson in the 

BSB swimming pool 

The swimming club is next to music room. 

We do swimming with Mr Kennedy and Miss 

Valentina. The side is two meter and the 

height is 2.7 metres deep. It was very deep 

and cold. 

Some of the most popular clubs this year were: 


Street Art Club 

This term’s Street Art club was run by Mr. 

Williams. Mr. Williams showed us lots 

of interesting street art, from doodles to 

character designs, from sticker designs to 

stenciling and from huge murals to video art. 

We learned how artists use the environment 

to inspire their work such as the Bucharest 

street artist Irlo who uses paint to change 

windows into eyes and brick work into teeth! 

Putting on the final touches 

We studied the work of Keith Haring and 

other famous artists and this helped us in 

our final work. We learned that street artists 

work quickly and often use bold colour and 

dynamic images to catch the public’s eye. We 

learned how to use a range of mark making, 

pattern and character design to create our 

final collaborative ‘doodle’ artwork. We 

used our knowledge of street art and the 

techniques we had learned to create the art 

without planning what it would look like. It 

was fun to work in this very free way. We were 

happy with the final result and now feel even 

more inspired and ready to make our next 

piece! 

Street Art Students Inc. 

Table Tennis Club 

“ In Table Tennis Club we have all improved 

playing the game and have learnt how to 

serve. Every week we have tried to get our 

highest score in a rally, and we have also 

played matches together. Table Tennis Club 

has been a lot of fun, and we have all really 

enjoyed it.” 

Sophie 3P & Eleanor 5T 

The Gymnastics Club The Key Stage 1 Spanish Club The Fencing Club The Karate Club 

15

BBS Students Enjoy 

Science Day, 2009 

Wednesday, the 20th of May, (one of the best days 

for BSB in 2009), was KS1 and KS2 Science Day. The 

weather was gorgeous as students visited different 

science activities run by KS1 and KS2 teachers. In 

the morning, students rotated through four stations. 

Some of the stations that students went to were 

Colours and Colour Dye, Reaction Time, Forces 

Adventure, Water Filters, Minibeast Hunt, How Hot 

Are You?, Water Circus and Let’s Make Ice Cream! 

A Science Symposium was also held in the 

afternoon, where students presented science 

projects that they had been working on 

independently. The day was brought to a close as 

each house team worked with physics, by using 

only one piece of paper and a meter of tape to 

make the tallest tower possible that could stand 

on its own. Mures won! We would all like to thank 

Ms Ullman for the hard work she put in planning 

Science Day. 

Mariam, 6U 

Year 4 Science 

Science in Year 4 has been very exciting. We have 

had to design experiments to test the melting 

points of solids, which material is the best thermal 

insulator and which materials are electrical 

conductors. 

Mena, Calista, Ethan and Alessandro from 4H work 

together to design an experiment that will test whether 

or not certain materials are electrical conductors. 

It has been a challenge to make sure that all of our 

scientific investigations are fair tests. In the end we 

usually have to record and graph our conclusions 

and discuss whether our predictions were correct. 

16 

Calista, 4H 

Year 6 Eating Ice Cream 

KS2 Exploring Minibeasts 

Stefanos testing different liquids to see if they will 

conduct electricity. Lime juice worked, while cooking oil 

did not. 


Here’s what a few 

students had to say 

about the day: 

KS1 Mixing Colours 

I liked mixing colours in the colour laboratory. 

We learnt what a spectrum is. Ilayda, 1J 

I enjoyed most the cleaning cola because it 

was fun to collect sand and stones to put in 

the bottle. I also enjoyed experimenting with 

food colouring to make new colours. Boris, 1H 

My favourite part of Science Day was the 

Forces races, even though my team didn't 

always win! Isabella, 2B 

My favourite thing on Science Day was ice 

cream making because we made ice cream. 

Mine was too salty, but I still liked it. Next 

time I’m going to be more careful how I make 

it so it doesn’t taste like salt. Pelin, 3L 

I really enjoyed Science Day. My favourite 

event was the ‘Mini-Beast Hunt’ because 

my friend and I found interesting bugs. We 

also got to use the digital microscope to take 

photos and see the mini-beasts up-close. I 

also liked when Gaya and Anna-Illinca from 

4K taught us that cats sleep 18 hours a day. 

Jakob, 4H 

KS1 Making Water Filters 

I enjoyed making ice-cream in a bag. I learned 

that when you put salt onto ice, the ice freezes 

at a lower temperature. Sasha, 5B 

I liked Science Day. My favourite activity was 

making ice cream with Mr Davidson and Ms 

Ullman. We learned that rock salt will bring 

down the freezing temperature of ice so it is 

cold enough to freeze the ingredients to make 

ice cream. At the end we got to eat the ice 

cream! Mohammad, 6U



4K students working vey hard at space station ‘Impact Craters’ Ilias is hard at work at space station ‘Mission to Space’ 

G&T Students 

Teach Key Stage 2 

The Gifted and Talented 

(G&T) students at BSB are 

a group of learners who 

have aptitudes in a wide 

array of fields such as 

drama, music, art, literacy, 

numeracy and science. 

In order to ensure that everyone has an opportunity 

to express their gift or talent, these students 

undertake group projects which are intended to 

extend each in the group. Their most recent project 

was “Space Day” which they planned and taught 

Key Stage 2 students about space. Each student 

was responsible for running a space station: 

• Tatum (6D) ran the space station “Space Race” 

giving a power-point presentation with facts 

about space. 

• Sandra (6D) and Gaya (4K) ran the space station 

“Impact Craters” teaching students about 

craters. 

• Thomas (5T) ran the space station “Life in 

Space” in which he taught students about the 

lives that astronauts live in space. He also 

helped them to build their own balloon-powered 

nano rovers. 

• Alexandra (5B) ran the space station “Video 

Earth” showing students a video about earth 

and had them answer a short questionnaire to 

see how much they learned. 

• Basil and Filippo (6U) ran the space station “Star 

Wars” teaching the students about the different 

stars in our galaxy. They then had the students 

go outside and find the “hidden stars” for 

points. 

• Finn (5B) ran the space station “Mission Space” 

where he briefly introduced students to rockets 

(history and how they work) and then had them 

create their own. 

• Suparnan and Sascha (5B) ran the space station 

“Gaseous Planets”. They taught students about 

the gases on each planet and then had them 

paint a realistic interpretation of a planet of their 

choice. 

• Daniel (4K) ran the space station “Our Solar 

System”. Daniel taught Key Stage 2 about 

planets, stars and asteroids through a powerpoint 

presentation. He also had a quiz at the end 

to test their knowledge. 

Here’s what some of the G&T members had to say 

about ‘Space Day’: 

“I enjoyed ‘Space Day’ a lot and I would like to do it 

again. My favourite class to teach was 4H.” Gaya, 4K 

“I liked ‘Space Day’ very much and I hope we will 

have something similar next year. I would like to 

have a language day where the G&T members teach 

other children languages they know.” Sandra, 6U 

“I showed the students a video about Earth and 

they had to fill in a questionnaire. I liked it at break 

and lunch the most. I hope we will do chocolate 

day, yum, yum!” Alexandra, 5B 

“I enjoyed “Space Day” and wouldn’t mind 

organising a history day and a global warming day 

to teach students more about day-to-day life. My 

favourite classes to teach were 3L and 6D.” Daniel, 

4K & Thomas, 5T 

The G&T members created a questionnaire to be 

handed out, with students replying that they would 

like to see G&T members plan some other days, 

including History Day, Geography Day, Animal Day, 

etc. 

Great job G&T members! 

Ms Nicole Fisher, G & T Coordinator 

17

Willkommen 

zu BSB! 

Two special guests, Greta Hoheisel and Norbert 

Lang, German university students, paid a visit 

to students of MFL-German from Primary and 

Secondary School on the 2nd April. Year 6 and Year 

9 gave them a tour of the school and presented 

the many special features of our school. They 

also found out more about the differences and 

similarities between British and German schools. 

Guests and hosts had a lot to learn from each other. 

Well done to all the students involved, for making 

our guests feel welcome and for speaking German 

all the time! The guests were impressed with you 

and with BSB! Gut gemacht! 

Der Besuch 

von Greta und 

Norbert 

18 

Ms Dorothea Draser, 

Head of MFL 

Am 2. April hatten wir zwei Gäste im 

Deutschuntericht. Es waren zwei deutsche 

Studenten, Norbert und Greta. Wir haben uns 

getroffen, um ihnen unsere Schule vorzustellen 

und über die Unterschiede zwischen britischen 

und deutschen Schulen zu sprechen. 

Ich habe eine Präsentation über unsere 

Lehrerinnen und Lehrer gehalten. Ich habe 

Fotos gezeigt und gesagt, welche Fächer sie 

unterrichten. Danach hat Mihnea das Hauspunkte- 

System von BSB präsentiert. May hat über die 

Geschichte von BSB seit 2000 gesprochen. Tudor 

hat etwas über die Klassenfahrten der letzten 

Jahre nach Österreich und England erzählt. 

German visitors and Year 9 

Iulia hat den Stundenplan präsentiert. Sacha 

hat zugehört. Wir haben viel gelacht und es hat 

Spaß gemacht. Es war toll. Wir haben imGespräch 

mit den Gästen herausgefunden, dass man in 

Deutschland keine Uniform trägt. Das ist schön 

für sie und unfair für uns. Die Schule beginnt auch 

viel früher in Deutschland, manchmal schon um 

7. Norbert hat gefragt, ob wir viel Musik machen 

und wir haben gesagt, was für Instrumente wir 

spielen. Er war beeindruckt. Die Gäste waren sehr 

freundlich und sie fanden unsere Schule super! 

Louisa, Year 9 


Andrei A, Johann, Basil and Tatum, Year 6 taking Norbert and Greta on a guided tour of the school 

…showing off the Primary School trophies in the Newlands’s hall 

The guests enjoyed joining in a Quartett game of cards created by Year 6. The pupils did a great job explaining all the 

rules in German!

MFL Spanish 

Assessment 

Hola a todos, we are looking back on a successful 

first year of Spanish at BSB. I strongly believe that 

my students will become independent language 

learners if they play the main role in their learning 

process. For that, the assessment that we use 

provides an opportunity for the students to see 

clearly what is expected of them as well as their 

strengths and weaknesses. In this article, Sandra 

and Scott explain this assessment process for 

Year 5 and Year 6. “The type of assessment that 

we have for Spanish has several steps. First of all 

we get a check list with the content that we need 

to learn with the terms I CAN … and we have more 

or less two weeks to prepare it. After that, during 

lessons, we peer assess each other, ticking what 

Chole the Guide 

Dog Puppy Visits 

the Primary School 

On 1st June the children, Reception up to Year 6, got 

to meet Romania’s first Guide Dog in training. 

The children were visited in their assemblies by 

Chloe, her trainer Mircea and her possible new 

owner Andrei, who also works with the charity Light 

into Europe. 


we can do (based on the check list) and someone 

in the class will test us in that. They will tick what 

we can do. The last part of the assessment is the 

self assessment where we colour each statement 

in green, amber or yellow depending on how 

confident we feel about our knowledge. Lastly, 

Ms Rocio checks both reviews (peer and self 

assessment) and makes a chart with all the results 

from the class. We thought it was a good way to 

know what we need to learn and also to check how 

we are improving.” 

Scott, 6U & Sandra, 6U 

The Year 3 and Year 4 students have a different 

assessment system. They have check lists as 

well, and when they can show their knowledge 

(to the other students and teacher) they will get a 

certificate for that specific task. 

It has been a very prolific year for the Years 3s 

and 4s. These are some comments from the Year 

3 students when asked about their first year 

Chloe is the first dog in Romania to receive the 

specialist training needed in order to become a 

Guide Dog for the Blind. She has been training for 

10 months so far; her complete program can take 

up to two years. 

The children were all part of Chloe’s training process 

as it is very important that she is exposed to new 

experiences and people so that she can learn to 

ignore all possible distractions. The children were 

all amazingly supportive during both assemblies 

and showed their understanding of this cause by 

asking lots of questions about Chloe and her work. 


Sandra and Scott Y6 showing the assessment for MFL spanish Year 3 class showing their certificates MFL spanish 

of Spanish: Ilias (Year 3) “I liked it all this year 

and my favourite thing was when we earned the 

certificates”, Filip “The best thing I liked this year 

was that we were getting certificates. The thing 

that I didn’t like was that we had homework!”, 

Amelia, Hannah and Rodney think that Spanish 

is not a difficult language because it is similar 

to English, whereas David, Engin, Pelin and Filip 

think that is very similar to Romanian. 

I am very pleased and proud of the achievement 

that all my classes have reached. I wish everyone 

“BUEN VERANO” and hope you can all practice all 

the languages you have been learning this year! 

In this picture the Year 3 class with their Spanish 

notebooks and certificates. If you have the 

chance, ask them for the time, about school 

material, or food in Spanish, you will be very 

impressed. 

Ms Rocio Marti, 

Spanish teacher 

Mircea, Chloe and Andrei visit BSB BSB students listening attentively 

Part of the money from the Summer Fair is going 

towards paying for Chloe and all the children were 

thrilled to meet her in person and learn about the 

important work that she and all her colleagues are 

trying to do. 

We would like to thank Mircea, Andrei and Stan 

Platt from Light into Europe for their wonderful work 

and for letting everyone at BSB become involved 

with such an important cause…and Chloe too! 



19

Junior Library 

Students 

Experience the Joy 

of Reading 

One thing I’ve learned since being the librarian is 

that all children have something in common: they 

are curious and their interest is boundless. To meet 

their needs for information, the Library is trying to 

offer a well-balanced collection of both printed and 

electronic materials. These lending and reference 

items include books, audio materials, children’s 

magazines and newspapers on a wide range of 

topics and subjects. Our stock receives new items 

continuously, be it from orders we place, free books 

received with the Red House orders, or donations. 

Apart from our popular periodicals from Bayard 

(Story Box, Adventure Box and Discovery Box), 

we have now new arrivals in the Library and they 

proved to be an attraction from the first issue. It is 

the First News children’s weekly newspaper. 

I would like to say how proud I am with our Red 

House Book Club this year. We have received free 

books for the Library in the amount of £3095, which 

represents 20 % of our orders throughout the 

school year. For this last order, children from Year 2 

to Year 6 helped me choose the books they wanted 

to see in the Library. When the order arrived, 6U 

helped with stamping and registering the books 

so they were quickly ready to be taken home by 

eager readers in Foundation and Primary. Some of 

the very popular books are already reserved for the 

remaining weeks of the school year. 

It is a privilege for me to experience on a daily level 

the joy of sharing reading with students in so many 

forms. It starts with the reading-and-bouncing 

sessions for the Creche, with lots of rhymes, stories 

and fun. Then, there are the storytelling sessions in 

each library lesson for the younger children-reading 

aloud to children helps them learn listening skills, 

vocabulary and language skills, as well as develop 

imagination and creativity. As children get older 

and become more experienced readers, we use the 

library lesson for developing various fundamental 

reading skills, such as reading for context, reading 

for patterns, and literary analysis. This is done 

through individual reading and pair or group 

reading. 

20 

Before starting to read a book, 1H likes checking the 

inside cover for clues on what it might be about 

With the holiday soon approaching, I know this 

will carry on in the good habit of reading within the 

family. I wish you all a relaxing holiday and don’t 

forget to put that book in the suitcase; there is a 

space right there next to the sun cream. 

Mrs Ana-Maria Marin, Librarian 

Craze of the Week 

Andrew, Jakob, Stanislav 

and Antoine compete in a game of 4-Square 

to see who will hold the spot of King 

Mohammad reading aloud for his colleagues in 6U 


We are proud to show the new books that arrived with the Red House Book Club order 

The ‘Craze of the Week’ has been an exciting 

addition to playtimes at BSB. Games like 

Pokemon successfully swept the schoolyard and 

have yet to go away, while skipping came and 

went. 

4-Square was probably the most popular; 

bringing together secondary students and 

primary students to compete for King spot. What 

was most interesting was watching the game 

evolve as the students changed and adapted 

the rules. 

It went from 4-Square to 4-Circle, from hands 

only to feet only and juggling has even come into 

play. I am looking forward to see what Crazes 

will come next year! 

Mr Brad Hamacher, 

Craze of the Week Coordinator

Author 

John Malam 

visits BSB 

It was an exciting time for BSB 

children when children’s author 

John Malam- author of over 200 

fiction and non-fiction books- came 

to visit. Many of John Malam’s 

books are about History, especially 

topics taught in schools such as 

the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, 

Roman and Vikings. Some of his 

titles include ‘You Wouldn’t Want 

to be a Victorian Schoolchild’, ‘How 

to be a Pirate’ and ‘100 facts about 

Mummies.’ He once used to be an 

archaeologist, I wonder if that is 

where he got his love of history? 

During his visit, John Malam read 

to the Reception classes and Year 

1 from his book ‘The Very Sleepy 

Pig’. Afterwards the children made 

storyboards of the story. In Year 

2, he read biographies of famous 

people and gave a talk about the 

‘Journey of a Non-fiction book’ to 

KS2 and the Year 7 and 8s. With 

the Year 5 and 6 he did a workshop 

where the children made a nonfiction 

book. 

Anthony Frost 

Book Token Prize 

Alex, Year 12, asked a guest 

to help him make a mask 

for his IGCSE Art exam. 

Can you guess who the mystery guest is for the 

‘Anthony Frost 200 Ron Book Token’? 


And in Year 7 he talked about the 

process of writing a story and book. 

We got a lot of positive feedback 

from the children and teachers: 

“His books were very good, they 

were feely. The story was good 

because at the end the pig was very 

not tired.” Tabitha and Maddie RB 

“He was nice to us, I liked the 

biography he read. We asked him a 

lot of questions.” Andrew Y2 

“I like the way the books are typed 

on a big piece of paper (A1). It was 

interesting to know that an author 

needs to communicate with people 

all around the world to complete a 

book.” Hristos 6D 

“The children really enjoyed 

the workshop and have a better 

understanding of the process a 

book goes through in order to be 

published. I liked how each child in 

the group took on the role of either 

the author, illustrator, editor or 

designer.” 

Miss Ullman, 

Class Teacher 6U 

The children really enjoyed the two 

days that the author was here and 

we would like to thank the PTA for 

sponsoring one of the days. 

Ms Justine Tyler, 

Event Organiser 


Basil, Andrei and Cezer working on their non-fiction book 

Reception class feeling the pictures in the story 

“Anthony Frost” English Bookshop, first of its kind in Bucharest, is dedicated exclusively to English 

books and is opened in 45 Calea Victoriei - Kretzulescu Galleries, next to the National Gallery. 

Art, photography, fiction, non-fiction, children, travel, comics, fantasy, psychology, philosophy, poetry - all 

these subjects will be offered to books’ lovers of all ages. 

The books are coming from the most prestigious UK and US publishing houses such as Penguin, Random 

House, Phaidon, Thames and Hudson, Macmillan, Harper Collins, Taylor and Francis, Sage, Cambridge, 

Yale, Princeton, etc. 

ANTHONY FROST 

ABOUT BOOKS ... 

English BookShop 

Calea Victoriei 45, 

telefon 021.311.51.38, 

www.librariaengleza.ro. 

21

22 

Year 3 Sinaia Trip 

On the big day we arrived at school and saw a 

gigantic, red bus that was waiting to take us 

to Sinaia. When we reached the beautiful New 

Montana Hotel we were really excited and went 

to get ready in our rooms. Then we took the 

bus to Cota 1400 and climbed the grassy hill. 

When we reached Cota 1500 we stopped and 

our teachers asked us interesting questions. We 

even saw some bears on the way back! 

After that we went to the clear swimming pool 

to swim. We then went to the conference rooms 

to write our postcards and finally we went to the 

marvelous restaurant to eat glorious food. After 

all of that we slept very well in our comfortable 

beds. 

The next day we prepared to go to Peles Castle 

but first we went to see a monastery. After Peles 

Castle we went shopping and ate our packed 

lunch in the park. We had a great time but when 

we finally reached school we were excited to see 

our parents again. 

Elad, 3P 

Year 4’s Trip to 

Poiana Brasov 

In the morning we took the bus to Poiana Brasov. 

On our way we watched the movie, ‘Indiana Jones 

and the Crystal Skull’. When we were only one 

hour from the destination we stopped at a park to 

eat our lunch and play some games. When we got 

to the Hotel Alpin we got settled and we went for 

a swim. After that, we ate a delicious dinner and 

watched ‘Kung-Fu Panda’ on a huge screen. Oh, it 

was Louis’ Birthday, so we had some sweets and 

celebrated! 

Lea got all dressed up for our dinner, 

and was rewarded with a tasty Banana Split! 

The next day we took the cable car up the 

mountain and had an ‘Adventure Race’. We 

had to solve clues and riddles, and search all 

over the mountain for special letters. After we 

ate our lunches, we hiked all the way down the 

mountain, which took us 2 hours. It was hard 

work, but everyone loved it! We also helped the 

environment by picking up 10 bags of rubbish 

that was left on the mountain. When we arrived 

at the hotel we went for another swim, ate dinner 

and headed off for a campfire. It was the best 

part of the trip. We read jokes, scary stories, 

played games and we sang songs. We also 

roasted marshmallows. 

On the last day we came back to Bucharest and 

stopped only to buy some souvenirs at the local 

shops along the road. Overall, we spent three 

days on the trip and it was great! I enjoyed it a 

lot! 

Alessandro, 4H 

Students and Teachers in front of Peles Castle 

Lea, Joana and Hannah looking good in the mountains 

Year 4 enjoying the Hot Tub at The Hotel Alpin in Poiana Brasov. 

Even Joana could enjoy the soothing water with her broken arm! 

Visit the BSB website at www.britishschool.ro

Year 5 trip to 

Moeciu de Sus 

On June 1st, in the morning, we left BSB and 

headed to Moeciu de Sus. There was lot’s of 

hills and beautiful views on the way there. As we 

got there we went straight to lunch, because we 

were starving after the long road. After filling out 

tummies we unpacked and went to a relaxing walk 

in the village. At night we watched a good movie, 

which we didn’t finished because we were too 

tired. Lights off! 

Year 6 

Sojourn to Italy 

The Year 6 Italy trip was a life changing 

experience. We had a really good time. We went to 

the beach, swam and built the biggest sandcastle 

Kingdom ever imaginable! Our Italian teacher, Mrs 

Grass, taught us loads of useful Italian words and 

phrases like ‘Posso,chi,di chi’. 

Year 6 enjoying Italian lessons in the sun! 

We bought very nice gifts for our families 

when we visited Venice and Lignano and they 

liked them a lot. Venice was very nice, but 

really hot. The best part by far was the theme 

park. We all had an amazing time there. In the 

‘DEATH COURSE’ we ran along a strip of wood 

while dodging (more like walking through) big 

swinging hammers. After that we went to watch 

a show where a clown was walked on by a “real” 

zebra – which looked very similar to two people 

dressed up as a zebra. The zebra also did other 

tricks. Over all we had a very interesting time, 

but were really tired when we got home. 

Harry and Hristos, Year 6 


Aaron enjoying the archery Year 5 students at their hotel 

On Tuesday we did three activities: archery, 

sculpture and painting pottery. At the end we 

could keep the sculptures and the pots that 

we painted. It was enjoyed by all and everyone 

liked the people who taught us. All the teachers 

tried the archery and Ms Catalina was clown face 

painted by Daniel and Thomas! After that we went 

to Bran Castle and bought lots of souvenirs (we 

didn’t enter the castle). Then the girls paraded 

in different coloured wigs. The boys did tricks 

on everyone with shock gum or shock buttons. 

Tuesday night there was a disco party that 

everyone really enjoyed. 

On Wednesday we walked up a big hill to visit an 

old village in Rasnov Citadel. There were shops, 

Robert giving us a history lesson in St. Marks Square Venice 

Year 6 students enjoying ‘downtown’ Venice 


a buried skeleton, a 360 view of Rasnov and the 

other green mountains around us. Everyone went 

to have a look at the telescopes! After we got back 

we had a refreshing horse and cart ride. That night 

we had a movie night. 

On Thursday we went for a walk. Our dinner that 

night was a barbeque. After the barbeque we had 

a Talent Show … Finn won!!! 

On Friday after having breakfast, we packed up 

and headed up to BSB! We arrived sometime 

around 2 o’clock. Our parents were waiting 

anxiously for us. We all enjoyed the trip to Moeciu 

de Sus! 

Isabel, 5T 

and Sacha, 5B 

23

The 2009 BSB Summer Fair 

BSB Summer Fair Hits 

Perfect Weather Jackpot 

On June 6th 2009, BSB hosted its annual Summer 

Fair, and the event was a huge success thanks 

to the effort of students, teachers, parents, PTA, 

sponsors, and of course, the weather, which was 

absolutely fantastic. From the relaxing sounds 

of classical music that were emerging from the 

Crawford Hall music recital, to the adrenalin rush 

of those daring enough to attempt the “over the 

pool” climbing wall, this day had something for 

everyone. Here are some of the highlights from 

the day. 

First, the stalls; a summer fair would not be 

complete without the presence of various stalls, 

and this year there were many to choose from. 

With staff from different year groups running 

various activities, many of the children (and big 

kids) enjoyed the fun of guessing the number 

of sweets in a jar, naming a teddy, having their 

face painted, playing video games, soaking 

various members of staff in the infamous “Wet 

the Teacher” competition (I am still plotting my 

revenge on the year 6s who took such pleasure at 

throwing sponges at me!), purchasing raffle tickets 

(with amazing prizes such as a laptop, ipod, and 

24 

gym membership) and much more. In addition to 

all of this, there were stalls where local artisans 

were selling their impressive creations, and also 

stalls where we could taste dishes from around 

the world as parents kindly brought in delicious 

home-made delicacies. 

Then there was the stage; this year we were 

fortunate enough to have a stage that was even 

bigger, better, and louder than last year, and was 

the perfect set-up for us to watch some of the 

vast array of talent that exists at BSB. The E.A.D. 

Band (Eduardo, Alex, and Denis) kicked the day 

off with some rocking tunes; they were followed 

by: an electric guitar solo from the hugely talented 

Mihnea, outstanding performances from the 

Karate and Dance clubs, the vocal talents of the 

KS2 and KS3 school choirs, the drumming genius 

of Mr Mulvany, and the funky sounds of The Okey 

Dokey Jazz Band (who showed us that the talent 

at BSB does not only exist amongst the students, 

as we also have some very talented parents in our 

midst!). Special mention must go to the amazing 

Miss Kemp, and her sister Sarah, who not only 

wowed us with their voices, but also entertained 

us as the MCs throughout the day. 

As I hope you will see from this brief article, 

the 2009 Summer Fair was a great day, and this 

success was due to the fact that many people 


freely gave their time and talents. While it is 

impossible to thank everyone for their efforts, 

I would like to mention Cathryn Henderson and 

the PTA who have spent months putting the event 

together, the parents that prepared the wonderful 

food for the day, the maintenance staff who 

helped with set up and cleaning, the companies 

that very generously sponsored the event, all the 

BSB staff, all those who performed, and last, but 

by no means least, everyone who attended the 

event and helped make this such a special day. 

“The Summer Fair is something we all look forward 

to, and at the 2009 Fair it was wonderful to see 

everybody smiling and having fun.” Ms Diana, 5B TA 

“My favourite part of the day was the ‘Wet the 

Teacher’ stall.” Megan, 6U 

“It was fun. My favourite stall was Sing-Star.” 

Calista, 4H 

“The stage performance led by Ms Kemp and her 

sister gave the day a great atmosphere.” 

Alex, Year 12 

“The 2009 Summer Fair was very well organised, 

and it was great to be able to walk around and see 

all that was going on.” 

Mr Pantella (Head of ICT)



Johann, Year 8, Winner of the Under 14 Boys Event Raphaela, 5T, Winner of the Under 14 Girls Event Francois, 4K, 3rd place 

Ms Hussain in firing range 

Students enjoying the bouncing castle 

Face painting 

Students look on as putt just missing the centre hole 

25

BSB Radio Show 


The Radio show has been 

running smoothly during 

the last weeks of spring 

term and the team has now 

recorded for four weeks in a 

row since the summer term 

started. 

During this time the students have got better and 

better at writing the script and recording; they can 

now capture the essential details within a piece of 

international news and can write news about events 

happening in school entirely by themselves. New 

topics have been added, such as ‘A Famous Person’ 

and ‘A Place on Earth’; one of the radio team 

members writes and records a short description 

of a famous person or place on Earth in order for 

the listeners to guess who or what it is. The latest 

addition to our topics was ‘Poem of the Day’, 

chosen and read by one of the students recording 

the show; for the future, the team is looking at the 

possibility of recording poems written by students. 

26 

The greatest achievement however was being able 

to record an interview while speaking freely, without 

depending on a script at all, asking questions and 

analyzing answers; the last interview turned into 

a real debate, which was recorded, much to the 

students’ delight, as they were not aware that the 

microphone was on. 

The process of creating the show is still monitored 

by the teacher, but the students now have a much 

bigger input into the show. The editing mechanism 

is still something to be experienced and learnt; until 

then, we have Mr Stefan to thank for his patience 

and help. 

Very soon, all the recorded shows, edited and 

sound improved, will be available on the school 

server for everyone; the shows will also be played 

during lunch for the other children to listen to their 

colleagues, now radio professionals, and enjoy the 

Top Three Tunes of different weeks. 

Last but not least, the members of the radio team, 

Tatum, Rhys, Basil, Megan and Johann (Years 6D 

and 6U) deserve to be congratulated for their hard 

work, patience, drive, and significant progress. 

“You had your time, you had your power 

You’ve yet to have your finest hour 

Radio… 

All we hear is radio ga-ga, radio gu-gu, radio ga-ga 

Radio, what’s new? 

Someone still loves you… “ 

Ms Doina Antohi, 

Drama Teacher 


3P Perform 

‘Brush’ in 

Key Stage 2 

Assembly 

The script of ‘Brush’ was written with the 

thought of illustrating the importance of 

school. It is the story of a little boy whose 

artistic talent, though inside himself from the 

moment he is born, can only be nourished 

within school, through learning. The boy 

is suggestively named Brush, as that’s the 

artistic area that he is gifted in. 

Year 3P rehearsing the ‘Brush’ play 

Year 3P was very patient and did a wonderful 

job learning their lines. I have always thought 

that the rehearsals process can become dull 

for young children and it can therefore keep 

them from learning; it is sometimes difficult 

for professional actors, let alone for Year 3 

students! However, the class managed to sit 

through rehearsals quietly, to learn the lines 

and act, and convey not only a story, but also 

its meaning. They learned to be a team. 

The most enjoyable part was the final song, a 

classic – ‘Swinging on a Star’. The lyrics made 

this song an excellent choice for the finishing 

part of the play, and the show ended in 

everyone’s excited applause. 

And by the way, if you hate to go to school 

You may grow up to be a mule! 

Or would you like to swing on a star 

Carry moonbeams home in a jar 

And be better off than you are 

Or would you rather be a pig? 


Drama Teacher

Story in Four 

(An Improvisational Theatre Assembly) 

The Key Stage 2 Improv Assembly happened on 

March the 30th ; involving all students who had 

participated in the Improv University Course as well 

as many who hadn’t, within an assembly that turned 

out to be a lot of fun. 

Activities such as Story in Four, the (Crazy) Hands 

Story, the Interpreter (the Translator), 5 Minutes to 

5 Seconds, were acted out in front of a audience 

that was highly entertained throughout the 

performances. The great thing about Improv theatre 

is that it actively involves the audience – those 

watching the performers give them suggestions 

such as where the scene should take place, who the 

characters should be, and what the conflict could 

be. As everyone is involved, Improv creates a lively 

crowd that dynamically influences the course of the 

story in progress. 

The ‘Story in Four’ involving students from one of 

the University courses (there were four courses 

J) is essentially about children having fun while 

developing a story through dramatic conflict 

and characters. They also develop confidence, 

vocabulary, and listening skills. They learn to stand, 

listen and respond in front of a crowd, and most of 

all, to they get to enjoy themselves. 

Hearing the whole of Key Stage 2 laugh genuinely – 

that was the best part of it all. 


Drama Teacher 



Sacha, Tasos, Johann and Suparnan performing Story in Four in front of the KS2 Assembly 

Drama Students Perform Monologues at School Assembly 

A monologue is one of 

the most difficult types of 

dramatic text an actor can 

perform. 

The actor has to stand in front of an audience and 

give a solo performance, moving around, making 

use of props, and, most importantly, going through 

a wide range of emotions; all without the support 

of a stage partner, and all directed to the audience. 

However, the Year 7, 8 and 9 students who 

attended the Drama Club did an excellent job. The 

monologues were chosen by the teacher, according 

to the children’s personalities, from a book of 

contemporary American and English monologues 

from various plays, which the students studied in 

preparation for assembly. 

During the assembly, on the last day of the spring 

term, April the 9th , each one of the 9 students gave 

a 5 minute solitary performance. It was great to see 

students who used to be less confident in English 

speak out aloud in front of the teachers and Key 

Stage 2, 3 and 4 students. It was also great to see 

some funny and quite entertaining performances. 

But, most importantly, it was great to watch these 

students take one more big step toward becoming 

students with a lot of self-confidence and high selfesteem. 

The KS3 Monologue Show was a fun and 

interesting way to end the spring term. 


Drama Teacher 

Sacha, Tasos, Johann and Suparnan performing Story in Four in front of the KS2 Assembly 

27

28 

Noa pleads her case as Year 8 students Vanessa, Alizee, Shanni 

and Johann listen on in attendance 

Mamma Mia 

had the crowd in 

hysterics 

The secondary summer production, called 

Mamma Mia, consisted of a group of short plays 

written and acted by the students. They were all 

inspired in some way by an ABBA song, which was 

performed at the end of each play. This process 

On the spot reporter Danial interviews Sam (played by 

Matthias), as cameraman Nikita zooms in 

Usman as news presenter 

combined both the Performing Arts and English; it 

also gave the students a chance to briefly review 

the history of 1970’s modern music. 

Throughout term 3 the students worked very hard 

and could be heard singing or humming the songs 

of ABBA at break and lunch times and they were 

extremely supportive of each other throughout the 

rehearsal process. 

Some of the plays were well-written children’s 

theatre pieces, which entertained the Year 1’s 

through Year 6’s in the rehearsals as a lead up 

to the big night. The laughter of the youngsters 

inspired the acting of their older brothers, 

Polen, Year 7, 

offer a solo performance of Fernando 

Ana, Naomi, Jennea, and Natalie contemplate escape 

from tropical captivity 


Beth gives costar Louisa knowing look as Mystic May plies her trade 

sisters and friends. It was a joy for a teacher of 

the Expressive Arts to see children entertaining 

children and then adults too, at the Tandarica 

Theatre in Bucharest. 

In the end a great night was had by all. I would like 

very briefly to say a big thank you to the parents, 

teachers and children who attended. I look 

forward to seeing you all at the next show. 

Look out in the next issue for a full review of the 

Key Stage 2 adaptation of Oliver Twist. 

Mr Kevin Kelly, 

Head of Drama 

Mr Kelly instructs the audience to turn off their mobile 

phones



Mr Mulvany and Mr Kelly in Key Stage 2 Production, Oliver rehearsal Louisa and May performing at the BSB Music Recital 

The History of the 

Orchestra 

An orchestra is an instrumental ensemble, usually 

fairly large, with strings, brass, woodwind and a 

percussion section. The term orchestra derives from 

the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek 

stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The size of the 

orchestra grew steadily throughout the eighteenth 

and nineteenth centuries, but changed very little 

in composition during the course of the twentieth 

century. 

A smaller size orchestra (of about fifty players or 

fewer) is called a Chamber orchestra. A full size 

orchestra (about 100 players) may sometimes 

Mr Mulvany performing at the BSB Summer Fair 

be called a Symphony Orchestra or Philharmonic 

Orchestra; these prefixes do not necessarily 

indicate any strict difference in either the 

instrumental constitution or role of the orchestra, 

but can be useful in distinguishing between 

different ensembles based in the same city (for 

instance, the London Symphony Orchestra and 

the London Philharmonic Orchestra). A symphony 

orchestra will usually have eighty musicians on its 

roster, in some cases over a hundred, but the actual 

number of musicians employed in a particular 

performance may vary according to the work 

being played and the size of the venue. A leading 

chamber orchestra might employ as many as fifty 

musicians; some are much smaller than that. 

Look out for the news of the new BSB orchestra in a 

future issue of BSB. 

Mr Desmond Mulvany, 

Head of Music 

Private Piano 

lessons 

Earlier in the year a new lesson began at BSB, 

it was the newest addition to BSB and it was 

called Private Music lessons. 

Some people joined piano, some joined in 

violin and some did other instruments as well. 

I joined in the piano lessons as well as my 

friend Alina. 

Ana at one of BSB pianos 

I learned how to draw the notes and play 

different songs on the piano and a lot more 

things. I chose piano because I already knew 

how to play the piano but I learned more and 

more everyday. 

Ana, 4K 

29

DT from a Year 7 

Point of View 

Just in case you don’t know or haven’t heard, 

students at BSB are, as of this year, having weekly 

D.T lessons (Design Technology) with Ms Kemp. 

30 

In Year 7, we are doing Food Technology or in other 

words: cooking. This may sound boring at first, 

however, once you get to know what it is, you may 

change your mind. 

We have made several different dishes this year, 

all ranging from sweet to sour to savoury. We have 

made smoothies, cheese and courgette muffins, 

apple and sultana crumble and lots more. In all 

these different foods we are learning all kinds of 


Ana giving her mix a stir Ms Kemp leading the way Naomi looking like the master chef 

Year 10 Art Students look to National Military 

Museum for inspiration 

Year 10 Art Students look to the National Military 

Museum for inspiration 

Having almost finished our last art unit for this 

year and with the vacation almost upon us, Mrs 

Lavery took the opportunity to us take on a field 

trip to the National Military Museum. 

Once at the museum we took our time to walk 

around and we looked at the different mechanical 

forms, such as planes, tanks, clocks, weapons, 

and many more. As part of our class work we 

had to draw small sketches of different sections 

from a mechanical form chosen by ourselves. The 

most interesting part of the trip for me was the 

airplane exhibition where we saw a diverse range 

of airplane models, both old and new, as well as 

an astronaut costume and some parachutes. “It 

was very unusual and interesting” said Senia from 

Year 10. Maria said that she also really enjoyed the 

trip and found the background music particularly 

relaxing and conducive to sketching. 

The outside exhibition containing the tanks 

and shoot guns were very exciting for all of us, 

especially the train engine, which was huge 

and very detailed. All in all, the trip was a great 

success; we all enjoyed it and had fun as we 

learned from our past. 

Andreea, Year 10 

different skills. Have you ever heard of the claw or 

bridge grips? Well, we’ve mastered them both! We 

are currently looking at sauces and different ways 

to describe a food we have tasted. 

Overall, these lessons have been very fun (and 

tasty!) and I look forward to seeing what we’re 

making next week. 

Ana, Year 7

IGCSE Art 

Exhibition 

On Wednesday May 13, in the reception area of the 

secondary Crawford House, from 3pm until 7pm, 

we were all able to admire the artwork carefully 

drawn, sketched or moulded by our IGCSE Art and 

Design students, Isabella, Alex, and Nour, from 

Year 11 and 12. The work was done either as part 

of the coursework, in preparation for the exam 

and, perhaps most importantly, as part of their 

exam. Their work experimented with techniques 

and materials such as oil pastels, acrylics, charcoal, 

sketching, and so on. 

Apart from their parents, classmates and teachers, 

the visitors to the exhibition included the children 

and parents from both the Primary and Secondary 

School, with accompanying friends from outside 

school. 

The nervousness could easily be read on Isabella, 

Alex and Nour’s faces as the first guests started 

to arrive and wander around the exhibition hall – 

however, they did a great job showing everybody 

around, talking with the guests or even sharing a 

small/funny story about the artworks’ “creative 

process”. 

All in all, it was obvious that the exhibition was a 

great success, with everybody seeming to enjoy 

themselves, and Isabella, Alex and Nour having a 

taste of what it feels like to be an artist, reaping the 

fruits of their hard labour. 

Congratulations to our three young artists, Isabella, 

Alex and Nour, for all the hard work you have put 

into this exhibition! As for me, and the rest of the 

Year 10 art class, we are already eagerly looking 

forward to the Year11 exhibition next year and hope 

you will all be able to make it. 

Senia, Year 10 

Year 7 students making their mould 

for a face mask in Year 7 Art 


Visitors looking through Isabella’s work folders 


Alex proudly displaying his work Nour, Year 12, exhibiting her work 

31

Adult Art Classes 

‘Barbara, I neeeed you!’, ‘Barbara, can I see you 

next please?’ Not BSB students, but a group of 

anxious mothers trying to free their creative genius 

which was, for the moment, out of town. 

32 

Monica, Anne Marie and Isabel 

working on their prints 

Every Thursday we meet in the Art Room for either 

craft (in the morning) or painting with acrylics. 

We are a diverse group, both in nationality, but 

also in talent and experience. Most of us have no 

background in art at all, and in our first lesson 

most of us looked with trepidation at a still life 

arrangement of cup, saucer, tea pot, sugar cubes 

and flowers which we were expected to transfer 

onto a huge sheet of paper with nothing more than 

a stick of messy charcoal and our non-existent 

ability. 

Slowly, slowly, we progressed onto a real canvas 

with proper paints and an easel! Feeling like 

putative Renoirs (or Rolf Harris), and fighting the 

urge to don a beret, Barbara somehow managed to 

coax out of us respectable still life paintings, using 

a subject of our choice (and nobody chose a tea pot 

or sugar cubes). We learned that much of painting 

is about technique and experience, and that you do 

not need to know everything before you start! 

In the morning craft group, some are making lino 

cut prints, some papier mache sculptures and some 

are producing the most exquisite silk paintings. This 

class is quite easy going, if there is a craft you want 

to pursue, it can usually be accommodated with 

good humour and expert guidance. 

We then moved to figure drawing and painting, 

starting with a very pregnant mum as our first 

model, gradually growing in confidence as Barbara 

taught us about light and shade, primary and 

complementary colours, and that you got told off if 

you leave your brushes in the water. 

This term we are doing abstract landscape, again 

using a subject of our choice and painting it in the 

style of another artist, which helps to focus us and 

give Barbara an idea of what style we are trying to 

achieve. 

Diane Worth decorating her pot 

I would recommend this group to anyone. It’s fun, 

the biscuits and the company are both good, and 

you end up with artwork you can be proud of. 

Diane Worth, 

Aspiring Artist 

BSB Students attend 

International Conference on Higher Education 

On Friday 22nd May Louisa, Mihnea 

and I went to a conference held at 

the People’s Palace. There were 

many ambassadors and important 

delegates from different countries, 

and it was extremely exciting. 

At the conference they discussed 

Higher Education (Universities and 

Colleges). It was interesting to hear 

how education had improved in the 

past decade and how it can improve 

further in the future. 

This experience has given me a 

better idea about Higher Education, 

because I knew next to nothing 

about it before! The speeches 

were all very enlightening and 

it was wonderful to listen to 

people who knew their subject 

so well. I particularly liked Emil 

Constantinescu’s speech on 

Education in the 21st Century, 

in which he described how 

globalisation has opened a 

boarders-free market in the 

educational system. Afterwards he 

was kind enough to speak to us 

and we had a photo taken together. 

That was definitely the highlight of 

my day. 

Finally, it was fascinating to see 

and talk to all the politicians, 

ambassadors and educational 

professionals. It was a wonderful 

day, which we all very much 

enjoyed. 

Bethan, Year 9 


Adult English 

Classes 

End of Year Review 

This was the first year offering Adult English 

classes to parents and we were not sure how 

much demand there would be for the classes. 

In the end we had approximately 30 parents 

attend the classes, which were divided into 

four levels: elementary, pre-intermediate, 

intermediate, and upper-intermediate. 

Classes had 8 students or less each, which 

is ideal as this gives the teacher time to 

spend with each student individually and 

also makes for a close friendly learning 

environment where everyone in the group 

has the chance to get to know each other a 

lot better. 

You are able to improve your English, and also 

very importantly, speak with other parents in 

a very relaxed setting. 

Many new friendships were formed and this 

is very important as living abroad is much 

easier and more enjoyable when you have a 

good network of friends to spend time with. 

Next year we plan to offer Adult English 

classes again and hope to see many of you 

back: classes will start Monday, September 

14th. For those of you who are moving away, 

Bill and I would like to say thank you for the 

many enjoyable conversations and to wish 

you all the best in your future location and 

studies. 

Mr Kendall Peet, 

Head of EAL 

Beth, Louisa, and Mihnea standing with Emil Constantinescu

BSB Work 

Experience 

Work Experience for Year’s 8 

and 9 took place this year from 

Wednesday 25th March – Friday 

27th March. Pupils were involved 

in a programme whereby they were 

asked to search for a placement with 

a parent or family member. For the 

placement they were given a work 

experience booklet to complete 

which highlighted six important ‘Key 

Skills’ communication, application 

of number, problem solving, 

information technology, improving 

their own learning performance and 

working with others. Pupils were 

asked to complete tasks relating 

to the key skills and assess their 

improvement in the key skills at the 

end of the placement. The booklets 

were particularly impressive and 

some pupils even made power point 

presentations of their experiences. 

They also recorded their 

experiences, views and impressions 

and on a DVD. 

Ms Jen Kemp, 

Work Experience Coordinator 

“I went for work experience to 

PETROM Oil and Gas Company. I 

visited many different departments 

such as Tax department, HR (Human 

Resources) department, Financial 

and Marketing department, Treasury 

department and many more. It 

improved a lot of things such as my 


confidence. It was a great experience, 

I found out what it is like to work, 

have a manager and work with 

colleagues. The experience also 

helped me decide if this is the right 

career for me. I learned loads of new 

things such as what kind of skills 

do we need for each department , 

what happens in each area, there 

are two kinds of taxes and they are 

named Corporate tax and Personal 

Tax, Tax department is related to 

many different things like benefits 

, salaries, social security, and that 

PETROM covers offshore and onshore 

assets. I even got to know when the 

first asset was acquired in 1857 and 

all the wells extended after World 

War II.” 

Noor Yr 8 

“On Work Experience, I found out 

many interesting things about how 

to run a restaurant. I went to Bacci 

restaurant with my some of my 

friends in Year 8. We worked in the 

kitchen, and around the restaurant 

itself. A few things I wanted to learn 

how to do, or how to improve in were, 

‘how to use the skills and knowledge 

I have’ and ‘how different jobs in an 

organisation fitted together. 

Whilst at work experience, we each 

were ‘assigned’ a task to complete, 

mine was first waitressing. I 

shadowed the waiters and/or other 

people, such as chefs. I learned that 

in the restaurant, they use more than 

one refrigerator for keeping food 

separate and that they have freezers 

and fridges for certain foods and also 

for freezing and thawing food for the 

next day. 

My work related learning project 

consisted of negotiating with my 

employer on advertising skills. The 

menu, as I noticed, was in only one 

language. If it could be converted 

into more than one (as it is now) then 

they might have more customers. The 

menu is now in Italian, Romanian, 

and English. 


Vanessa, Alizee, Ana and Elizabeth on Work experience at Bacci Restaurant 

I also believed that many of my 

skills improved during this set 

period of time. At first, I didn’t feel 

very confident at the restaurant. 

They were all very nice of course, 

but I just wasn’t in my comfort 

zone. After a day or two, I started 

to talk more and more to the other 

workers and actually played a game 

of football with one waiter and 

chef. During this, we all used the 

key skills to create success in our 

groups. We (sometimes) worked as 

a team, I, myself, improved my own 

performance, and we all achieved 

maximum in communication. All in 

all, this work experience was a blast 

and I hope to do it again.” 

Elizabeth Yr 8 

“I went for the work experience 

mission to a company called TNUVE 

Romania with my Mum who works 

there. I improved in lots of ways 

while working there. On the first day 

I was really shy, scared and I wasn’t 

confident at all! But when I got to 

know people better it was much 

easier communicating with them. It 

was a really nice and interesting and 

off course fun experience, working 

with a boss! I even got to make my 

own yogurt! I also learnt loads of 

things which will help me in the 

future: I learnt which skills I need 

to use for this job and improved my 

ability to communicate with adults!” 

Noa Yr 8 

“For my work experience I went to a 

restaurant called Bacci. During my 

work experience I gained some skills 

in doing basic things that are done 

at restaurants by staff. For example I 

have learnt how to prepare a proper 

drink at a bar in a restaurant (I 

really enjoyed this part of my work 

experience). I may have improved 

my cleaning skills and of course 

preparing drinks and making them 

look tasty. We also went through the 

kitchen where we have helped a bit 

and learned how to make pizza in an 

Italian restaurant. My time keeping 

was good and I felt quite confident 

and completed all tasks that I was 

asked to do. The people on my work 

experience also went through all the 

health and safety procedures at the 

beginning of the work experience 

program. I worked as part of the 

team with Vanessa, Alizee and Liz 

even though we had different jobs to 

do. Overall we all had fun together 

especially when we were testing the 

food ourselves.” 

Ana-Maria Yr 8 

33

Reception 

Transition to Year 1 

Moving onto a new class can be a frightening 

prospect for many children. This is no different for 

my reception class at Gafencu – they are not only 

moving to a new class in September but a whole 

new school ‘the BIG school’ at Pipera. 

We were all getting ready for our trip to see John 

Malam at Pipera, an author, who was coming to 

share the books he had written. Some children 

appeared a little uneasy about trips to the big 

school, asking questions like “how long will we be 

gone?” It’s a big change for these children who are 

so familiar with our cosy surroundings. 

On the big day, the bus arrived to take us all 

to Pipera. We buckled up and mentioned how 

important seatbelts are to keep us all safe. On the 

way we helped the children to relax by looking at 

the trucks and trying to guess what the trucks were 

carrying (ice cream?); the children also noticed 

landmarks, and made comments such as “Look 

there’s IKEA”. 

When we got off the bus the children noticed a 

familiar face, their own PE teacher Mr Mugur and 

gave him a big wave hello. We all need friends in 

unfamiliar environments and our class proved to be 

very good friends as Meea said “I’m holding hands 

with Claudia my friend”, and Sai said “I am going 

to hold Andreea’s hand” while Andreea beamed 

with delight and said “ I am holding hands with Sai 

and Smruti”. It was wonderful to see them being 

very supportive to one another in the strange and 

new environment. 

34 

Space to run 

Some children got very excited when they saw the 

running track “this is for racing” said one child and 

immediately began to run down it. Victor saw the 

wooden staircase and asked the teacher “What’s 

up there?” The teacher answered “Up there is 

going to be your classroom next year”. Victor with 

delight shouted to his classmates “Hey, that’s our 

classroom, that’s our classroom”, which they will 

Reception students enjoying listening to visiting author, John Malam 

Back Row: Andreea, Patricia, Meea, Jan, Theodore, Francesco, Claudia 

Front Row; Smruti, Sai, Victor, Luca 

all get a chance to see on our next transition day. 

All the children enjoyed making new friends and 

also meeting up with old friends whilst playing in 

the great space in the garden and comments were 

made “It’s much bigger here”, “More space to play” 

although some children were a little over whelmed 

they still managed to enjoy themselves. 

It was time then to meet the author in the library. 

As the children walked in, you could hear many of 

them saying “WOW”, most of them had never seen 

or been in the Primary building before and were 

impressed by the décor and size. They all sat down 

to listen to the author who was very good. It is 

very rare to find a visitor who is able to talk to such 

young children. They were so comfortable that 

they asked him questions about his book such as 

how long it takes him to write. They joined in with 

reading the book and used words to describe the 

feel of the pictures in the book such as ‘prickly’ and 

‘soft’. At the end of his talk, the children got the 


chance to draw their own picture story board and 

even make up their own ending to the story. 

When we got back to class, we asked the children 

to reflect upon their trip. Some said they liked it 

because they saw their friends and talked about 

how they enjoyed running in the garden and 

playing ‘chasing’ games because there is so much 

more space. Some children commented that they 

were not looking forward to going to the big school 

next year because it is so far from their house and 

other children said they preferred Gafencu School. 

I think these trips between Gafencu and Pipera are 

excellent they help to ease the children’s anxiety 

as the more visits they make the more familiar they 

become. I would like to take this opportunity to 

wish them all the very best for the next year. 

Patricia Pantella, 

Reception Teaching Assistant, Gafencu

Year 7 help Year 6 

Students prepare 

for the jump to 

Secondary 

One Year On 

Everybody knows the transition from Year 6 to Year 7 

can be a big move! But, as the Year 6’s found out, it 

is definitely NOT as bad as it is made out to be! 

On the 12th of May 6U and 6D gathered in the 

Yellow Building’s ICT room, quietly waiting for 

us (Year 7) to burst into the room (accompanied 

by Ms Kemp) equipped with our school-made 

presentations. During PCSHE, we had been working 

in pairs on power point presentations in order 

to give Year 6 a sneak preview into Year 7. Our 

Presentations included information about the 

Building, the School Day, the Teachers, Advice for 

the ‘next generation of Year7’s’! Altogether, there 

were seven presentations. You may believe that 

seven power points on the same subject could lead 

to seven tonnes of boredom; however, we managed 

to make each presentation very individual with 

different opinions shared about different aspects of 

life in the Secondary school. 

All the Year 6’s were very attentive and asked a lot 

of good questions. A few of the things that they 

were interested in were: detentions, homework and 

break times. They made a very good audience and 

laughed and groaned in all the right places (these 

included a moan when they heard that our break 

times were shorter and a sigh at the fact that we 

can get detentions!). A few of the messages that 

we sent out to the Year 6-s were: don’t worry, be 

yourself, have fun, do your homework on time and 

be respectful towards teachers and peers. 

We would like to thank Ms Kemp, Mr Davidson and 

Ms Ullman for allowing Year 7 to be an important 

part of the Year 6 Transition Day. 

Ana and Jennea, Yr 7 

Year 6 Impressions 

The Year 7 students talked to us about the 

transition from Year 6 to Year 7 and what 

they thought about it. Most of them said 

that it may seem big and scary, but that it 

wasn’t. They also told us about the work, 

uniform, the changing of classes and what 

their opinion of the high school was. As a 

result of Year 7 presenting what they wanted 

us to know, the pupils in Year 6 went home 

knowing much more about what was ahead, 

even if they were moving on to a different 

school. 

Olivia, 6D 


Natalie and Jennea Year 7 giving their presenation 

Sabina and Miriam pointing out the teachers to the year 6’s! 

Year 6 listening carefully during the Year 7’s presentations 


35

Garden Design 

university course 

The Garden Design University Course is wonderful. 

We have learned how to measure the area of an 

outdoor space and plot the location of existing 

fixed objects. We were told that we had to draw 

in scale. Mr Harrison was our university course 

teacher, he is talented. We have practiced 

sketching drawings of gardens. If we had 

university courses in Year 7 I would choose garden 

design but unfortunately we don’t. All of the 

university course would like to thank Mr Harrison 

for all the things he taught us and the wonderful 

time we spent with him. I would advise you to 

choose garden design as your university course 

next year. 

Mariam 6U 

36 

University Course 

End of Year Review 

A wide variety of courses available to the 

pupils – over 60 different ones! 

C ourses provided a vast range of new skills to 

be learned. 

H uge amount of application letters were 

written by the ‘applicants’. 

I n Key Stage 1 the pupil’s were offered 

Spanish for the first time. 

E xpert volunteers running courses increased 

significantly from last year. 

V acancies available for course leaders for next 

academic year 

E ffort levels from the pupils were consistently 

high throughout all the courses. 

M ost popular courses included Cooking and 

Cartoon Designs. 

E xcitable pupils reflected the popularity of the 

university courses. 

N ew courses for Key Stage 2 pupils included 

calligraphy and I.Q. games 

T u-tu’s and pirouettes were on show with Miss 

Hussain’s ballet courses 

S o all-in-all quite a year of achievements for 

our university programme! 

Mr Iain Davidson, 

University Course Coordinator IQ University 

Course 

IQ Games is a course with different, interesting 

activities involving thinking. It includes an 

interesting collection of math, logic, language 

puzzles and memory games so students can have 

fun and learn as well! 

In this course we played a memory game with 

letters and solved number sequence exercises, we 

found the meaning or the opposite of words, we 

classified pictures and words and talked about the 

human brain. 

Calin completing a difficult task during IQ games 


The game that we liked most was “The Tower of 

Hanoi”, which is a mathematical game or puzzle 

and the objective is to move the disks from the 

first column to the third one obeying some rules: 

only one disk can be moved at a time and no disk 

may be placed on top of a smaller one. We also 

learnt some Albert’s Einstein quotes and tried to 

understand what they mean: 

“Try not to become a man of success but rather try 

to be a man of value”. IQ Team 

“I liked this course because we played many 

games and I was really challenged.” Alexandra, 5B 

“It is one of best university courses that I have 

been to.” Calin, 5T 

“We learned many things” Elad, 3L

Day 5 Report from 

Madrid, June 2009 

The general consensus seems to be that this is the 

Best Day so far. Ms Kemp and I both smile as this 

is now the third day running that the students have 

said this. Everything is going very well. The group 

is a buzz with talk of Plaza Mayor, a visual feast, 

like Hemmingway’s A Moveable Feast, as we are all 

excited by the hive of activity around us; restaurants 

packed, lights, music, and laughter. Street 

performers in every direction- Tudor impressed by 

the guy wearing dark glasses standing on a surf 

board frozen in time; there’s a man in costume as 

the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, a guy dressed 

up as a goat- the girls scream when one of the 

heads on a table, motionless, suddenly springs 

to life catching the tourists off guard; Mihnea and 

Sacha give a Romanian street performer some 

money; in every direction something to hold one’s 

attention. We decide to sit down in a group and 

listen to a guy playing a guitar; a little further off a 

group of school children perform the flamenco to 

a growing crowd of onlookers. It’s lovely sitting on 

Day 2 the Great Outdoors! 

Day 3 Kayaking the the lake! 


the warm paving stones, everybody smiling, the 

thought of dinner, the movie, and the Fun Park, 

Parque de Atracciones, still fresh in our minds. 

Another long, busy day, with only a quick trip to the 

Ice Cream Parlour before home, bed, and sleep. 

Tomorrow, Real Madrid Stadium, The Royal Place, 

and Plaza de Oriente. 

I ask the students what the highlight of the trip 

for them has been so far. Everyone replies the Fun 

Park. May, Mihnea, Vanessa, Beth, Alizee, and Iulia 

all say they also enjoyed the trip to Segovia, walking 

the windy, narrow, old cobble-stoned streets. Jojo, 

Polen, Tudor, and Naomi talk about the Quasar 

(Laser Strike), and Tudor regales the group of the 

story about the shopping basket- everybody laughs. 

Andreea says she enjoyed the climbing most, Sacha 

the kayaking, then everyone joins in and starts 

talking about the trip to the Outdoor Adventure 

Centre, agreeing that Naomi was the best shot at 

Archery. Sabina talks about the Jonas Brothers 

Concert, which she attended with her mother and 

Andreea, while Louisa smiles and says the little 

double-decker bus; Mihnea smiles also, no doubt 

thinking of his ride on the horse. Mr Peet says he 

thinks that the food at The Wok was amazing, with 

unlimited shrimp and fresh asparagus cooked right 


in front of you, and all the sushi, salmon, chicken, 

rice, noodles, and salad you can eat. Everybody 

starts talking about the food, with half the group 

agreeing that Foster’s Holly-wood after the bowling, 

was best- Jennea topped the board scoring 89, 

followed closely by Tudor on 85- the other half 

saying they liked the Italian Restaurant because 

it was such a fun night, with the laughter from our 

table filling the restaurant. Ms Kemp and I smile 

again thinking about our surprise treat on Friday 

night- a trip to the Madrid Hardrock Café. 

It has been a wonderful trip so far and the time has 

passed quickly. In just 3 days we will be boarding 

the flight bound for Bucharest, returning to our 

homes and families, and I know that this trip will be 

with us all forever and that makes me smile. We’ve 

all got to know each other better and for Ms Kemp 

and I that is the best part of the trip. Many of these 

students I will have for English in Year 10 and so I 

am already looking forward to next year as it has 

been a great trip and the children have all been 

amazing. With this said, Ms Kemp and I would like 

to say a big THANK YOU to all the students on this 

trip for helping to make it the fun trip it has been. 

Day 3 on the high wire! 

Day 4 the aquaduct in Segovia! 

Mr Kendall Peet, 

on behalf of everyone on the Madrid Trip 

37

PE Dept. Review 

Physical Education continues to thrive at the British 

School of Bucharest with the GCSE PE candidates 

completing their course work and sitting their GCSE 

Short Course paper in May. 

38 

3P getting ready for Sports Day 

Reception races 

YR 1 warming up 

The pupils have been really pleased with the 

progress they have made and as their PE teacher 

I have witnessed this not only in their progress 

during school lessons but in their commitment 

to activities outside of school, which has been 

excellent. Isabella Werner and Cristina Anghel 

especially, both of them are very committed to 

their sports outside school, karate and horse 

riding respectively and as part of the GCSE course 

as the assigned moderating teacher I had to 

observe them performing their skills. 

In Foundation and Key Stage 1, 2, 3 pupils have 

been preparing for our annual Sports Day. They 

have experienced a variety of running, throwing 

and jumping events as this years Sports Day will 

have a traditional feel. The pupils will compete 

for their houses in events of their choice and earn 

valuable points for their house as they go. 

Mr Anthony O’Brien, 

Head of PE 


BSB are runnersup 

in ISB Lumina 

Cup Football 

Tournament 

This picture is from the ISB Lumina Football 

Cup Tournament, played on Saturday, May 

16th. 

BSB sent several teams to play in the various 

age groups. In the under 10 team there was 

Ilias, Fanni, Eldan, Elad, Csaba, Alex, Antoine, 

Patrick, Philip, Can and our coach, Mr O’Brien. 

The BSB under 10 team finished in 2nd place. 

We played 4 matches and won them all, but 

lost in the finals to Spectrum 2-1. I had a great 

day and worked really hard to score 2 goals. 

Next time we will win for sure! 

Fanni. 3L 

Below are a few photos taken of some of the 

BSB teams entered. 

The U 10s with their medals and trophy 

The U 12s getting ready to attack 

The U 14s in action

The BSB Ski Team, Sacha, Iulia, Jennea, Johann, Mr Hamacher, Foivos, Cristiana, Andreea, and Mr Murchison 

Swoosh! 

On the 11th of April, 7 students from BSB took off on 

an airplane and began their adventure to the world 

famous Swiss Alps. After saying goodbye to our 

parents, we experienced a surprisingly easy journey 

through passport control and security checks and 

a fairly quick and relatively uneventful flight to 

Switzerland. 

Hooray! We have arrived! On arrival in Switzerland 

we were greeted immediately by a very friendly Ms 

Regina, who escorted us to the bus and would later 

assist us with all our never-ending questions in 

Haut – Lac. The bus journey to our final destination 

was a lengthy process, but we were more than 

happy to socialise amongst each other and be 

amazed with the abounding beauty of Switzerland 

surrounding us. 

At Haut-Lac we were informed about rules and 

routines and then kindly shown our rooms and left 

to settle in. On the day of arrival we did not get the 

opportunity to go skiing but we were OK with this 

because it meant that we were allowed to have 

tonnes of fun with the wonderfully, friendly ladies 

and gentlemen at Haut-Lac. We had a ball playing 

Lacrosse, trying to retrieve a ball from a towering 

tree, hurling and catching Frisbees and climbing the 

wonders of a majestic tree. BEDTIME! 

Besides the 4 days that we went swooshing down 

the snowy slopes of the super Swiss Alps, we got to 


visit some amazing places around Switzerland. This 

included the time of our lives in a glorious water 

park and visiting a tummy-swirling, finger-licking, 

dream-filling CHOCOLATE FACTORY! We also had 

the amazing opportunity to visit an historic Swiss 

castle that had a mind-blowing art exhibition and 

garden. We had lunch here and admired the lovely 

landscape spread out beneath us like a magnificent 

carpet. 

The indoor water park was amazing, fantastic, 

wonderful, and we had a blast making a splash in 

Switzerland. The highlight of the waterpark was 

the 2 fabulous slides: one of them was red and the 

average time to reach the bottom was 3 seconds; 

the other one was orange, and the average time was 

7 seconds! 

We thoroughly enjoyed the exhilarating trip and 

have to admit that everyone made tremendous 

progress in their skiing skills! 

Lastly, we would like to distribute a HUGE thank you 

to everyone at Haut – Lac and our out-of-this-world 

teachers, Mr Hamacher and Mr Murchison! 

If you are interested in joining the next BSB ski trip 

in March, 2010, please contact the school office 

for information, office@britishschool.ro or speak 

directly with Mr Hamacher or Mr Murchison 

Andreea and Jennéa, Year 7 


39

BSB Sports Day, 

2009 

Obviously the first thing to 

mention about this year’s 

Sports Day is the weather... 

It has been kind to us on many occasions this 

year, however our luck was due to run out and 

down it came. Before the rain we did manage to 

get through about half of the programme. To the 

uninitiated there were 3 different competitions all 

running together at one time. Foundation and KS 

1 entertained us with their performances on their 

eight stations – each one representing some of the 

work the children have been doing in PE this year. 

KS 2’s Sports Day itself comprised of two elements 

– Individual Competitions (where they had the 

choice between picking Sprinting, the High Jump or 

the Cricket ball Throw) and House Team Activities. 

All of the KS 2 sports were based around the three 

traditional Athletics events of running, jumping 

and throwing. The Secondary School pupils had 

to choose at least three out of four events in which 

to take part – the 100m, the 400m, the High Jump 

and the Shot Putt and it was great to see from a PE 

perspective how many actually chose to compete in 

all four events. 

40 

Back at BSB we had some unfinished business 

to complete. First off was the Secondary events, 

luckily there was no problem accommodating the 

remaining competitions although the 4x100m 

Relays took some working out. 

A special mention must go out to Year 10s Eduardo 

who ended the day winning 4 individual Gold 

Medals plus another one in the Secondary Boys 

4x100m race, great effort. Foundation and KS 1 

were next , while all children love to race I think it 

is especially true of our younger pupils so much 

so that after the serious race had been run they all 

stayed behind to race again for sheer enjoyment. 

Years 3 and 4 completed their House Team Activities 

on the front grass the following day meanwhile 

Years 5 and 6 got on with their Individual running, 

throwing or jumping events. Afterwards came the 

Years 3 and 4 8x50m Mixed Relay Race and the 

Years 5 and 6 8x50m Mixed Relay Race. 

From a personal point of view it was a shame that 

the team relay races were not run at the stadium. 

It’s a great Finale to Sports Day when we see each 

team work to get the baton all the way around the 

track, but as they say there’s always next year. 

Well done to all those who took part, even if you 

did not go home with a medal you should at least 

be proud of representing and contributing to your 

House team on the day and also a huge thank you 

from the PE department for the support from our 

maintence staff we couldn’t have done it without 

you! 

Sports Day Results 


All rounder! Eduardo Year 10 Five Gold Medals 

Keep your eyes peeled for the new school records 

which will be on display soon. 

Ms J Kemp and Mr A O’Brien, 

PE Department 

Arges Danube Olt Mures 

Foundation/KS1 68 59 86 91 

Years 3/4 100 121 66 89 

Years 5/6 104 116 61 100 

Secondary 178 123 198 359 

Total 450 419 411 619 

Final Placing 2nd 3rd 4th 1st 

“I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the students, parents, 

and teachers, to formally thank Unicredit Tiriac Bank for kindly sponsoring the 

BSB Sports Day. Without your support this day would not have been possible.”

Gafencu Sports Day 

Olt Key Stage 1 Charlie waiting his turn 

Denis representing Mures 

Alex Yr 10 in the High Jump Foundation and Key Stage 1 races 

Lightening storms were forecast but the weather 

was kind to us. We had a cool, grey start that 

finally turned into a hot and sunny day just as we 

completed our events. The children thoroughly 

enjoyed themselves and they have repeatedly said 

how much they enjoyed it since returning to school. 

No more words... it’s best told in pictures... 


Mures Key Stage 1 

Year 3 and 4 Girls Race Hannah in the lead 


Preschool’s budding athletes. Francesco leaps over the last hurdle. Gina helps Ana to squeeze every last drop of water. 

41

Key Stage 2 

House Captain review 

Danube 

Danube has achieved many things and are 

improving all the time. In particular I would like 

to say thank you to Alex and Philip for all the hard 

work they have done this year. In fact, everyone in 

Danube worked really hard, especially the girls!!! 

(Trust me the girls in Danube are seriously smart 

e.g. Isabel, Bianca, etc., everybody). On Sports 

Day Danube performed particularly well winning 

many of the events, especially in the running. I 

think Danube is the best team in the school and I 

really hope we win the trophy this year. 

Antonio, 6D 

Arges 

I think that Arges has tried its best this year and 

has collected lots of house points; I think we are 

in 2nd or 3rd place at the moment. This year we 

managed to beat Mures 1-0, in the Inter House 

Football Competition, but then lost to the other 

houses. I hope that we will start playing well 

again. We have also behaved really well in the 

school assemblies, so we got the Good Behaviour 

Cup more than any other house, which I think is a 

real achievement. I hope that we will keep up the 

good work and hopefully do better and achieve 

our goal of winning the house point trophy this 

year, and if not, definitely next year. 

Mures 

42 

Andrei, 6D 

During this year Mures have achieved many 

things, and as a result is leading the House Point 

Competition. We won the competition designing 

some jeans for Jeans for Genes Day and Mures also 

made a massive improvement in their behaviour 

and are now much better at working together. Here 

we are now at the end of the year working much 

closer together than at the beginning of the year. I 

am very proud that I am the captain of Mures and 

of everything that we have achieved this year. 

Olt 

Harry, 6U 

Olt in my opinion has done very well and I think 

they are constantly improving. One of Olt’s best 

achievements this year was that in the house 

games we never lost a single match. I think that in 

Sports Day we did very well. This year Olt got loads 

of house points. Olt also won the prize for the 

Best House Cheer. I hope we will continue to be 

successful in our endeavours. 

Filippo, 6U 

Danube house captain 

Arges House Captain 

Mures House Captain 

Olt house captain 


Primary House 

Competition 


The House Competition continues to be tightly 

fought with Mures still in the lead with 5778 

points. Do not start your victory dances yet 

though Mures! There is still time for the three 

trailing houses to snatch victory in the final 

week. 

Andrei, 6D, Receivng 

the weekly Good Beviour Cup for Arges 

With Danube less than 200 points behind and 

Olt and Arges neck and neck for third place, 

the lead up to the end of the year promises to 

be an exciting one. Good luck to you all - may 

the best house win! 

Mr Sonny Leese, 

House Competition Committe

Secondary House 

Captain review 

Arges 

Another year is about to come to an end and as 

the Captain of Arges, I would like to wish you 

all a great vacation and lots of fun. The year 

started brilliantly, with Arges in the lead for 

several weeks, but we lost momentum after the 

midterm break and from then on went downwards. 

However, it doesn’t really matter who wins, as it 

is the effort you put in gathering points for your 

house that matters. 

Obviously Danube put a huge effort in and are 

now the clear leaders and I would like to take this 

occasion to congratulate them …great job Danube. 

I would also like to thank the ones who literally 

fought for house points on Sports Day: Alizee, 

Jennea, Chi Bum and Eda…THANK YOU very much 

and WELL DONE! I’d also like to thank Louisa for 

her contribution to the house. GREAT JOB! Even 

though we didn’t quite make it to the top it was 

an excellent year and I’m sure we’ll do our best 

next year as well. GO ARGES !!!! 

Mures 

Andreea, Arges House Captain 

I would like firstly to thank everyone in Mures for 

all your participation and hard work this year; it 

has been a pleasure being your House Captain and 

I’m looking forward to being your Captain again 

next year. 

Secondly, a big Congratulations to everyone and 

especially those who have worked so hard in the 

last few weeks! We are currently second behind 

Danube, however, recently we have been winning 

the weekly competiton and we did an excellent 

job on Sports Day and with only 2 weeks of school 

remaining, I believe that we can still win this! If by 

any chance we don’t catch up with Danube this 

year, then I’m sure the House Cup will be ours 

in 2010! Thank you all again for nominating me 

this year as your House Captain and I wish you all 

a splendid summer vacation and I’ll be looking 

forward to leading Mures to success next year. Go 

Mures! 

Denis, Mures House Captain 


Olt 

Firstly, I would like to say that I am very proud of 

everyone in Olt for all the hard work you have put 

in throughout the year. I know this year wasn’t our 

best year, however I think we all did a great job 

competing and had fun along the way and this is 

important. Olt did an excellent job and I am sorry 

that we lost; it is disappointing, but this should 

not dissuade us from trying to win next year! 

Unfortunately, this is my last year at BSB as I 

will be graduating and going on to university. It 

has been a real pleasure leading you for the 3rd 

year in a row- I’m sure next year you all will vote 

in an outstanding captain and win. Thank you 

everyone for all your help and effort. I would also 

like to thank the Olt teachers who contributed 

this year and worked hard alongside the Olt 

students. GREAT JOB OLT! and lets win it next 

year! 

Polen, Olt House Captain, 2007-9 

Danube 

This term has been mega-busy for everyone, and 

the end of year and victory is in sight. Danube 

have worked extremely hard from the very start 

of the year and have lead the House Competition 

for most of the year. We all worked hard in the 

Spanish Assembly Quiz, on the Paper Cranes, 

in the interhouse Basketball Tournament and 

Football Tournament, at Sports Day, and many 

more... Now, it’s almost the end of the year, and 

hopefully we’ve done enough for victory to take 

The Cup! In the last few weeks we need to all work 

together and do whatever it takes to ensure that 

Danube win. WE CAN DO IT!!!!! 

I want to thank everyone and all the other house 

captains and vice captains and of course everyone 

in Olt, Mures and Arges this year. In my team I 

would like to thank very much to Maria for being 

the ultra-amazing Vice Captain. In Year 7, I would 

like to thank Ana, Danial, Nikita...in Year 8 Anamaria, 

Shani, and Noa...In Year 9, Sacha and 

Mihnea...In Year 10 Maria again...in Year 11 Flavius 

and Cristina and in Year 12 Alex...and anyone I 

missed out; a huge thank you for all your help and 

support this year! I am sure we’ll make it to the 

finish line with a huge smile and a cup in hand! GO 

DANUBE! 

Nour, Danube House Captain 


Danube has 

Victory in its 

sights 

The end of term is in sight and so is the 

end of the House Competition. The House 

Competition will end on the last day of term, 

so there is still time for points to be given 

and leads shortened. At the moment I am 

pleased to announce that Danube is still in 

the lead with a whopping 1651 points. 

Andreea receiving 

the House Cup for Arges, Week 34 

Tudor, Mures Vice Captain, receiving the Weekly 

House Cup from Mr Pantella in Week 33 

A few weeks ago Mures and Olt trailed 

Danube by a colossal 300 points so both 

teams have lots of work to do if they want 

to challenge Danube for the shield. Do not 

forget to read the next issue to find out who 

the House Winners are! GO DANUBE! 

Mr Pantella, 

House Competition Committee 

43

Class pages 

44 

Under the Sea 

Shells and sand take center stage in the 

Gafencu Crèche Class 

The Crèche children in Gafencu discovered that 

there is ‘a serious commotion at the bottom 

of the ocean’; this is how our Under the Sea 

Learning Journey all began with what is now our 

favourite book: Commotion in the Ocean, by 

Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz. 

Jason, Amelie, Ana, Anna, Sofia, and Agata 

are enjoying having lunch in the garden after 

participating in our beach ball relay 

These past few weeks we have examined the 

differences in texture and colour between the 

sands of various beaches, discovered what 

happens when you run a magnet through sand, 

put a shell up to our ear and rediscovered the 

simple pleasure of playing in sand and pouring it 

through a sieve to reveal its secrets. 

Amelie, Jakub, Greta, Anna Sofia, Jason and Ana 

having ice-cream and enjoying a day at the beach in 

our role play area 

We had a wonderful time sand painting and 

creating ‘under the sea’ art. Arts and crafts give 

children a method of expressing themselves 

creatively, as well as allowing them to develop 

Creche 

Pipera 

It is hard to believe that the school year is almost 

over; the time has gone by very fast! So much 

has been achieved throughout the year in Crèche 

and there have been many highlights. All of the 

children are now communicating in English and 

do so very confidently, considering at the start of 

the year very few spoke English. Well done! They 

have all tried so hard. 

fine motor skills such as cutting, pasting, and 

drawing. Certain themes, such as the ocean and 

the creatures that live in it, lend themselves 

perfectly to art projects. Ocean life is full of fun 

shapes and colours which are replicated in 

these activities. 

In the classroom we set up our role play area 

with umbrellas, beach balls, inflatable beach 

toys, shovels, pails, towels, and a paddle pool 

filled with fish and seashells and enjoyed having 

a pretend day at the beach. In our Mathematics 

Centre we had a shell counting and matching 

game children chose a card and counted out the 

same number of shells as the number listed on 

the card. When they had counted out the correct 

number of shells they then placed the shells on 

the number card. 

Jakub, Anna Sofia and Greta searching for sea shells 

During circle time we used our touch and feel 

bag, where we placed various objects that are 

found in or near the ocean such as a star fish, a 

sea sponge, seashells, and a seahorse, which 

was a big hit. We also had an ‘under the sea’ 

wall where we glued pictures of sea creatures 

to a piece of poster board during circle time and 

practiced naming the animals on the poster. 

Mrs Varban, 

Gafencu Creche Class Teacher 

One of our big projects was our garden. All of the 

children got involved in planting seeds and bulbs, 

watering them and helping out with the weeding. 

There was a great sense of accomplishment when 

everything started to grow. 

Dana, Dana (we have 2 TAs called Dana), and I 

would like to wish everybody a great holiday, and 

to say that we will miss the children so much next 

year, but I know they are all very excited about 

starting their new school year in Preschool. We 

wish them well. 

Mrs Claire O’Brien, 

Class teacher 


Outside 

with preschool 

The Foundation classes follow the Early Years 

Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. As part 

of the provision of the EYFS, the children at 

BSB have access to both the outdoors and 

indoors as a learning environment, which is 

wonderful as we are lucky enough to have 

two excellent gardens: one at the front and 

one at the back of the building, which can 

be accessed from the preschool rooms. The 

outside space has allowed us to add old tyres, 

tree logs and tree stumps. We have four tree 

stumps which the children use as stepping 

stones. It has been very interesting to watch 

how each child has tackled these obstacles 

and to see the huge sense of achievement 

as they develop the skills necessary to 

complete the circuit. These outdoor play 

objects encourage the children to develop 

their physical skills while experiencing a little 

adventure. The children learn how to play 

safely while developing a variety of skills like 

climbing objects and balancing. The fantastic 

sunshine that we have had has meant that 

we have had opportunity to develop lots of 

different activities. 

Scrambling and balancing on logs. 

In the EYFS curriculum Physical Development 

is considered to be the second most 

important Area of Learning, and it has so 

much to do with building self esteem and 

confidence which of course then influences 

the rest of a child’s learning and achievement. 

For this reason access to the outside is a 

free flow process, so, if for example a child is 

building a house with the small construction 

sets inside, they might decide that they 

require real grass for the garden and so can 

go to cut some grass and place it around their 

model. A very important aspect of free flow 

indoor/outdoor policy is that the children can 

decide to be indoors or outside. 

Ms Kath Homer, 

Preschool H Teacher 

Matthew, Mariam, Ioana and Ayesha 

have Green fingers!

Preschool Gafencu 

As the year draws to a close we are left to reflect 

on the wonderful progress and achievements of 

our Preschool class. Nearly all of our students 

arrived with little or no English at the beginning 

of the year and preferred to play alone. Now while 

we sit amongst the playing children we hear 

English conversation in all directions and see 

children not only playing alongside each other, 

but interacting and role-playing together. 

Alex, Martina and Tudor playing with finger puppets 

Whilst in preschool they have learned to share 

and take turns, to be patient and caring towards 

Pre School C 

Mad about Animals 

We are coming to the end of the year and as I look 

at my pre school class I see that they are almost 

ready to move on to reception. I am so proud of 

all my children because over the year I have seen 

them grow in confidence and skills. The days of 

struggling to get some of them to talk are well 

over, and I am now more likely to find it difficult 

to get a word in. They have learnt to take care of 

themselves and just as importantly they show 

concern for each other. They have seized every 

opportunity to explore new activities and ideas 

and I know Ms Daniela, Ms Lydia and I have all 

enjoyed the journey. 

This Term Pre School H has truly been mad about 

animals. It started with us turning our home 

corner into a veterinary clinic; little did I know 

Bear hunt anyone? 

The children from Reception H were joined by four 

brave mums and a little brother to venture into 

the Pipera forest opposite the zoo. We quickly 

noticed how quiet it is in the woods, compared to 

the school or the road, and how nicely the birds 

were singing. The fresh air made everyone hungry 

and we enjoyed our picnic. Then the children 

had ample opportunity to explore the forest, 

independently and in a small guided walk led by 

the mums. Each group then shared what they had 

seen and found. We talked about what kind of 

animals live in the forest and all agreed that we 

were glad not to meet bears or wolves! At the end, 

we read ‘Going on a Bear Hunt’ before embarking 

on the short journey back to the school. A big 

thank you to the mums for their help! The children 

had a lot of fun and kept talking about the trip. 

Ms Jess Bremer, 

Reception class teacher 


one another, and to enjoy a variety of activities 

that demonstrate the skills they have learned. 

We can see Niya writing letters and numbers 

on a notepad in our ‘doctor’s office’ and hear 

Alexandru C. counting playdough cookies. We 

observe Martina combining various colours, 

shapes and textures in her painting. 

Cameron and Joost drawing 

We sit not far from a train yard where Sasha 

has managed to independently set-up an entire 

train set complete with overpasses, bridges and 

t-junctions. It’s a jungle in here when Cameron, 

Filip and Alexandru M. are playing with the 

wild animal sets. We are in the middle of a 

the range of animals that would come visiting. 

We had lots of fun reading about animals and 

engaged in lots of role play, but as there is 

nothing better than first hand experience, we 

decided it was time to meet some real animals. 

So far the children have enjoyed visits by 

Bollinger the cat, Joey the Rabbit, and Speedy 

the tortoise. We got 3 goldfish as pets to keep 

at school, and when Calista from 4H kindly 

offered us a Hamster we couldn’t resist. Rocket, 

a Chinese Hamster, is the latest member of 

our class, and we have all had to learn how to 

take care of him. Always keen to learn more, 

the children have been asking to meet more 

animals, including a lion and a snake, but don’t 

worry, they won’t be coming to school as we have 

planned a class trip to the zoo. 

Mrs Helen Calthrop, 

Class Teacher 


construction zone where Tudor, Serban and Calin 

are building towers and vehicles with record 

speed. We see Joost persevere in completing our 

most challenging puzzle, while Benjamin uses 

the interactive whiteboard to write his name. We 

sit back to enjoy a dance recital put on by Irina, 

Ambra and Sanziana. But now it’s time to tidy up 

and everyone works together to put the toys back 

in their places until next time… 

Filip and Sasha helping Martina with her lunch 

We would like to thank all of our students for 

a great year, and wish them all the best in 

Reception. 

Ms Gina d’Entremont, 

Preschool Teacher 

Lennie and John pretending 

to be dogs in their home made cage 

Reception H Class Photo Walking through the forest 

45

46 

There has been a pirate in 

Reception B 

This term we have had a pirate sneaking around 

our school and sending us letters. He has made 

us write messages in bottles, make maps of our 

school and make them look old by dying them 

with tea. One afternoon we received a letter from 

the pirate telling us he had lost his treasure. Our 

first thought was – what a silly pirate, but we 

went searching for it anyway. We followed a map 

all over our school grounds and finally found the 

treasure in front of the Secondary building. We 

have really enjoyed having a pirate around; he 

has helped us apply many skills we have already 

learnt and learn new skills as well, especially in 

Mathematical Development, Communication, 

Language and Literacy and Social Development. 

All of the children have achieved so much this 

year and they should be extremely proud of all 

their accomplishments. All sixteen children in 

Reception B have been in the foundation stage 

since preschool and many of them since crèche. 

Their learning journeys have been vast, ranging 

from offices, supermarkets, growing, journeys 

and of course the pirate. They have worked very 

hard to achieve the Early Learning goals this year 

and they are all very excited for their big move to 

Year 1. 

The children in this class are certainly not the 

same children who started here in September; 

they have all grown into independent and 

confident children all with very individual, bright 

personalities and I feel confident that next year 

they will continue to thrive and grow in Year 1. 

1H 

Ms Deanna Beggs, 

Reception B Teacher 

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun!! This 

school year has flown by for 1H. 

Mert and Emi concentrate hard on their maths 

We have learnt such an abundance of fascinating 

facts and engaged in a multitude of amazing 

activities that it’s hard to know where to start. 

Some of the highlights have to include our 

trips to the Art and the Village Museums. It was 

Marcel, Haruna, Manuela, Tabi, Enya, Patrick, Chloe 

and Maddie found the treasure but Marcel heard a 

noise in the distance and all the students are looking 

for the pirate, wondering where he could be 

Martin, Maia and Svenja have found a clue from the 

pirate - a message in a bottle. It was a question. What 

kind of pet does a pirate have? 

wonderful to see an array of creative art and to 

get a taste of life in traditional Romanian homes 

from around the country. Another memorable 

event was our Easter Egg Hunt where we worked 

in our house teams to unearth a plethora of egg 

tokens cunningly disguised in random places. 

With all that we have learnt we are now well 

equipped to be of service to you this summer; no 

job too big, no job too small. 

Look what fantastic wigwams 

and spider webs we’ve made! 


Reception Gafencu 

The Reception class at Gafencu is a diverse 

community of learners from all over the world. 

As the year closes I am so proud of every 

child for many reasons – but particularly 

because we are all now speaking English with 

confidence. Many of the children joined the 

class with little or no experience of English 

and they all had their own learning styles. 

Some took their time to listen, wanting the 

English they spoke to be accurate, whilst 

others were happy to ‘have a go’ and make 

mistakes. 

Front row: Anisia, Meea, Smruti, David and 

Francesco, Front: Victor, Theodore, Sai, Jan, 

Claudia, Luca 

Sam making friends with her classmates 

I have been informed by a number of families 

that the children are now correcting their 

parent’s English! Well done all. It’s been a 

lovely year and we have enjoyed sharing this 

learning journey together. Take care and we 

wish you continued success in your future 

learning experiences. 

Ms Angela Harvey, 

Class Teacher 

• Need a story? We can write it and then read it 

to you 

• Need a new house? We can build it 

• Need a garden makeover? We can grow you 

some stunning plants 

• Need a holiday? We can pack suitable luggage 

for you 

• Need a healthy snack? We can prepare a 

scrumptious fruit salad for you 

Whatever you need help with this summer - we’re 

the class to call on. 

We wish you a very happy summer with safe 

travelling and restful holidays and look forward to 

seeing you again very soon. 

Mr Stuart Harrison, 

Class Teacher

Reception H: 

Animals and water 

Reception H has a new edition to the classroom- 

tadpoles! The children are learning about their 

lifecycle and habitat. They enjoy watching 

them in their little aquarium, drawing pictures 

or journaling about them. We also had ‘toad 

mummy’ and ‘toad daddy’ visit for one day! The 

children quickly understood that water is vital for 

tadpoles and frogs, and are now investigating 

that plants and people also need water. This 

lead to some interesting science experiments on 

sinking and floating, weight and capacity, and 

properties of water and ice. 

Ms Jess Bremer, 

Reception Class Teacher 

1J 

1J have had a really successful year, celebrating 

and learning in lots of different ways. 

They had a lot of fun learning how to do batik, 

dripping wax and using dyes. 

We also experimented with how to press flowers 

and leaves, and they decided how to arrange 

these together. It was great using coloured sand 

and beads to decorate their own photo frames, 

and also learning about houses from around the 

world painting igloos, wigwams, yurts, caves and 

mud-huts. 

I hope they all have a relaxing holiday and wish 

them all the best for Year 2. 

2W 

Ms Helen Jezeph, 

1J Class teacher 

2W have enjoyed a very busy and active year. 

Aside from all our studies this year we have had 

the opportunity to take part in all kinds of events 

and trips. 

We had a wonderful time working together to 

create our final parent assembly and discovered 

in the process that we have some very fine actors 

and actresses with powerful speaking voices! 

Science Day was particularly enjoyable and we 

can’t wait to see what we’ll be investigating next 

year in Year 3! 

Despite the pouring rain we also still had fun on 

our zoo trip and made friends with the cheetah 

who followed our steps as we walked up and 

down outside her cage. More recently, we 

decided that it was time to get serious when it 

was time to train for Sports Day and now we’re 

all definitely feeling a lot stronger and fitter after 

several rounds of circuit training, balancing 

games and lots of pull ups and press ups! 

Mr Williams, Ms Dalila and all the children want 

to say a big thank you to the parents who have 

supported us and helped us along the way by 

ensuring the homework was done, costumes were 

made, cakes were baked and extra hands were on 

deck in times of need! 

2W Students 


1J in the Foundation, Keystage 1 play area 

Ethan saying hello to an Iguana 


Paloma, Isabella, Mallika, and Gregory fill the tadpole 

tank with stones and water 

47

48 

2B 

Ms Banks reading Mrs Mog’s Cats to Alexander, Louis, Daria, and Alexandra 

3P, Final thoughts 

Year 2 Geography & Zoo Trip 

It’s been another GREAT term for 2B. We have 

been working hard (as always) but enjoying 

ourselves at the same time! We had a super 

trip to the zoo and even though it poured down 

with rain, it didn’t dampen our spirits! Whilst 

munching on our tasty sandwiches we listened to 

the loud roars of the resident lion and saw up to 

60 different types of animals. WOW! 

Veronika: In Year 3 we learned a lot of new and 

interesting things. 

Bridget: We learned about Romans. We learned 

about their clothes and we had a Roman Feast! 

David: We also learned about Queen Boudica and 

how she fought the Romans. 

Clara: We made Roman sundials. I can make my 

own sundial now. 

Ilias: We learned about teeth and eating. I know 

that if I drink too much Coca-Cola my teeth will go 

black. 

Eldan: I learned about the Vikings and how they 

travelled on their ships. I know that they could go 

from island to island on their longboats. 

In History we have been investigating facts 

about the Great Fire of London and we used this 

information to present an assembly about it. 

Isabella and Louis did a super job of playing the 

parts of Mr and Mrs Pepys and Salman was a very 

convincing baker. Some of the rats were a little 

bit snappy, but the Londoners did a great job of 

putting out the fire! 

Sophie: I learned how to write correct sentences. 

Elad: In mathematics I learned how to multiply 

and divide and I think I am very good at it now. 

Engin: I learned how to make models out of clay: I 

made a trophy for BSB. 

Michal: I learned to make a paper cup in Origami 

Club. 

Samma: In music lessons I learned how to play 

the violin. I like playing my violin. 

Raluca: When we went to Sinaia, it was our first 

time away from home. I felt a little bit scared, but 

I liked it a lot. 

Matei: At Sports Day I won a medal for jumping 

and the relay race. Next year I hope Danube wins 

and I get first place in the running events. 

Year 2 studnets in front of lions’ den 

Year 2b ALC lessons with Ms Rocio 


It’s sad to think that this is our last term together, 

but we have lots of wonderful memories to take 

with us. I shall miss all of 2B- they have been a 

very energetic and fun bunch. 

Ms Lindsey Banks, 

Class Teacher 

Cristina: My first year at BSB was spectacular! 

I really enjoyed making clay models. I have more 

friends now and next year I hope I will make even 

more friends. 

Arina: I am much better at writing now. I can write 

a story all by myself. 

Stephanie: I improved my writing a lot this year. I 

wrote a wonderful story about our Sinaia Trip. 

Marcel: I am very good at mathematics. I can 

do times tables in my head and I can add big 

numbers. 

Anda: I think I can concentrate better now. I am 

very good at literacy also, because I love writing 

stories. 

We hope we have a lot of fun 

in Year 4 and learn even more.

3L 

It has been a busy and challenging year for us all 

in 3L and we have had lots of fun along the way. 

There have been many highlights throughout the 

year and I am immensely proud of the children 

and their achievements. 

I would like to give huge congratulations to 

Radu, Klara, David, Ioana and Diana for their 

improvements in English – well done to the EAL 

team and thank you for your efforts. It has also 

been great to see some of the children competing 

in sporting events against other schools this year 

– good job Fanni, Csaba and Philip. 

We have also had some wonderful writers this 

year – I have really enjoyed reading everyone’s 

work, in particular Amelia, Brian, Clara and 

Rodney’s pieces. Well done to Pelin and Hannah 

for their good efforts in football clubs – watch out 

Wayne Rooney! 

3L also did extremely well in World Maths Day, 

coming 50th in the world – a special thanks 

to Hithu and Vlad for their contributions here. 

We have spent lots of time on DT and Art with 

wonderful efforts from Rosie, Gabi and our very 

own human chainsaw – Gui! Sasa continues 

to amaze me with his geographical skills and 

knowledge – I think he may have an entire atlas 

memorised! In fact, big congratulations to all the 

students in 3L - you have a lot to be proud of. 

Year 4 

(4H & 4K) 

Mr Sonny Leese, 

Class teacher 

Year 4 has produced some 

outstanding work this year, but in 

the last term we have really outdone 

ourselves. 

Year 4 has produced some outstanding work this 

year, but in the last term we have really outdone 

ourselves. There are two units of work that 

particularly standout as examples of how much 

the children have learnt: Literacy and ICT. 

In Literacy the children formed and expressed 

opinions about the stray dogs in Bucharest. 

We were most impressed with their mature and 

thoughtful ideas regarding the topic. We used our 

Epals accounts and set up a chatroom discussion 

in one of our PSHE sessions. The children 

thoroughly enjoyed this unit and showed some 

impressive reasoning and persuasive writing 

techniques. 

In ICT this term the children worked with Logo 

program. All of them enjoyed this, and showed 

very clear understanding of how to control and 

manipulate the onscreen turtle. Many exceeded 

the expectations of the unit and showed they 

could write instructions that would help to create 

drawings of a wide range of objects, as Daniel’s 

house illustrates. 


Vlad, Sasa and Pelin working together during a Maths lesson 

When we look back at all the amazing 

achievements Year 4 have accomplished this year 

it is hard to believe that it’s all happened in only 

three terms. While the recent assessments have 

shown fantastic progress in writing, reading and 

mathematics, it is the more latent achievements 

that we are most impressed with. The children 

have matured so much. 

Hands up who likes Year 4 


They have become more independent, more 

responsible, more opinionated, and more aware 

of their school, friends and their learning. And 

it is this growth that we as teachers feel most 

satisfied with. Thanks for a fantastic year kids, 

have a relaxing and enjoyable break. 

Mr Patrick Kennedy, 4K Class Teacher, & Mr Brad 

Hamacher, 4H Class Teacher 

49

50 

Fun Times for 5B! 

What a fabulous year this has been for all of us 

in Year 5B. We have enjoyed participating in lots 

of days – Maths Day, Science Day, Space Day, 

Language Day, a Spelling Bee, Halloween antics 

and an Easter Egg Hunt. We have visited the 

Village Museum, the Art and History Museum 

and the Railway Museum. We’ve helped others 

through our Jeans for Genes activities, our 

Christmas Shoe Box Appeal and our Harvest 

Festival contributions. 

We’ve worked hard for our House Team points 

in sporting competitions and with our behaviour 

and work. Our class responded to a challenge 

to decorate a tree with eco-friendly Christmas 

decorations and we won our little tree called 

Benny who sits proudly at the back of the 

classroom. And with all of these great activities, 

we have found lots of time to learn and increase 

our skills and knowledge. 

Lucie, Sacha and Alexandra contributed poetry 

for the school calendar, with Lucie showing her 

beautiful writing skills and winning the Year 

Five handwriting competition. Maria and Dilara 

represented the opinions of the class to the 

Student Council and both sang beautifully during 

our Winter Production. Alexandra represented 

the class on the Eco Committee and presented 

exciting facts during the Space Day. On that day, 

we also were informed and entertained by Finn, 

Suparnan and Sacha. The sportsmen showed 

their prowess as well, with Aaron, Jarod, Sacha, 

Finn, Roberto and Suparnan enjoying football 

and handball without seeming to tire at all. 

5T looks back 

over the year 

As the year draws to a close, I like to take the time 

to reflect back over the school year. The class 

has achieved a great deal and I am very proud of 

5T. I have seen the children grow in confidence, 

ability and maturity. A particular strength this 

class has as a whole is that they are good at 

solving problems and finding solutions whether 

academic or part of their daily life. They are also a 

very creative class. 

Miss Tyler, 

class teacher 

“In 5Tmy biggest achievement was in Maths. I 

think I have improved a lot with fractions and 

divisions. I have learned more about the times 

tables. I have to admit it is not my best subject, 

but I think a have learned a lot more. I hope we 

can learn even more next year.” Calin 5T 

“I improved myself by not being so shy anymore 

because I was really shy the year before. I have 

also improved my writing in Literacy and am 

doing better in Maths. I feel like I improved in 

almost every subject at least a little bit.” 

Ilinca O. 5T 

“I feel like I have learned more. I have improved 

in my Drama and I am better in Maths. I 

communicate with others better and have made 

more friends.” Chira 5T 

Our artists were hard at work this year, with 

Joo-Yun, Sanya and Lucie producing some fine 

pieces. Sanya also presented at the Science 

Symposium, as did Alexandra. Ms Ullman’s 

Weekly Science Challenges were always taken 

up by Alexandra, and we congratulate her on 

her keenness to search for new and interesting 

information. Aliss, Liria, Lucie and Aaron helped 

the Key Stage One children with their games. 

Elena and Ms Diana have created some fine 

art works, with Ms Diana designing beautiful 

displays to help with our learning. Liria and 

Fabulous 5B 

Year 5T 


Roberto have kept us entertained with witty 

comments that helped to keep us smiling. 

It has been a truly wonderful year with a truly 

wonderful class. The various backgrounds, gifts 

and abilities of each of these children have 

blended together into a group where talent 

and creativity and achievement are valued and 

celebrated. It has been an honour to be the 

teacher of Fabulous Five ‘B’ this year. 

Chris Barclay, 

Class teacher

Year 6D 

The end of a school year is always a time of mixed 

emotions for me; there is the anticipation of the 

long summer holiday and the opportunity to 

spend time with family and friends back home, 

but also a time of sadness as I say goodbye to my 

class. 

The theme of this edition is ‘achievements’ and I 

asked my class to write a short overview of what 

they felt they had achieved this year. 

As I read through my class’ work, three pieces of 

writing stood out for three very different reasons. 

Looking Back at 6U 

Mr Davidson, 

Class Teacher 

“At the start of September I didn’t know English 

and much of the words the teacher said I didn’t 

understand. 

Now I know English very well. Not so well, but 

now I understand what people say. Before I could 

not write a sentence, but now I can write a whole 

paragraph or more. 

I’ve almost finished EAL.” Martin, 6D 

“In Year 6 I achieved a lot! I got new friends, good 

marks in tests, became responsible, got to be the 

oldest in KS 2 and most importantly improved my 

skills.” Andrei, 6D 


6U Experimenting with Science 6U Reading with 3P 

Year 6 has been a time of learning and growing, 

during which all of the students have made many 

achievements both as a class and as individuals. 

As the school year comes to a close, we would like 

to celebrate these achievements, which range from 

learning English, to becoming a House Captain, to 

obtaining the lead role in the KS2 production to 

improving our Maths skills. We have reflected on 

the past, relished in the present, and now we look 

forward to the future. Have a wonderful summer 

6U and good luck in Year 7! 

Miss Ullman, 

Class Teacher 

Below are some of the accomplishments that Year 

6U achieved this school year… 

Throughout the year 6U has had many fun 

experiences and lessons where we have learned. 

One of the class achievements of the year was our 

assemblies. For our first assembly we decided to 

do a Kids TV quiz show. We also included adverts 

The final piece of work belongs to Olivia and 

it sums up beautifully aspects of teaching and 

learning that are often not highlighted. The 

sincerity and thought provoking evaluation of 

what she feels she has achieved this year is one 

that I personally will remember for a long time. 

“I have achieved many things this year; I have 

as a part of the program. It was so successful that 

we did another Kids Fortune episode about health 

and healthy eating for our second class assembly. 

Scott and Harry, 6U 

This year I think, (I am sure), that finishing EAL was 

my biggest achievement. I also achieved several 

certificates in Assembly this year. I’m sure that the 

class learned lots of things too, including fractions 

in Maths, powerful speech in Literacy, jumping, 

running and throwing in P.E., Tudor exploration 

in History, connecting ourselves to the world in 

Geography, forces in Science, Oliver Twist songs 

in Music, tableaux in Drama, as well as Spanish, 

French, and German. I look forward to what I will 

learn in Year 7 And I’d like to say “Thanks!” to Ms 

Ullman, Mr Crispin, Mr Davidson, and Ms Maria for 

all the things they taught us this year. Helene, 6U 

Our class achievements: We all know the 

difference between physical change and chemical 

change. We all know how to multiply, divide, 

add, and subtract with different strategies. We 

have all achieved completing the SATs. I have 

become much better in every single subject I have 

Year 6 Group Photo 


worked independently and learnt to take 

risks responsibly, fight for my rights and most 

importantly I have learnt to respect everything 

around me. I have learnt that no matter how far 

apart I am from the people, places and the pets I 

love, they are always there for me. I have learned 

to become a better person.” Olivia, 6D 

discovered the knowledge of Roanoke, the first 

British colony to settle in America. I have achieved 

lots of knowledge from Space Day and Science 

Day. We have also achieved having lots of fun 

throughout the year. Robert, 6U 

I have learned many things since the first day of 

school. I have learned some key things about 

dealing with stress and how to answer questions. 

For example, if you can understand a question you 

are already half way there to answering it correctly. 

Cinar, 6U 

My achievements of Year 6 include doing the Radio 

Show. It is really fun to go to the staff room every 

Tuesday to work. We have really improved what we 

say and how we say it! Another great achievement 

was working toward the SATs. 

We practiced enough so that the actual SATs 

seemed like any other test. I have also achieved 

learning a Latin based language, Spanish! Also, 

since I did Fine Art as a club, I have learned exactly 

where and how to shade my drawings. Megan, 6U 

51

BSB teachers receive 

‘International Award’ Training 

On Wednesday April 1st Mr Power and I boarded a 

plane bound for London to participate in a 2 day 

International Award Instructor Training Programme. 

This programme is necessary for any school 

wishing to offer its students the chance to gain an 

International (Duke of Edinburgh) Award. This is a 

highly respected award which can be very helpful 

when applying for university, and so with this in 

mind, Mr Power and I set off to complete the BSB 

accreditation process. 

Our plane departed Otopeni at 5.30pm, touched 

down at Heathorw 6.30pm local time, after which 

we took the tube to Gloucester Road, a few minutes 

from the Park International Hotel, our home for the 

next few days. 

Ultimate Frisbee 

The BSB Ultimate Frisbee Team is still going strong 

in our second season in Bucharest. With a solid 

squad of 10 we have been growing in numbers and 

52 

Mr Hamacher looking to pass to Ms Doina, 

while Mr Harrison tries to prevent the pass. 

Mr O'Brien and Mr Power at the IA Training Course in London 

The IA training took place at the famous Baden- 

Powell House in South Kensington, opposite The 

Natural History Museum, just 10 mins walk from our 

Hotel. Each day ran from 9.00am to 4.00pm, with 

each day broken into 2 parts. On Day 1 we got to 

meet the other 15 people from International schools 

in Dubai, Spain, Malaysia and Romania, before 

focusing on our topics for the day: Community 

Service and Physical Recreation. On Day 2, we 

focused on the Skills needed to complete an IA and 

for the Adventurous journey that students must 

undertake, covering topics such as, teamwork, 

training, preparation, self sufficiency and selfreliance. 

progressing in skills. While Ultimate Frisbee has yet 

to catch on in Romania, our games are becoming 

quite competitive and with each new season word 

is spreading. It is an easy game to learn, an amazing 

work-out and an opportunity to meet new people for 

both men and women. 


All in all, it was a very worthwhile trip and both Mr 

Power and I got a lot out of it. It was also a very busy 

trip and so by the time we boarded our plane for 

Bucharest at 6.30pm, we were both pretty tired. For 

me personally, the best part about the IA training 

was finding out about the huge impact it can have 

on young lives. 700,000 young people around the 

world take part in the International Award each 

year precisely because it really is a wonderful 

self-development programme. It aims to equip 

young people with life skills to make a difference to 

themselves, their communities and the world and I 

am very happy to be a part of this process. 

Mr Leese, Mr Murchison and Ms Beggs getting a great 

work-out during a friendly game of Ultimate Frisbee. 

Mr O'Brien, 

International Award Instructor 

So, anyone interested in playing next September 

should get in touch with Mr Leese or Ms Beggs. 

Mr Brad Hamacher, 

Ultimate Frisbee Organiser

Mr Mulvany , Ms Cristiana and Mr Kelly 

Mr Power unwinding after a hard week 

Teachers Celebrate 

Successful 

ISI Inspection 

After a much needed Easter break, 

the BSB team returned to face the 

pressure of a full ISI inspection; 

complete with lessons observations, 

1-2-1 interviews, and unannounced 

appearances at school assemblies 

and staff meetings and training 

sessions. 


We were well prepared for the visit, but none-theless 

still nervous as it is always a little nerveracking 

being assessed and interviewed. Happily 

though, the week of inspection passed quickly and 

smoothly, with the school passing the inspection 

with flying colours, and so it was with a sense of 

relief that staff arrived poolside to enjoy the end of 

inspection BBQ party. The school put on a lavish 

spread with a full menu of BBQ treats, salads, 

desserts, and enough beer and wine to sink Her 

Majesty’s navy; the sun was out- summer had finally 

arrived- DJ Des was in the house, and the spirit of 

celebration was in the air, ensuring that it would be 

a night to remember. 

The afternoon BBQ extended into an evening 

of dining and a night of karaoke and dancing, 

against an undulating backdrop of friendly banter, 

intermittently abbreviated by a cacophony of 

heartfelt laughter. In accompaniment to the 

singers, both younger and older members of staff 

alike took to the patio dance floor as a mixture of 


Ms Draser and Ms Rocio partying on into the night 

Ms Kemp and Mr Kennedy performing a duet 

knee trembling 70’s disco, sobering waltzing, and 

romantic salsa filled the airways. There were even 

a few who dared an early summer dip in the school 

pool. 

It was a great afternoon and an even better night 

and really the perfect way to unwind from what 

for some was a rather stressful week. The evening 

pushed on into the night, alight with festivities, 

revitalizing staff, who now looked forward to the 

rest of Term 3 and the piles of paperwork waiting 

our attention. 

We would like to say a big thank you to Mrs 

Wells and Corina for organising this party- I know 

everyone really appreciated it. It was the perfect 

way to end the week and it was also a great chance 

for staff to socialise together and get to know each 

other a little better. We are all very much looking 

forward to the next staff social. 

Mr Kevin Kelly, 

of behalf of the BSB Social Committee 

53

BSB TAs win 

International 

Open Air Cooking 

Competition 

It all started with a flyer given out at Piata Unirii 

advertising the International Open Air Cooking 

Competition scheduled to take place at Izvor Park. 

To tell you the truth we don’t normally read flyers, 

but this one triggered our interest and after reading 

through it and mulling over the idea of entering for 

a couple of days, we finally decided to enter. We 

read the additional information on the website, 

considering the various categories, and in the end 

decided to sign up for the Creative Category. We 

knew it was going to be hard competing against 

famous chefs from all over the world, but let’s 

face it, what’s not hard in life? If you don’t get out 

there and give it a go you’ll never know what you’re 

capable of achieving, right! 

The Day of the Competition 

The competition started on the 9th of May at 11a.m. 

We arrived at the competition venue at 9a.m. and 

spent the next 2 hours dressing our stall up in a 

traditional rustic Romanian style, complete with 

54 

Alex and Catalina discussing their various dishes 

Alex and Catalina preparing their stall 

100 year old Romanian pottery, wooden spoons 

and baskets, traditional scarves and table cloths, 

antiques, vegetables and herbs, vintage wine, and 

pictures with dishes that we had cooked in the 

past. To be honest, we couldn’t match the fancy and 

expensive designs from the other individual chefs 

or restaurants, but our stall had a simple charm 

about it. 

With the stand all set up, we moved on to cooking 

our spicy fish dish with salsa sauce, grilled 

mushrooms, and chicken liver covered in smoky 

bacon, garnished with sweet potatoes, broiled in 

tin foil with a Tsatsiki sauce made from sour cream, 

garlic, garlic powder, cucumbers, and mint, and a 

traditional Romanian bread made with egg, garlic, 

spices, cream cheese, olive oil and dill- something 

that came close to the Italian Bruschetta. We 

arrived at this combination after some intense 

research looking through various famous Romanian 

cookbooks, eventually combining a couple of 

recipes and fancying the dish up with a selection of 

ingredients from both Greek and Spanish cuisine; 

the spicy fish and salsa sauce was served with a 

dry, white Romanian wine, the second course with a 

semi-sweet, red Romanian wine. The food ready, we 

waited for the judging panel to arrive. 

The judging panel 

We watched apprehensively as the judging panel 

moved from stall to stall tasting the various dishes 

and felt a sense of relief when finally at our stall 

they commented on how impressed they were with 


The Judging Panel 

The winning cuisine 

the way everything looked (including our uniforms) 

and tasted. They congratulated us and said they 

were very surprised to learn that we were amateurs. 

After the judging session we gave an interview to 

the press and had our picture taken with several 

world famous chefs, such as Jacob Hausman- 

considered to be number 1 chef in the world- Robert 

Rainford, the star of the Canadian show “License 

to Grill”, the famous Italian chef Antonio Pasarelli, 

and the best Romanian chefs: Horia Vârlan, Petrisor 

Tanase, Stefan Bercea and Cornelia Ghisoi. 

A surprising result 

We never believed that we would win, or even get 

a participation diploma, and so when the judges 

finally announced the Best Chefs Prize, saying the 

name of our team, Hop Top!, we were completely 

stunned. It took a few moments standing there with 

the cup in our hand and medals around our necks 

before we realised what had happened and burst 

into cheers. The judges all congratulated us and 

said that we are expected in Cluj in September for 

the next stage of the Competition. The following 

day we brought the cup and the medals to BSB 

and shared out story with both the teachers and 

students, using our story to show the students that 

anything is possible if you set your mind to it. 

Mr Alexandru Cirtu 

& Ms Catalina Maxim, 

BSB TAs

Sushi making session in progress PTA sushi making event 

PTA 

2008-2009 

We started the year in September by 

organising a coffee morning at school 

a chance to sample home- baked 

cake, catch up with friends and 

welcome newcomers to BSB 

In October we had more fun than 

the children organising Halloween 

activities. We decorated the parents 

room, dressed as witches and played 

Halloween games like, Bin of horror 

and Pumpkin catch ! 

Year 6 also enjoyed their own 

Halloween disco. 

As November arrived we started 

to plan the Christmas Bazaar. The 

children along with teachers and 

class representatives chose a theme 

for a class Hamper then thanks to 

the generosity of parents collected 

items and produced fantastic 

baskets to raffle ,which along with 

name the Harrods bear , over 4500 

Ron was raised for school charities 

and PTA funds . The Christmas Bazaar 

was a fantastic success, there was 

a wide variety of Artisans selling 

Soft play from PTA 


their goods, delicious home-baked 

traditional food and mulled wine to 

complement stunning musical recitals 

and seasonal songs performed by our 

children. 

In between organising events this 

year of course we found time to 

socialise. Lunch of the month began 

and the 2nd Tuesday of the month 

the ladies met and enjoyed some 

delicious meals in restaurants such 

as Caru cu bere Restaurant and 

Kumars Agra Palace. There was also 

an organised trip to the Peoples 

Palace and to a Mosaic Workshop run 

by the 2nd Chance charity in Berceni. 

Friday afternoons at school have 

become a buzz of activity , alongside 

the hugely popular class bake sales, 

we have a 2nd hand magazine 

and book sale, a great exercise in 

recycling, and as a result of generous 

donations, hard work and dedication 

over 1300 Ron has been raised 

enabling the PTA to sponsor one of 

the days the school has arranged a 

famous Author to read to children. 

There is also a DVD club where 

children can rent a DVD for 1 week. 

On the last Friday of the month the 

ladies have met in the fabulously 

equipped cookery room at school for 

international cookery demonstrations 

. In January we learned Italian 

cuisine, in February cookery from 

Pakistan , April Portuguese cuisine 

and our last cookery lesson was in 

the art of sushi and the best part for 

everyone was eating the lunch we 

made together afterwards. 

All of the events we organised have 

appeared in the Friday flyer and on 

the PTA notice board in the Parents 

room, where you will also find the 

newly set up community notice board 

which posts everything from items for 

sale or wanted, recommendations, to 

business opportunities. 

So all in all it has been a very 

busy year , culminating in the 

tremendously successful Summer 

Fair on Saturday 6th June – a day that 

will be in the memories of many for 

years to come. Thank you to everyone 

that made the day possible. As this 

newsletter goes to print we are on the 

eve of our Midsummer Party which we 

know will be a delightful way to say 

goodbye to friends for the summer. 

Finally I would like to say a massive 

thank you to everyone who has 

worked so hard in making this year so 

successful and really good fun ! 


55

42, Erou Iancu Nicolae Street, 077190 Voluntari, Ilfov County, Romania 

T. +40 21 267 89 19 F. +40 21 267 89 69 E. office@britishschool.ro 

www.britishschool.ro

Students make a big splash at the BSB Summer Fair splash at the ...

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