MAR AZUL INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

What a fantastic start to the new academic year.  Not only have we welcomed back all of our students from last year but we have gained thirty seven new pupils throughout the whole school and we are delighted to extend a warm, Mar Azul welcome to all of you.  Not only have we been busy recruiting for the school, but we have also enlisted a large number of students for the College of Further Education which begins its second successful year on October 5th.  We had set ourselves a target of recruiting 50 additional students and it is with great pleasure that we can inform you that this was met over the course of the summer. 

As we have a large number of pupils in school, we will be posting our curriculum overviews on the internet for parents to view online to cut down on paper.  Any other similar information will be posted online in the same way.

Arriving and Leaving
Turning now to the arrangements this year for children arriving and leaving.  School hours are 9 am to 4 pm.  Please ensure that your children arrive promptly for the start of the school day.  Secondary students need to register with their form tutor at 8.55 every morning.  Once the registers have been collected, parents whose children have not attended will be informed by text to ensure that the reason for their absence is genuine.  For security reasons, the school gate will be closed at 9.10 am every morning.  If you arrive after this time, please report with your child to reception to ensure that we have marked them into the register.  To minimize disruption within the classroom, children may be asked to wait outside of the class until the beginning of the next lesson.

Primary children will now walk down to the playground at 4 pm and their teacher will dismiss them directly to a parent or a person pre-authorised to collect them.  This will avoid the bottle neck at the school gate.

School Dinners
There is a new system for ordering school dinners in Primary.  Your child would have received a letter with all of the relevant information yesterday.  Please refer to your letter carefully as lunches need to be ordered and paid for in advance.  Secondary students have a choice of sandwiches, baguettes or salads or a hot meal in the restaurant.  Hot meals will also be provided for Early Years and of course, all students are free to bring packed lunches. 

After School Clubs and School Calendar
You will shortly be receiving details of all of our After School Clubs together with a school calendar.  The calendar not only includes school holidays but also information on school trips and special events.  We will shortly be celebrating “Its Alright to be Bright” week which is a department of Education initiative in the UK.   Children will be participating in various activities throughout the week from September 19th to 26th.  Information will follow shortly.

Staff Team

As you will know, we are really proud of our open door policy here.  If you have any issues which you wish to discuss, your first point of contact is your child´s teacher.  They are generally available for a few moments at the start or end of the day or for a longer discussion, feel free to make an appointment with them.  The Primary class teachers and Secondary Tutors are as follows:

Reception: Tracey Gingell
Year 1 & 2: Francine Turner
Year 3 & 4: Patricia Molero
Year 5 & 6: Michaela Lloyd
Year 7: Dolores Montesinos
Year 8: Graeme Thomas
Year 9: John O´Brien
Year 10: Denise Murphy
Year 11: Esmeralda Garcia Pascual

We are sad to have said good bye to Terry Larcombe, Chris Payne and Jo Shreeve at the end of last term.  All of them were great assets to the school and we wish them every success in their new ventures.  We are also delighted to be welcoming some new staff to our team:  Patricia Molero has joined us as Primary Teacher to Year 3 and 4, Phillipa Howard and Kevin Brunning will be teaching ICT to our Secondary students and in addition Phillipa will be teaching Maths to Secondary students until such time as a permanent replacement can be found for Chris.  By popular demand, we are beginning to introduce Music into the Secondary timetable and thus Nick Greatrex is joining the team as our Music teacher for Year 7, 8 and 9 and also teaching guitar lessons after school.  Sharon Goodwin is rejoining us as a classroom assistant and to support the special needs programme and Joshua Grocutt is also returning on a temporary basis to cover Paul Hubbard who is on sick leave.  We wish Paul a speedy recovery.  Finally, Graeme Thomas, our school deputy is acting as parent liaison at Mar Azul Parents´Association meetings.   We feel sure that the new staff will have a positive impact on the school and we would like to take the opportunity to welcome them to Mar Azul.

Early Years
Over the summer, we have been busy decorating and renovating our Early Years Department at its original site in Torrevieja and what a difference it has made!  Children from Nursery, Preschool and Reception moved into their newly improved building today and were delighted to see how bright and cheerful it was looking.  The Torrevieja site is a much better position for nursery and will help us to boost numbers as it is very convenient for working parents and for the Spanish market.  It also means that we have a little extra space in San Miguel to accommodate our additional students.

IGCSE Results
If you saw our press release in the Coastrider you will already know that our exam results this year were superb!  This was largely due to the efforts of the students themselves supported by our great staff team.  Fifteen lucky students got 100% pass grades from A* to C and the Spanish results were phenomenal with eleven students receiving A* or A grades.    So very many congratulations  to pupils and teachers. 
Cake Sales and Ice Pops
Due to their popularity last year, Nicole Tallowin will be starting Friday cake sales and daily ice pop sales.  Each class will take it in turns to bring in contributions for the cake stall and last year we saw some stunning cakes and biscuits.  Ice pop and cake sales have already paid for sports equipment, art equipment and a laptop.

So as you can see we have had a very busy and exciting start to the academic year and we are very much looking forward to working with parents, children and teachers to make sure all of our students reach their full potential and thrive within the school community.