On Saturday 20th October the junior hockey team (who train at the after-school hockey club on Mondays and/or Thursdays) participated in their first tournament of 2018-19. Accompanied by their parents, they played on the hockey pitch in 7 Palmas against several other local schools.

They made it to the final where they were unfortunately beaten. Nonetheless, they played well as a team and were cheerful even in defeat. They showed a good level of sportsmanship which reflects well on the school.

During the judging of the KS3 Tutor Display Board Competition on Wednesday 24th October, we were very impressed with the effort that had been put into each board. All tutor groups came up with interesting and eye-catching designs. Well done all!

We were really pleased to see how much effort the students had made with their boards. It was great to see that across all the tutor groups one of the main messages was about the importance of knowing and caring about each other. This is so important in our daily school life and a great message to share with all students.

In the end, the winning tutor group was 8MS as we felt their board was the most engaging and included lots of important and fun information about the tutor group. Second place went to 7CB who particularly impressed with their "Star of the week" initiative and the Cupcake idea for birthdays! 8TP claimed third place, especially for their use of the Periodic Table due to the fact that their teacher is Miss Pallaris.

On Wednesday, 17th October the school welcomed Ms Holly Smith from the University of Sussex to deliver a series of interactive presentations to years 11,12 and 13. Ms Smith is the Senior International Liaison Officer and also visits our school every March as part of the International University Fair which we hold for our upper-school students. The University of Sussex is ranked by The Guardian newspaper and the Times Higher Education Supplement as a top-20 university in the UK.

Students took part in a series of workshops covering the many different types of UK universities, choosing a suitable British university, writing an effective application for a British University and the enhanced graduate careers possibilities available to those who study to degree level.

Ms Smith later remarked that she was very impressed with the enthusiasm and desire to learn shown by our students. Thank you to everybody who helped to make this day such a success.

Learning doesn't stop when we leave school or graduate from university. At The British School of Gran Canaria, we schedule regular Inset Days for our staff, both academic and office, to keep up with new developments in education and administration. Our latest one was held on Thursday October 11th.

Trainer Alan Jervis of Dragonfly Training returned to deliver Part 2 of Stretch and Challenge Your Most Able Students. Teachers were encouraged to increase their students' vocabulary with exercises such as Big Word. This is where students are taught the meanings of more complex, academic lexicon with handy illustrations which they themselves draw. So, if you were studying evolution, you would ask them to create pictures of apes and neanderthals.

Meanwhile, office staff were put through their paces by facilitator Jonathan Suárez Fuentes from Fábrica de Inconformistas. After an icebreaking session, staff were organised into different groups for teambuilding. The values of compromise and responsibility were reinforced throughout the day, along with how to resolve conflict in the workplace.