Welcome to the third and final term of the year. Wow! Where has the time gone? This month we have two very interesting opportunities for parents to participate in specialist workshops—please see below. Both offer useful and valuable tools to you as parents, helping you to support and encourage your child (you may even have some take-home value for yourself, too!) As we approach Ramadan, please note that we extend to our Muslim staff, parents, students, and visitors the same courtesies and sensitivities extended to all Muslims during this time. We wish you all “Ramadan Kareem” with best wishes for a meaningful time with your families and community.

We are privileged to have a National Society of Protection of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) Trainer coming in to school from May 6th-10th to provide training for the staff and workshop opportunities for the parents. Please note the following parent workshop times (we will confirm the location):  Tuesday 8th May – 6.30pm-8.30pm  Thursday 10th May – 8.15am-10.15am These workshops will cover the many topics we highlighted in our recent survey. They are suitable for parents of any aged child and we look forward to your attendance. You are also welcome to attend both events as the topics covered, while similar, will take on a different dynamic according to audience participation. This is a very rare opportunity to have a trainer in Bahrain of this calibre so we urge you to take the opportunity to attend.
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We are delighted to be hosting Melanie Sarginson on May 20th at 8.15am for a tapping workshop for parents. Melanie will be teaching TFT, Thought Field Therapy, the pre-cursor to Emotional Freedom Technique, EFT, together with some techniques from EFT. Both these therapies are remarkable techniques that use your natural stress-reduction points to produce rapid change. Stimulation of these points by touching or tapping has been scientifically demonstrated to quickly reduce anxiety, depression, and phobias, also having the potential to improve mood, boost your vitality, and dramatically improve your performance in all fields. We have already used tapping in school with some of our children and can highly recommend attending! Its simplicity, speed and power make it a sensational advance in wellness. 2 hours—BD30 per participant—please book in the office.

Cobra Fitness Bahrain is the second location of the Cobra Fitness brand, expanding from their infamous Abu Dhabi branch. It is owned by an Australian ex- professional fighter, and British operated and specialises in Muay Thai, MMA, boxing, BJJ, fitness classes, personal training and kids classes. It is one of the newest and best facilities in town and their famous attitude promises to deliver the best workouts with great results. Sun – Thu: 6:00am – 10:00pm; Fri – Sat: 7:00am – 11:00am & 3:00pm – 7:00pm. Discounts available.

Dates for your diary!

• 1 May—Labour Day
• 3 May—Talent Show
• 7 May—Uniform Sale
•  7 May—Yearbook dedications due
• 8 May—NSPCC talk for parents
• 10 May—NSPCC talk for parents
• 8, 9, +10 May—Bookfair
• 13 May—PTA Carpet Talk and Sale
• 24 May—Animal Day
• 24+25 June—KS1+2 end of year concert

Hello from the PTA! May is a busy month as we prepare the year book. Dedications are now being accepted if you would like to have a special note to your child or your child’s teacher included in the year book. Please speak to Hilary in the office. We had a wonderful PTA trip on April 17th , kindly led by Aysha Mattar ( PTA) who enlisted the help of the very knowledgeable Rashad Faraj who showed us some of the wonderful sites and cultural heritage of Muharraq, both old and new! Then a big thank you to Celine who organised another great day at the beach in the beautiful Art Rotana hotel on April 28th for Nadeen Families. The maintenance team have done an excellent job on the Mud Kitchen which was sponsored by the PTA and it is being enjoyed by all children from across the all key stages. On May 13th the PTA have invited to Nadeen School Mr F. Kazerooni the owner of Bradran Carpets, one of the oldest Carpet shops in Bahrain. Mr Kazerooni will give a talk on the history and different carpet types from across the region and will set up a pop up shop in our music room offering super discounts to Nadeen Families and staff on the day. Don’t miss out !

April has been a great month of getting back into the swing of school life after a well-deserved Spring break. The year 5 and 6 students have thoroughly enjoyed practising their personal water safety at the Alba Club. Congratulations to the Dilmun girls winning the Inter House Volleyball tournament. Good luck to the players taking part in the PSL 5-aside football tournaments over the next couple of weeks. As the weather is starting to heat up we’ve had a big focus on staying hydrated and wearing the appropriate clothing throughout the day. With this in mind most PE lessons will be taking place indoors with gymnastics and dance being our next block of sports.

April has been a great month of getting back into the swing of school life after a well-deserved Spring break. The year 5 and 6 students have thoroughly enjoyed practising their personal water safety at the Alba Club. Congratulations to the Dilmun girls winning the Inter House Volleyball tournament. Good luck to the players taking part in the PSL 5-aside football tournaments over the next couple of weeks. As the weather is starting to heat up we’ve had a big focus on staying hydrated and wearing the appropriate clothing throughout the day. With this in mind most PE lessons will be taking place indoors with gymnastics and dance being our next block of sports.

What do you need to do if you want to become a critical thinker? In the EYFS, we PLAY! The interactions that children have with others, their environment, and the experiences they are involved in, allow children to actively think about the meaning of what they are doing. Creativity and critical thinking are interlined, and it is all about ideas, connections, choices and strategies. This is why child-initiated play in the EYFS is so important, as only then can children develop their own ideas, test ideas, predict, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things.

Critical thinking means making reasoned judgments that are logical and well-thought out. We as adults can provide ways to develop and extend our children’s critical thinking skills. Here are some tips and ideas to help children build a foundation for critical thinking… Provide opportunities for play because testing how things work informally is crucial to developing critical thinking. Don’t intervene immediately, instead try waiting 2 minutes or more before stepping in, you may find that they can solve a problem they are faced with without your support Finally, ask open-ended questions. Rather than automatically giving answers to the questions your child raises, help them think critically by asking questions in return: “What ideas do you have? What do you think is happening here?”

Critical thinking. That’s a thinker! Loosely put, critical thinking occurs when students are analyzing, evaluating, interpreting, or synthesizing information and applying creative thought to form an argument, solve a problem, or reach a conclusion. Sounds complicated, I know! There are some simple strategies we use in KS2 for critical thinking. We use open ended questions, questions that inspire thought are used instead of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Create a foundation. It is difficult for students to think critically without the information they need, a good method is to begin any critical thinking exercise with a review of related information. Using these two strategies alone help with critical thinking and allowing your child to explore the world