One of my greatest joys is working with our Senior students. This is the age where puberty hits and golly gosh, does it have an impact. Cast your mind back to your teenage years and try to remember the changes, the social pressures and the angst of no longer being a child but not yet qualifying as an adult. In addition to that, we pile on exams at school.
In my next blog I will tell you much more about Cambridge and their exams but today I want to focus on our lovely Senior students.
At ACE of BRUSSELS SCHOOL our Senior students are aged 11 - 19 years old. We spend a huge amount of our time and energy helping our students to manage the stress and pressure of practising to be or being a teenager. It is essential that our pastoral care system is strong so we can support our students as they work their way towards the exams that will give them access to what they want to do in their adult lives, be it tertiary education or something more vocational.
I know all our students by name, each and every one of them. All the teachers can say the same thing. When you walk into the Senior building there is an air of calm busy-ness as students work and chat with teachers, as we all meet and greet each other in the corridor and as people bend down to give a cuddle to Bonkers. I will do a separate blog about Bonkers but you need to know that he is a valued member of our school team and the students and teachers adore him. Who wouldn't, he is so cute!
Bonkers is one of the ways that we help our students to be as stress free as possible. Students who can manage their emotions and stress levels achieve better results and become stronger adults. Mme Bordez does yoga after school which is hugely beneficial and I have even been known to join in with this too although, I will be honest, not very often. The problem is that Bonkers is a bit of a Velcro dog and he goes where I go. If I lie down on a mat to do yoga he sees this as an invitation to play which, although it produces howls of laughter, is not conducive to the calm, relaxing atmosphere that Mme Bordez is trying to achieve.
Our classrooms are bright and cheerful with lots of displays of the work that the students do in their various courses. We are very lucky to have ACE ASCEND as our Cambridge registered, sister online school. Of course, at ACE of BRUSSELS SCHOOL we offer all the subjects that you would expect in a school but if your child wants to study something unusual that is not on our curriculum then ACE ASCEND can step in. They provide a tutor so that your child can study in school. We have lots of study rooms that are used for this so that the students can meet their online tutor in school as part of their normal timetable. It is a really useful option particularly if you have just moved to Brussels from a school where you studied, for example - Japanese. We do not offer Japanese as part of our main curriculum but you can continue to study it in school with ACE ASCEND. If Cambridge offers an exam in the subject - and Cambridge does offer Japanese - then you can continue to study the subject here and take your exam with us as well. A perfect set up.
One question that students are often asked, and for which many have no response, is - "What do you want to do when you leave school?". The reply is usually "Dunno!". For this reason we have the very talented and highly qualified Ms Mich, our Life Coach. Students, and parents, can make an appointment to see her and she helps people to realise their strengths, their dreams, their direction.
It is really worth visiting our Seniors school, meeting our students and enjoying their polite, fun loving classes. You can soak up the atmosphere and chat with the teachers.
My next blog will be all about Cambridge International so, until then ...
Bye for now.
Mrs Daire
Head of Schools
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