Amongst the many joyous happenings at JB, this term has been the return of a full and comprehensive ECA and Sports programme. Not only have we re-established a fantastic programme but we have actually enhanced it to levels beyond where it was pre-pandemic.
Our students are thriving in a wealth of opportunities across a wide range of activities throughout our campus before and after school. Additionally, we are offering an off campus activity which is bringing an extra level of enjoyment and learning for our students. KLASS Climbing is being experienced by 37 students every Thursday at Eco City and these children are absolutely loving the challenge.
The sheer number of extra curricular activities along with the number of students participating is extraordinary. We currently have 104 ECAs running across the week with a total of 520 (94%) students from Years 2-6 taking part in at least 1 ECA. 270 students, around 50%, in Years 2-6 are attending 4 ECAs per week. The range of ECAs is also quite amazing. They include 31 Sport ECAs, 12 in the Arts, 12 academic core subject focused, 16 language ECAs, 6 Music, 6 IT focused, 6 uniform ECAs and 7 Games focused ECAs which includes chess. Adding to this, we also have 15 morning ECAs across five days of the week with 128 students participating.
We are also very happy to see the return of sports events and our students getting the chance once again to proudly represent our school. The first of these took place over a week ago in the AIMS Cross Country event. We had 37 students representing Alice Smith and the competition involved 14 schools in total.
This week we have swim meets at ISP as well as an invitational basketball tournament this weekend at ISKL. The students taking part have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and worn the Alice Smith colours with great pride.
It is simply wonderful to see so many of our students involved in such an enriching and diverse ECA programme. Our amazing staff, led by Sam Bottom, Head of Sport and ECAs, is playing a major role in providing these opportunities for our students and we will continue to look for ways throughout the year to diversify our programme so as to deepen and broaden the learning of our students beyond the classroom.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend,
Alan McCarthy
Primary Principal