On Saturday, 4^th June, Segundo Ávila —a dear member of the Craighouse School community for 34 years— passed away. It was on April 1^st 1988 when he joined our staff to take charge of the maintenance and functioning of the sports fields in El Rodeo. Married to Alicia Bravo and father of three children (Camila, Hemindo, and Noelia), Segundo always stood out for his professionalism, commitment to work, and captivating everyone with his big heart. At his funeral, which was carried out in the Parque del Sendero cemetery in Maipú, our Acting Head of Physical Education and Sports and Segundo’s lifelong friend, Elías Santillán, said goodbye with the following words: “Segundo was a positive leader, very hard-working, always concerned with the wellbeing of his team; and a loyal, kind-hearted man. He never tried to get out of hard work; (…) he was the first to arrive and the last to leave.”

The void that the passing of this great man leaves in our community is huge, and his memory will forever live in the hearts of so many of us who were lucky enough to know him. Rest in peace, dear Segundo!

Last March, a group of Senior pupils decided that it was time to resume “The Minute”, our school newspaper that, due to the pandemic had been lying dormant. Under the supervision of Mr Matthew Jones and Mr Brian Lowe, teachers of the English Department, a group of students got together to work every Thursday after school to give life to the first edition of 2022. On Friday, 11^th June “The Minute” was published in digital format (CLICK HERE to read it), dedicated to our dear pupil Simon Graff Cordero.

The team behind “The Minute” is made up by the following pupils: editor Juan David Ordoñez (Year 11 C); editorial assistant Daniela Barraza (Year 11 A); writers Gonzalo Santos (Year 10 E), Tomás Rivera (Year 10 B), and Emilia Aninat (Year 10 E); Marcela Burger (Year 9 A); Lucas Moreira (Year 12 C); Ainhoa Garnham (Year 10 C); and illustrator Arianna Cadena (Year 11 E).

The pupils have also opened an Instagram account (@theminuteofficial) and are working at full speed on the second edition, which they hope to have ready by August.

With a motivational video created by pupils, on Monday, 24^th May Craighouse School officially launched one of our flagship projects: “Plant a tree, plant a solution”.

This initiative is an invitation to all members of the Craighouse School community to plant trees in our campus and is part of a programme whose objective is to make our institution a carbon-negative school and to reforest the area. Up until now, Primary, Middle, and Senior pupils have been working with seeds in the greenhouse and are getting ready to plant the trees once they reach the required sizes.

This project was born more than two years ago from a group of Round Square students and has now materialised thanks to the support of the whole community.

We are very proud to share with our community the important recognition that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II gave Craighouse School Old Boy Gonzalo Muñoz Abogabir. On June 2^nd the British Embassy at an event to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee (70 years as monarch) announced that Mr Muñoz had been honoured with the Order of St Michael and St George for his contribution and efforts to fight the effects of climate change and for the support he gave the United Kingdom during COP26, held in Glasgow.

Gonzalo Muñoz, co-founder of TriCiclos, was the Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP25.

With regards to this excellent news, Mr Lyons stated that “this is one of the highest honours that the Queen can give a foreign citizen, and it was granted in recognition of Gonzalo’s strong leadership in attacking the climate change challenge. I am certain that our community would like to extend our congratulations to Her Majesty and also to our friend Gonzalo Muñoz.”

After two years of pandemic, on Friday, June 17^th the 2022 Prekinder and Kinder parents had the chance to visit our campus and get to know our facilities for the first time. At 3:30 sharp Mr Lyons, our headmaster, together with Miss Cris, our head of Primary, received the families who guided by Senior pupils visited classrooms, inquiry centres, labs, music rooms, playgrounds, dining halls, toilets, sports fields, and green areas. The participants were delighted with the students’ self-confidence, the richness of our Formative and Academic Curricula and the school’s infrastructure and facilities.

On Saturday, June 11th, at 10 a.m. a group of 31 pupils from Year 10 participated in their Confirmation Ceremony in a moving ceremony that took place at the Parroquia María Madre de Misericordia in Lo Barnechea. The priest celebrating the ceremony was Rodrigo Domínguez.

Our Jewish community, in turn, celebrated Shavuot on June 4^th to 6^th. During the seven weeks that follow Passover, the Jewish Religion Craighouse School pupils underwent a spiritual preparation to receive once again the Torah in Shavout with different activities, transforming the everyday into something sacred (Rav Ale Avruj) with stories, prayers, reflections, art, and Tzedakah (social justice) actions, and by collecting non-perishable food to take to the synagogue for those in need.

There was fantastic participation of four students from the Middle Section at Craighouse School in the ABSCH event ‘Matemática con Ingenio’ that took place on Saturday June 18th from from 9.20 a.m. to 12.00 p.m., via Zoom.

In the activity, organised by St Gabriel’s School, more than 40 students from Years 7 and 8, from schools which are part of the Chilean British Schools Association (ABSCH) participated with their parents. The pupils were posed different challenges that tested their skills and maths knowledge, emphasising group work.

We congratulate our pupils Verónica Gutiérrez (Year 7 C), Antonia Vilches (Year 8 C), Raimundo Arend (Year 7 A) and Benjamín Marisio (Year 8 A) for representing Craighouse School and also, a big thank you for their support to our Maths Department teachers: Nicole Albagli, Constanza Moyano and Kezia Pires.

Book Day, celebrated from Monday 25th and Friday 29th April, was a huge success at Craighouse School. And so was the activity “Book Cover Challenge” where Primary families were invited to recreate the cover of a favourite story book. In all, 44 families accepted the challenge and sent their own creations and you can enjoy them by clicking HERE.