Parent Update - 30 June 2017

Parent Update - 30 June 2017

Message from the Principal

 

Dear Parents,

 

Our final week of the session has been a wonderful celebration of all that the children have achieved and a lot of fun!

 

It has been a momentous year in the history of our school with our first inspection receiving such outstanding results. This was only possible because of the community we have built together of parents, staff and pupils. As the inspector said this school is different because the staff live the promises, all of the children make progress and the parents are so supportive of the school.

 

This week just epitomised what the school does so well. Monday's unveiling of the Artist-in-Residence project was amazing, causing much excitement. This was also the case when we showed the renderings of how our new campuses at Sai Kung and Tai Tam will look.

 

The Year 6 performance of "Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat" was incredible because of the energy, enthusiasm and commitment of the pupils. I especially enjoyed the way they supported each other. This was followed by an excellent Year 6 Graduation ceremony and they were blown away by the reception they got from all the other pupils as they were applauded out of the school. The graduation party was great fun too - I don't think I have been in so many photos or signed so many T-shirts!

 

The week and the Year culminated in the Prize giving ceremonies for Primary and Secondary schools. It was great to give recognition to the pupils for their progress, endeavours and attainment academically. This year I introduced a special Principal's Award where I choose one pupil both in Primary and in Secondary, who has made a wider contribution to the school, and is a good ambassador and role model. I was delighted that the first recipients were Soleil Chan in Year 5 and Rebecca Chen in Year 9.

 

Looking forward to next session, it will be exciting to open our six new classrooms, science lab, outdoor pitch and The Hub - our new social area and workshop place. The Hub will be available for parents, senior students and others to socalise during the day as well as for meetings and training. The other big development is the Makerspace on the fourth floor as a result of our M.I.T collaboration. It will have an ideas wall, lego and magnetic walls, robotics, 3D printers, a green wall for filming and more! It is going to be really exciting.

 

As we say farewell to some staff and families, we also look forward to welcoming lots of new families and staff.

 

Have a wonderful summer, enjoy your holiday and look forward to another exciting year at NAIS HK!

 

Brian Cooklin

Principal

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

21 August

First day of school for Year 1

 

22 August

First day of school for Years 2-10

 

 

YEAR BOOKS

Please note that the Year Book will be given out during the first week back in school. For those families sadly leaving us, we will ensure that you have one posted to you so you can remember your time as part of the Nord Anglia family.

 

NEW CAMPUSES

If you’re curious about what the two new early years campuses will look like, these are the artist impressions.

 

If you have any friends who may be interested in the schools please put them in touch with me (jane.archibald@nais.hk). If you have little ones yourself whom you’d like to join earlier than Year 1 and haven’t already confirmed with me, please also feel free to reach out.

 

WALL-OF-ALL

It was worth the wait, when on Monday, we finally got to see what the children had created. The cheers and applause filled the panda playground and corridors as students saw their work and tried to spot their contribution on the wall. Check out the video here.

 

CONGRATULATIONS WINDSOR HOUSE

After much anticipation, Mr Cooklin announced that Windsor House has taken the cup for this year as overall House winners. Coming a close second was Balmoral, followed by Caernarfon and Sandringham. Well done to Balmoral who won our final terms House Points cup.

 

PROSECUTION WEEK

This week the Year 8 classes were investigating the Rule of Law in Hong Kong and were lucky to be chosen to visit the Prosecution Service and District Court in Wan Chai. After a brief introduction to law in Hong Kong, we were able to view real life cases and witness the law in action. It’s not every day Mr. Sheehan would encourage the students to be up close with drug dealers, but thankfully there was still a glass wall and several prison guards between the class and the defendants. Overall, it was a highly valuable experience that has left a lasting impression on the students, including the mock court where we tried to act out a real-life case, only to be stumped by lack of preparation and the large amount of documentation that is needed by the court!

 

 

YEAR 6 PERFORMANCE

He had a coat of many colours and Year 6 has a cast of many talents as they gave a wonderful performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat. We were so impressed by the high standard of singing, acting and dancing. All of the students’ hard work and efforts paid dividend that for sure. We’re already looking forward to next year’s performances.

 

FUN TEACHER/SECONDARY STUDENTS PHOTO COMPETITION

As many of us prepare to jet off to contrasting places around the globe, Mr Adam Cross wants to run a competition to see who can take the best picture of a place they have visited. He will then use this to explore our global interconnectedness in lessons upon our return, and hopefully create an infographic of where we have visited. Have fun and happy snapping!

Rules:

• Open to all teachers and Secondary students.
• Each entrant is allowed one picture.
• Each photo should be accompanied with a brief caption which includes your name and the location it was taken. 

Upload your entries to the padlet here.

Prize:

200HKD iTunes/Google Play voucher.

 

SWIMMING SUCCESS

Our swimmers have worked their socks this year, and gone from strength to strength with more than 80 swimmers from Years 4, 5 and 6 representing the school in a variety of inter school, HKSSF, GGA and COBIS swimming galas.

 

Over the year the improvements in the swimmers’ technique and times has been incredible! Some students are now swimming 50m in just over 30 seconds.

 

Years 1 - 6 completed their inter house swimming gala’s over the last two weeks, with Balmoral winning KS1 and Caernarfon taking home the trophy for KS2. The final inter school swimming gala of the year took place on Tuesday here at NAIS where we competed against Kellett and Harrow. The NAIS swimmers took home first place, winning the event very convincingly, with 187 points, 40 points clear of second place!

 

Our swimmers also had the opportunity this year to work with Penny Hayns, double Olympic gold medallist and Dave Cameron, International and Olympic swimming, triathlon and Ironman coach. We look forward to offering more opportunities with such stars of the pool again next year.

 

Congratulations to all the swimmers on their amazing performances this year. A huge thank you to all the parents and students who helped out at the galas we hosted here at NAIS.

 

NETBALL CHAMPIONS

Our Secondary teams had a fabulous year, winning all their games in a 7 game HKNA tournament and winning their final game of the ISSFHK league with a 28-1 victory.

 

Many of our players availed themselves of the opportunity to be coached by Jolene Henry, New Zealand Silver Fern and Commonwealth gold and silver medal winner when she ran three fantastic workshops. We look forward to more next year.

 

NAIS couldn’t have offered so many amazing opportunities to so many netballers without the copious amount of time four very dedicated mums have spent coaching, umpiring, scoring, timekeeping, answering emails etc, etc. These fabulous ladies are; Amber Heasman, Debbie Colton, Kristen Bowen and Sid Duguid - ladies from each and every netballer, thank you for all your time and dedication this year.

 

NETBALL – COMING UP

Looking ahead to next year’s netball, training will continue to take place on Thursday afternoons, 2.45-3.45pm for Primary and 3.45-5.00pm for Secondary. Inter school games and tournaments will take place after school on various days and will be communicated with you as they are confirmed.

 

If your child is interested in playing extra netball next school year, the Sai Kung Stingrays will be entering teams in the Hong Kong Netball Association, HKNA, Junior Netball League. The Autumn league matches will run on Saturdays from mid-October to mid-December and the Spring league matches on Sundays from mid-February to mid-April. Please email netball@saikungstingrays.com to express your interest and find out more details.

 

PIRATE DAY

It was Pirate day yesterday for our Year 1 students and boy did they have fun dressing up and role playing.

It was all too cute for words so I’ll let you see for yourselves how they looked. See the mini pirates here.

 

AWARDS and GRADUATION DAYS

Next week we’ll be sharing the videos and photos from these two amazing days. Stay tuned.

 

GRATITUDE FOR THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE

As the year draws to a close, we would like to thank all the students, parents and teachers who contributed towards this year's Nord Anglia Global Challenge. As part of our long term collaboration with UNICEF, we have been working on Global Goal 3 Health and Well Being by trying to 'Make Hong Kong Well Again'. Watch this short video to see what students across our school have been doing to help with this challenge.