Parent Update - 3 February 2018

Parent Update - 3 February 2018

Weekly Message

 

Dear Parents,

 

Mr. Cooklin and Mrs. Harley have been busy interviewing in London this week and we wait in anticipation to learn about their successful recruitment and to welcoming a new batch of talented teachers into the school for the new academic year.

 

Our Year 9 and 10s are in Tanzania and we’ve got more coverage on that to come. The rest of the Year groups, in Lam Tin, Sai Kung and Tai Tam have also been up to lots of exciting learning which you can read about in their blog pages in Firefly.

 

There were lots of nervous and excited children up in the Maker Space this lunch time. Those pupils who had entered the ‘Hack the Tube’ competition had three minutes to present their design ideas to a panel of teachers. They were being judged on their creativity and imagination as well as their presenting skills. I know the judges were amazed at the talent and ideas of our young budding engineers. From water purification systems and light amplification to ping pong ball picker uppers and code cracking combined with web design…the range was incredible. And all of these ideas from a simple ‘one use’ plastic bottle! Everyone was super impressed by the talent as well as how pupils overcame their nerves to present their ideas. Now the wait is on for the short-listed finalists but everyone should be incredibly proud of themselves.

 

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Keep warm out there.

 

Kind regards

 

Jane

Director of Admissions and Marketing

 

GREEN 52

The Green 52 was started in January by two mums’ in Hong Kong, one a NAIS parent. Every week they will share a tip on how to live a more sustainable life and reduce your impact on the environment. So far they have encouraged people to stop using plastic bags, shop locally and say no to plastic straws. 

 

You can follow the green 52 on Facebook and visit their website here. Spread the word, share and like!

 

SCROLL DOWN FOR TAI TAM AND SAI KUNG UPDATE

 

LAM TIN UPDATES

UPCOMING EVENTS

6 FEBRUARY

IB Parent Workshop 8:00-9:30am in the Hub.

 

14 FEBRUARY

PTA Bake Sale

 

15 FEBRUARY

Staff INSET day – no school for children

 

16 -25 FEBRUARY

School Holiday

 

26 FEBRUARY

School resumes

 

PTA MAHJONG UPDATE

Due to unavoidable circumstances, the Mahjong evening has been postponed to a later date. 

 

SAVE THE DATE: Wednesday 14th March - Spring Soiree

 

BOWLED OVER WITH SUCCESS!

History was made last Sunday as NAIS HK sent our first two teams to attend the International History Bowl and Bee at the Korean International School. Despite some very tough opposition from 43 other teams and challenging questions on everything from Ancient Egypt to Brexit, both teams made it through into the quarter finals and have the opportunity to attend the Asia Championship in Kao Lak, Thailand in June.

 

In addition, we were very proud to see Leo Han excel in the individual History Bee competition making it into the last 20 and Lottie Jenkins having an equally excellent result in the examination for the Geography Bee event resulting in both also being invited to the championships. Thanks to all the students who took part and the parents who offered their support and assistance on the day itself.

  

History Bowl Team One: Beatrice Villafor, Dina Evdokimova, Oliver Ansell, Callum Mortimer, Luca Tagliente and Charlotte Knowles.  

History Bowl Team Two: Vinh Do, Boco To, Daisy Lewell, Ava Ring, Lottie Jenkins and Jasmijn Knaap.

History Bee: Leo Han

Geography Bee: Lottie Jenkins

 

There is likely to be another History Bowl event in Hong Kong in April so if other students or parents would like more information about taking part, please let contact david.robinson@nais.hk.

 

 

HONG KONG MUSIC FESTIVAL 2018:

We are thrilled with the uptake of students who have entered the Hong Kong Music Festival this year.  This week we have sent home details of performance dates – please do check these carefully and let us know by Monday, 5 February if your child is unable to perform on the given date.  Please also check that your child’s name is spelt correctly as the name printed will appear on their certificate upon completion.  Now that we have the dates, we will arrange an opportunity for each student to perform in assembly as a practice before the competition itself.

 

NAE ARTS FESTIVALS FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2018-19:

Mr. De Sousa and Ms. Rowan were in Shanghai this week at our sister school, Pudong.  They met with other NAE Performing Arts teachers from across China to discuss opportunities for our students in the next academic year and are delighted that there will be new and exciting collaborative festivals for our young people to attend.

 

In 2018-19 the China team will be running both a Choral and Orchestral festival, enabling our musicians to join those from Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and Guangzhou in rehearsals and a concert performance in addition to cultural activities in the selected city.  Once we have confirmation that the dates and themes have been approved, we will share these with you!

 

Looking further into the future, the 2019-20 academic year is also likely to feature additional Performing Arts and Theatre festivals in the China region.  I am sure you will agree that these additional opportunities will continue to enrich the lives of our students.

 

SUMMER PERFORMING ARTS WITH JUILLIARD:

A reminder that registration for the Summer Arts Programmes 2018 is open.  This year there are three available locations with a vocal programme running in Florida, a string programme in Shanghai and the Flagship Programme in Geneva which caters for dance, music and drama.

 

These Programmes cater for a wide ability range and are offered to students at Nord Anglia at a 15% discount.  For more information and to contact our dedicated Summer Arts team for further details, please click here.

 

ASK THE ARTIST:

Students this week have been engaging in our Global Campus activity, ‘Ask the Artist’.  Dancer, choreographer and Juilliard Alumni Flynn O’Reilly will look at the questions posted by students around the globe and choose 10 of them to answer in a video link which will be posted onto the Global Campus in March.  Please do ask your children to share the dances with you as they open up a rich field for discussion, not only in the field of contemporary dance, but in storytelling, making life choices, determination to succeed and being open-minded to new ideas.  Click here to access the Global Campus – students can log in using their school email address (firstname_lastname@nais.hk) and normal password for the school computers.

  

EDUCATION AND CAREERS EXPO

Whilst the majority of our Year 9 & 10 pupils have been working hard in Tanzania, those that have remained in school have been thinking hard about work and their future careers. Year 9 are currently deciding on their choices for IGCSE courses in Year 10. Mr. Cross and Mr. Rolfe accompanied the pupils to the annual HKTDC Education & Careers Expo at the HK Exhibition Centre this morning where the pupils were able to meet a range of prospective employers, universities and educational consultants.

  

AND IN THE MAKERSPACE…

Our Year 7 pupils worked in pairs to create games using Makey Makey and Scratch. A Makey Makey is a tool which allows you to turn anything into a controller and is developed by a team from the MIT media Lab. They build their own controllers using the Makey Makey and then program a game in scratch. Through this project they are developing their creative, problem solving, collaborative and programming skills. Pretty cool stuff.

 

CELEBRATING DIFFERENT RELIGIONS

A big thank you to Heath Zarin and Jessica Bruser who came this week and talked to our Year 3s about Judaism. The children (and teachers) loved learning more about this religion, just one of the many different religions practiced by our families and celebrated in school.

 

BLOGS

Please continue to check the blogs for weekly information about what your child has been learning in school.

 

STARS OF THE WEEK – STEAM

Year 1: Archie Finch, Meiya Longueville, Kane Guan, Joshua Chan, Noah Weber

Year 2: Sam Dore, Caden Soong, Alyssa Lundgren, Peter Dryden, Hoffman Hirst

Year 3: Deniz Tamer, Sophie  Wang, Hannah Liu, Kevin Chen, Asia Thompson

Year 4: Eliana Zelekovitz, Ashley Lam, Marco Murphy, Sebastien Jerga, Yara Ghuloom

Year 5: Ashwin Baidwan, Ivan Yiu, Monty Sanderson, Isaac Cheung, Henry Francis

Year 6: Rufus Goggins, Miyu Ikawa, Kyle Yuen, Cayden Lock, Cool Zhang

 

HIGH COMMENDATIONS – STEAM

Year 7: Tala Kamhawi, Raphael Bitter

Year 8: Charlie Dier

Year 9: Evan Kingsbury

Year 10: Luciano Mattoli 

 

ASSEMBLY TIME

Primary Assembly – Class Assembly 1E, Claire Day

This morning 1E proudly showed us some of the highlights of their learning recently on Dinosaurs.  With fossil remains and dino facts, there was plenty to show, and lots of interesting facts alongside - did you know the Stegosaurus brain was the size of a pea?  Having been lucky enough to visit Year 1 lessons this week, I have seen the children enthusiastically enjoying this topic, and the depth of knowledge they have acquired is remarkable.  1E were clear and confident as they shared with the school, and we were lucky enough to have not one, but two, dinosaur songs!  Thank you and well done, 1E!

 

Secondary Assembly

In assembly today Mr. Sheehan spoke with students to remind them of the importance and impact of speaking with each other respectfully and how banter, however well intended, can sometimes have a negative impact upon people. Mr. Sheehan told students that some of the language people can use at times as part of banter, including adults and students, can in fact normalise negative language/stereotypes even when this is not the intention.

 

Mr. Robinson then presented awards to participants from the Hong Kong History Bowl Competition that took place on Sunday 27th January at Korean International School. Our students did very well with Lottie Jenkins Year 8 achieving a notable top 5 place in her individual event. Our students have qualified for the next round that is happening in Thailand this summer. Great work by all those involved!

 

TAI TAM UPDATES

Message from the Deputy Head of School

 

Dear Parents,

 

One of my pleasures every week is to read to the children in the library. Our dedicated EYFS library is visited every week by all our children and it is one where I get to share a great love of mine, BOOKS!  It is such a joy to read a story and share my love of reading and to see the children read together with their favourite books retelling them and pointing out different aspects of the stories.  I know all our lives are very busy but sharing books with our children really does have so many benefits, a good bedtime story is a great way to have that quiet moment with our children to talk about the different characters, learn new facts and expose them to different words and ideas.  Thank you for all your wonderful (and creative) pictures of ‘Get Caught Reading’ which will be on display very soon.

 

Over the past few weeks to keep up our professional development many of our staff have been updating their first aid certificates run by our nurse Fay Beese from our Sai Kung campus.  We will also be hosting Numicon training next week which I am looking forward to and sharing with our colleagues across the sites to enhance our Maths teaching.

 

The Year 1 children have been very busy this week again as they were off to KidsFest to see ‘Dinosaur Zoo’. From the conversations I had with children when they came back, it was a very enjoyable experience with two of our children going on stage.  I am looking forward to their assembly next Thursday at 10:00 as I’m sure the Year 1 parents are too.

 

Our children are starting to prepare for Chinese New Year and I look forward to sharing their singing and learning in our assembly on Wednesday 14^th February.  Don’t forget children are welcome to come dressed in traditional Chinese dress or something red or gold on the day too.

 

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Kind regards

 

Mrs. Katie Malone

Deputy Head of School

 

NOTICES

8 FEBRUARY

Year 1 Class Assembly – Year 1 Parents are invited to come and watch 10:00am

 

14 FEBRUARY

Chinese New Year Assembly 8:45am – Parents invited

Children come to school dressed in traditional Chinese Dress or red/gold colours

 

15 FEBRUARY

Staff INSET day – no school for children

 

16 -25 FEBRUARY

School Holiday

 

26 FEBRUARY

School resumes

 

JUNK MODELLING

Our children love to be creative and making various different things out of cardboard boxes, cardboards rolls, and empty containers.  Rather than throwing out these empty containers at home can we please request you send them washed and cleaned into school for our creative children.  Please no empty cleaning product bottles or milk containers.

 

MEDICATION

At times children will need to be given medication from the doctor in school. If this is the case, please do fill in a ‘Consent to Administer Medicine’ form into school with the medication.  This will be administered by our nurse and she may also contact you regarding this.  The form can be found on Firefly in Tai Tam, Whole School Forms.  This will need to be filled in on each occasion.

 

STARS OF THE WEEK – Class Teacher
Congratulations! You should feel very proud of your achievements.

Nursery: Julian Wang
Lower Kindergarten: Benjamin Ashton-Howorth
Upper Kindergarten: Lars Niens

 

CLASS ASSEMBLY SCHEDULE 2018

The schedule for our class assemblies is as follows – your class teacher will give you more details nearer the time.

• Year 1: Thursday, 8 February, 10:00
• Dolphins and Seahorses: Thursday, 15 March, 10:00
• Starfish and Turtles: Thursday, 10 May, 10:00
• Nursery: Thursday, 31 May, 10:00

 

CURRICULUM OVERVIEWS

You can find detailed information about the curriculum for the coming term on our Firefly pages. Please do take a look and ask your teacher if you have any questions.  

 

BLOGS

Please continue to check the blogs for weekly information about what your child has been learning in school.

 

NO NUTS
We are a ‘nut free school’ as we have several children with severe nut allergies.  This includes peanuts and tree nuts. Please remember this when packing your child’s snack and lunch. We cannot allow nut/nut products of any kind in the building.  For a snack, we suggest a small piece of fruit or bread.

  

SPARE CLOTHES

We do have a small supply of spare clothes for emergencies, can we remind everybody to add a spare set of clothes to your child’s bag every day, just in case!

 

SAI KUNG UPDATES

Message from the Head of School

 

Dear Parents,

 

We had a lovely afternoon last Friday with parents coming together to learn about phonic teaching and celebrate the children’s’ achievements in their classrooms. Hopefully, this allowed everyone to gain a better understanding of what their children are learning and also how they are learning.

 

All our teachers believe passionately that learning should be enjoyable and we go to great lengths to make sure children learn the skills they will need for the future in a creative manner. We try to make learning practical and with as much context as possible. This was illustrated throughout the week with Reception visiting the shops to buy fruit for their fruit salads, building on their bakeries of last week. Having the opportunity to write shopping lists, spend money, count change, measure ingredients, wash, chop and prepare food etc... all gives children an immersive and fun experience of learning across a range of skills.

 

This practical approach is mirrored in our Mandarin lessons where the children are preparing for the big CNY celebrations to come. I am often asked about Mandarin teaching in the Early Years. How does it work? What do the children do? It’s a delight to see Mandarin in action, as each lesson is so creative, exciting, action-packed and hands-on that each one is a wonderfully joyful learning experience. The photos Miss Lo posts on Firefly illustrate this beautifully.

 

We hope you can all join us next week for our Chinese New Year assembly, please feel free to send children to school wearing traditional Chinese dress or red/gold on this day.

 

Enjoy the weekend, let’s hope the weather warms up soon!

 

Naima Charlier

Head of School

 

NOTICES

14 FEBRUARY

Chinese New Year Assembly

Children come to school dressed in traditional Chinese Dress or red/gold colours

 

15 FEBRUARY

Staff INSET day – no school for children

 

16 -25 FEBRUARY

School Holiday

 

26 FEBRUARY

School resumes

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

STARS OF THE WEEK - MANDARIN

Congratulations! You should feel very proud of your achievements.

 

Nursery: Cyrus Pong, Luanna Chiu

Lower Kindergarten: Iselle Mulder, Santiago Ramdohr Ibanez, Tobias Lang, Kotona Shimono

Upper Kindergarten: Agnes Charlier

 

CLASS ASSEMBLY SCHEDULE 2018

The schedule for our class assemblies is as follows – your class teacher will give you more details nearer the time.

• Year 1 Angelfish: Friday, 2 March
• Dolphins and Turtles: Friday, 16 March
• Seahorses and Starfish: Friday, 11 May
• Bumblebees and Caterpillars: Friday, 1 June

 

STAFF SPOTLIGHT – MISS GEMMA LONGWORTH

“I graduated from the University of Cumbria with a BA Honours degree in Primary Education with English. Since then, I have taught across Key Stages 1 and 2 in a number of Lancashire schools, where I have had whole school responsibilities for Science, Computing and the School Council, and I have also recently held the position of Deputy Headteacher. Since moving to Hong Kong in 2016, I have gained further experience in the early years, whilst working in a large international kindergarten. 

 

In my classroom, I aim to provide a friendly and welcoming atmosphere where every child is valued as an individual. I am passionate about teaching, and always strive to make my lessons fun and engaging, through a cross-curricular approach to learning.

 

Outside of school I love to travel, and have enjoyed recent trips to Africa, USA and South East Asia, where I have been able to experience many amazing and varied cultures”.

 

LET’S CELEBRATE CHINESE NEW YEAR TOGETHER! 12-14 Feb

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese calendar. Chinese New Year in School involves a lot of cultural activities, for example, storytelling, singing, dance, games, art, craft and cookery. The children will be taking part in a number of activities to explore different aspects of Chinese culture and to broaden their international mindedness. The children in Reception will be having a Chinese Cookery class and will be making sweet Rice Balls (汤圆 tāng yuán). Year 1 children will also be taking part in a Chinese Cookery class and will make Corn Dumplings (玉米饺子yù mǐ jiǎo zi). If you do not wish your child to take part in the Cookery classes please inform the school.

 

On Wednesday 14th February at 9.30am we will have our Chinese New Year Assembly. We invite all parents to come and join in our Chinese New Year Assembly from 9.30 – 10.30am on Wednesday 14th February. On this day, children are all invited to come to school wearing festival costumes (or they can wear Yellow or Red) in honour of this special celebration.

 

2018 is the year of dog. We wish you all a good luck in the dog year! 祝狗年大吉！

 

CURRICULUM OVERVIEWS

You can find detailed information about the curriculum for the coming term on our Firefly pages. Please do take a look and ask your teacher if you have any questions.

 

 

BLOGS

Please continue to check the blogs for weekly information about what your child has been learning in school.

Click here for the Nursery.

Click here for the Reception.

Click here for the Year 1.

 

There is also a section of photos from Sai Kung in general - you can find this in the “Welcome to Sai Kung” section of Firefly.

 

NO NUTS
We are a ‘nut free school’ as we have several children with severe nut allergies.  This includes peanuts and tree nuts. Please remember this when packing your child’s snack and lunch. We cannot allow nut/nut products of any kind in the building.  For a snack, we suggest a small piece of fruit or bread.

  

SPARE CLOTHES

We do have a small supply of spare clothes for emergencies, can we remind everybody to add a spare set of clothes to your child’s bag. These can ‘live’ at school on your child’s peg!