A supportive community is vital at BIS Hanoi

Dear Parents, 

Today the school has been besieged by witches and wizards, ghouls and vampires, skeletons and all manner of other scary, unworldly creatures! It would be easy to think that this was just another Halloween Dressing Up day - after all, who doesn’t love to put on a mask or a bit of face paint and a fancy costume? This, however, was scare-mongering with a purpose. We have all read and seen so much in the news about the devastation wreaked in central Vietnam, caused by torrential rains and flooding. Families who have lost their homes and in many cases their livelihoods. Fields under water, ruining the coming crop and with it, hope for the future. Many people don’t have clean drinking water and have no idea where their next meal will come from. It is an urgent and very real crisis which we, as a school, felt we wanted to try to alleviate.  

We asked our students and staff, who chose to dress up and felt they would like to contribute, to dig deep in their pockets and make a donation. We suggested a minimum of 30,000 VND but have been amazed at the generosity of our entire school community. All of the donations will be transferred to our charitable partner in Hanoi, Blue Dragon, to support those hardest hit and help them to start rebuilding their lives. I would like to thank you for donating so generously to this worthy cause. 

Global Citizens, Learning Together

Our school vision sets the foundations of our identity as a school, and describes very clearly our aims for our students as they progress through their education. From the youngest age, we help our students to develop the values of intergrity, respect, and caring, and in their lives and learning to develop the traits of enquiry, perseverance and reflection. All this is done as global citizens, learning together. However, this approach to learning doesn’t stop with our students. As a school, we believe that ‘Global Citizens, Learning Together’ includes every member of staff as well as every student. It is a fact, that no matter how skilled or knowledgeable one may be in an area, there is always more to learn, particularly in these days of rapid change and development. Our teachers are all skilled practitioners, planning and delivery outstanding lessons every day. Despite this, they continue to find ways to further develop and refine their skills. To this end, teachers are currently watching each other teach, sharing ideas about the strengths observed in the lesson and providing coaching in possible ways to further extend the already good practice observed in every lesson in our school. We can all be life-long learners, if we keep our minds open to new possibilities and experiences.