Ms Sarah Curran: Weekly Update 12/03/2021

Every year, children have their Tet Assembly to celebrate the Lunar New Year.  Children from F2, F3, Y1 and Y2 practiced very hard for many weeks. Unfortunately, the assembly was cancelled due to Virtual School. We are pleased that we are able to share this with you. Children having responsibilities is another feature in this week's post. The Mini Council launched their Mini Library.

Due to not being able to have large scale gatherings it has not been possible to invite you in to see our TET assembly. Here is our wonderful Tet performance link. Therefore, it would be wonderful if you could watch our young talented dancers performing in this video which was captured by the Marketing Team.

Click here for our Tet performance.

We hope you enjoy watching this performance and I would like to thank all our dancers, Teaching Assistants and especially Ms Phuc and her team in producing the assembly.

You will be familiar with our aide memoire, but what you might not know is that the different attributes have names. This term the children have been introduced to Ingrid and are exploring Integrity.

• I know the difference between right and wrong.
• I can tell the truth.
• I am helpful towards others.

The children are eagerly awaiting to know the names of our “Learning Together” and “Global Citizens” characters. Each class discussed different options and submitted their ideas.  Children taking an interest and being part of these decisions is fundamental to our philosophy.  Children being responsible for their actions. We cover these topics in assemblies and in our personal, health and social education lessons.

Doing the right thing, especially when no-one is looking is a sign of good possible leadership. Giving children the opportunity to take on leadership is something we really value at BIS HCMC and that leadership journey starts in the EYI Campus. Some children have responsibility such as Young Interpreters, others have classroom roles and some children are part of the Mini Council.

The mini council has a representative from all year 2 classes. They meet weekly with Ms Helena and the President and Secretary meet with Mr Ian to discuss what changes they would like to develop.

We are about to have a new mini council but it was great pride I watched this week as one of their initiatives the mini-library came to furushion.

A Mini Library with a Massive Impact

Leadership is a life skill. So is digital literacy and Mr Chris Deputy Head of the Junior Campus has written some reminders.

Digital Citizenship Reminder from Mr Chris.

 After the year that we have had, us here at BIS HCMC Primary have been extremely proud of the way that the needs of our students have been met whilst online. The Virtual School Experience was very positive last month, and the responses we’ve had from our parent community were unanimously supportive. It was clear that we have adapted so incredibly well in these times of uncertainty and all of you, our school community, must be applauded for that. Well done!

What was made apparent, however, was the need for us to once again follow up on the expectations that our community have around the area of digital citizenship, and ensuring our students are staying safe online. With the increased usage of digital devices to access content, the threat to our online safety rises. It is the responsibility of all those in our community to pull together in this regard, and in my role as the safeguarding leader at the Junior Campus, I see this as a combined approach between home, school and our students. We always use the line, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, but in the digital world, this is particularly the case. One of the most basic of first steps that you can take as parents, is to be fully engaged in what is happening in the digital world your child visits; regardless of whether that is online learning, game playing, using social media or visiting websites. Have a rule in your household that all access to the internet is done in an area of your home that is open and easily observable. One of our biggest concerns is the use of technology behind closed doors, such as in a bedroom, where online behaviours cannot be easily seen. There should be no secrets within a family in this regard.

 Another concern is the use of social media sites such as Facebook, TikTok and messaging apps such as Discord. It is wise to keep in mind that platforms such as these have a minimum age of 13 before children should be able to access legally, and that defining age is there for a reason. Before the full development of the frontal lobe of our brain (where it is believed that the decisions about what is right and what is wrong are made) occurs in late teenage years, young students often find it difficult to understand the full implications of their actions. This leads to poor decisions being made by younger children, even if the intention was not to cause hurt or harm. If you do allow your child to use such sites, it is always good practice to ensure you regularly monitor their use, and even have the condition that you must be a member of their friendship group on these platforms. A large percentage of the concerns that get passed to me are through the use of such sites. That does not mean you should ban or remove the use of these sites by your child, but more to be aware yourself and educate your loved ones on just how easy it is to misuse these. The following suggestions are shared with anyone that asks either myself or Mr Luke, who shares the Digital Citizenship responsibility with me:

·       Talk to your child about online safety, how he/she interacts online, and your expectations of his/her behaviour.

·       Regularly monitor what your child posts online, his/her offline behaviour, and his/her overall wellbeing.

·       Review security and privacy notices on Websites that your child frequents.

·       Encourage your child to report online threats to yourself, their teacher, Mr Luke and I, or another trusted adult.

 This post is not to declare that the world online is necessarily dangerous, but more to point out the need to be constantly aware of our roles in the BIS HCMC community in keeping our children safe. The website, Common Sense Media, is a wonderful tool for parents and educators and I would like to draw your attention to it. It really is a wonderful tool!

If you have any questions please pass them onto EYI Safeguarding Lead sarah.curran@bisvietnam.com and keep a look out for the upcoming date of our Virtual Workshop in early April for Parents where we will try to answer some of your questions and also provide more guidance in the areas you might need it.

8/03/21                All CCAs commence

18/3/21                Virtual Headteachers’ Coffee Morning

15/04/21              Science Day

16/04/21              Term 2 ends @ 11.50am

Health and Safety

COVID Procedures at the EYI Campus

Health and Safety

Thank you for your continued support and compliance in procedures that we have put into place. As per the Government directives, we will continue to adhere to the strictest health and safety guidelines at school. These include the following;

• If your child is sick with a cough, temperature or cold, please keep them off school. Please notify Ms Palm Dabassawinee.W@bisvietnam.com or or Ms Nhu Nhu.N@bisvietnam.com 028 3636 0055 at Reception and their class teacher of their absence.
• Temperature checks on arrival. Students coming to school with a temperature above 37.8 degrees celsius will be checked twice more and if their temperature is still high, parents will be asked to take them home.
• Masks must be worn at all times, except in classrooms.  All children should have their own mask and 2 spares, preferably labelled with their name. If you would prefer that your child continues to wear a mask in the classroom, we are very happy to accommodate this.
• F3, Year 1 and Year 2 students to enter through Gate A
• Fundinotots, F1 and F2 students to enter through Gate C, over the bridge from the carpark.
• Bus children to enter via Gate C
• All parents must wear a mask on site and will only be allowed to come on site at the end of the day to pick up children from the designated class lines. 
• Parents must have an appointment if they need to come on site at any other time.  Please email or call Ms Palm Dabassawinee.W@bisvietnam.com  or Ms Nhu Nhu.N@bisvietnam.com 028 3636 0055 at Reception.

Absence

If for any reason your child is absent from school, we ask for you to inform the class teacher and email reception eyic.reception@bisvietnam.com. You can also inform the receptionists via telephone from 7:30am on the morning of absence.  If your child usually takes the school bus, we would also ask for you to also inform Ms Trang, our bus manager, via email at Trang.Pham@bisvietnam.com 

When calling reception please use the telephone number: 

•            Early Years and Infants (EY&I) – 028 3636 0055

And Finally…

Next week we will have a Virtual Headteacher’s Coffee Morning. Taking place on Thursday 18^th, at 9am, Mr Ian and Ms Dee will be online to update you on campus developments, school strategic planning and our recent parent survey.

If you would like to attend this virtual coffee morning, please click here.

We will email the link to the meeting the day before (Wednesday 17^th March) so please sign up before then.

I hope you have an enjoyable weekend.

Sarah Curran
Deputy Head of the Early Years and Infant Campus