WRITTEN BY

Mr Sean O Neill

Secondary Campus Headteacher

28 October, 2022

Secondary Campus Weekly Update - 28th October 2022

Dear Parents and Students,

For the past 25 years, BIS has been based on a collective endeavour to innovate and evolve, and to build strong purposeful relationships across our community. In this spirit, it is with great pleasure that I share today’s update on an exciting and busy term ahead, including new parental engagement opportunities, our upcoming school inspection, exciting Performing Arts events and a major facilities development with our upcoming Auditorium refurbishment. We certainly have much to look forward to!

Last half term ended with a simply wonderful International Day which was made possible by the incredible contribution of our parent community. The weeks ahead will see so many more opportunities for parental engagement: our first ever BIS Science Seminar - open to all parents on Tuesday 3rd November, our Parent Social Night on Wednesday 2nd November, as well as the next in our Parent Partnership Workshops led by Deputy Head, Mr Falconer, focusing on our BIS Curriculum, later in the month. We will also be holding our Christmas BISzaar on 3rd December, which promises to be another great BIS occasion. See further details of all events below and look out for invitations in your Inbox too.

As you know, an aesthetic education is an important part of our holistic approach, and is one which brings students together, through rehearsal and performance, to problem solve, persevere and collaborate, making great music and art. Our students and teachers are working hard in preparation for two events that will shape this term, and all parents are invited to share their wonderful work at our Winter Concert on the 8th November and our Senior Production, She Kills Monsters, on 22nd and 23rd November.

Also this term, we welcome an inspection team of leading international educators to evaluate learning across all aspects of BIS school life, as part of our British School Overseas Inspection (BSO). We are confident in what we do and are proud of what our students achieve, but we always seek feedback to help us improve. We look forward to sharing the findings of the inspection with you all in due course.

I hope you enjoy this week’s update with news of upcoming events and student successes across all areas of school life, including my personal highlight of the week, the last minute victory of our U19 Girls Volleyball team - well done to all involved!

I would like to close by saying bon voyage and good luck for the weekend ahead to our IGCSE and IB students and staff, who left for this weekend’s expedition to Mui Ne - our first residential expedition in three years - it is so good to have our Geographers and Environmental Scientists back out in the field!

I look forward to connecting with you all in the term ahead and wish you all the very best for a relaxing weekend with your families.

Sean O’Neill
Head of Campus

Introducing Our New Website!

Secondary Campus Weekly Update - 28th October 2022 - Secondary Campus Weekly Update - 28th October 2022

After many months of hard work, we are very pleased to introduce our BIS community to our brand new website with a refreshed look and feel. You will still have access to all of the information you had before but in a more organised format. We want to improve your experience on our site and help you find everything you need in one place - that place is the new and improved Parent Essentials, where you can find event calendars, CCA information, lunch menus, parent handbooks, links to parent portals and important documents, PTG information and more!

We also have a dedicated news page where you can see our weekly updates from headteachers and view our latest blogs!

To help you adjust to our new layout we’ve created this guide to help you navigate through the new website: Introduction to Our New Website

A few things to keep in mind:

Any old links that you have saved will now be redirected to the most appropriate place on the new website.

To ensure that you can access the new website clearly, we recommend that you clear your browser cache (you can do this in most browsers by opening your history and clearing the browser data).

Please note that while the website is now live, we are still in the process of optimisation over the next few weeks.

If you have any questions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you.

Please contact Toshie or Chantal at bis.marketing@bisvietnam.com

Chantal Gamble, Communications Executive

Toshie Hidaka Milner, Marketing & PR Manager

Louise Bishop, Director of Admissions and Marketing

Year 7 Read a New Book Month Winners

Secondary Campus Weekly Update - 28th October 2022 - Secondary Campus Weekly Update - 28th October 2022

Many congratulations to our Y7 Bookmark House Competition Winners 2022!

As part of our Read A New Book Month initiative, Y7 students were set the task of designing a bookmark to inspire the reading of others. A huge well done and congratulations to the winners, Caroline (7C), JuWon (7V), Wei Lin (7B) and Vivian (7I), for their participation and effort in creating such imaginative and inspiring bookmarks.

We were all so impressed with your entries! Also, a big well done to all Year 7 Bookmark House Competition entrants for getting involved - all entries were awarded a House Point! Look out for our Book Review House Competition winners next week too!

Anita Curley, Secondary Teacher Librarian

Secondary Campus Weekly Update - 28th October 2022 - Yr 7 New Book

BIS HCMC partnership with Oxford AQA

We were delighted to welcome Andrew Coombe the Managing Director of Oxford AQA and his team to the campus today to celebrate our new partnership. Our IGCSE English Language & Literature, and English as a Second Language students follow the Oxford curricula as pathways to the IB Diploma Programme. We look forward to sharing our students’ success in the Oxford AQA programmes later this academic year.

Year 10 Alex takes to the track in Le Mans - France

Our Year 10 student, Alex certainly had an eventful half term holiday as he took to the track on a global stage,

Alex finished 73rd out of 180 competitors for the qualifying races of The IWF22 world series karting final, in Le Mans France, and won the great accolade of a sportsmanship award for Best New Driver.

It is a wonderful achievement and so great to see Alex proudly flying the Vietnamese flag at Le Mans. Well done Alex!

La vida sana - Healthy life with our IB Spanish Students

During this first Term, the IB Spanish B students have explored ways in which we can live a healthier life. As part of this learning, they have read different text types and explored the Mediterranean diet and Andean grains, both nutritious and healthy ways to live a balanced lifestyle. They created articles and pamphlets to promote a healthy lifestyle and went into the kitchen to prepare easy-to-make, nutritious recipes. These activities encourage creative thinking in students as well as their active participation, both essential in learning a new language.

¡Buen trabajo!

You can see some examples here.

Fiorella Balbuena and Elena Fuentes, Spanish teachers

Parcels of Hope – Friends for Street Children

Earlier this year, the Year 12 ‘Parcels of Hope’ CAS Project team raised funds to purchase 236 food parcels for the families of children from the Friends for Street Children shelters. Thanks to the generosity of our school community, the amount raised exceeded the cost of the parcels and therefore the remaining amount has been held to meet any needs expressed by this community partner.

Having received an appeal from Binh Trieu Development Centre last week, we were pleased to be able to again purchase food for a further 35 vulnerable families who have been identified as in particular need of support. The parcels of basic food items (rice, oil, sugar, salt, fish sauce and soya sauce) are sufficient to feed the families for more than a month. In addition, we delivered 90 cartons of milk to the centre, which will be distributed to the children.

Thank you again to all those who supported the ‘Parcels of Hope’ campaign and to the students involved in this initiative.

Tracey Brownrigg
Co-Curricular Coordinator and Community Service Project Manager

Secondary Campus Weekly Update - 28th October 2022 - Parcels of Hope

Season 1 of the SISAC sports leagues

Season 1 of the SISAC sports leagues is heating up to an electric climax with all of the BIS sports teams in contention to make it into the finals of the district and city championships in a couple of weeks time. This week has seen rearranged matches against TAS as well as scheduled games against AIS for our BIS sports stars.

Passport Details Reminder

Dear Parents,

Many thanks to all community members that have managed to complete the Passport Details Request Form originally sent out in mid September. Your help in completing the form and submitting the scans is greatly appreciated.

We are still awaiting the submission of a number of forms. In some cases, we are aware that passport or other details can not be shared at this stage due to families waiting on renewals etc. This is entirely understandable and we appreciate the notifications/updates that we have received to date.

For those who have been unable to complete the Passport Details so far, please be reminded that we need passport details for the following Year Groups (for all students intending to go on expeditions):

Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
Year 10
Year 12

You will have previously received an email with the Google Form Link back in September. In case you missed the email or can no longer locate it, please see the Google Form Link below:

Passport Details and Information Google Form

We are very grateful for your time and attention in responding to this essential task and for the completion of this important form.

If you have any queries or questions, please do not hesitate to Tracey Brownrigg (Whole School Community Manager and Co-Curriculum Coordinator) on tracey.brownrigg@bisvietnam or Lauren Binnington (Deputy Headteacher (Enrichment) on lauren.binnington@bisvietnam.com.

Many thanks in advance for your support in this matter.

Kind regards.

Gareth Wills Lauren Binnington

Deputy Headteacher (Welfare and Guidance) Deputy Headteacher (Enrichment)

PTG Social Night - Wednesday 2nd November

PTG Social Nights are an event for BIS community members from all three campuses to gather to meet new friends and catch-up with old ones. Come and join us at Baba's Kitchen, Thao Dien for an evening of food, fun and maybe a little fundraising for our community partners once again. We look forward to seeing you there.

Event Details

Date: Wednesday 2nd November
Time: 7 to 9pm
Venue: Baba’s Kitchen, 35 Le Van Mien Street, Thao Dien
Tickets: 400,000vnd

Tickets are still available at the Secondary Campus and by contacting your friendly PTG representatives.

Science Seminar

- Thursday 3rd November

Thursday 3rd November sees a new addition to the BIS Parent Calendar, our first ever Science Seminar.

An evening of all things Science aimed to bring together members across our BIS community. Please come along, learn something new or expand on something you are already interested in. With speakers crossing all areas of Science this is set to be a great experience for everyone.

Click here to sign up.

Winter Concert

- Tuesday 8th November

We are fast approaching this year’s Secondary Winter Concert which, in the 25th anniversary year of BIS, will feature a wide mix of music based around the theme of Celebration. The event being held on Tuesday 8th November is one of the highlights of the BIS musical calendar. Tickets are available at Secondary reception. we hope to see you there.

Ian Alexander- Director of Music

Secondary Production

“She Kills Monsters”

- Wednesday 23rd November

On November 22nd and 23rd the Drama Department are excited to bring back the Senior Production, for the first time since May 2019. This year's show will be celebrating geek culture and the warriors we all hope to be with Vietnamese American playwright Qui Nguyen's “She Kills Monsters”.

She Kills Monsters tells the story of high schooler Agnes Evans as she deals with the death of her younger sister, Tilly. When Agnes stumbles upon Tilly's Dungeons & Dragons notebook, she finds herself catapulted into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was her sister's refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and '90s pop culture, acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.

The show is open to all family, friends, staff, students and the wider BIS community and tickets can be purchased at Secondary reception for 50 000 VND. Performances will take place in the Theatre on the 6th floor of Secondary Campus on Tuesday, November 22nd @7pm and Wednesday, November 23rd @ 4pm and 7pm. Content warning: Mature subject matter and language will not be suitable for a younger audience.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Keigan Page, Drama Teacher

PTG Christmas BISzaar

- Saturday 3rd December

We look forward to bringing alive the Christmas Spirit with plenty of decorations, activities, music, live performances, a visit from Santa and other Christmas traditions. In addition, we will aim to promote awareness of our Community Partners.

We will bring you lots of gifts from socially conscious vendors who sell creative, handmade, sustainable, unique and original items.

If you would like to take part in the Christmas BISzaar 2022 as a vendor or to donate to the Christmas Raffle, please email secondaryPTGBIS@gmail.com for more information.

Look out for more details over the next few weeks.

Community Choir Rehearsals

The community choir is open to all adult members of the BIS community who enjoy singing.

Rehearsals will take place on Thursday mornings 7.00am - 7.40am in the Secondary Theatre OR Friday afternoons in the Junior Campus multi-purpose room 13.15-14.15.

All are welcome, whatever your singing level.

Parents should register attendance in advance on this link.

College and University Guidance

This coming week sees a number of great opportunities for students to engage with higher education providers as seen on the calendar.

We will be hosting our 3rd mini-university fair of the year. This time we will be focusing on the Arts with 6 universities joining us in the Hub on Thursday afternoon. This will include the famous Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). We have had a number of former BIS student attend SCAD over the years and we are delighted they will be joining us. They will be joined by Full Sail University and LIM College from the US. We will also have universities from Spain and Italy joining this fair which we are very excited to talk to. Click here to sign up or use the QR code on the poster.

To see our full events calendar click here.

Paul Rispin, Senior College and University Guidance Counsellor

More upcoming events include the Sogang University Visit, Science Seminar Series and Winter Concert. For more information and to see all of our upcoming events, see our secondary events calendar page.

Enjoy your weekend,

Kind regards,

Sean O’Neill

Head Teacher, Secondary Campus

Weekly Updates Secondary Campus

Related news

load More news

Cambridge Learners Awards - Cambridge Learners Awards

BIS HCMC Students Shine in Cambridge Outstanding Learner Awards and Oxford AQA Go Further Awards 2024

We are proud to announce the achievements of ten BIS HCMC students who have been recognised with the Cambridge Outstanding Learner Awards and Oxford AQA Go Further Awards 2024. These prestigious awards celebrate the highest performers in Cambridge and Oxford IGCSE exams across a wide range of subjects. This year, BIS HCMC students have excelled in Mathematics, English Language and Literature, Art and Design, Mandarin Chinese, Biology, Music, and Foreign Languages, showcasing the diversity of talent within our school.

News | Academic Results | IGCSE | Secondary Campus | Success Stories

Remarkable IGCSE results achieved by BIS HCMC students across all subjects

We are incredibly proud of our Year 11 class of 2024, for their impressive IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) results. This incredible cohort of 155 students, our largest IGCSE class in the history of the school, have significantly surpassed UK and international averages and were awarded 97% of all grades at A*-C. An incredible 62% of all grades awarded were at A*-A.

News | STEAM | Co-Curricular Activities | Learning (SC) | Secondary Campus

BIS HCMC robotics team build and programme two robots to compete at their first VEX Tournament

On Saturday 11th November, our secondary robotics team and their two robots, BIS A and BIS B headed to SSIS in District 7, for their first ever VEX robotics tournament. Despite only having 1 robot built the week before and not having much time to practice, the team had a tremendously successful run battling against other schools, making it to the quarter and semi-finals!

From IGCSE to IBDP: BIS HCMC students achieve outstanding results as they begin their IBDP journey - Incredible IGCSE results achieved by BIS HCMC students 2023

News | Academic Results | Secondary Campus | Success Stories

Incredible IGCSE results achieved by BIS HCMC students as they begin their IBDP journey

We are extremely proud of our Year 11 class of 2023 on their incredible IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) results.

This remarkable class, our second largest IGCSE cohort of 130 students, were awarded 70.2% of grades at A* or A. It’s fitting that in our 25th year, 25 of these students achieved A* or A in all of their subjects, a truly incredible achievement.