Principal’s Update - Welcoming new staff and students

Dear Parents

We continue to welcome our new students as they arrive at our school. As I indicated in my last update our school is proving to be the popular choice with those families who are eligible to come. We have received many more applications from families who would like to come but do not meet our strict foreign passport holder rules or minimum EAL or academic requirements; this resulted in nearly 115 students having to be refused places.

We are also now welcoming new staff to our school. Mr. Jamie Twinney and Ms. Lucy Thompson have arrived and are teaching in our Design and Technology and Science departments respectively. They have settled into our school well and are thoroughly enjoying their teaching. We now prepare to welcome Mr. Mark Hardman and Ms. Julie Macauley. Mark will be taking up the post of Assistant Headteacher in Secondary to provide additional teaching and leadership capacity to the secondary school and Julie will be joining the English department again to provide additional teaching in this important core subject. They arrive in China on Monday the 25th and will have orientation visits during the course of that week and then commence their duties on Monday the 9th October after our Golden week holiday. They are looking forward to their new roles with BSB and I am sure you will meet them in and around school. These appointments are part of the ongoing strategy that I outlined to parents at our recent secondary parents meeting. These are in addition to the adding of more cover supervision capacity which is already in place. We are finalising further appointments and I will hopefully be able to confirm these in my next update.

We are all looking forward to our International Day on the 13th October. It will be my first one as Principal of BSB. I have got a flavour of the events and activities that will be taking place and I have to say I am looking forward to it immensely.  This celebration of all the different nationalities and their cultures at BSB is exactly in keeping with our school’s international philosophy and ethos and I look forward seeing you on the 13th. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Parents’ Association for their on-going hard work in organizing and coordinating of this great day.

We are approaching our Golden week holiday; this first part of our autumn term seems to have flown by and October, November and December look equally busy. Our ASA programme is well underway and I hope that all our students are making the most of the opportunities available to them. Also opportunities afforded by The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award are now available and I spoke with our Year 10’s, encouraging them to get involved. I was very pleased to note that many of them have risen to the challenge.

In conclusion I would like to wish you all a very pleasant holiday.

Best Wishes

Mr. Richard Thornhill

Principal