Weekly Highlights 28/04/2023

Mr. Simon Higham, Principal

Dear Parents

As we approach a long weekend of public holidays, I hope that you enjoy reading through this week’s Highlights, that showcase the success and achievements of our students in their learning, remind you of important, future events and aim to bring you even closer to our whole school community.

Health and Safety First

The health, safety and welfare of our school community remains the number one priority of our school. However, how do we ensure that our students and staff members remain as safe as they can be and how do we mitigate and reduce risk?

Emergency Evacuation Drills

Being able to safely evacuate the building and be accounted for is practiced on at least 3 separate occasions throughout the academic year. These evacuations are either ‘announced’ or ‘unannounced’ and often include challenging scenarios for our staff to manage.

Last week, we ran a full evacuation drill in partnership with our local fire department and I am pleased to report that a full evacuation of the building took place within our targeted time. 

Additionally in this drill, we purposely hid one of our Year 13 students to evaluate our checking procedures. As expected, the student was quickly identified and this was correctly communicated to me. My thanks go to Kevin, our Student Council President who graciously agreed to support.

Should you ever find yourself on the school site and hear the fire alarm sound, make your way immediately to the school field which is our designated muster point.

Lockdown

Lockdown drills are a regular part of our school operations and are the reverse of an evacuation procedure.

Lockdown actions occur when there are possible threats to the safety of individuals on site and are practiced at our school at least 2 times each academic year – both ‘announced’ and ‘unannounced’.

If you are on the school site and hear the pre-determined alert signal of ‘Lockdown, Lockdown, Lockdown’ across the campus PA system, you should immediately enter the nearest room, lock the door, close the window blinds and find a low visibility place to sit that can also give you physical protection – this could be under a desk or window area, away from the door.

A Lockdown drill ends with a pre-determined message across the PA system, followed by registers and feedback.

Air Quality (AQI)

Within both Primary and Secondary Foyer areas, we display live AQI information that allows our staff members to keep students safe when air pollution reaches unhealthy levels. This data is updated every 2 minutes.

At BVIS, we are fortunate that due to our location, our air quality levels are generally good. However, to further ensure the health and safety of all students and staff, classrooms and office areas have air purifying machines, allowing our community to be safe indoors should the AQI rise above unacceptable levels.

Lightning

Also displayed and monitored within both Primary and Secondary Foyer areas, is weather information that tracks lightning storms within our local area. If this shows that there is lightning within 10km of the school site, we have an alarm system that will alert all students and adults to shelter inside our building.

Should you be on site when you hear the lightning alarms (these are situated in 4 locations: Secondary basketball court, outdoor field, EYFS outdoor area and Primary playground), please remain calm and enter the school building at the closest entrance. The ‘all clear’ will occur when the lightening indicator lights are switched off by the designated member of staff.

Regular Health and Safety Audits

Throughout the year, regular health and safety audits take place across key areas of the school and are reported and discussed at both SLT and Central Nord Anglia Education levels.

Recently, we have undertaken our Playground and Canteen audits that again showed the high quality of Health and Safety that we have across BVIS.

Contact Us 

For all enquiries regarding your child’s BVIS education, use the contact details below:

Next Week’s Highlights

Due to next week’s public holidays and our return to school on Thursday 4^th May, the next edition of the Highlights will be published on Friday 12^th May. 

Should you want to access any previous Highlights, please note that these can be found in the News section of our school website.

On behalf of everyone at BVIS, we wish you an enjoyable and family orientated long weekend ahead. See you all again on Thursday 4^th May.

Mrs Mary McAloon, Head of Primary

International Week

This week in the primary years, students and teachers embraced our BVIS value of ‘Global Citizenship’ and spent time honing their enquiry skills to learn more about other countries around the world.  From Years 1 to 6, students participated in a variety of activities from trying new foods, learning about the geography of different countries, experiencing different cultures through dance and practicing new vocabulary from different parts of the world.

Nǐ hǎo, Namaste, Kon’nichiwa, Ciao, Hallo and Selamat Pagi are just a few of the ways our primary students learned how to say “hello” in different parts of the world.  The students thoroughly enjoyed the week of learning.  This was shown by the incredible celebration assembly that our talented team of students and teachers put together on Thursday morning. The audience was treated to dance, music and explanations of how interesting and inspiring each country and its people truly are.  The celebration assembly reminded us of how much we can learn from one another and how unique and special our world is.

Following our Green Week, learning more about specific locations on earth has helped our students to widen their perspectives and think more globally about their daily choices and routines.

Never Stop Learning

In assembly last Friday, we had the privilege of celebrating Mr Simon Jenkins’s most recent achievement.  Amongst the many great responsibilities of being a primary teacher, Mr Simon has also been studying with the University of Sunderland for the past three years.  His commitment and passion over this time led to Mr Simon Jenkins recently being awarded a ‘Master in Education’.  This included research and further learning of the theory of education, which he has thoroughly enjoyed and has been able to bring to his teaching practice with his students at BVIS.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Simon for the hard work, dedication and diligence that he has shown during his journey to becoming a Master in Education!

Speech and Poetry Competition

We have reached the end of round 1 of this year’s speech and poetry competition with all entries now having been judged by class teachers and selected students being put forward to compete in the semi-finals.  Students who have spent time practicing to present their speeches and chosen poems should be proud of themselves for the effort and perseverance they have put into making their performance the best it could be.  

Participating in this competition is not only an enjoyable experience but it also helps students to develop their communication skills for now and for the future. The European Business Review states,

“Effectively communicating ensures that you not only convey your message to someone but also let them know about your feelings and emotions.”

(2020, https://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/the-importance-of-effective-communication/)
 
The opportunity of entering the annual Speech and Poetry competition cannot be underestimated; the more students practice communicating in a variety of forums, the more they will improve and prepare for their future careers. 

For those students who have been selected for the semi-finals, I would like to wish you all the very best with your continued practice – take time over the long holiday weekend to practice and perfect your pieces for the next round.

Upcoming Events

• 04/05/23 – School resumes
  
  
• 09/05/23 @ 08:30 – Maths Coffee Morning
  
  
• 11/05/23 @ 18:00 – Speech and Poetry Competition Final 
  
  
• 17/05/23 @ 08:40 – Positive Parenting Workshop 6 for Upper Primary: Wearing your playful hat
  
  
• 22/05/23 @ 08:40 – Primary Parent Coffee Morning on ‘The Dangers of Social Media’
  
  
• 24/05/23 @ 08:40 – Positive Parenting Workshop 6 for Lower Primary: Wearing your playful hat

Mr Toby Bate, Head of Secondary

Key Stage 3 Parent Seminar – Puberty

This week we saw another successful BVIS Parent Seminar – this time on the topic of puberty. Mr Every and Mr Shooter spoke to our parents of Year 7-9 students regarding how we teach about puberty in Science and PSHE, how a child’s brain develops during puberty and how this impacts their decisions and gave some advice to parents for supporting children going through the emotional and physical changes of puberty.

Keep an eye out for more incredibly informative parent seminars in the future.

Careers Guidance Seminar

Last week BVIS hosted an exciting Career Seminar that provided parents with valuable insights into the changing job market. The seminar explored various aspects of the future of work and emphasised the importance of skills that are valuable across different industries, such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, time management, and adaptability. 

This seminar also provided guidance to parents on researching potential careers and informed them about the resources available to their children at BVIS, including access to our guidance counsellors and career assessments. 

The seminar provided parents with information to help them have meaningful conversations with their children about their future. 

Psychology Week

Following on from the recent successes of Biology Week, Chemistry Week and Space Science Week it was the turn of the Psychology department to run some extra-curricular activities.

Students from all year groups have been busy making brain hats, testing their memory and taking part in games and activities designed to find out more about our beautiful minds.

There was also the opportunity to watch some films about the complexities of human emotions and then complete a survey to discover what personality traits they had.

At the start of each day all staff and students have been learning about famous psychologists in the ‘Psychologist of the Day’ broadcast – these have also been printed out and placed around the school to take learning further outside the classroom.

Psychology is available as an A-Level option for students to choose at the start of Year 11 and we hope to see lots more students choosing the course as we have already had one student awarded the highest mark in Vietnam from our exam board.

It’s Good To Be Me vol.2

This Thursday afternoon, the school welcomed three experts in their field to come and talk to Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 students.

All the students benefited from hearing real life stories about how our speakers got to the positions and roles they are now in and the challenges and difficulties they overcame on their own journey.

Housepoint Update

As we are now in the final term of the year a review of where our House competition stands seems appropriate.

After leading for much of the year Hue have recently been overtaken by Saigon in the race to be the champion House.

There is still plenty of time left and many more House competitions will run before the end of the year with lots more points up for grabs. Who will be the overall winner for 22-23?

Student Champion of the week

This week’s Champion is....

Hoang Khoi (Tin Tin) – 7S! Congratulations to Tin Tin for a great week.

Secondary Champion Tutor Group of the Week

This week’s highest scoring tutor group was...

Collectively 7S managed to achieve 100 Housepoints – Well done to everyone in 7S for another great effort!

Upcoming Events 

• 27/4/23: “It’s good to be me” Seminar
  
  
• 28/04/23 – 3/05/23 –  Public Holidays
  
  
• 15 – 19/5/23: U13, U15 District and City Championship Week
  
  
• 19/5/23: Reading Seminar for Secondary Parents

Safeguarding and Child Protection

The health, safety and wellbeing of our students remains the number one priority at BVIS HCMC.

Should you have a concern for the welfare of any child in our school, please refer to our Safeguarding poster below: