Weekly Highlights 16/06/2023

Mr. Simon Higham, Principal

Dear Parents

My section of the Highlights this week has the theme of competition, awards and success. Thank you again for taking time to engage and connect with us.

BVIS Shortlisted in the World’s Best Schools Awards for Innovation. 

As outlined in my email to all parents this week, it has recently been confirmed that BVIS has been selected from thousands of applications, as one of the Top 10 shortlisted schools from across the world, for the World’s Best School Prize for Innovation 2023. 
 
BVIS’ recognition for innovation is related to our pioneering bilingual phonics programme — teaching Vietnamese and English using one single approach of ‘Learn One, Know Two’. This bilingual programme that is only available at our school, helps foster the ability for students to seamlessly switch between two languages, creating a favorable foundation for students to progress to the international IGCSE and A Level programmes in Secondary. 
 
The World’s Best School Prizes celebrate the stories and share the expertise of schools that are transforming the lives of the next generation and making a real difference to their communities. They give vital recognition to the enormous contribution that the best schools make to society’s progress and are awarded across 5 separate categories - Community, Environmental Action, Healthy Lives, Overcoming Adversity and the category we have been shortlisted for, Innovation. 
 
This is an incredible honour and privilege for our school and recognises the many hours of additional work our teachers have put into developing this one-of-a-kind way of teaching reading and writing across both languages. 
 
I encourage you all to send your messages of support and congratulations to our school through our Facebook Page that can be accessed here. 
 
Announcements of the overall global winner come early next term and I will ensure that I keep you all updated.

BVIS Sports Awards

Our annual BVIS Sports Awards took place on Thursday evening to celebrate the successes and achievements of our young athletes. Over 60 awards were given out on the night, including the Coaches’ Player of the Season for Football, Volleyball, Basketball, Swimming, Teeball and Badminton and for players that represent BVIS in our international FOBISIA sporting events.
 
The prestigious awards included Unsung Hero Award, the Victor and Victrix Ludorum awards for both Primary and Secondary students, Sports Personality of the Year, the Primary and Secondary Team of the Year and of the course the Coach of the Year.

Prestigious Award Winners:

• Unsung Hero Award – Ms James McAloon

• Primary Team of the Year – U11 Girls FOBISIA Team

• Secondary Team of the Year -U13 Boys Football 

• Coach of the Year – Mr Long Gia (Basketball coach)

• Junior Victrix Ludorum Winner –  Chau Anh (Cherry) 6I

• Junior Victor Ludorum Winner –  Nhat Minh 6I

• Victrix Ludorum Winner – Minh Khue (Sumi) 7I

• Victor Ludorum Winner – Linh Vinh (Jimmy) 12I

• Sports Personality of the Year – Ke Phuc (Eddie) 13B

Congratulations, well done and a big thank you to all students, PE staff, coaches, support staff and parents.

It really is one big team effort pulling together in order to provide the best sporting experiences for our students.

Primary Eco Schools Project

This week saw the conclusion of our Year 6 Eco Schools Project for our Year 6 students. Given the task of designing, planning and resourcing a school of the future with a $1 million budget, I would like to congratulate all of our creative entrepreneurs on their hard work and final presentations.

Read more about the project in this post from our school website.

Well done Year 6! 

BVIS Wins ‘Great Employer’ Award at BritCham Awards Gala Dinner.

Following the “Great Innovation in Education" award received in 2022, BVIS has once again been honored this year in the category of "Great Employer" for our remarkable efforts and outstanding performance in HR Practices, Staff retention, Staff development and having a great overall working environment. 
 
At BVIS, we pride ourselves on being a strong, supportive and united community. We show care and integrity for every member of our school team, from teachers to TAs, Head teachers to Head Guards. Each person within our team contributes their time and efforts to make BVIS a safe, happy and effective place to work and learn and everyone is equally respected, no matter what their age, gender, nationality or role may be. That’s what makes our school a very special place to work and learn.

A School With a Big Heart – literally!

Made possible by our parent Mr Christopher Langan and our friends at Eureka, this week our students have had the opportunity to see a human heart up close, actually see how blood is pumped around the circulatory system and climb through arteries to understand how a healthy diet helps maintain a healthy heart.

Brought to BVIS and built over the weekend, our thanks to all who have made this possible to further enrich the learning opportunities for our students.

Parent Essentials - Reminder

Remember to use the ‘Parent Essentials’ section of our school website to access key information in preparation for the start of the next academic year.

Click here to access: calendars, parent handbooks, lunch menus and how to order school uniform. 

Contact Us

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

 
Please enjoy your own very successful weekend ahead and we all look forward to seeing you again on Monday for the last week of this academic year.

Mrs Mary McAloon, Head of Primary

Artist’s Visit

On Thursday and Friday, Ms Thanh Huynh visited the school to work with our primary students.  Ms Thanh is an artist from Nha Trang who works with watercolours and paints Vietnamese dishes and their ingredients.  

The experience consolidated our students’ learning this year on healthy eating and the focus that we have all had on ensuring we choose a balanced diet.  The types of food chosen for the students to paint also linked to the topics they have focused on in each year group – as an example, Year 3 explored the detail of a cacao pod and painted their own work using watercolours.  

Thank you to Mr Max Coupland, Lower Primary Phase Coordinator, who made the connection with Ms Thanh Huynh and brought our whole primary focus on healthy eating to life as a celebration of our achievements!

The Final ‘Fine Dining’ of the Year

We celebrated the special event by welcoming Ms Thanh, our visiting artist, to our ‘Fine Dining’ table at lunch on Friday.  This initiative was set up at the beginning of the year to remind and enthuse students about healthy eating and table manners.  Six students every week from Years 1 to 6 have been selected from the ‘Golden Book’ where their name was placed because of following the ‘Golden Rules’ of the primary canteen.  Selected students sit with Ms Mary and Mr Max for Lower Primary, or Ms Yen for upper primary, to celebrate their achievement and commitment to the ‘Golden Rules’.

Having Ms Thanh, who paints Vietnamese cuisine, was a real treat to end the year of fine dining for the students and teachers.

Transition to Secondary

From this year, Year 4, 5 and 6 have all taken part in a transition experience to secondary.  The change stems from ensuring our students are fully prepared for the change and understand the differences between Year 6 and Year 7.  Years 4 and 5 experienced a morning of lessons in the secondary classrooms with their primary teachers, secondary teachers and the oldest students in school.  Year 6 experienced two full days of secondary school, including the opportunity to purchase snacks in the Sunken Garden at break time.  

Year 6 learned about the different subjects they will study and spent time in their new form groups, based on which house they are in.  They were introduced to some of their new teachers, enjoyed a fun scavenger hunt around secondary with current secondary student leaders and engaged in some fun house-based activities.  They also had time to ask questions about next year and reflect on how they feel about the change.

This is all great preparation for our oldest primary students with their change ahead.  Over the summer, to support this transition, please continue to talk to your child about how they are feeling and support them through these changes.  Home and school together will ensure our Year 6 students have a successful beginning to Year 7.

Upcoming Events

• 21/06/23 @14:15 – End of EYFS Celebration for F3 parents

• 20/06/23 – Y6 Celebration Evening for Y6 students and families

Mr Toby Bate, Head of Secondary 

Graduation

This Saturday BVIS will celebrate all our Year 13 students graduating from school and moving on to the next stage of their educational journey. This year the event is being held at the prestigious Intercontinental Hotel in D1.

We look forward to reporting further on this event in the final weekly highlights of the year and sharing with you the special award winners.

Activities Week

Next week students will take part in BVIS’ new style ‘Activities Week’. For the first time, students have been able to choose from a variety of activities staff have volunteered to organise. Running alongside this, students will have one day devoted to an exciting range of STEAM activities.

On Tuesday, Years 7 & 8 will have their ‘STEAM day’, whilst Years 9 & 10 take part in their selected activities

On Wednesday, all students will take part in more of their chosen activities as well as attend an ‘It’s Good To Be Me’ seminar in the afternoon. 

On Thursday Year 9 & 10 will have their ‘STEAM Day’ whilst Years 7 & 8 attend their chosen activities. We really hope students will enjoy being able to choose their activities for the first time!

All secondary students should attend school in their House shirts on Wednesday. On Tuesday & Thursday students may wear House t-shirts, or any other BVIS sports/event t-shirts.

Art Auction

Our BVIS Art Auction will be taking place on Tuesday 20^th June at lunchtime in the Art Rooms. Students will have an opportunity to buy original BVIS Artwork to take home. Artwork prices start from 50K. All proceeds will be donated to charity.

Saigon Maths Challenge 

We were very happy to host the Saigon Maths Challenge primary level competition on Wednesday 7^th June. 6 different schools and 64 students took part in 4 different rounds to compete for the prize of being Saigon Maths Champion! Special congratulations to one of our BVIS teams who came in second place overall. 

A big thank you to all our wonderful student helpers in Year 7 and 8 who helped us marking and running the competition. We look forward to hosting again next year!

Media Awards Evening

Please use this link to find a more detailed article about the Media Awards Evening at BVIS this week.

Bilingual Poetry Competition

Please use this link to find a more detailed article about the Bilingual Poetry competition at BVIS last week.

Student Champion of the week

This week’s Champion is...

Yen Minh (Olivia) from 9I! Well done to Olivia, back on top after several weeks.

Secondary Champion Tutor Group of the Week

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

Well done to everyone in 9I achieving a monstrous 110 Housepoints this week. Next Week we will reveal the overall winners for the whole year.

Upcoming Events  

• 17^th June: Year 13 Graduation Ceremony
• 19^th June: Debate Day
• 20^th – 22^nd June: Activities Week
• 23^rd June 11:30 am: Term 3 ends