Weekly Highlights 17/11/2023

Mr. Simon Higham, Principal

Dear Parents

It’s great to have you on aboard for another edition of our Weekly Highlights and this week, there has been much to celebrate across all year groups.



On Saturday 11^th November, we opened up our doors to welcome parents and children new to BVIS for our EYFS Super Hero Boot Camp experience. After this extremely successful event, all of our attending staff were overwhelmed with pride in the feedback we received from parents and children who are just finding out what it is like to be part of our BVIS community.

My thanks go to all of our incredible EYFS staff members who helped to make everyone feel like Super Heros – just like themselves!



This weekend, take time to ask the following questions to yourself and your child(ren) - I’d love to hear about the responses:

1. What’s your own super power at home and at school?
2. Who is your super hero and why?
3. If you could have one more super power, what would it be?
4. What would you use this super power for in order to make the world a better place to live?

School Photographs

Our thanks to everyone for supporting our school photographs this week by ensuring your child(ren) were wearing the correct uniform and looking extremely smart for their individual and class photographs.

With all class and individual photos now completed, Pret-a-Portrait will begin to process all of the pictures and upload them onto their secure area for you to access.

Within the next 2 to 3 weeks, please look out for further information from school about how you can view your child(ren’s) pictures and purchase them either online or through the Pret-a-Portrait representative in school.

#LoveBVIS Week – Showing The Love We Have For Our School

#LoveBVIS week is a great opportunity for our community to celebrate the love they have towards our school through meaningful actions.  

Expressing the Spirit of EDI Through Art...........why not?

EDI stands for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.  

When visiting our BVIS library, you will be impressed by the vibrant decoration of the ceiling with numerous beautiful works of art.

This is the result of a unique project carried out by our Secondary students since the beginning of this school year, drawing inspiration from famous books on the theme of EDI, recommended and voted for by many educators over the years.

Read more about this project led by our Head Librarian, Ms Truc in this article from our school website.

INSIGHTS – A Nord Anglia Education Digital Publication

Recently, Nord Anglia Education announced the launch of its groundbreaking new education magazine called INSIGHTS.

The new publication offers a comprehensive look into hot-topic aspects of global education, tackling topics from emotional health in young people to the role of technology, artificial intelligence in learning, and what the future of education and wellbeing could look like.

When asked about my opinions regarding INSIGHTS, my reply was as follows: “Education is forever changing and evolving – that's what makes it so exciting to be part of. INSIGHTS tackles the hot topics within education today and encourages us to not only think but think differently. By doing this, we aim to ensure that every Nord Anglia Education student, receives the most effective, up to date education from teachers who both take time to think, and care at the same time.” Take a look yourself and hope you agree! 

Parent Essentials

Throughout this term, we have continued to offer a variety of BVIS Connect events that help to support and further develop parent and school partnerships. Thank you to all parents who were able to attend.

If you have been unable to join us, please find this link that takes you to the Parent Essentials section of our school website. Take a look at the ‘Useful Parent Seminars’ where you will be able to find the presentations and resources from the key meetings that have already taken place. We sincerely hope that you find them useful and if you want to find out more.......just ask!

Contact Us

Should you wish to contact your child’s Class Teacher(s) or Form Tutor directly, we encourage communication to be written in the language you most feel confident to use. 

Parents may also find it useful to contact their child’s class teacher(s) or form tutor directly for all individual queries about their academic work/social and emotional wellbeing in school.  Individual contact details can be found in the Parents' Handbooks or via our Primary/Secondary Receptionists.  

On behalf of everyone at BVIS, I wish you a very happy and family orientated weekend ahead. See you again on Monday for much, much more!

Mrs Mary McAloon, Head of Primary

Aide Memoire Writers

Over the last few months, the upper primary students had the opportunity to write a short story in their chosen language of Vietnamese or English that represented one of the school’s core values.  After two rounds of judging, which included teachers and then students, Mr Simon Higham our Principal, had the pleasure of announcing the winner of each core value category last Friday in assembly.  
 
Reading all of the students’ stories highlighted how much our primary students understand the importance of our core values and how well they are able to articulate their understanding of each.  I would like to congratulate the eight winners of this very special and unique story writing competition.
 
The winners of the competition are:

1. Naomi in Y5 for representing Integrity
2. Nick in Y5 for representing Global Citizen
3. Tinh Son in Y6 for representing Vietnamese Perspective
4. Steven in Y6 for representing Perseverance
5. Tran Quang in Y6 for representing Reflection
6. Hi Hi in Y4 for representing Care
7. Siro in Y4 for representing Respect
8. Kady in Y5 for representing Enquiry 

Primary Students Show Their Love For Their School!

To begin the #LOVEBVIS week, primary students were given pink hearts to write or draw their true feelings about their school.  They then brought their special hearts down to the playground at playtime to be attached to the ‘LOVEBVIS tree’.  There were many special words used by the students to describe their unique, great school.  Words such as 'happy, fun, and best teachers' highlighted the value that the students hold for their school.  I see BVIS as the students' ‘second home’, so I believe it is of utmost importance that they feel comfortable and secure in their school.  This special activity demonstrated just this, which is the aim for our students every day.  Thank you to our whole community for joining in with the activities this week to celebrate our great school.

World Children’s Day and Teachers’ Day

This week the student council made the final preparations for their special celebration assembly which will be held on Monday 20^th November.  During this assembly Years 1 to 6 will come together to celebrate World Children’s day and Vietnamese Teachers’ day.  The Student Council have spent time carefully planning performances and games to show and share with the student community and have thought carefully about how to give thanks to their teachers.

As a way to celebrate our children’s uniqueness, the Student Council suggested that all primary students dress in their chosen clothes for the day.  This suggestion was of course approved by the teachers, so I invite all children to wear non uniform for their school day on Monday.

We look forward to celebrating these two special occasions in our community on Monday 20^th November.

Upcoming Events

1. 22/11/23 – Reading Workshop for EYFS Parents
   
   
2. 30/11/23 – Reading Workshop for Lower Primary Parents
   
   
3. 9/12/23 – Christmas Fun Day for families (tickets required)

Mr Toby Bate, Head of Secondary   

Royal Society of Biology Membership

I‘m happy to report that BVIS is now a proud affiliate member of the Royal Society of Biology.

The Royal Society of Biology is the leading professional body for the life sciences, advising the UK Government and influencing policy, engaging and encouraging public interest in the life sciences and advancing biology education. 

As a Royal Society of Biology member school, your child is entitled to receive a year's free membership of the RSB’s BioNet grade designed for 14-19 years olds. To join, please follow these quick and easy steps which should only take a few minutes to complete:

Step 1. Go to https://my.rsb.org.uk/BNSCAS2023
Step 2. Input the required details such as your name, email and date of birth
Step 3. Select the BioNet grade of membership
Step 4. Insert your school name and city
Step 5. Submit your application

Student Council 

Two weeks ago, BVIS witnessed its first launch of an audio podcast project through the Well-Being Committee’s first podcast episode: What even is well-being? … This is well-being 101!

With Cindy, the well-being committee’s co-chair, acting as the ‘host’, the episode features guest speakers Lewis (from year 12) and Ben (from year 10) as they discuss the daunting questions of well-being. For our first podcast, we decided to keep things at an introductory level, answering the common questions of what well-being is, what can affect a person’s well-being, and how you can take care of your well-being as well as others. Through these episodes, we aim to provide entertaining yet informative content for our school community.

Hue Sports Practice

There are plenty of upcoming house sports competitions before Christmas, so Hue house took some time to get practicing! Our brilliant badminton teams have been honing their skills in the sports hall, whilst the football teams have been battling hard outside on the field. We can’t wait to see the students perform their best once the official fixtures start!

#loveBVIS Live Lunch

Performers from across the Secondary student body showed their love for BVIS as part of our monthly Live Lunch sessions. The Secondary Singers and some of the cast of the upcoming Secondary Production of Mamma Mia joined the line up, alongside solo vocalists, pianists and amazing bands. Well done to everyone who performed and thank-you to a wonderful audience.
 

Sparx Maths Champions

Students earn XP by completing tasks in their Sparx Homework

Compulsory Tasks earn 60-80XP
XP Boost Tasks earn 120-150XP
Target Tasks earn 120-150XP
Independent Learning Tasks earn 100XP

Students reach a new Sparx Level every 10000XP

Top XP earners this week are:

First News Champions 

Bedrock Champions 

This week’s Bedrock champions are:

Year 12 - Tran Bao Duy              
Year 11 - Aki Vo       
Year 10 - Vo Lam Nghi 
Year 9 - Grace Do               
Year 8 - Kosuke Yamamura     
Year 7 - Steven Tong        

Congratulations to all the above students who came up on top in their respective Year groups. A special well done to Grace in Year 9 who achieved the highest Bedrock points across the whole of Secondary. 

Champions of the Week

This week’s champion students are... 

4 yes, 4 joint student champions! Well done to Viet Khoa 10S, Chan Vu 10B, Ben 10B, Nancy 13V!

Champion Tutor Group

This week's Champion tutor group is...

A huge well done to everyone in 10S who worked together to achieve more housepoints than any other tutor group last week.

Housepoint totals

Dalat continue on top in the race to be the champion house. This will be the last update before the final results for term 1 will be announced just before the Christmas break.

Upcoming Events

1. 20^th Nov – 8^th Dec, 23: House Football
   
   
2. 28^th Nov, 23: Year 7 Parents Evening
   
   
3. 30^th Nov, 23: Y11/12/13 Parent Revision Support Workshop
   
   
4. 5^th Dec, 23: Year 8 Parents Evening
   
   
5. 6^th Dec – 8^th Dec, 23: Secondary Production – Mama Mia!
   
   
6. 8^th Dec, 23: Year 10-13 Term 1 Grade Reports: go home
   
   
7. 8^th Dec, 23: Block 1 Clubs End
   
   
8. 12^th Dec, 23: Secondary Sports Day
   
   
9. 15^th Dec 23: Term 1 ends at 11:30am
   
   
10. 10^th Jan 24: Term 2 starts

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: