Weekly Highlights 01/12/2023

Mr. Simon Higham, Principal

Dear Parents

From the words of a very famous song from the 1950’s and sung by Mr Bing Crosby, ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ around our school.

This week, all of our Christmas decorations were put up across both Primary and Secondary, bringing the season of goodwill closer to us all.

Although Christmas Day is not a public holiday in Vietnam, it is noticeable across the city that trees, decorations and lights are becoming more and more prevalent. But did you know that Christmas is often celebrated in very different ways across the world?

For instance, did you know.......?

In Japan, celebrating Christmas is a relatively new idea and many families do not stay at home and have a Christmas lunch. They prefer to order chicken from KFC as a treat!

In Slovakia and many other countries within Central Europe, people enjoy carp (fish) for Christmas Eve Dinner. However, rather than buying a fish from the local supermarket, traditionalists let the fish live in the bathtub for a couple of days before preparing and eating it. Legend has it, the scales bring luck and good fortune for the coming year.

In Australia and New Zealand because Christmas falls during the hot summer months, many families celebrate on the beach and have a BBQ lunch. They still sing the song "White Christmas," but won't ever see snow outside their front door!

In Iceland families celebrate 13 days before Christmas with children receiving presents from 13 different Santa Clauses! (these are called Yule Lads) Children place their shoes on the window ledge and if they have been good each of the Yule Lads will leave them little gifts. If they haven't behaved all year, they receive rotten potatoes in their shoes!

In my home country, England, I used to hang my stocking at the end of the bed on Christmas Eve and when I woke up it was full of sweets brought by Santa Claus. What a treat!

This weekend, take time to research with your son/daughter how Christmas is celebrated across the world. 

Talk about how these traditions are similar and different to those within Vietnamese culture and which you would like to try (and which maybe you wouldn’t!)



Whatever your beliefs, culture or traditions, I hope that you enjoy this festive period by supporting our BVIS community and attending the upcoming Christmas Fair on Saturday 9^th December – tickets are still available from our Primary Reception.

Principal’s Afternoon Tea Event 

My thanks to all parents who attended this week’s Principal’s Afternoon Tea event with the focus upon the impact of AI on modern education. The main session was led by Mr Toby Bate, Secondary Headteacher.

 
It is extremely encouraging to see so many BVIS parents attending both this event and the numerous others that are held across each term – thank you for engaging and connecting with us and we hope you found it useful.

Please click on the links below to access the presentation in both English and Vietnamese
English version
Vietnamese version

Academic Calendar 2024-25

Please find this link to next year’s Academic Calendar.

Both the 23/24 and 24/25 calendars can be accessed here on the Main School website.

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.  

As always, I wish you and your family, a very happy, healthy and safe weekend ahead.

Mrs Mary McAloon, Head of Primary

The Power of Literacy

If there is one thing families can make time for every day at home, it should be reading together. Just 10 minutes a day can inspire children to become avid independent readers.  Reading is the greatest source of our children’s imagination, experiences and literacy skills. 

 
This week we welcomed lower primary parents to the library to analyse a storytelling session and then practice the skills identified with their children by enjoying a few of the many rich texts that are available in our BVIS bilingual library. Thank you to all parents who joined me and Ms Truc for this valuable time spent with their children.  Families are welcome to visit the library after school from 3:15pm to 4:30pm Monday to Thursday to exchange library books and enjoy more stories together.
 

SMART with a Heart

This week parents were invited to learn more about the advances of AI and how it is positively impacting education during the Principal’s Afternoon Tea.  The discussion between parents and school leaders posed many questions about what to expect for the future, how to manage and control what AI offers and how to keep our children safe with the changes we are seeing.  

The primary Digital Leaders are currently running a campaign to help their fellow students in upper primary to learn and develop their skills of how to stay safe online.  Starting to educate students in their primary years helps them to build healthy habits around technology. The Smart with a Heart campaign is based around six key principles, which are described below. Currently, primary students are focusing on one principle a week. When a student demonstrates their understanding of each principle through the quiz that has been carefully prepared by the digital leaders, they receive a sticker. Students aim to achieve all six stickers to represent each principle; they will then be awarded the ‘Digital Warrior’ certificate.

• Safe – Keep your personal information safe.
• Meet – Tell an adult if someone online asks to meet up.
• Accepting – Think carefully about the content before you click on or open anything online.
• Reliable – You cannot trust everything you see online.
• Tell – Tell a trusted adult if something online makes you feel upset, worried or concerned.
• Be Smart with a Heart – Be kind and respectful online.

I encourage you to talk to your children at home about these six principles and guide them to be conscious of them whenever they use their device online.

Year 1 Starts Christmas!

Over the last few weeks, the Year 1 students have been excitedly and conscientiously preparing to perform on stage for their families.  The opening celebration of Christmas at BVIS was held this week in the theatre for Year 1 families to join as the children sang Christmas songs and brought festive cheer to the audience.  The Year 1 Christmas Sing-a-Long was a huge success with children’s confidence shining through.  They performed with ease, remembering the lyrics and actions of the songs they had been practising with their teachers.  

Thank you to our Year 1 students and teaching team for bringing joy and Christmas delight to the BVIS community!  

Upcoming Events

1. 08/12/23 @08:45 – Year 2 Christmas Production (for Y2 families - tickets required)
   
   
2. 9/12/23 – Christmas Fun Day for families (tickets required)

Mr Toby Bate, Head of Secondary   

Artificial Intelligence

This week I had the privilege of speaking to a group of parents about generative AI (GenAI). Although this is a reasonably new field of technology there has already been some quite broad if not deep research into the subject matter and how it might alter education moving forward.

One current use of AI is to create unique images that are not real and one of the challenges that we will face moving forward is how we identify whether a photograph or image is genuine or not. Try this out for yourself with this interactive webpage:

How to spot deepfakes created by AI image generators (axios.com)

AI is much more than just an image generator and if you’re keen to learn more about this emerging area of technology and learning then please have a look at the course that has been put together by MIT on this topic.

Daily - RAISE (mit.edu)

What is important to remember is that AI is here already, it is not something to be afraid of, but something that is going to change a lot of how the world functions moving forward. We need to embrace it and use it effectively to enable us all to become more productive and better learners.

Student Council - Events Committee

After successfully helping to organize past events like Halloween, the Event Committee received a well-deserved break however, that is not to say things have been slowing down in school! As with every November, Love BVIS week kicked off to the excitement of all our students. Throughout the week, by simply expressing their love for our school’s community, students were able to win various BVIS-themed prizes, with the graduation teddy bear becoming a must-have item. Finally, to finish off the week, it was lovely to see all shades of pink across school as our community once again came together for a group photo commemorating this special event.

As the month of November passes, the Events Committee eagerly await the start of this year’s Christmas season with our exciting, planned events. Anticipation continues to build up for Christmas, with the Committee working hard to ensure expectations of all students and staff are well and truly met.

Christmas Fun Day Live Lunch

The Christmas fun day is coming up (9^th December) and if your child wants to perform on stage on the day, they need to sign up soon.

There are limited places so please encourage your child to speak to Ms. Amos soon.

Mamma Mia

It’s nearly showtime!

After months of hard work, the stage is set for the annual Secondary Production. With over 80 students involved, this year's musical is the award-winning “Mamma Mia”, which is sung to the music of world-famous band Abba.

Suitable for ages 7+, the whole family is invited to come and enjoy another impressive BVIS show! Tickets are available now at both primary and secondary reception.

English Coffee Morning

As part of our ongoing efforts to foster a strong school community, last week we were delighted to invite parents to a special Coffee Morning hosted by the English Department. During this event, we shared ideas about how we can all help and support students in their learning at home. We are always keen to collaborate with parents and show them how much we love reading here at school. 

The full presentation can be accessed through this link.

This informal gathering was an excellent opportunity for parents to connect with our department, learn more about the curriculum, and engage in conversations about a student’s academic journey. Parents had the opportunity to ask us insightful questions about the English course and we really enjoyed having them – the reading and the quizzes were great fun! We would love you to join again next year!

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 7 - Mraz Le
Year 8 - Kosuke Yamamura     
Year 9 - Grace Do       
Year 10 - Shunsuke Yamamura  
Year 11 - Nguyen Kien Nghiep
Year 12 - Dao Khanh An    

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

Champion of the Week

This week’s champion student is... 

Khanh Quan – 7I! Well done to you as a first-time winner!

Champion Tutor Group

This week's Champion tutor group is...

A huge well done to everyone in 7I who worked together to achieve more housepoints than any other tutor group last week. 

Upcoming Events

1. 30^th Nov, 23: Y11/12/13 Parent Revision Support Workshop
   
   
2. 5^th Dec, 23: Year 8 parents evening
   
   
3. 6^th Dec – 8^th Dec, 23: Secondary Production – Mamma Mia!
   
   
4. 8^th Dec, 23: Year 10-13 Term 1 Grade Reports: go home
   
   
5. 8^th Dec, 23: Block 1 clubs end
   
   
6. 9^th Dec, 23: Christmas Fun Day
   
   
7. 12^th Dec, 23: Secondary Sports Day
   
   
8. 15^th Dec 23: Term 1 ends at 11:30am
   
   
9. 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: