Weekly Highlights 08/12/2023

Mr. Simon Higham, Principal

Dear Parents

Thank you once again for engaging and connecting with our school community via the Weekly Highlights. This will be the penultimate edition before the end of this academic term.

This week, I focus my reflections upon all things creative which forms such an important part of our curriculum, allowing our students the opportunity to express themselves and their emotions through a variety of different ways.

Throughout this whole term, everyone has worked tirelessly to produce a performance that was not only extremely enjoyable to watch but showed the audience what immense talent lies at the heart of our BVIS students. Honestly, this production would not have been out of place in the West End in London or on Broadway in New York – seriously, it was that good!



Our thanks to everyone who helped to support in making this happen – well done and what a show!

MUSIC

Christmas Begins With Music 



Entering the school's theatre last week, parents and grandparents of our Year 1 children couldn't help but marvel at the feeling of suddenly stepping into some distant Western fairytale space, where snow was abundant, smokestacks were peeking, and decorated Christmas trees were re shining brightly.  

Click on this link to view some incredible pictures and read more about how our Year 1 students officially started the Christmas season.

World Nursery Rhyme Week

Over the past few weeks during their specialist music lessons, each EYFS class (Foundation 1, 2 and 3) has explored one of the many songs that children around the world are learning.  

Read more about the musical journey of our youngest BVIS leaners and look through the many pictures in this post from our school website.

DANCE

Juilliard Dance Specialist Visits BVIS 

As part of the variety of outstanding experiences and unique collaborations that we offer our students at BVIS, this week we welcomed a special visitor to school, Ms Ashley Brown, who is a Juilliard Dance Curriculum Specialist.



Ashley is a New York City based dance educator and choreographer, where she is the Director of The Martha Graham School. She has taught dance in a variety of settings, from dance studios, schools and universities and with students from 2 years old to adults. 
 
This week, Ms Ashley worked with some of our Primary Students, guiding them and their PE teachers through a variety of lessons aimed at building creative confidence. She has also provided professional support for our fantastic PE Department and shared her own enthusiasm for dance via lessons and an assembly. 


 
The Juilliard-Nord Anglia Performing Arts Programme has been designed to give all our students a deep engagement with the arts, and to enhance their cultural awareness and appreciation. It enriches the high-quality teaching and learning already offered by BVIS with the artistic rigour, pedagogy, and the expertise of The Juilliard School. 
 
Thank-you to Ms Ashley Brown for visiting and we look forward to seeing her again in school very soon.

School Photographs Update

Last month, Pret a Portrait spent a week in school taking both individual and class photographs. I am pleased to confirm that all photographs have now been proofed and processed and we are looking forward to receiving information about when you are able to start purchasing the photographs very soon. 

When we have the details, we will share them with you accordingly.

Academic Calendar 2024-25

A final reminder of this academic year that you can use this link to now view next year’s Academic Calendar – 2024-25.



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.  

From all of us at school, we wish you very happy weekend ahead and look forward to next week – our final week of Term 1 – for more creative learning opportunities.

Mrs Mary McAloon, Head of Primary

Enrichment through Sports

Enriching a student’s educational journey with sports provides variety in their experiences and an opportunity to build skills and knowledge outside of the classroom.  Not only is sport good for student health and wellbeing, but it also allows students to shine on different stages and express their individuality.

Throughout this term, we have had many reasons to celebrate our primary students’ sports successes and achievements.  Football, badminton and swimming to name a few have all complemented our student development over the last 15 weeks.  Two recent incredible achievements that I would like to celebrate in this week’s highlights is Eric’s (Y6) and Bao Chau’s (Y8) success at the prestigious Oceanman World Final Championship 2023 hosted in Phuket, Thailand last Sunday 3^rd December.  Eric came 14^th in the Junior category and 126^th across all age categories in the 2km long open water swim race; Eric swam this total distance in 42 minutes and 44 seconds. Bao Chau Ranked 13^th (with a time of 41:07 minutes) in the Junior Female 10-19 age group for the 2 km distance – a phenomenal achievement by them both - congratulations Eric and Bao Chau!

Read more about our brother and sister successes in this post from the school website.

I encourage you to support your children’s sporting desires and achievements as it will have a positive impact on their academic studies and holistic future development. 

Year 3 Rainforest Exit Point

On Tuesday this week, Year 3 opened their rainforest artwork exhibition to their Year 4 peers.  To celebrate the end of their topic on exploring the interesting facts about rainforests, including learning about the different layers of the forest and the types of animals that live in each layer, they invited the Year 4 students to revisit their learning from the previous academic year and consolidate their understanding through asking insightful questions.  One high level question asked by a Year 4 student was, ‘How did you match the texture and colour of the leaves from the trees in the rainforest to make them look so real in your artwork?’  The answer focused on the art skills that students have developed through the topic, which involved practicing shading, value and texture of drawing.

Exit point events help students consolidate their learning, recognise their hard work throughout the topic and celebrate and be proud of their achievements.  Next week’s highlights will review the exit points for Years 4, 5 and 6.

‘An Out of This World Christmas’ by Year 2

Our Year 2 students proudly performed their production to Year 2 families on Friday.  The hard work and perseverance paid off with every song being sung with enthusiasm, every line being spoken with confidence and every dance highlighting the students’ skills in movement.  Our school’s collaboration with Juilliard supported the students’ development to perform with confidence through the drama lessons that have been taught.  
 
Putting together a performance such as this promotes and supports so many aspects of development for children.  Performing in a production develops the courage to speak in front of a large audience, tests a student’s memory as they practice learning their lines and provides an experience of working collaboratively with the whole cast to ensure the timings are perfect and the story being told flows well throughout.
 
Congratulations and thank you to our Year 2 performers and teaching team – the show was magnificent! 

Upcoming Events

1. 15/12/23 @11:30am – Term 1 Ends
   
   
2. 18/12/23-09/01/24 – Christmas Holiday; Holiday Camps begin (see parent emails for registration details) 
   
   
3. 10/01/24 @8:25am – Term 2 Begins
   
   
4. 11/01/24 @8:30am – Healthy Habits Workshop for EYFS Parents

Mr Toby Bate, Head of Secondary   

BVIS @ The Saigon Literary Arts Festival

Last week, BVIS students travelled to The American School in District 2 to take part in the 2nd Annual Saigon Literary Arts Festival.
 
The SLAF is a multi-discipline competition and celebration of literature and the visual & performing arts. 
 
Having won the competition overall last year, BVIS went across to The American School in hope of defending our title.
 
Students competed in the following categories:

There were some sensational performances throughout the day: We laughed, we cried, we cheered. Such is the power of Literature and The Performing Arts.

Phuong Anh in Year 10 won the Monologue contest overall with her stunning version of American Foster’s speech from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie 


 
There was also success for BVIS in the Storytelling and Chain Storytelling events, finishing second in both contests. Our students delivered stunning stories, packed with imagery and intrigue. Quan in Year 7 also came in 2^nd place in the Declamation contest, with a fantastic and impassioned speech entitled The Importance of Reading.


 
Our Vocal Trio suffered (through no fault of their own) some technical difficulties but sang on regardless, delivering a lovely rendition of ‘Speechless’ from Disney’s Aladdin. Their resilience, perseverance and talent were inspirational.


 
Students in the other contests performed admirably but unfortunately did not place as the standard was extremely high in those areas. 


 
On the whole it was a fabulous experience for our young artists, and we couldn’t be prouder of how they conducted themselves throughout what was a wonderfully enriching day. 

Please join me in congratulating all those involved.

Mathematics Competitions

The weekend of the 24^th – 26^th November was a busy one for Mathematics competitions.

Firstly, we had 12 mathematicians participate in the Intermediate Logic Competition in Saigon.

The standard was high and although we didn’t finish in the top three overall, we had some individual achievements which are noted below:

Toan Hy (Kyle) and Phuc Thien (BVIS’s only Year 9 competitor) finished joint 3^rd in the individual challenge. 



Team BVIS 2 (Ben, Minh Hien, Minh Anh and Phuc Thien) finished joint FIRST in the Pass-Back round.



It was a wonderful morning where all students were given the opportunity to challenge themselves outside of the classroom.

Further to this, Mr Parsons and Ms. Ngan took nine outstanding students to a Maths competition in Singapore. It was an enriching experience for our students, allowing them to demonstrate their mathematical skills on an international platform, and meet other enthusiastic Maths students from around the region. The students had a fantastic time and performed excellently. Overall, our students won 12 medals! (3 silver and 9 bronze). Special mentions go to Gia Linh, Gia Ngoc and Jimmy who have been selected to participate in the final in Australia in December!

Student Council

This term has been an eventful term for the Student Council. We kicked off the term with Halloween activities from the Events Committee followed by student favourite vegan and bake sales. Additionally, the Wellbeing Committee also launched two of their podcast episodes on mental health and the importance of a healthy diet. The Blue Marathon event from the Community Committee has been a huge success with many students participating in supporting the Blue Dragon Foundation. Regarding the Environment Committee, we are continuing our duty of protecting the environment through actions such as: collecting wastepaper for recycling, fostering the school’s community garden, and raising awareness to this year’s vegan day.

In the future, we wish to create more meaningful yet enjoyable experiences for students. Some of our upcoming projects include: BVIS Got Talent Competition, TEDxBVIS HCMC Youth, Mental Health Awareness Month, Earth Week, and many more! Most importantly, the members of the Student Council also get the chance to develop their skills of collaborative teamwork, event-making processes, and to improve the skillsets that will be highly valuable for their future endeavors. We look forward to creating more opportunities for students to showcase their talents, raise awareness on crucial issues, and continue building a positive and inclusive environment for all. 

Khanh Linh and Nancy
Co-Presidents of the Student Council

An Update From Our Pastoral Teams

Our student leaders have been working hard over the last few weeks to update their house boards outside the sunken garden! 

Each house has put their own creative spin on what is important to them, updating them regularly with weekly champions, housepoint totals, and important events. I’m sure you’ll agree that they look fantastic. Next time you’re in school, go downstairs for a closer look!

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 - Kensuke Yamamura
Year 12 - Tina Nguyen   

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

Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge Results

All KS3 students and those in KS4 & KS5 who study Computer Science, recently took part in the annual Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge. Over 400,000 students from across the world took part in demonstrating their computational thinking to solve a variety of problems. I am delighted to announce that BVIS reached new heights this year, with 26 of our wonderful students achieving a top 10% score nationally, therefore qualifying for the Oxford University Computing Challenge, which takes place online in January. This is the highest number of students we have ever had qualify, evidence of the improvements we as teachers see in our classrooms every day. A particular well done to the following students, who achieved the highest score in school for their age ranges. All participants will be receiving their certificates in the next week.

Xuan Nam – 7V
Tue An (Cherry) – 9V
Trieu Hoang (Jimmy) – 11S
Phuong Nghi (Nancy) – 13V

Champion of the Week

This week’s champion student is... 

Nguyen Ngoc – 8S! Well done to Ngoc!

Champion Tutor Group

This week's Champion tutor group is...

A huge well done to everyone in 9I who worked together to achieve more housepoints than any other tutor group last week. 

Upcoming Events

1. 8^th Dec, 23: Year 10-13 Term 1 Grade Reports: go home
   
   
2. 8^th Dec, 23: Block 1 clubs end
   
   
3. 9^th Dec, 23: Christmas Fun Day
   
   
4. 12^th Dec, 23: Secondary Sports Day
   
   
5. 15^th Dec, 23: Term 1 ends at 11:30am
   
   
6. 10^th Jan, 24: Term 2 starts 
   
   
7. 11^th Jan, 24: Year 10 Parents’ evening
   
   
8. 16^th – 24^th Jan, 24: Mock examinations for Year 11, 12 and 13 students
   
   
9. 16^th – 19^th Jan, 24: Trips week for Year 7, 8, 9, 10 students

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: