Weekly Highlights 24/05/2024

Mr. Simon Higham, Principal

Dear Parents 

This week’s Highlights reflect upon the many successes that continue to occur across our school community, made possible by the hard work, care and dedication of our teaching and non-teaching staff, the reflection and perseverance of our students together with the partnership and advocacy we have from all our BVIS parents and wider community.

I trust that you enjoy taking time to read through these Highlights and discussing them with your son/daughter over the weekend period.

Principal’s Afternoon Tea – Save the Date and Register

This week, you will have received an invitation to the final Principal’s Afternoon Tea event of this academic year.

Date – Wednesday 5th June 2024
Time – 2.00pm - 3.00pm
Venue – Main Hall

During the event, I will be giving parents an update on all our Summer enhancement projects and then focusing upon our parent/teacher group called Friends of BVIS (FoBVIS). By the end of the event, we aim to have agreement on which FoBVIS events will be added to our 2024/25 calendar so that we can start planning the next steps together. 

Simply click here to register.

I am really looking forward to seeing as many parents as possible at this event, to help support the further development of FoBVIS.

Safeguarding and Pastoral Care Conference 2024

“The most enjoyable and insightful conference I've ever been to” and “It made me realise how lucky we are to have such dedicated specialists and professionals committed to changing the landscape of safeguarding...”, were just 2 of the many positive comments we received from the delegates that attended this year's FOBISIA Safeguarding and Pastoral Care Conference that was hosted last week at BVIS.

For more details about this event, read more in this post from our school website.

My thanks go to Mr Darragh for his relentless attention to detail in organizing the event, Ms Cuc for her relentless assistance and to all others who helped make the event so successful. Thank you all for helping to further support the Safeguarding of students within our care.

More University Offers for BVIS Students from top Universities in the UK and US

Congratulations to Minh Quan, Year 13 who has been accepted to study Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at several dream destinations across the world. These include: New York University (NYU), University College London (UCL), the University of Edinburgh, the University of Manchester, and Imperial College London, ranked #13 in Best Global Universities and #23 for Chemical Engineering according to the U.S. News.

For more information about why Minh Quan chose this area of study and how we managed to gain these fantastic offers, click here to read the full post.

I would like to congratulate all our Year 13 students who, through the support and guidance of their teachers, continue to have no limits to what they can achieve.

We’re proud of all their efforts and offers and wish them the best in their final A-Level examinations.

Parent Essentials

Last week, I reminded all parents about the useful ‘Parent Essentials’ section of our school website. I hope that you have had time to investigate all the presentations from the workshops that we have run during this academic year.

This week, I ask that you again visit this part of the website but focus upon looking through the lunch menus for next week and paying particular attention to 2 areas:

(i) The International food menu that we offer on the last day of every month.

(ii)    The allergen advice at the bottom of each menu, to ensure that all children can access the meal of their choice with safety and peace of mind.

To visit the ‘Parent Essentials’ section of our school website. You can find the link in just 2 clicks:

1. Select the 3 lines on the right-hand side of our Homepage:

2. Click on the ‘Parent essentials’ link:

We hope you find this useful.  

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.  

I would like to personally wish you all a very safe and family orientated weekend ahead.

Mrs Mary McAloon, Head of Primary

F2 visit Kidzoona 

Over the last two weeks, F2 students departed from school with their teachers to visit Kidzoona, a unique indoor play centre for early years children. The experience gave students a unique opportunity to learn and develop in a fun and engaging environment. They explored a variety of play areas, including slides, climbing structures, and ball pits where they could practice their gross motor skills. Other activities such as the role-play and Lego zones allowed the students to express their creativity, learn to problem-solve and initiate social interaction through collaboration and communication. It was rewarding to see our early years students adapt to new routines and make choices independently whilst out on the day trip.

World Scholar’s Cup

On the weekend of 13th and 14th April, six Year 6 students accompanied by Mr Darragh participated in the city’s World Scholar’s Cup and this week we received the medals for their achievements. In Friday’s assembly, upper primary celebrated their successes and the six students were presented with their medals. The competition included a number of elements such as debate and writing carried out both individually and as a team.  Our BVIS students competed against other students in HCMC to gain points to qualify for the next round. I am pleased to announce that all students qualified and now have the opportunity to enter the ‘Global’ round which will be held in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur later this year. Congratulations to our six competitors Vincent, Suzie, Sunwoo, Hai Dang, Cong Thanh and Anna!

Lower Primary Project Curiosity

This year lower primary took a new approach for their ‘Project Curiosity’. Instead of being in Term 1, it was moved to Term 3 with the reason that students will be at the end of their journey of learning and development for the academic year when studying for their project.  Project Curiosity entails students researching a chosen topic at home with their families to create a showcase piece to share with the year group. We have reached the end of the project and the showcase events are now happening. Year 3 went first with their showcase event this week where students had created posters, powerpoints, quizzes, 3D models and artwork to share their learning with their peers and the Year 3 families who joined the event.  

Thank you to all families for your encouragement and support at home to ensure your child was ready to present their learning and thank you for attending the final event. Next week we will host the showcase events for Years 1 and 2.

Upcoming Events

1. 28/05/24 -14:00 – Year 2 Project Curiosity Showcase
2. 29/05/24 - Positive Parenting Workshop: Wearing your playful hat for Lower Primary parent (Years 1-3)
3. 30/05/24 -14:00 – Year 1 Project Curiosity Showcase
4. 09/06/24 - Clubs Block 2 ends
5. 24/06/24 - Transition day for primary
6. 25/06/24 -16:00 – Year 6 Celebration
7. 26/06/24 -11:30 – Term 3 Ends  

Mr Toby Bate, Head of Secondary

An Update from our Humanities Department

It’s been an active time in Year 7 humanities recently with the topic of Medieval history brought to life. When studying castles, students used their creative skills to design a ‘siege machine’ out of scrap materials. These Trebuchets and Mangonels fired a deadly table tennis ball at the enemy, with prizes awarded for longest distance and most authentic design. Our thanks go to our Design Technology colleagues, for their help with some of the materials.    

Following this, during the ‘Medieval Village Game’ the group used their trading and bartering skills to see if they could survive life during Medieval times. They were given various characters to roll play.  Unfortunately, many peasants did not survive the winter, along with the village priest and many specialist trades such as the blacksmith and weaver – a difficult year in that village! It was great fun to play and demonstrated the harsh realities of life back then.

An Update  from our Computer Science and Design Technology Department

We are thrilled to share that the 30 – Day Fusion360 Challenge in our Computer Science and Design Technology faculty successfully kicked off this Monday! Every day, students receive a new 7 – 15 minutes video tutorial, guiding them through the intricacies of new Fusion360 tools and skills — a world-leading 3D Design CAD software. Students then recreate the designs and submit their assignments.

This initiative is already providing students with invaluable hands-on experience, fostering their technical skills, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. By participating, students will be building impressive portfolios and gaining practical knowledge that will benefit them in their future academic and career pursuits.

Although this 30-day challenge has started off with relatively basic Fusion360 skills and techniques, it will rapidly progress to more complex creations. These advanced skills will enable students to access our 3D printing facilities to bring their ideas to life.

If your secondary child(ren) have not yet signed up and wish to take part, please remind them to check out the TEAMS code on the posters around school. Good luck!

House Sways

Champion of the Week 

This week’s champion student is:

Huynh Quoc Tri (Ben) – 9B! Congratulations and well done to Ben.

Champion Tutor Group

This week’s Champion tutor group is 9B. Well done to everyone in the tutor group who worked together to achieve more house points than anyone else last week. 

House point update

 

Hue still out in front but Dalat are chasing them down. It looks like it’s going to be a two House race, but anything can happen in the last few weeks. 

Upcoming Events

1. 7th June: Secondary Clubs end
   
2. 12th June: Y12 students return to normal lessons
   
3. 18th – 21st June: Year 4,5,6 Transition Experience to Secondary
   
4. 19th June: Sports Awards Evening
   
5. 26th June: Last day of term, school finishes at 11:30am
   
    

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: