Weekly Highlights 03/10/2025

Weekly Highlights is a weekly newsletter sent by the BVIS Leadership Team to parents, providing updates on notable news and activities at the school. The newsletter consists of three main sections: updates from the Principal, Head of Primary, and Head of Secondary.

Dear Parents,

What an amazing end to the week with the wonderful Moon Festival celebrations taking place across the school!

It was brilliant to see all our students and staff arriving this morning in their Ao Dai, ready to celebrate this important Vietnamese occasion. 

 
Congratulations to all the performers that took part in special assemblies today and brought the Moon Festival to life for all who watched. 

In addition, this week, we were delighted to host the 2025 Global University Fair with around 200 universities participating. We also welcomed many students from other schools across the city who joined us for the Fair.   There was such a buzz of excitement for our students as they explored their future opportunities beyond school.

Sincere thanks must be given to our UGC (University Guidance Counselling Team) Ms Mai Truong and Mr Huy Nguyen and Ms Huyen Le, our ‘Events Manager’ as well as our Marketing and Admissions Team.  Putting an event like this together is a mammoth task and we are very grateful for all the hard work behind the scenes to ensure this event was a great success. 

Our Half Term holiday is approaching, and we would like to remind all parents that there will be no school for students from October 13th to October 17th. When we return to school on the 20th, we have a busy term ahead with a number of events coming up including Halloween celebrations on the 24th.  Our Friends of BVIS are working hard to ensure this will be a great success and we hope to see many families join us for what promises to be a lovely afternoon and evening for all the family. 

Please do look at the dates for events in both the primary and secondary highlights so you don’t miss anything that is coming up across the school. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend ahead.

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. 

This week started well and grew into an extravaganza of learning, culture and performance. This is my first Moon Festival and it was fantastic to witness this special time in Vietnam as well as to wear my first Ao Dai!

Moon Festival in Primary

As I have learned this week, Tet Trung Thu is a time for family, giving thanks and traditionally for celebrating the harvest. Our students and staff in Year 3 and Year 5 have been working hard this whole week, and I was amazed at how well they performed in the Auditorium this Friday. The day had started with a dragon dance that delighted our students.



Later in the day, this led through to the Moon Festival performances; first to the students and then to the parents.

At our school, we do what we say; we are Global Citizens, but we embrace Vietnamese perspectives. Well done to all the students who performed and thank you to all the parents who watched, either live in the Auditorium or on our live stream. 

If you would like to still watch the performance. The YouTube link is here:

Moon Festival in EYFS

We also celebrated the Moon Festival in EYFS this week. Each year group in EYFS; F1, F2 and F3 all had SPLATS (Stay and Play: Learning All Together) where families came along and joined us in the classroom to see how their children learn through play. Our EYFS celebration on Friday was a play by the teachers of the legend of Mr Cuoi, 'The Man on the Moon', a traditional moon festival story. We followed this with performances from each class of Moon festival songs or rhymes, finishing with a lantern parade in our Ao Dai's.  

Importance of a Broad and Varied Curriculum – Music and Performance

Linking to the theme of holistic education and the importance of a broad and balanced education that Ms Dee has mentioned previously a key area for this is in Music.



Music, drama and performances engage the whole child – cognitively, emotionally, socially and physically. Music helps to support memory and language, mathematical thinking, coordination and creativity and imagination. It also supports self-expression, emotional regulation and confidence. It promotes collaboration, cultural awareness and community.

At BVIS Primary, our specialist music provision runs right from Early Years through to Year 6. Miss Tram (EYFS) and Mr David (Y1-6), our Music teachers have been focused on developing our music provision. They have had the chance recently to work with professionals from the prestigious Juilliard School in New York as well as music teachers from across Asia. From students performing in assemblies to ECA clubs and competitions, we look forward to great things for music this year. 

Recently, we have had music and singing assemblies led by Mr David and soon Ms Erin Wight, our Juilliard Curriculum Specialist for Music, will be visiting us here at BVIS on Monday 20th October and Tuesday 21st October. We look forward to that and the impact on learning it brings.

Important Reminders

Upcoming Events

AI in Education

Last Friday afternoon I had the privilege of being invited to talk about the use of AI in education at the YBA (Young Business Associates) HCMC Business Summit 2025.

It was a pleasure to share the stage with Le Tri Thong, Tran Le Nguyen and Nguyen Thuong Tuong Minh, who were able to elegantly discuss the concepts of AI use in their fields of expertise and to take part in the panel discussion with them.

I enjoyed the opportunity to share my knowledge with the business community about how we are using AI at BVIS, but also the limitations of AI and the role of humans utilising AI. 

The overall message of my talk was this. AI can do amazing things, and we need to use it effectively to save ourselves time and free up our cognitive load. However, there are still some things that AI cannot do, it currently cannot replace the human skills of empathy, trust, making moral judgements or our shared humanity. 

Year 9 Options Event

On Thursday our Year 9 cohort joined with their parents and our subject leaders to begin the process of choosing their IGCSE options. At this lively and well-attended event, students were given the opportunity to quiz both their teachers and current IGCSE students about the courses they are considering.

As a reminder, in Key Stage Four (Years 10 and 11) students can select three subjects outside of the core, mandatory curriculum. For some, this will present an opportunity to dive deeper into a subject they already have a passion for, but for others, it may be that new subjects, not offered in Years 7-9, will also appeal.

The best advice we can give for choosing your IGCSE options comprises three main points: 

• Firstly, make sure you find out as much as you can from your teachers and students already doing the subject.
• Secondly, choose subjects that you enjoy. It’s much easier to do well in a discipline you find interesting. 
• Finally, make sure you’re not basing your choices on what your friends are doing. This is about you and your future, not about someone else!  

The deadline for IGCSE option choices is Thursday 9th October.

BVIS 6-6 Reading Challenge

We are thrilled to announce the return of our fantastic 6 in 6 Reading Challenge at BVIS that will ignite your child's passion for books and learning! Last year, the school read over 1000 books – a staggering and immense achievement! 
 
We have made some really exciting changes to the initiative. This year we have asked year 6 students to join us on the reading adventure and we ask you, parents, to join us on this exciting and invaluable literary journey! We give students 36 different categories to choose from, and they must select 6 books to read in the next 6 months – together, let’s try and beat last year’s amazing total!
 
Here's why you and your child will love getting involved: 
 
Encourage a Love for Reading: Reading is an adventure waiting to be discovered. 
Improves confidence in reading: the more you read, the more confident you will feel. 
Boost Literacy Skills : Regular reading improves vocabulary, comprehension, and critical thinking. 
Win Amazing Prizes: Top readers will be celebrated and rewarded for their commitment. 
Family Bonding: Share reading moments together and inspire a lifelong love for books.

Student Leadership in Action – House Basketball 

As the second week of House Basketball draws to a close, we are delighted to celebrate the fantastic efforts of our student leaders. Members of the Student Prefect Team have played an integral role in making this much-loved sporting event a success. 

From designing promotional materials and organising sign-ups to coaching house teams, posting match updates, encouraging participation, and delivering announcements in assemblies, our student leaders have shown initiative, creativity, and teamwork. Their professionalism and commitment have been truly impressive, demonstrating exactly why they were selected for their leadership roles. 

We are proud to recognise their contributions and share this success with our whole school community.

Sparx Maths Champions

The Sparx Maths Weekly Champion is the student who is the top XP earner in each year group.  
 
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: 

Bedrock Champions

This week’s bedrock champions are:  

Year 7 Tran Quang Anh
 Year 8 Bui Nha Uyen (Lily)
 Year 9 Ngo Tu Minh
 Year 10 Kosuke Yamamura
 Year 11 Tran Nhu Bao Thi (Belle)
 Year 12 Ngo Khanh Ngoc (Sarah)  

Congratulations to all the above students who came up on top in their respective year groups. A special well done to Nha Uyen who achieved the highest Bedrock points total across the whole of the secondary school this week! 

Champion of the week!

This week’s champion is.

Congratulations and well-done to Ana!

Champion Tutor Group of the week!

This week’s Champion tutor group is 

Congratulations to 789i Hue2. Well done!

Housepoint Totals

Congratulations to Saigon house, who hold on to the top spot!

Upcoming Events

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: