Parent Update - 24 April 2015

Dear Parents,

A FEW REMINDERS …

Monday 27 April: Extra-Curricular Activities (ECAs) start. If you’ve not yet confirmed how your child is getting home on ECA days (late bus or pick-up), please email ricky.auyeung@nais.hk before Monday morning or we will have to keep them here at the school until you can come and pick them up!

Thursday 30 April: World Book Day & Official Opening of our Library! We’re delighted to be joined by celebrated author and journalist, Nury Vittachi.

Wednesday 20 May (7.00pm to 8.00pm): Presentation by Mr Cooklin on our Secondary School Development. Please put this one in your diary as it’s an important opportunity to learn more about our plans for the upper years. For parents who can’t make this evening, we’ll be sharing the presentation via email.

Friday 29 May: (7.45am to 9.30am): Coffee Morning hosted by the PTA. All parents welcome.

Saturday 6 June: NAIS Gala Dinner! You should have received an email earlier today from the PTA with ticket details.

Wednesday 24 June: End-of-Term Performance by Years 3, 4, 5 & 6: Evening performance open to all parents in these years. More details to follow.

Friday 26 June (8.30am start): End-of-Term Speech Day. More details to follow.

CELEBRATING SHAKESPEARE AND ST. GEORGE’S DAY

This afternoon we celebrated the life and works of William Shakespeare, together with St George’s Day. (we aim to celebrate a selection of different countries and traditions every year). After a moving chorus by the whole school of the hymn, Jerusalem, Mr Robinson held a mini Shakespeare Quiz to test our children’s knowledge of England’s most celebrated playwright. In a hilarious skit, our teachers demonstrated the range and humour of Shakespeare’s work by reading a well-known quote from 28 of his plays … in under two minutes! The Assembly ended with all the pupils, together with Mr Cooklin, involved in an animated (and loud!) scene from Romeo & Juliet. Please take the time to look at these amazing photos and videos with your children.

SUMMER CAMPS AT NAIS – Please click here for details.

We are delighted to have a range of Summer Programmes that are open to (i) our current pupils; (ii) pupils starting in August 2015 and (iii) non-NAIS children. Details of the Camps can be found here. If you’d like to go a little further afield, you may wish to look at some of the amazing residential Camps that we offer in our schools in Switzerland. One of the great advantages of being part of such a large and international family of schools! Please click here.

PTA ANNUAL GALA DINNER – Saturday 6 June – Look out for the email from the PTA with ticket details

The wait is almost over! You should all have received an email from the PTA with all the details of the big night – plus how to buy your tickets. May I please ask again, on behalf of the PTA, for any ideas and donations towards raffle or auction prizes. It looks like being a great evening of celebration, and we’re also looking forward to raising some money for the local charities that our pupils have chosen (four charities – one for each House).

STARS OF THE WEEK – Maths – Click here for photos

Please join us in congratulating this week’s Stars in Maths:

Year 1: Harry Wienker, Annie Helmersson, Ardi Tse, Aiden Yuen, Hector Kyriakopoulos
Year 2: Prince Lui, Roy Chi, Maximus Woodrow, Cory Wong, Tony Sang
Year 3: Sukshaa Kshirsagar, Anelotte Espeskog, Ian Cairnduff, Joanna Fung
Year 4: Kosuke Tsuda, Abbie Yiu, Isaac Low, Stef Bogaert
Year 5: Michelle Zhang, Stan Chang
Year 6: Mia Birke Bolsa, Chloe Yuen
Year 7: Leo Zhang, Alex Voon

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR MUSICIANS WHO WILL BE REPRESENTING US IN NEW YORK – Click for details
We couldn’t be more proud of all the musicians and singers who auditioned to join our Nord Anglia Global Orchestra. It was such a tough choice to select only three pupils to represent our school, but we’re delighted to announce that Kitty (Year 5 on Violin), Caresse (Year 5 on Violin) and Nina (Year 6 on Choir) have been chosen to join our Global Orchestra Summer Camp in New York.

UNIFORM

Thank you all for your efforts to follow our NAIS uniform guidelines. It does make such a difference to see the children smartly turned out, and proudly representing their school. If I can make one final appeal for white (or mainly white) trainers, that would be super. I also wanted to remind you that you can now order uniform items from Aston Wilson (click here) and opt for pick-up at school. We’ll be adding NAIS leotards and swimsuits before the end of the term. They look terrific!

INTERVIEW WITH MR COOKLIN

Mr Cooklin really enjoyed chatting to one of Hong Kong’s leading education consultants, Anne Murphy from ITS, about what we feel makes NAIS special for our children and families. You can read his interview here. Plus … a special thank you to Bella in 2E who made the little Mr Cooklin cushion that you can see here. It is sitting proudly in Mr Cooklin’s office.

VISIT TO THE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA – Click here for photos

Yesterday, our Year 5 – 7s had a fantastic chance to hear the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in Shatin. “A Musical Journey Across Centuries” took them on a whistle-stop tour of Western classical music. They heard pieces by Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel and Mussorgsky. Following this trip, a smaller ensemble will be visiting the school next Monday to perform to our Year 3 – 7s.

PLEASE BE ON TIME TO PICK UP YOUR CHILDREN (2.45pm)

And finally, as ECAs start next week, we would like to remind you all to pick up your children on time (2.45pm) as our teachers will have to leave their classrooms by 2.50pm to start their ECAs. Thank you for your understanding.

My efforts at shortening these Parent Updates seem to have come unstuck this week. Congratulations if you’ve made it this far!

Have a lovely weekend.