Parent Update - 10 October 2014

Dear Parents,

We were delighted to welcome so many of you to our first Parent Evenings this week. It was such a pleasure for us all to see our pupils showing their parents around their classrooms, and then going on to sing with such passion and pride. Not a dry eye in the house!

We’ve uploaded a large selection of photos (see links below) and the video of the two performances will be available early next week. The next big event we’re planning will be our Christmas Performance. Please put a big ‘Save the Date’ for 10 and 11 December.

Parent Evening for Year 1 and 3 – 8th Oct 2014

Parent Evening for Year 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 – 9th Oct 2014

ONLY SCHOOL IN HONG KONG TO BE A MEMBER OF COBIS

We’re delighted to announce that NAIS is now a Candidate School of the ‘Council of British International Schools’ (COBIS). We are doubly proud as we are currently the only school in Hong Kong to be a member. This means that together with our Global Classroom projects, we will be participating in student competitions and events around the world. The first will be the ‘COBIS Primary Games’ being held in Athens, Greece from 14 -16 May 2015.  It is a great honour to be selected to compete with other international Primary schools around the world.

Please take the time to look at the COBIS website -www.cobis.org.uk – to see the other benefits that this membership brings to our school and to your children.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (ECAs)

Thank you for your patience as we finalise the lists and the late buses. As you can imagine, it’s been quite a feat trying to give as many children as possible their first or second choice Clubs and then match people with our late bus routes. We’ve not been able to offer all pupils all their Clubs, but we’ve tried to be as fair as possible and I hope you’ll agree that it’s a pretty extensive programme. Your children will be receiving their lists early next week along with a list of clubs in which we still have a few places. We’re then aiming to start the Clubs on the Tuesday after we return from the Mid-Term Break.

CLASS REPRESENTATIVES

Thank you to everyone who volunteered; we have had a fantastic response.  I will be contacting the volunteers individually and then arranging a meeting shortly.  Unfortunately we have had more volunteers than we need in some classes so not everyone will be needed.  However we will keep everybody’s details for the future!

SCHOOL LUNCHES

The work on the cafeteria is progressing well and from after Mid-Term Break we’ll be offering hot and cold choices as well as pastries and fruit. Year 1 to 3 will still be asked to pre-select their food (hot or cold), but Years 4 upwards can choose on a day-to-day basis and pay with their Octopus cards. I’ll be sharing the menus on Monday.

HOUSE ASSEMBLIES & EVENTS

This week all our House groups – pupils and staff – met to discuss how their Houses would operate and the values of leadership and teamwork. We’ll be holding our first House Sporting Event next Wednesday (15 Oct). Please ensure that all children are wearing PE uniform that day – and if they’d like to add a little of the colour of their house (a t-shirt, socks, or hair ribbon) then this is a great way to show support for your team. This is an event for our pupils only, so no parents this time. But don’t worry, we’ll be inviting you again soon! A quick refresher: Sandringham = yellow; Caernarfon = Green; Balmoral = Blue; Windsor = Red.

LOST PROPERTY

A quick reminder that the Lost Property box is at the Reception. It’s filling fast, especially with lunch boxes and water bottles. Please remember to label everything that you want to see again!

BUSES

Thank you all for your patience as we have navigated, literally, the challenges of getting around Hong Kong, and in particular Hong Kong Island, while the student demonstrations have been on-going. Like other schools in Hong Kong, we are having to take a day-to-day approach as we try and ensure that your children get to and from school as safely and as quickly as possible. For the longer-term, we are continuing to take your suggestions for route changes to Jacksons, our bus company, on a case-by-case basis. They have already made some changes, and are hoping to implement some more over the Mid-Term Break. We’ll be updating the individual parents and children using these buses once we have the details.

Finally, we’d like to thank you all again for making our new school feel like a real community on Wednesday and Thursday. It has been a long week for all of our teachers, but such a rewarding one.

Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the cooler weather.