Mr Simon Higham: Weekly Update 06/01/17

I trust that you have had a very enjoyable Christmas holiday and I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Over the last 3 days, it has been lovely to reconnect again with our school community and to welcome all of our new families from across the globe, country and city. As I mentioned in our New Pupil Orientation meeting on Tuesday, please do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions, feedback or concerns – we are always happy to listen and support to aid in the settling process of your family into our vibrant school community.

If you haven’t yet made a New Year’s resolution, please consider adopting the ‘Magic 10’. Set aside at least 10 minutes each day to engage and connect with your child’s learning. This may mean reading with them each day, commenting upon their week in their school diary, taking time to ask what questions they have asked at school or just looking through the Weekly Update each Friday. Through these 10 minutes, your support will help to further enhance your child’s learning at BIS, HCMC.

I look forward to sharing more information via the Weekly Update with you all during 2017 and I hope that you enjoy reading about just some of the many learning opportunities that take place across our school through the links below.

Community Service – The Hummingbird Award

Community Service is an integral part of our curriculum and each term a number of students are nominated for the Hummingbird Award for their contribution to the class or club activity with our community partners. Read more about this award in this post by Samantha Baker, EAL Teacher and Community Service Leader.

Summer Performing Arts with Julliard

One of the many benefits of being part of the Nord Anglia family is our link with The Julliard School. Our students are afforded the opportunity to attend this prestigious summer school. Whether your child is an accomplished artist or taking their first steps in music, dance or drama, Summer Performing Arts with Juilliard immerses them in the world of the arts through an exciting programme designed by the world-renowned Juilliard School. Read more about this exciting opportunity that is available to our students in this post.

Baker Books Book Club

We are pleased to offer, once again this year, an opportunity to order books from Baker’s Book Club in the UK. This is your opportunity to purchase high quality books that are not available in Vietnam. We also receive commission in the form of free books for the school libraries. Your orders have, in the past, added hundreds of books to our stock. We are very grateful for your help in this way.

Your child has now received a printed catalogue to bring home. This catalogue is also available online, by clicking on the link below. We offer easy online ordering. Just follow the steps detailed below to order books for your children. The books will be delivered to school and distributed from the library.

Order & Pay online

We’ve set up a school Parent Pay order that you can visit and add your order. You can pay securely online by credit or debit card and the books will arrive in school for us to distribute.

1. Visit  http://parentpay.bakerbooks.co.uk/clubs/INTVIE1 by Sunday 22nd January, 2017.
2. Select the books that you’d like to order and add them to your basket.
3. At ‘Checkout’ your order will be charged to your card in the currency shown, the books will be added to the school Parent Pay order and you will receive an email confirming the order and payment.

Need Help Ordering?

Should you need it, a help sheet translated into Vietnamese and Korean is available to help with the ordering process. Please ask your child to come to the library to collect this help sheet to bring home to you. 

The closing date for ordering books from the Baker Books catalogue is Sunday 22nd January, 2017.

Fundinotots

Staying Safe and Healthy in School

If, during your visit to school, you have any reason to be concerned about the safety of a young person, please contact the Designated Safeguarding Person (Ms Dee Grimshaw) or the Head teacher (Mr Simon Higham)

PTG Update

Parent Liaison Volunteer, Ms Ying bisvnptgap1@gmail.com

Welcome Back Coffee Morning

It was wonderful to see so many new parents join us for our Welcome Coffee Morning this week. It was great to have many of our existing parents join us for the event which was hosted by both our APP and APS PTG groups. If you are a new parent or indeed an existing parent, please do get in touch with us using the email above,if you would like to be involved with any of the upcoming activities. We are always looking for volunteers to help support our events as well as it being a great way to meet other parents.

Events for Term 2

12^th January – Newcomers bus tour

17^th February 2017 – PTG Bake Sale

23^rd March 2017 – PTG Disco

26^th March 2017 – Spring Fair

Upcoming Dates for your Diary

January

Tuesday 9^th – Friday 13^th: International Week

Tuesday 9^th and Wednesday 10^th: Global Café

Thursday 12^thand Friday 13^th: FOBISIA Games trials (Y5 and Y6) – round 1

Friday 13^th: Parade of Nations (children come to school dressed in their national costume)

Monday 16^thand Tuesday 17^th: FOBISIA Games trials (Y5 and Y6) – round 1

Thursday 19^th: FOBISIA Games trials (Y5 and Y6) – round 2

Friday 20^th: FOBISIA Games squad announced

Tuesday 24^th: Tet Fair at school

Wednesday 25^th: TET Holiday – school closed

February

Monday 6^th: School reopens

Wednesday 15^th: Headteacher’s Coffee Morning

Friday 17^th: School Photos

Monday 20^th – 24^th: School Photos

Thursday 23^rd: Digital Citizenship Workshop for parents

And Finally………

International Week – Reminder

As I write our school is currently being transformed and classes are becoming countries. One of the highlights of the school year is upon us next week and the children have been extremely busy preparing their learning environments to represent the countries they are learning about. There are plenty of other things going on including assemblies, the Global Café and our Parade of Nations.  For a reminder of key days and times, please read  this post by Ms Dee Grimshaw that contains all of the necessary information.

I wish you a very relaxing weekend ahead.

Mr Simon Higham

Head Teacher, An Phu Primary Campus