Many of you will have heard the Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson where he puts the point across that ‘Schools Kill Creativity’. The quote above comes from this Ted Talk and as educators, many of us have watched and learned and taken something away that we can do to improve what we offer our students.
This week I was extremely proud to share our campus with 2 visiting members of the Accreditation Team from CIS (Council of International Schools) who have come to re-accreditate our school as part of the CIS 5-year cycle. They spoke to students, teachers, parents and support staff and visited many classes.
We were delighted to hear excellent feedback from them before they departed. They outlined strengths to be celebrated in many areas. Risk taking, innovation challenge and engagement were some of the terms used to describe our students and our teachers. We are excited to continue working with them to build on our strategic vision for our school in the coming years.
It was wonderful to hear our accreditation team recognise these qualities in our staff and students. I am proud of our students and indeed our teachers. I believe Ken Robinson would also be proud and recognise that the young learners he talks about above, continue to develop their imaginations, continue to take risks and with the guidance of our BIS staff, are encouraged throughout their education.
Please continue to read on to see how some of this learning has been unfolding across our school this week.
Moon Festival at the Junior Campus
What a wonderful Moon Festival celebration we had at the Junior Campus last Friday. It was fantastic to see so many parents on campus celebrating this great Vietnamese festival with us. Please read more about the day and access some great photos in this post by Ms Phuong Pham, our Vietnamese Co Coordinator.
Book Week at Primary!
Book week begins on Monday! We are excited to welcome Mr Adam Bushnell to our campus on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and we invite all children to come dressed as a book character on Wednesday 3rd October. We are looking forward to seeing many fantastic costumes.
Please read this important note about the Book Fair from Ms Susan, our school librarian;
From Monday October 1 to Friday October 5, the Fahasa Book Fair will be held in the Junior library between 7.30am to 4.00pm each day.
All classes will come to the library at an allocated time on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
During that time the students will be given a ‘Book Fair Wish List’ on which they will write the titles and price of up to 5 books they would like to purchase.
They will then bring the ‘Wish List’ home for you to view. You are very welcome to visit the Book Fair with your child either before or after school to buy the books. Alternatively, the students can bring the money to school and buy the books themselves either before or after school.
The students are very excited about the Book Fair.
Thank you for your continued support.
An Exciting Start for Community Service
The campus came alive this week with clubs and we look forward to welcoming our Community Partners on site next week as part of our club programme. Our links with community programmes have already begun within classes and new primary staff had the opportunity to visit one of our community partners last week, experiencing first-hand what our school is all about. Find out more about our amazing Community Service Programme in this article by Mr Luke Neville, Community Service Leader, Primary.
The Benefits of Making Music Together
This week saw the start of our extra-curricular activities and instrumental lessons programme across the Junior and EY&I campuses. Find out about how joining a Performing Arts club can prove hugely beneficial to your child’s social and physical development by reading this article by Ms Beth Bown, Primary Music Leader.
BIS Young Musician
Auditions for this event are taking place next week. We encourage all budding musicians to take part in our Young Musician of the Year competition. For more details, please see Ms Frances Amos at the Junior Campus.
BIS Learning Skills Challenge
Welcome back to the BIS Learning Skill Challenges. It has been fantastic to see so many students getting into the safes over the past few weeks and watching the excitement of cracking the codes! Congratulations to Rishi from Year 6 who was the Junior Campus winner this week. It has been especially pleasing to have conversations with students and to hear how they have had to apply their BIS skills to crack the codes. PERSERVERANCE was definitely at the top of their applied skills!
It’s Week 5 – Can you solve it before Rishi this week? Check out the link here!
This year MIT challenges YOU to be a STEAM Superhero!
Alongside our Learning Skills Challenges, we are also working on our MIT collaboration as part of Nord Anglia Education. Find out more details about what’s in store for the children this year in this post.
BIS Barracudas
Congratulations to the BIS Barracudas who were the overall winning team at Saturday’s SSIS Swim Relay Meet
The Learning Never Stops
Our teachers are committed to their students but also to their own professional development. In this post, Inderjit Dehal, Director of Professional Learning at NAE shares how Nord Anglia’s excellent professional development programme helps teachers help students achieve excellent academic results year on year.
Launch of Safe Motorbike Riding Campaign
On Thursday, HM Consul General, Mr Ian Gibbons, hosted an event at the Early Years and Infant Campus to launch the Safe Motorbike Riding Campaign. There were a variety of speakers, from doctors who see victims of accidents every day, to Mr Minh from the National Traffic Safety Committee of Vietnam in Hanoi. The message from all of them was very simple, whenever you ride a motorbike, make sure that you are wearing a helmet that fits correctly. Although the law currently only requires children 6 and over to wear a helmet, Mr Minh explained that that is soon to change to make it compulsory for all children to wear one.
Aside from the legal reasons, Dr Dai, from Cho Ray hospital, explained how accidents, even at slow speeds, cause head traumas and brain injuries from which many patients never fully recover. The statistics speak for themselves – every hour, someone dies in Vietnam from a motorbike accident!
Please, please, please make sure that every time you get on a motorbike you and your children wear helmets!
The evening ended with the following pledge being signed:
‘I will play my part in reducing road accidents in Vietnam, by making safety a priority and encouraging others to do the same.’
If you would like to join me in making this pledge, please come and sign the poster which can be found on the PTG Board at gate A next week.
Sleep – it’s impact on learning
The two most important things a parent can do to ensure that their child succeeds in primary are to read with them every day, and to ensure they get enough sleep. In this post, Mr Steve highlights the impact of not having enough sleep, and provides guidance about how parents could manage this aspect of a child’s routine.