From Ice-Cream Science to Ice skating, Farm Visits to Film-making, Dog Training to Dragon’s Den, Community Work to Quidditch and so much more - this week has been an unforgettable one, on and off the Secondary Campus as we held our wonderful Week Without Walls 2022.
The architect of our Week Without Walls is Deputy Head- Enrichment, Lauren Binnington -who shares an insight into this important element of BIS life in this week’s update.
It has been so fantastic to be able to bring back our Week Without Walls, where students have been challenged to develop their learning skills outside of the classroom and normal curriculum settings. The campus has been abuzz with excited chatter as students have undertaken a week of bespoke and extra-ordinary activities that have seen them working in teams and independently, persevering through physically, mentally, and socially new situations.
Over the week, Year 7, 8 and 9 students have participated in 37 different activities, all coordinated by our enthusiastic and creative teaching team; our teachers, teaching assistants and support staff have had an interesting and varied week!
Students have undertaken some core activities that relate to our collaborations with MIT, Juilliard, and UNICEF, by engaging in STEAM learning, creativity through Performing Arts, and supporting the community through Social Impact. All students took part in the STEAM challenge, where teams created a video game on the theme of their choice. They needed to both create and code the game for functionality, and consider storyline, music and sound effects, and the aesthetics of the marketing campaigns. Our students have been incredibly creative with these, and collaborated to produce some exciting games! Other STEAM activities have included building and racing boats from household items, trying to ‘escape’ our virtual escape room, and creating key chains, either from resin or out of melted single-use plastic in collaboration with PLASTIC People. Year 7 showed their skills in performing arts through the Juilliard activity, either dramatically representing the theme or engaging in the performance through music. In Social Impact, students have been suggesting solutions to tackle aspects of climate change, debating global issues, and some were able to share a fantastic experience with our Community Partner children through a visit to TiNi World. Not just focusing on human interactions, some of our students visited Laws for Paws to learn about the dog rescue activities and how to care for the dogs at the centre. The smiles on their faces were electric! Our students also demonstrated care for environmental issues by turning old uniforms into new items and cleaning-up rubbish from the local area outside school, seeing first-hand how waste can impact our immediate environment. We also had a team deliver a Climate Fresk workshop, thinking about the interconnected nature of the climate causes and consequences.
Other activities also went off-campus, with students reaching new heights on the climbing wall, testing their golfing skills, or perfecting their pirouettes on the ice. An addition this year was a visit to DANCENTER to learn some new dance moves! Year 7 also learnt more about Vietnamese farming cultural practices in their expedition to Happy Farm, finding out how the farm operates and taking on the role of farmers themselves.
The Primary visits are always a highlight of the week as our students get to visit our other campuses and become teachers for the morning, engaging in activities with our youngest students and having lots of fun together! The Junior Campus kitchen was also in action all week with ice-cream making and cultural cuisine cooking taking place; the results of which were innovative and delicious!
It wasn’t all full on; we also took time out to get into fitness and yoga, do some mindful colouring and complete jigsaw puzzles, and tested our strategising through board games.
With so much on offer it is a challenge to capture the vibrancy of the week on paper. The range of activities, the enthusiasm of our staff, and the way that students have thrown themselves into every activity, fully making the most of the week, has been an absolute pleasure to see. I have seen empathy, perseverance, respect for each other and the wider world, and no end of collaborative learning together; our students really do embody our mission at BIS. A huge thank you to the entire BIS community who have made this week possible.
Lauren Binnington
Deputy Headteacher Enrichment
Last week our Student Wellbeing Committee ran our Wellbeing Awareness Week.
Wellbeing Awareness Week aimed to encourage students to embrace positive wellbeing and actively pursue it, which was wonderfully achieved. The Lofi Meditation encouraged students to appreciate the importance of inner peace while the Form Time Kahoot helped debunk popular myths around mental health to reduce stigma. These were both amazing activities, but the highlight of the week is easily the Just Dance activity. This activity drew the week to a close while encouraging students to bond with each other, in addition to getting a chance to feel the positive impacts of physical activity on mental wellbeing. The Wellbeing Prefects and Wellbeing Committee are honoured to have hosted such an event as the BIS community continues to prioritise mental health moving forward.
Adele- BIS Head Student 2022-23
Last Friday, we had our May edition of Acoustic Lounge @The Curve. We had musicians from all year groups and even some Year 13 students who have already graduated. The music performed was a fantastic mix of genres, from pop music to classical, a solo performer who created an entire song using her own recorded loops, a harp solo and even the Key Stage 3 choir!
Have a listen to some of the highlights Here.
Emma Husband,
Assistant Head of Secondary Music Teachers
We were so grateful to our parent community for the excellent turn out for the parent workshop. Despite the rain, lightning, and flooding, we were able to welcome our parents to share in discussions around supporting difficult conversations at home.
The focus of the workshop was about understanding the reasons for difficult conversations. Additionally the session helped to develop an understanding of what occurs when we engage (no matter how successfully) in difficult conversations. We also covered what is conveyed when we do not engage and ignore the issues that are visible.
Please click here to read more.
Should you wish to explore this topic further, please feel free to contact Mr Wills and so he can arrange a session with the ASC Team. If you want to suggest topics for future sessions, we welcome community feedback and sharing. To put forward topics for future sessions please use the Google Form below.
Suggestions for Future Wellbeing Workshops
We look forward to welcoming you all to future workshops in our wellbeing series.
The BIS Advice, Support and Counselling Team- Saskia Dodds-Smith, Zara Pugh and An Ho Thuy
On Thursday, several very proud Year 9’s went to visit the Year 6 exhibition to celebrate their siblings’ “Journey through Primary”. It was filled with some very special moments as the older students supported their younger brothers and sisters as they prepare to move to secondary school.
Bee Smith,
Head of Year 9 / Science Teacher - Biology Teachers
Sports Day is usually one of the biggest days in the school calendar, involving every single student and member of staff. Unfortunately this day in December was cancelled due to the COVID restrictions at the time.
The PE department still wanted to give our students that experience this year and when week without walls got the go ahead, it seemed the perfect opportunity to let our Y7,8 & 9 students once again compete in their own year group sports days. Whilst the scale of the event was smaller, the skill enthusiasm and effort certainly weren’t as all students competed for their class and house in two of Swimming, Football, Basketball, Athletics and Table Tennis competitions. There were winners and losers in each competition, but being able to host competitive sport at BIS again meant everyone achieved success.
Well done everyone!
Alastair Thom - Head of Secondary PE.
You are warmly invited to the ‘BIS Night of the Arts’, to be held at the Secondary Campus.
The Night of the Arts is an ‘open-house’ event for all our BIS families where you can walk the campus to see BIS students and teachers in action in Music, Drama, Art and Design Technology. There will be a range of lessons, rehearsals and workshops for you to enjoy, with students from across the whole Secondary age range involved.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Event Details:
Location: Secondary Campus
Considering participating in our Pre Loved Fair on Saturday 11th June? There are a couple of ways to join.
You can purchase a table and sell all your second hand goods, or come along as a customer and pick up a bargain. The Fair is open to BIS Community members only including all students, families and staff.
By now you will have received our email with the details so please check your inbox.
If you have any questions please WhatsApp Melanie Rowe, PTG on +84 93 802 9513 or email melanierowe1201@gmail.com.
If you would like to book a table please email the Secondary Campus Receptionist – Katie Walsh katie.walsh@bisvietnam.com.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Event Details:
A BIS Community event
We are delighted to announce that the University of Oxford have agreed to deliver another webinar for students and parents in our community. They join the University of Cambridge, as well as UPenn, Brown and the University of Chicago in a star studded end to our webinar program for this term. For anyone that missed our webinar last week with Imperial College, London the recording can be viewed here.
Final four webinars for this academic year:
We hope to see you at the above events.
Showtime is a concert review of classic tunes from the world of musical theatre, performed by a group of very talented singers and accompanied by the Concert Band and Orchestra. Shows featured include Dear Evan Hansen, The Sound of Music and Chicago among others.
Tickets for the show will be available to collect starting Monday 6th June from the student centre or reception for performers only (initially 2 tickets per performer). From Friday 10th June, they will be on general release to the BIS community, so performers should collect their tickets early to avoid disappointment.
We look forward to seeing you there on the 16th June at 7pm.
Ian Alexander, Director of Music
Have a wonderful weekend,
Kind regards,
Sean O’Neill
Head Teacher, Secondary Campus
101 Thao Dien Street,
Thao Dien Ward, Thu Duc City,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Junior Campus
225 Nguyen Van Huong Street,
Thao Dien Ward, Thu Duc City,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Secondary Campus
246 Nguyen Van Huong Street,
Thao Dien Ward, Thu Duc City,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
