31 Aug 2018

Newsletter #3

Beacon Hill School latest newsletter available to read now. Find out the latest news around the school and upcoming events.

Thank you to all parents who attended the Meet the Teacher evening on Wednesday. It is very pleasing to note the level of interest shown by parents in their child’s education. I hope you enjoyed your first visit to the school this year and found the information useful. Copies of the teacher presentations will be made available on the school website.

Thank you to the PTA for organising a lovely Welcome Wine & Cheese so new families can connect and feel included in the BHS family.

Imagination Playground

As part of our 50th Anniversary celebrations last year, an art auction was organised, that every year group participated in. The money raised in the art auction was used to improve the children’s play equipment in the playground. The children have developed their creativity in play and have constructed marble runs, different types of transport, dens etc. Thank you to Ms. Xiaobing Yu for coordinating the Art Auction and Mr Thompson for organising the purchase of the fun equipment.

Health & Safety

Today, Mr Pheasant and Ms Jeves led a Risk Assessment Workshop for Parents. They shared with parents the procedures that teachers go through when planning and leading excursions. This was a great opportunity for parents to understand their role when they are volunteering on excursions and engages parents with our health and safety procedures.

In line with our developments in Child Protection and Safeguarding, we have produced a Booklet for Visitors and Parent Volunteers on Safeguarding and Child Protection. This outlines our expectations for all visitors that enter BHS. Please ask at reception if you would like to view a copy.

Travel arrangements

I would like to remind parents to inform the school and bus escorts if their child/ren have a change in afternoon travel arrangements on the buses. Failure to do so often results in a delay in departure of the buses from school, while the Office and Leadership Team look for the missing students.

We therefore request your cooperation to notify us before 12:30pm of the day for change in travel arrangement of your child. This procedure is important and in the best interest and safety of your child. (Parents are requested to inform the office via email at bhs@bhs.edu.hk as well as copying the message to the Class Teacher before 12:30pm.)

Wet Weather

Unfortunately, we have been experiencing a lot of wet weather recently and there is no shelter from the school to the buses. Please can you make sure your child has a raincoat for wet days.

Wellbeing Focus

Making Connections and Valuing Diversity

All children and adults have a need to feel accepted, valued and appreciated for the contribution we bring to our community. In our assembly this week, Mr Thompson has focused on DIVERSITY. We challenged the students to:

Be courageous and take their chances
Dare to be different
Make a new friend
Stay open minded to new ideas and experiences
Share and embrace differences.

I would like to challenge parents to:

Avoid comparing your child to their siblings or peers. Value them for who they are as individuals.
Give your child(ren) jobs and responsibilities in the home. Even small tasks like setting the table or tidying their toys can give them a sense of making a valued contribution to the home.
Find out something new your child has learnt to do and ask them to teach you! You never know, it may become a new hobby/interest you both can do together.

Over the course of the year, we would like to run some parenting workshops on different aspects of wellbeing. Please complete the survey so that we can prioritise the workshops based on interest. Click here for survey.

Student Achievement

At BHS we value the importance of developing the ‘whole’ child and this means valuing their achievement and interests outside of school. If your child has achieved something special, we would be happy to share that with the BHS community through this newsletter. Please email details and a photograph to kannis.tsui@bhs.edu.hk

Important Dates

Susan Chung

Acting Principal

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Year 1 Admissions 2019 – 2020

Central Applications Year 1 (2014birth) admissions in 2019-2020 enewsletter.pdf

Applications for ESF Year 7 Places Starting in August 2019

Parents of our Year 6 students need to submit an application for a Year 7 ESF place through Gateway. Applications open on Monday 3rd September and close on Friday 14th September. Late applications will not be accepted.

Check below for a guide on how to apply through Gateway.

parent_year7_transfer_form (1).pdf

Allocation for secondary school will be determined by your residential zone at the start of Year 6. For further details, parents should refer to the information available on the ESF website for key dates http://www.esf.edu.hk/year6-to-year7-key-dates/ and http://www.esf.edu.hk/esf-zones for school zones. All newly joined Y6 are guaranteed a Y7 place but not necessarily for the school of zone.

Year 6 parents should also note that the deposit payment deadline to secure a Year 7 place, once you have been offered a place at a secondary school, will be Friday 14^thDecember.

If you have any questions please contact Mrs Barbara Woo, our admissions officer.

Chad Pheasant

Vice Principal

Japanese Mother Tongue Language Group

Our Japanese Mother Tongue Language groups will be starting up again every fortnight on Friday afternoons. Thank you to the parents who coordinate and lead this! Please see additional information below.

Johns Hopkins Centre for Talented Youth

Greetings from the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth! As part of the Johns Hopkins University, CTY conducts the oldest and most extensive university-based Talent Search worldwide by offering above-grade level testing to students in Years 3 through 9. For qualified advanced students, CTY offers challenging summer and online courses as well as family academic programs.

CTY is hosting an upcoming information session at Beacon Hill School (BHS). The schedule is below:

Date: Thursday September 6 2018

Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm

Venue: BHS 7th Floor Conference Room

RSVP: https://centerfortalentedyouth.formstack.com/forms/2018_19_info_session_bhs_rsvp (on or before Monday, September 3)

During the session, we will provide information about CTY summer and online programs, including their benefits to students and admission requirements. We look forward to seeing you!

Best regards,

Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth

T: HK–(852) 3104-3494 | CN–(86) 15507574758

Cty.jhu.edu

Triple P Parenting Course

Please see below details of the Triple P Parenting Course. Ann Bridgewater works part time at Beacon Hill School as a clinical psychologist and is also running parenting courses from her clinic in Wong Chuk Hang. This is a really comprehensive program with excellent help for parents in many aspects of parenting. Please do contact her directly if you wish to find out more details.

Colette Davis

Head of SEN

Boys Football Club Training Schedule

Tuesday 5th September

King’s Park – please remember that the pick up is from King’s Park at 4.30pm

Cheese & Wine

It was lovely to see so many new parents getting to know each other at our Cheese and Wine Evening last Wednesday. Hopefully you managed to establish some connections and have signed up for our next social, bowling night.

Hot Lunches

Please keep an eye out in your child’s diary for October menu which should be issued shortly.

PTA Volunteer and Donation Forms

Please return the PTA Volunteer & Donation Forms. The various events run by the PTA rely on your support, generosity and valuable time. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Sponsorship form.pdf

PTA Bowling Night

Spaces are still available for Bowling Night taking place on Friday 14th September. It’s a great way to socialise and meet fellow parents in a relaxed and fun environment. Please sign up as soon as possible.

2018 welcome social ' inviation.pdf

Uniform

A reminder that uniforms shall no longer be purchased directly from PTA. The form can be downloaded from BHS website as per the following link:

https://goo.gl/forms/YGtQJSc1XwbrFUoO2

Have a fantastic weekend

Regards

BHS PTA

ESF Festival of Music

The ESF Festival of Music – Secondary Showcase, organised by ESF Secondary Music Department and ESF Centre, will take place between 18^th and 20^th September 2018. Featuring students from Discovery College; Island School; King George V School; Renaissance College; Sha Tin College; South Island School; West Island School.

ESF HK Run 2019

After the huge success of the ESF HK Run last year, the second ESF Hong Kong Run is scheduled for 24 February 2019.

Details of the Event:

Date: Sunday, 24 February 2019

Time: Starting from 07:30am

Venue: Lung Wo Road, Central

Distance: 1Km, 3Km and 10Km

Open to: Students and families, teachers, support staff and their families and friends

Registration fee: Individual $180 / Family Run $400 / School team relay challenge: Free of charge

Online registration: Available by early September

Island School Redevelopment Update

Message from Principal, Mr Stephen Loggie

Dear Parents,

Island school has just recorded our best ever academic results which included

5 students scored 45pts
6 Students scored 44pts
99.1% Pass Rate
32.5% over 40 Points
91% over 30 Points

I value our partnership with Beacon Hill School and as such I would appreciate the opportunity to give you a thorough briefing on these results as well as:

An update on the move to Sha Tin
Share details of the design and timing of moving back to our redeveloped mid-levels campus
Explain our philosophy and the programs which are driving our success

If you are interested in attending this session, I will be at your school at 2pm on 7 September.

To assist with our arrangements, please RSVP via this linked Google form (Click here).

I hope to see you soon.

Warm regards,

Stephen Loggie

Principal

Island School

Health

Immunization For Students Entering Primary Schools To Classes Other Than Primary One and / or Immunization For Students Newly Arrived In Hong Kong SAR.

The child might have missed the school immunization campaign for primary one students on entering primary schools and to ensure that the students have received the appropriate vaccine(s) according to the Hong Kong Childhood Immunization Programme, the Immunization Team of the Department of Health provided us with instructions (on what to do).

If you would like to have this information, please could you let us know.

Thank you.

Rosalind Chen

Rosalind.chen@bhs.edu.hk

70^th Hong Kong Schools Speech Festival

The application form for entering 70th Hong Kong School Speech Festival will be ready for you to pick up at the school front desk from Monday 27^th August. If your child/(ren) wants to participate in this competition, please return the application form and application fee HK$120 in a cheque payable to “Beacon Hill School” to the school office on or before Tuesday 11th September, 2018. Any late application received after the deadline will not be accepted.

Please note that ESF school education level is not equivalent to the local school system. If you enrol in the year group programme, please cross check with the following table for the correct age group. HKSMSA is based on the local school system for enrolment.

Should you have any queries, please contact Ms Shiree Yam at the office.

ESF Level	Local School System
Y1	K3
Y2	Y1
Y3	Y2
Y4	Y3
Y5	Y4
Y6	Y5

Shiree Yam

Disclaimer: Beacon Hill School and the English School Foundation do not recommend or endorse any external events in this newsletter. There is no contractual arrangement between BHS/ESF and the event organisers.

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