20 Mar 2015

Newsletter #14

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

As always we have had an incredibly busy couple of weeks, with so many ‘extra’ things happening, on top of the regular day-to-day learning. On Monday and Tuesday this week we had a team from ESF visiting us to carry out a Review of our Learning Support provision – this is part of an ESF-wide review which began last year, where all schools are being visited. We are expecting the final report to be with us by Easter and I will share a summary of this with you early next term.

Our Year 4 students shared their learning with their parents last Friday. This was the culmination of their ‘How We Express Ourselves’ unit of inquiry with the Central Idea ‘Nature, purpose and creativity can inspire the design of structures in the community’. It was great to see the variety of experiences the students had, including art, drama, dance and music. Thank you to all the parents for supporting their children.

Today 1W showed how confident they are by sharing their first ever Class Assembly at BHS with their parents and the whole school. The assembly was based around the story of ‘The Graffalo’. Well done to all of the children in 1W – it was a lovely way to round off the week.

Year 5 have been working really hard to prepare for their Big Business Market day which is next Tuesday. Earlier this week all of the groups had to present to a panel of Hong Kong business people which was a daunting task but they all practised and prepared so that their presentations were very successful. Please remember to let your child bring in a small amount of money next Tuesday as they will all get the opportunity to visit the market stalls in school.

Today I was with a small group of Year 6 students and Ms Yu at the Hong Kong Flower Show in Victoria Park where the children were participating in the annual art competition. The weather stayed fine and they all submitted excellent art work. We will have to wait and see if they win! This evening I will be attending the ESF Choral Concert at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium and expect to see many of you there supporting our amazing choir. It will be a great evening.

“Year 6 students at the Hong Kong Flower Show in Victoria Park participating in the annual art competition”

We continue to be involved in many sporting events. The basketball tournament had to be postponed due to bad weather, but luckily the tag rugby went ahead last Friday. I managed to see a couple of games and was very impressed by the competitive yet friendly spirit of the team. They did very well managing to reach the cup semi-finals. Thank you to Ms Angell for coaching and taking the team and for the parent support.

Last Friday of course was our International Food Fair. Thank you for coming along and making it one of the best fairs we have had. The atmosphere was wonderful. Thank you to all the volunteers, of which there were many, and especially to all the PTA Committee for enabling this major fundraising event to happen. We will give you information about the amount of money raised soon.

BHS Student Achievements

A couple of weeks ago Brian Chow, 6F and George Stanions, 6L flew to Kuala Lumpur to participate in a Rugby competition. Their team performed well and they eventually won the ‘Saucer’. Well done to them.

This week Emile Cheng, 6H performed at an Educational event being held at the Asia Expo. He performed on the piano to entertain a large group of Principals from across Asia, during an official reception. Well done to Emile!

Staffing

I would like to welcome Mr Edwin Lee who joins us as an EA in Year 4. He has settled in to life here very quickly and is an asset to our team. If you are interested in working as a supply EA at BHS please see the note from Ms Chung later in the Newsletter about this opportunity.

News of some upcoming events:

Student-led conferences are next Thursday. You should come for your appointment with your child and then take them home again, as regular classes will be suspended.

Next week is Green Week – please note that on the last day of term, next Friday 27th March we will be dressing ‘environmentally casually’ (eg ‘green’ colours). Please see the information from Miss King later in the Newsletter.

We have a new date for Sports Day – April 22nd. Please make a note in your diary.

We will be having an ‘International Day’ on April 30th. We will talk to the children about this nearer the time.

Easter Holiday

Please note that this term finishes next Friday 27th March at 12pm. We begin back at school on Monday 13th April. May I wish you all a Happy Easter.

Best wishes,

James Harrison

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Student Continuation 2015-2016 for Y1 – Y5 only

Dear Parents,

We have sent home the letter of Student Continuation 2015-2016 for parents to complete and return to your child’s class teacher on/before Friday 27th March 2015. Letter as per attached. Please ignore this message, if you have already returned the Student Continuation reply slip to school. Thank you.

Student Continuation 2015-2016 for Y1 – Y5 only Letter

: Book Week 2015

This year’s Book Week was a great opportunity for the whole school to share their love of reading. It was a busy week which began with the whole school taking part in a “Read In.” Everyone in assembly read their favourite books and then shared why that book was important to them. Some of the teachers shared their favourites with the school, too. These included an extract from The Iron Man from Mr Harrison and Mr Greene read from Moby Dick, having done an admirable job of explaining this book’s complicated plot to the children.

As our focus was on illustrators there was lots of art happening and there are great displays in the school hall showing what each year group did. The children spent time thinking about how illustrators work and the decisions they make to help the reader understand and connect to what they are reading. The Book Box Art competition was a huge success and the creativity shown in many of the entries was impressive.

There were lots of lunchtime activities, including making comic strips and designing flip books. A highlight for many of the children was the Book Quiz which tested the children in Year 1 to 6 on illustrators and popular fiction. The Learning Centre was busy with children using the Reading Eggs program and designing bookmarks. A big thank you to all the teachers who gave up their break times to run activities.

: Book Week Activities

The Friday saw the whole school dressed in their book character costumes and lots of fun being had at the disco at lunchtime. We had such a good time sharing our costumes that the teachers versus students book quiz was postponed to the following Monday. Six teachers tried their best to beat the winning children’s team “The Awesome Illustrators,” but were unsuccessful, well done to the students!

Thank you to all of you for supporting Book Week. It would not be as successful without parents helping at home with gathering books for the Book Swap, arranging costumes, helping with competitions and of course sharing their love of reading.

Happy reading!

Ms Jeves, Mrs Fennelly and Ms Heywood

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ESF MIxed Tag Rugby Tournament

On Friday 13th March, members of the Beacon Hill Rugby Club participated in the ESF Mixed Tag Rugby tournament at HKU Sandy Bay.

Beacon Hill got off to a great start with a 5-0 win again Chinese International School. We then went on to play against Bradbury B, but unfortunately lost against them 4-5. After a quick regrouping and reflection, we went on to beat both Kellett and Kowloon Junior School 4-2 and 3-2 respectively. We finished the qualifying round in first place in our pool, making the cup semi finals against DBIS. Up against a very tough competitor, we managed to hold our own and work hard to finish the match 5-3 for DBIS.

A big congratulations to all participants. Each member of the team gave it their all and should be very proud of their accomplishments, scoring at least 1 try each! An honourable mention goes to our captain, Tomas Byatt for his leadership through example, and our players of the tournament, Matty Van Weerdenburg and Ginger Wong for their fierce determination.

Special thanks to the parents and fans who came to support us, we really appreciate it.

Members of the Beacon Hill Rugby Club and Mrs Angell

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International Food Fair (“IFF”)

Our 2015 IFF last Friday, March 13, 2015 was well attended & successful all due to our wonderful BHS community of students, parents, families, teachers, staff, caretakers and SLT. All our fantastic donations of food, ladies handbags, virtual reality games, volunteers for the Talent Show Contest, Cubs & Y5 Hall Games and generous donations for the Grand Raffle Lucky Draw really made this year’s IFF meaningful & enjoyable. A very hearty thank you to all donors, volunteers & Grand Raffle ticket buyers!

We are very close to our target of HKD$200,000 Grand Raffle ticket sale proceeds for sponsoring the redevelopment of the BHS ICT room!

Winners of the IFF Grand Raffle will be posted in Newspapers and on the Beacon Hill School website from Friday, March 20, 2015.

Congratulations to all the successful stalls and these are the results:

Chinese Stall		$ 5,545
Korean Stall		$ 3,330
Japanese Stall		$ 2,250
Western Stall		$ 3,365
Indian Stall		$ 3,025
Indonesian Stall		$ 4,500
Dessert Stall		$ 4,325
Hot Dog Stall		$ 5,075
Chips & Drink Stall		$ 6,490
Candy Stall		$ 8,177
Pop Corn Stall		$ 1,885
Hand Bag Stall		$ 6,305
Bouncy Castle		$ 5,430
Virtual Reality Game		$ 2,215
Face Painting		$ 480
Hall Game		$ 10,900

Kowloon Learning Campus

I strongly urge you to inform yourself and encourage others of our BHS community and ESF community contacts to understand the issues at hand and the direct implications it will have on BHS student admissions to KGV and if successful, changes that may spread to other ESF schools.

The Consultation process ended on Thursday, March 12, 2015 and the ESF Board of Governors will be presented with Consultation findings by ESF Centre management and decide on Approval or Not for the Kowloon Learning Campus proposal on March 25, 2015.

Please send your concerns & feedback on the KLC proposal to ESF Centre link of the Google Form survey on your letter from ESF at http://goo.gl/forms/oBXgaZQR9x and /or the email address for this project at klc@esfcentre.edu.hk.

Reminders:

1. All IFF Grand Raffle tickets sold (& unsold) are to be returned as per HK Lottery License, PTA needs to account for all tickets printed.

2. Deli Fresh April lunch order deadline of 12March2015 has lapsed. Please ensure you order confirmation and payment is made directly with DeliFresh.

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Supply Educational Assistants

Dear Parents,

Are you interested in working as an Educational Assistant at Beacon Hill School? We need enthusiastic, energetic people who are prepared to be called on (sometimes at short notice) to cover in the event of staff absence. If you enjoy working with young children and would like to be part of our team, please send a short letter along with your CV and contact details to susan.chung@bhs.edu.hk

Working as a supply educational assistant is a good way to gain the experience required to be considered for any positions advertised in the future.

All applicants must be holders of a valid work visa in Hong Kong and have a good standard of spoken English.

Susan Chung

Vice Principal

Environment

Earth hours

It’s time for again for our annual BHS Green Week. It will run from Monday 23^rd to Friday 27^th March. There are many activities for the children to join in with and ways in which the children can contribute towards helping our world’s endangered species. Please the see the poster below.

Try to be ‘green’ all week. We encourage children to bring in reusable containers so that they can be taken home and cleaned rather than having plastic bags, tin foil and drink cartons that need to be thrown away.

The China Light and Power educational van will also be visiting BHS on Tuesday 24^th March and some children in Years 3-4 will be able to visit and learn about energy in Hong Kong.

Please remember that it is Earth Hour on Saturday 28^th March at 8:30pm. BHS will be thinking about our energy use all week but it would be great if you would all support what we do at school by joining in with Earth Hour at home.