Newsletter #11

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

Principal’s Words

Important Dates

Around BHS

Sports

ESF News

Other News

 

Dear Parents,

As usual, this week has been packed with extra events and activities adding to the great regular learning that has taken place. We have continued with football and netball matches and tournaments, again with the children being wonderful representatives of BHS. Reports of the events can be found further on on the newsletter. We have had our Year 3s being active learners when they visited ‘Bounce’ helping them to apply their learning about forces in physical ways on trampolines! The week has ended with a musical theme – our BHS Orchestra took part in the ESF Orchestra day at KJS. They teamed up with students from other schools and rehearsed in their sections in the morning before having a final performance in the afternoon.

We had a special visit from a musician, Scott Darlow who performed his rock music to the whole school and then worked with years 4, 5 and 6 throughout the rest of the day. In between the songs he shared with us stories about his cultural background, with an Aboriginal mother and a Scottish father. Scott will come in to school again on Monday if any of the children would like to get a signed copy of his latest CD – the cost is $100. One particularly special thing is that Scott spent his primary school years right here at Beacon Hill School! For photos, click HERE.

Next week we have 2 visitors from the Council of International Schools who will be meeting with lots of stakeholders and will spend time in classrooms. This is part of the accreditation process, and is our 5 year review. I will share the outcomes from the visit when we receive the report – usually in about 5 weeks.

 

Community choir

Thank you to those who have already signed up! Some of you may have seen the British TV programmes based around the formation of choirs, such as ‘Military Wives’ and this has inspired Mr Gibson and myself to set up a BHS Community Choir. This would be open to all parents of BHS students and to BHS Staff. The choir will begin in January, rehearsing on Thursday evenings from 7pm. We would hope to perform at school around Easter. There won’t be auditions – just enthusiasm is required! If you are interested, please sign up at the following: http://goo.gl/forms/fHNKBF35kU

Go on – don’t be shy!

 

IMPORTANT DATES

NOVEMBER
21st	Netball League matches
23rd-25th	Visiting accreditation team from Council of International Schools (CIS)
25th-26th	Year 3 Camp
25th	Kellet Mixed Netball Tournament
25th	Year 4 to the Pitch for PE
26th	Year 2  to the Pitch for PE
26th	ICHK HLY Boy’s Football Tournament
26th	Year 6 Theatre trip – Blood Brothers
27th	Year 1  to the Pitch for PE
27th	ESF Mandarin Teachers’ CPD Day – no Mandarin lessons
28th	Netball League matches
30th – 2nd Dec	Nanhai Trip (some Y6 students and Mr Harrison)
DECEMBER
1st	Year 5 Bake Sale
1st	Parent Workshop – how Mandarin, Music, PE and Learning Technology integrate with Units of Inquiry, 6.30pm
2nd	Year 4 to the Pitch for PE
3rd	Year 2  to the Pitch for PE
3rd	PTA Meeting, 3.30pm
4th	Year 5 Sharing with parents, 9am
4th	Year 1 to the Pitch for PE
4th	Chamber Choir performing at Pacific Place, 4.30pm
5th	ESF Football Tournament, KGV
5th	ESF Netball Tournament, QBS/CIS

Please note that you can view our calendar on the school website.

 

Student Achievement Outside School

We love to hear about what our students achieve outside of school. I want to share Zoie Chan’s success in the Junior Golf Tournament in Clearwater Bay last Sunday. She won the championship with a great score. Winning was of course a fabulous thing but what I liked even more was that Zoie was the only one who walked and carried her own golf bag instead of relying on her parents to do so! Well done Zoie. If you would like to share any success stories, please email me – james.harrison@bhs.edu.hk

 

Parent Workshops

We have already held several parent information workshops this term and this continued this week with a ‘Parenting’ evening led by Marie Marchand. May I request that if you sign up for any workshops or events, you do your best to attend. We often have many parents indicating their attendance but then do not show up – this can make it difficult for us to plan. Next term we will send out a short survey asking for your opinions on the topics you would like us to focus on in future information evenings, so we can better support your needs.

 

Mandarin Consultations

Thank you to those parents who were able to attend a Mandarin consultation on one of the four days over the last two weeks. During these days the Mandarin teachers were able to meet with almost all of those parents who requesedt an appointment. We are not able to offer other appointments outside of these days.

Have a lovely weekend.

James Harrison

News from the English Team

Family borrowing

We are pleased to announce that you can now register for family membership of our library.  Your card will allow you, as a member of the Beacon Hill family, to borrow two books at a time from any of the sections in our library, including our new Parent Collection.  The Parent Collection is currently quite small but includes books on art and craft, managing behaviour, days out in Hong Kong for children and some excellent titles which will help with conversations with your children about growing up and puberty.  We look forward to hearing your views about other books you would like to be included.

How do we register?

By completing the registration form that you can download on the school website http://beaconhill.edu.hk/letterspage/  and sending it to our school librarian Mrs Lowe, via your child’s diary.

When can we borrow?

Each week during term time, there will be special opening times for family members to borrow.  Your child will not be allowed to borrow books for you but they can return them for you.

	Before school	After school
Monday		2.45-3.30pm
Tuesday	8.15- 9.00am
Wednesday		2.45-3.30pm
Friday	8.30-9.15am

There will be a sign at the front door of school telling of any changes to these opening times.  If the time you visit is outside of school hours then your child is welcome to join you as you browse and of course little brothers and sisters can come along.

When can we start?

The library will be open for family borrowing from the 30^th November to allow you time to complete and return a registration form.  We will be regularly reviewing our family borrowing program to ensure that it works well and will inform you of changes via the newsletter.

For questions and queries contact me: Emily Jeves at jevese2@beaconhill.edu.hk

Girls Football – Wednesday 18th November

The girls football team travelled to Discovery Bay to play in their last tournament of the year, the Discovery College girls football tournament.

Our first game was against DBIS ‘B’ and the girls played outstanding football winning three nil with goals from Aayesha, Natalee and Alyssa. Our second game was against a very strong HKIS ‘A’ and both teams had chances in a nil all draw. The third group game was against our local rivals Shatin and in an attacking display we scored 4 goals with 2 from Aayesha and 2 from Alyssa. By the time of our fourth game the temperature had risen but it didn’t stop the girls beating Kellett ‘B’ 3 nil with Mia, Natalee and Katie (with her stomach!) scoring. 4 games in the group and no goals conceded. If we won the last game we would finish top of the group and once again we played superb football with Aayesha scoring a clever goal in a one nil win!

Our semi final was another tough game against Kellett ‘A’. We scored the first goal from a Mia penalty and then Kellett quickly equalised. A close game was broken by our best goal of the season, Janice kicked a long ball up the field and Natalee chased it to score with her left foot. Katie completed the scoring (this time with her foot!) and we were into another final.

Our final was against HKIS ‘B’ and both team had chances and it was HKIS won two nil. The girls tried their best and put in a 110% effort.

A big thank to Miss Mai for coaching and the parents who travelled to Discovery Bay to watch. Miss Mai and I both agreed this is the best Beacon Hill girls team we have ever coached. This season we have played 22 games with only two losses and only 7 goals conceded. A record any English premier team would be proud of! We won one cup, one friendly tournament, one bowl and were cups runner up today! Well done girls!

The organiser of the tournament was live streaming the games. So if you would like to watch a replay of the games please visit this site https://livestream.com/accounts/15942520/events/4515364 You will need to register to view and the link will expire in 30 days.

Boys Football – Thursday 19th November

On Thursday 19th November the boys football team participated in the third week of the Kowloon football league. Both teams played some good football especially with their passing and moving. The highlights this week were a superb solo effort goal from Jotaro and some great team work from Kendrick in setting up a goal for Anakin. Jake and Kendrick were captains of their teams and both did an outstanding job!

Results

A Team

BHS vs Kellett	1-2
BHS vs RCHK	0-1
BHS vs KJS	2-0

B Team

BHS vs Kowloon B	2-0
BHS vs Kellett B	0-2
BHS vs Kowloon B	0-0

 Netball

On Saturday the 14th of November the BHS Rockets had a netball game against the ESF Wildcats. We all played very well as we were very tired from camp. It was a very hard and close match and unfortunately we lost 10-12. We all tried our best and made a very good effort. We would like to thank our coaches Ms Andrews, Ms Younie, Mrs Mahbubani and all the parents for supporting us.