18 Dec 2015

Newsletter #15

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

This is the final Newsletter of this term. We have had an incredibly busy and productive 17 weeks and I know the children and staff are all ready for a break! This week saw the culmination of our Christmas festivities with the Chamber Choir performing at Festival Walk and then their final performance of the year in our wonderful Christmas Concert on Wednesday evening when they were joined by our Mandarin and Junior Choirs. We were even lucky enough to have snow!! Well done to all of the children who took part and a huge thank you to the many people involved in ensuring the event was the success it was. We had the photography club take photos on the night, they can be viewed HERE.

Earlier in the week our Year 1 and 2 children were treated to an early visit by Santa. I know they were very appreciative of the gifts they received, especially when we all know what a busy time of year this is for Santa. For photos, please click HERE. All of our children have been celebrating with Christmas parties.

Mid-Term Reports

This year, for the first time, we have introduced mid-year reports for English and Mathematics. These give a summary overview of the progress made to date by your child in the learning outcomes covered this term. Please access the report via The Gateway – Ms Chung has included information further on in this Newsletter. We hope the information is helpful in providing a more continuous reflection of your child’s progress during the year.

IMPORTANT DATES

NOVEMBER
18th	12pm – School Closes for the Christmas break
JANUARY
4th	Start of Term 2
5th	Interviews for Year 1 admission begin
5th	Paul Melsom working with Y6
6th	Brett from ‘Jump Jam’ performing a live demo at BHS!
7th	PTA Meeting, 3.30pm
8th	Paul Melsom working with Y6
8th	5A Class Assembly, 9am
9th	ESF Netball Tournament, QBS
11th	Year 3 to LEAP
12th	Year 4 Bake Sale
12th	Parent Information Workshop – ‘Concepts and Inquiry’, 6.30pm
15th	3D Class Assembly. 9am

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

Student Achievement Outside School

Natalee Evans found out this week that she has been selected to represent Kowloon and the NT, in the HKRFU/Prudential New Year’s Day Youth Championships. She will be playing in the U12 girls Peninsula Dragons team to play the Island Lions.

Natalee has been playing full contact rugby now for the Flying Kukris this last two years. To be selected for this team is a real achievement and a great opportunity for her to receive coaching at a high level.

The event will be filmed at Hong Kong football club and you can view via the HKRFU website. Well done and good luck to Natalee for New Year’s Day.

Leavers

We say farewell to some of our students and their families today:

Fae Chui (1F) – relocating to Singapore

Eiffel Lu (1F) – relocating to the USA

Albert Wang (3K) who has joined his sister in AIS

Joel Evers (4J) and Henry Evers (6L) – moving back to Australia

Kaitlyn Fong (6F) – joining her siblings at Renaissance College

Yi Xuan Tan (6F) – moving to the UK

We wish them all well, wherever they are going. Please keep in touch – ‘Once a Beacon Hiller, always a Beacon Hiller!’

Community Choir

Thank you to those who have already signed up! We have approximately 35 members so far. 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 for the Chinese New Year evening, for the International Food Fair and the BHS Summer Concert. 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! We would especially welcome more male singers.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support and to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

James Harrison

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News from the English Team

Family borrowing

We are steadily receiving more registration forms from families keen to begin borrowing from the library. A family library card means that you can borrow two books at a time from any section of the library including our new parent collection. The craft and art books have been the most popular so far.

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.

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

Top Library Borrowers

Well done to the top library borrowers from November. It is great to see how keen so many of our children are to read regularly. Here are some of those borrowers:

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Year 1	1H
Year 2	2M
Year 3	3D
Year 4	Shu Wen Wen
Year 5	Sofie Chau Darryl Wong Katie Adams Nashita Khan Isaac Lam Tsz Hei Wong Ethan Yuen
Year 6	Ady Lam

Thank you!

We would like to say thank you to these children and their families for the books they have recently donated to the library and class book collections. We really do appreciate your generosity.

Naomi McLoughlin 3K

Jack Cheng 6H

Sin Lam Yeung 1H

Razeen Khan 5Y

Jessica Zhou 6L
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Thank you to all those whom bought tickets for the Christmas Carol Concert and all the Teachers, EAs, Staff, Caretakers and Parent Volunteers that worked together to chaperone students, wrap hampers, set-up, decorate, help with selling decorations and assisting with refreshments. BHS and the BHS PTA really cannot hold this event without so much BHS Community support. Photos from the night were taken by the photography club, and can be viewed HERE.

A special thank you to Mrs Yau, Mrs Chong, Mrs Dale, Mrs Blair, Miss Kannis, Miss Chan and of course our music maestro Mr Gibson and all the wonderful BHS Mandarin, Junior and Chamber Choir children that have spent time outside of school to rehearse and perform in the cold and windy winter air with snow (thank you Mr Lowe for the special effects)!

Congratulations to the 6 families that won the abundant Christmas Hampers. (The BHS PTA can assist with the recycle of wicker baskets. Just bring them to our office). Again thanks for a joyous festive Christmas Carol Concert and the BHS PTA will be donating at least $1500 to SCMP’s Operation Santa from gifts and decoration sales.

The Y5 Bake Sale generated over $2800. Many thanks to Y5 family donations of wonderful homemade goodies and to the Parent Volunteers.

Reminders:

Tuesday 12 January 2016 Y4 Bake Sale
Tuesday 26 January 2016 Y3 Pizza Lunch
Deli Fresh lunch order deadline has lapsed for January 2016. Please contact Deli Fresh directly for order acceptance and confirmation.

Have a joyous and restful holiday!

Rowena Chow

Chair, BHS PTA

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Assessment & Reporting

Mid Year Reports on the Gateway

Your child’s mid-year report, which includes their 2^nd Unit of Inquiry, Mathematics and English outcomes, is now open for viewing on the Gateway. To do so, you will need to:

Log on to the Gateway – tg.esf.edu.hk
Click on the ARR tab and Click on ARR Report
Click on the Printing Tab
Select the current year (2015/16)
Select your child’s name
Select Mid-Year Report 2015-16

Please remember to share this with your child also.

Portfolios

Your child’s portfolio is evidence of their learning journey this term. Your child has demonstrated ownership of their own learning by selecting and reflecting on some of the pieces of work. Some pieces were chosen by the teachers. The work in the portfolio was chosen to show:

successes, growth, higher order thinking, creativity and reflection from all aspects of the curriculum. Constructive feedback and reflection, by your child, demonstrates that the portfolio is a valuable celebration of an active mind at work.

We would appreciate your help in returning the portfolios to school by Monday 4^th January. There will be another opportunity to view this again later in the year.

Please share and enjoy the portfolio with your child.

ISA Results on the Gateway for Year 4-6 students

To access: Log on to the Gateway – Admin – Student Demographics –Assessment

The International Schools’ Assessment (ISA) is an annual assessment programme that has been specially developed to measure skills in mathematical literacy, reading and writing. Over 35,000 students in over one hundred schools worldwide took the assessment in October 2014. ISA is based on the internationally endorsed reading and mathematical literacy frameworks of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and is designed and developed in Australia by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). The ISA results provide descriptive information about what students know and can do. The results are equated from year to year so they can be used to track changes over time at individual and school level.

Year 4, 5 and 6 students took the full ISA suite (Mathematical Literacy, Reading Literacy and Writing) in October 2014. ESF Year 4 students took the ISA Grade 3 assessment and Year 6 students took the ISA Grade 5 assessment. The assessment papers are marked externally and the results reported back to schools.

Each student is given an ISA scale score and level for Mathematical Literacy, Reading Literacy, Narrative Writing and Expository Writing. The scores on any single scale are comparable regardless of which level of assessment is taken. For example, a score of 325 on the Year 4 Mathematical Literacy assessment indicates the same level of proficiency as a score of 325 on the Year 6 Mathematical Literacy assessment. However, the ISA scale scores are not comparable across subjects. For example, a score of 325 for Mathematical Literacy does not necessarily indicate the same level of proficiency as a score of 325 for Reading Literacy. The table below can be used to help gauge where your child stands relative to the mean score for ESF students.

	Year 4	Year 5	Year 6
	Mean ISA score for ESF students	Mean ISA score for ESF students	Mean ISA score for ESF students
Mathematical Literacy	333	397	440
Reading Literacy	320	385	435
Narrative Writing	388	434	483
Expository Writing	415	455	500

Please note that the ISA assessment is a standalone assessment that gives a snapshot of your child’s learning on a given day and overall judgment about your child’s learning needs to be made in conjunction with other school-based assessments and your child’s class-based work.

For more details about interpreting the report, the ISA program, or to discuss your child’s results, please contact me at susan.chung@bhs.edu.hk

If you are having trouble accessing the Gateway, please contact chad.pheasant@bhs.edu.hk

Japanese Mother Tongue Language

At BHS we believe that supporting students’ development in their Mother Tongue (native) language is important as it supports their academic and non-academic growth, development in other languages as well as supports and affirms cultural identity. Furthermore, developing Mother Tongue also strengthens self-worth, family connectedness and promotes international mindedness as it encourages open and respectful attitudes to other cultures.

A Japanese Mother Tongue Language group will be offered at BHS during school time every fortnight. This will be a chance for your child to meaningfully use the Japanese Language and connect with other Japanese students in the school. This group is being run by volunteer parents of Japanese students at BHS and they have run this programme in the past with a great deal of success. This is an exciting opportunity for your child. Please register your child by clicking the link below. The group will start running in Term 2.

http://goo.gl/forms/0Ef7vOcLN6

Yours sincerely,

Susan Chung

Health

Remaining Vigilant Against Communicable Diseases

Just a reminder that the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) reminds us all to remain vigilant against communicable diseases (such as, influenza, hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), acute gastroenteritis, dengue fever, chickenpox, etc.).

To prevent outbreaks of communicable diseases, students who experience skin rash, fever, acute respiratory symptoms, diarrhoea or vomiting are strongly advised not to attend school and should seek prompt medical advice.

*Also, children who have fever and respiratory symptoms are strongly advised not to attend school until 48 hours after the fever has subsided.*

(Group activities should be avoided when HFMD outbreaks occur in other schools or institutions).

(Refer Influenza, avoid going to crowded or poorly ventilated public places).

Always Keep Hands Clean.

Thank you.

Ms Chen