4 Mar 2016

Newsletter #23

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

I hope you found the Student-Led Conferences today helpful in giving you a clear picture of your child’s learning, progress and next steps. Thank you for making the time to attend – we appreciate that it involves time away from work for many of you.

Our International Food Fair is not far away now – Friday 18th March to be precise. This is our major fundraiser for the year and all money raised this year will go to improving our playground environment. If you are able to help out in any way, please contact Janley, our PTA Coordinator – pta@bhs.edu.hk Please keep selling as many raffle tickets as you can – we are about 50% down on our sales compared to this time last year! We look forward to seeing you all at the event.

As is the norm, we have had some students absent the last couple of weeks due to various illnesses. According to the Centre for Health Protection (CHP), the current influenza activity in Hong Kong is at a high level and will remain at a high level in the coming weeks. We have stepped up the cleaning procedures in school. We will continue to remind the children to wash their hands frequently and to cover their mouths and noses when coughing or sneezing.
We look to enlist your cooperation to upkeep students’ personal and environmental hygiene so as to tie in with the precautionary measures taken at school against the spread of influenza. The advice from CHP is to ‘avoid visiting crowded or poorly-ventilated public places with your children as far as possible. Parents should take notice of the health conditions of their children. Children with fever should seek medical advice promptly and should avoid school till 48 hours after the fever has subsided.’

‘To prevent outbreaks of influenza and other respiratory infections, it is of prime importance that children with fever (oral temperature higher than 37.5℃, or ear temperature higher than 38℃), regardless of the presence of respiratory symptom, should not be allowed to attend school.’ We ask that parents or caregivers monitor their children’s temperatures on a daily basis prior to leaving home, recording the results and then act accordingly.

Thank you in advance for your support with this.

IMPORTANT DATES

MARCH
8th	Graham Base, Author/Illustrator visiting Year 4
9th	Year 5 trip to Sham Shui Po/Prince Edward for Big Business
9th	Parent Information Workshop – Marie Marchand, 6.30pm (for parents of students in Years 4-6)
10th	ESF Mixed Basketball Tournament, KJS
11th	Chamber Choir to Sha Tin Junior School Neighbourhood Watch Day
11th	4W Class Assembly, 9am, School Hall
12th	CIS Road Race
14th-18th	Green Week
15th	Girls Touch Rugby
16th	Parent meeting – Update on KLC progress – Ed Wickens and Belinda Greer. Hall, 9am
16th	ESF Invitational Tag Rugby Tournament
18th	4J Class Assembly, 9am
18th	Year 1 trip to LNEC

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

Student Achievement Within and Beyond School

I am thrilled to announce that in the recent World Education Games, the world’s largest free online education competition held every two years with over 5 million competitors, in the Science category, Beacon Hill’s Ryan Zhang was world champion! This is a fantastic achievement and a credit to Ryan who is always working hard both in school and beyond. He has a real passion for learning and he deserves this award. He was presented with a gold medal by Paul McMahon, the Regional Manager – Asia at 3P Learning, in assembly this week.

Capture

Continuing on the theme of competition success, Ady Lam in 6H took action and decided to enter the ‘Young Post Brain Game’. Each week she, along with 9 competitors, had to submit her response to problems or issues raised. Each week the readers voted for their favourite responses with the least popular being voted off. Ady went all the way to the end and was the eventual winner! She won herself an iWatch. Well done to Ady for taking the time and having the courage to enter.

ESF Stakeholder Survey

Stakeholders will soon be invited by email to participate in the biennial ESF Stakeholder Survey, which will be open from 14th to 24th March 2016. Through this survey we aim to find out about the impressions that parents, staff and students have formed about the education we provide. The feedback from the survey will help us build on our strengths and inform our future planning.

A parent invite will be emailed to the primary contact parent in your family on 14th March. [If you have a child at another ESF school you will receive a separate invite by email to participate in that school’s survey].
Students in Years 5 and 6 will also receive an email inviting them to participate in the survey – WE WILL PROVIDE TIME IN SCHOOL FOR THEM TO COMPLETE THIS.
We would be very grateful if you would spare the time to complete the survey. It’s shorter than in the past and takes about 15-20 minutes to complete (though may take a little longer if you wish to add comments in the optional comment boxes).

BHS Community Choir

This brand new choir started in January. If you would like to join, please just come along. New recruits are welcome any time – you don’t need to have any musical background; just enthusiasm. Rehearsals are on Thursday afternoons at 3.15pm and also on Thursday evenings from 7pm in the Music Room on the 6/F – you are welcome to come to either session. Our next performance will be at the International Food Fair. Please click HERE for music.

JAMES HARRISON

PRINCIPAL

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Student Led Conferences

Thanks for your attendance at the Student Led Conferences today. There was an incredible atmosphere in all the classrooms, with children eager to share their learning.

You will have been given your child’s portfolio to take home to share this weekend. 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 Wednesday 9th March.

Please share and enjoy the portfolio with your child.

Susan Chung

Vice Principal

Current UOIs being Explored

Dear Parents,

Please visit the school website to view curriculum information about the current unit of inquiry being explored at present.

Regards,

Rachael Dewhurst

Vice Principal/PYP Coordinator

Student Continuation 2016-2017 – Year 1 to 5 only

Dear Parents,

We are now making plans for the 2016-2017 academic year. In order to help our future planning we would like to determine the existing number of current students who will continue at Beacon Hill School next year. This will help us to organize the classes and plan for new intakes for next year. Your assistance is greatly appreciated and helpful.

Please complete the following response form and return it to your child’s class teacher / the school office on or before Thursday 24th March 2016

Please kindly click on the link below to download the letter of Student Continuation for 2016-2017 for your use.

Student Continuation 2016-2017 - Y1 to Y5 only

Many thanks!

Barbara Woo

School Office

Parenting workshop with Marie Marchand. Wednesday March 9th from 6.30 – 8pm in the BHS school hall.

An open invitation for all parents to attend this informative parent workshop. This workshop will provide an opportunity to enhance your parenting skills particularly with children approaching pre-teens. This workshop also supports the Years 6 Unit of Inquiry on changes and puberty and Year 5 sex education unit later in the year.

Communication with Pre-Teens

Is your message getting across like you would like to? Why isn’t your pre-teen listening? How can you talk and listen to your pre-teen so they will listen and talk to you? This workshop will describe the different stages of adolescence, clarify the reasons why messages are not clear and will give you ‘tools’ to make communication between you and your pre-teen more positive.

About 20 minutes will be spent on stages of adolescence and the rest will all be practical tools to communicate with pre-teens.

Marie has over 25 years of international experience in early childhood teaching in Canada, Switzerland and Hong Kong. Her workshops are interactive and are renowned for their personal examples, practical suggestions and humour. They offer quick and easy tools that can be used the next day. She earned her B. Ed. in Childhood Education from McGill University, Canada. She taught kindergarten in international schools for over twenty years during which she also launched her parenting business, created and delivered courses in Hong Kong and Canada. Marie’s work is accredited by the Academy for Coaching Parenting International (ACPI) since 2010. She is also the proud author of a book for children called HOME FROM HOME.

If you would like to attend this event, please reply to: http://goo.gl/forms/UpGzFdJBc8

Dr. Louise Porter Conference 2016

Chinese International School, Hong Kong Island

Emotional intelligence at school and at home

Thursday March 10, 2016 (from 6:30- 9:30 pm)

Our emotions guide us to face challenges and tasks that are too important to leave to the intellect alone. Emotional intelligence, then, is the ability to integrate thinking and emotions to produce effective behaviours.

To do this, we need to understand our emotions. However, we can become muddled if we mistake thoughts for feelings. When we allow our feelings to dictate how we live our life, we are like a puppet on a string, being jerked around by our emotions.

Therefore, it is important that, just as we call a spade a spade, we call a thought a thought, and an emotion an emotion. To that end, this session will describe three ‘fake’ feelings. These are merely thoughts that we have chosen to invite in and entertain – but when we give them the status of emotions, we believe that we are justified to act on them and to make other people suffer for ‘causing’ them. Once we understand that they are mere thoughts (or stories in our heads), we will be less distressed and therefore more able to process information clearly, and less likely to blame others and expect them to ‘fix’ what we are feeling. We will be emotionally literate.

Behaviour management at home and at school

Friday March 12, 2016 (from 6:30- 9:30 pm)

In this seminar, Dr Louise Porter will compare and contrast two styles of discipline that are available to teachers: controlling discipline (which uses rewards to get children to do more of what we like and punishments to get them to do less of something we do not like) and the guidance approach, which teaches children the skills they need for considerate behaviour. With respect to children’s achievements, praise and the other rewards do not teach children to like learning, but to like rewards. Instead, guidance aims to maintain children’s intrinsic motivation to gain skills that will empower them both personally and as learners.

In terms of responding to disruptive behaviour, guidance believes that children do well when they can. Like us, children want to be successful. Therefore, if they are making mistakes, it is not because they lack incentives to behave better, but because they lack skill, the main one of which is the ability to regulate their feelings and impulses. In this session, we will examine how teachers can support students to regain command of themselves so that they can re-engage in learning and resume acting considerately.

Ticketing: http://drlouiseporterhk2016.eventbrite.hk

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DrLouisePorter

Website: http://www.louiseporter.com.au/

Enquiries: margaret@ekalli.com / yasmin@ekalli.com

Undernourished and Overtired: Nutrition and Sleep, the Twin Towers supporting Children’s Learning

F.O.C.U.S. Roundtable Meeting – March 8, 2016 (Tue) 7 – 9 pm

Venue: Foundation Global Education, 13/F. Chinachem Hollywood Centre, 1 Hollywood Road, Central. Hong Kong

Cost: Members – Free; Non-Menbers – $200

Child education can no longer be seen as an isolated set of learning and teaching experiences delivered by well qualified teachers and innovative schools.

Fresh research bridging education, science and social work in the fields of neuroplasticity, food biochemistry and the science of sleep shows schooling to be far less influential in educational outcomes than we first thought!

Dr Gloria Wright PhD, Director of Learning Solutions and Honorary Fellow at The University of Sydney condenses cutting edge literature and some of the latest research findings across disciplines to show teachers and parents how the quality of children’s learning and behavior is directly influenced by matters outside the classroom! Known for her practical, information packed and entertaining style, Dr Wright succinctly leads our discussion towards useful, take home ‘know how’ to immediately enhance our children’s capacity to learn and thrive: a must for parents and teachers.

Discussion Points:

Sleep, the new paradigm influencing children’s learning, brain health and happiness: how sleep affects the functioning of neuro cells
The role of sleep and its interactions with toxins and how food adds to toxicity
Nutrition, brain function and memory: how modern eating eludes and beguiles true nourishment
Food and neuroplasticity: how the young brain’s capacity to learn is directly affected by the biochemistry of food and the quality of sleep
Interactions between food and sleep: how the food-sleep ‘marriage’ works and how to make it work better!
This talk is suitable for parents and teachers of children of all ages.

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Road Race

Well done to all the students who participated in today’s Beacon Hill road race trial. We had 103 students running in 8 different races. Well done to all the students who have been selected to run at the CIS Road Race on Saturday 12th March. Please click HERE for photos.

Results

	Under 8 Girls 1km	Under 8 Boys 1km	Under 9 Girls 1.5km	Under 9 Boys 1.5km	Under 10 Girls 1.5km	Under 10 Boys 1.5km	Under 11 Girls 2km	Under 11 Boys 2km
1st	Kaeli	Ethan (3H)	Mia	Chi Him	Avina	Daniel	Yoanna	Mustafa
2nd	Nikita	Joshua (4M)	Alyssa	Marcus 5Y	Chelsea (6L)	Kaden (5P)	Angela	Jotaro
3rd	Clarice	Joshua (3H)	Bernice (4J)	Alvin 5P	Courteney	Aiden L (6F)	Milly	Brandon

Basketball

On the 26th of February, Ethan, Ryan, Marcus, Kwan Yin, Isaac, Courteney, Avina and Kirsty from Year 5 were selected to participate in the RCHK mixed basketball tournament. The team lost their first game against RCHK. They came back strong on their defense and Ryan shot the first and winning basket for the team against Quarry Bay. Our team then faced Harrow, a very strong team, and saw a loss of 8-1. They regained their focus for the following 2 games against Kennedy and Discovery College, winning 6-5 and 5-1 respectively. BHS came third in their round, just missing the opportunity to enter the semi-finals. Miss Wu and Mr Teahan would like to take this chance to congratulate the team for their three wins in their first tournament and commend their efforts in the games.
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Our Friday, March 18, 2016 International Food Fair (“IFF”) Grand Raffle Draw and IFF evening preparations are underway! A Food Donation &/or Parent Volunteer Form has been sent-out. We greatly appreciate however way you can contribute! In addition to tasty donated Homemade foods, there will be exciting Hall Games, Bouncy Castle, Talent Show & other surprises, so mark your calendars and come join the fun & friendly family atmosphere!

This year proceeds from Raffle ticket sales will be pledged towards BHS Playground Improvement. Besides Grand Raffle Draw fabulous prizes, the highest number of tickets sold by lower and upper school classes will enjoy a BHS PTA sponsored class outing!

Two Grand Raffle Ticket booklets have been distributed to each BHS student for sales to family & friends in a labelled plastic bag. If your child & family want to sell more, please indicate on the labelled bags. Please assist your children to ensure that all SOLD and UNSOLD tickets and money are accounted for upon return to BHS PTA office per labelled information as BHS PTA must comply to strict HK Lottery License guidelines and audit. All SOLD ticket stubs including money & UNSOLD tickets have extended to be returned to the BHS PTA office by March 11, 2016.

Find out how much your child enjoys Coding and 3D printing in the new ICT Room “the Cloud” and the wonderful Family Library Card and Teacher Librarian initiatives in our new Learning Resource Centre library. These projects are happening in spaces that are a DIRECT result of IFF Grand Raffle tickets sales and our enthusiastic BHS Community Support!

Reminders:

We NEED MORE Food Donations & Volunteers! Please let us know if you can help.

Enjoy your weekend,

Rowena Chow

Chair, BHS PTA

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Kowloon Learning Campus Update

We have had a very encouraging start to our work “breaking down barriers” between the three ESF schools in Kowloon and developing a new way of working across the KLC. In 2016, we will continue to work on our 7 goals: Developing curriculum continuity, increasing teacher collaboration, improving access and opportunities for inclusion, coordinating student support, increasing use of specialist facilities, developing learning technology solutions, and encouraging lifelong learning.Parents’ opinions are vital to us. We will be holding a parents consultation on Wednesday 16th March 2016, starting at 9am in Beacon Hill School. All parents are welcome to attend and hear a brief report on progress before having the chance to ask questions.

We look forward to seeing you.

Ed Wickins

Executive Principal, Kowloon Learning Campus

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Health

Communicable diseases

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.

Please take note of the weather forecast and to wear warm clothing appropriately according to the temperature.

(The above information is from the Centre for Health Protection).

The Drug Administration Policy

This can be found at www.beaconhill.edu.hk

Please go to: About us > Other information > Drug administration policy.

Always Keep Hands Clean.

Thank you.

Ms Chen

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.