Newsletter #30

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

PTA News

Other News

Dear Parents, Family and Friends,

Another busy week has drawn to a close. This week has been our ‘Green Week’ where the children have had the opportunity to take part in activities to highlight environmental issues. This has been a great success. But for me, it is only truly successful if we make sure any positive changes we have made, however small, become our new ‘normal’ and we do not slip back into our ‘old ways’. Thanks to Mrs Farago, the Green Team and all the other adults who have helped out this week and to you for supporting the children at home.

This morning 5Y shared their class assembly with their parents and the school. They took us on a journey through dance where we learned so much about the history and the elements of dance. Of course there were lots of examples of dance from students and even some staff members! Well done to 5Y for a fabulous and entertaining assembly and thank you to Ms Younie, Ms Priya, Ms Fletcher, Ms Kannis and all the other adults who helped.

Following on from the theme of dance, this evening we have some students taking part in the first ‘ESF Celebration of Dance’ being held at Kowloon Junior School. We have been incredibly fortunate as two of our parents who are professional dancers (https://www.dancefloor.com.hk/) have given many hours of their time to prepare the soundtrack and come into school to choreograph the dance. I have seen several of the rehearsal sessions and am truly impressed with the standards achieved. Thank you so much to Kenny Tsang and Agnes Chan, parents of Karsten Tsang in 2K.

Well done to classes 3M and 6F who found out that this week that they sold the most raffle tickets in support of our International Food Fair so they will be treated to a day out of their choice this term! Thank you to the whole BHS community for the incredible support and a reminder for any families who have not yet returned raffle tickets to send them into school as soon as possible.

Heifer Read to Feed – Reading for Empathy, Reading against Poverty!

We are delighted to inform you that BHS is participating in the Heifer Read to Feed program, an educational fund-raising program that fosters a love of reading in students while empowering them to make a difference in rural China. We hope you can support your child to join this meaningful program. The sponsored programme will kick-off on Monday 13th March, the first day of our Book Week and run until Tuesday 18th April, the first day back at school after the Easter holiday.

Students taking part are encouraged to read while collecting sponsorship from parents, relatives and friends based on the number of books read or a single donation. Funds collected this school year will be used to assist impoverished families in Wadu Township of Baoshan City in Yunnan Province. The money will be used to help them become self-reliant by providing livestock and training with the ultimate goal of helping more families in the community from “Passing on the Gift” – that is recipients donate their animal offspring and pass on their new animal husbandry knowledge to other villagers.

We appreciate your encouragement and support of your child while he or she participates in Read to Feed, allowing them to enjoy reading and helping others for a better world. Thank you!

Please click below to download a sponsorship form

Please click below to download a Reading Record sheet

IMPORTANT DATES

Achievement Beyond School

Alyssa Ho (6F) competed in the Inter-Regional and Inter-District Squash Competition on 24th April and was the first Runner-up out of 64 participants in the Girls Under 11 (GU11) Category. This is one of two ranking tournaments organised by Hong Kong Squash each year and means Alyssa will move up in ranking from No. 7 to No.2 within Hong Kong! Her District Team (Java Road Sports Centre) also won the overall champion in the Inter-District Competition this year, which represents the fifth consecutive win for the Centre.
Alyssa also managed to have a bit of fun participating in the Junior Spartan Race last Saturday. She thoroughly enjoyed the event slogging in the mud along with hundreds of other kids. Well done to Alyssa and any other students who may have taken part in this event.

Howard Chung (6F) has recently won the 2nd prize in Grade 6 Piano Competition in the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. Congratulations to Howard.

During the Easter holidays, Natalee Evans (6H) played two youth showcase games at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, winning one and drawing the other with her club team “The Flying Kukris”.

Natalee was also selected to assist for the three days of the sevens at Hong Kong stadium by doing ball retrieval on the main pitch. Natalee really enjoyed this superb opportunity, by seeing some of the world’s best rugby players up close on the pitch. She even managed to have some selfies taken with them. She was awarded one of the match balls as a reward for her efforts.

Well done Natalee.
A reminder that school is closed next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We look forward to seeing all the children again on Thursday 4th May.

Wishing you a great long weekend.

_

James Harrison

Principal

Information Literacy

At Beacon Hill School the children are taught a range of skills as part of the Information Literacy curriculum. They learn how to ask good questions and find reliable information that will help them learn. In today’s connected world finding information is very easy but it can be overwhelming, we encourage the children to ask “Is this information useful?” and “Is it reliable?”. Talking to your child about checking facts and being skeptical about what they see on the internet is valuable.

When your child is searching for information online at home make sure that they are using a child friendly and child safe search engine. Although this doesn’t guarantee that the children will not access unsuitable material, adult supervision is the only way to do that, it will help to make their search safer.

Have you seen this website?  https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

It is a fabulous resource for parents as it gives reviews and recommendations for books, films, games and apps. There is often a recommended age given and a brief overview of the content which will help you to decide whether it is suitable for your child. I often use it when buying books for the library.

Take a look at the ‘Family Guides’ page which gives lots of useful information, I particularly enjoyed reading the suggestions for getting children’s hooked on books.

If you have any questions about Information Literacy at school please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Ms Jeves

jevese2@beaconhill.edu.hk

Green Team

We have all really enjoyed our Green Week this week.

To start the week, a small group of children and their parents went tree planting. We all met in Mui Wu and followed Mr Melsom to the right spot, up a small hill. Together the children planted 32 trees and all did a great job. The children’s enthusiasm was a credit to them and all the adults were very impressed with their drive and want to do a good job. For more photos, click HERE.

Throughout the week the children have enjoyed various activities. On Wednesday and Thursday many children bought wheatgrass or cress seeds for Wheatgrass Wednesday.  There are still some left if you are still interested. Those with seeds will be able to enter a competition where the children make their own pot with a face out out of an old container in which the wheatgrass grows like green hair. The cress and wheatgrass grows very quickly. When it is grown the children will be able to enter their wheatgrass head into a school wide competition.

We have had many fabulous entries for the Endangered Animals Art Competition. There will be prizes for each year group.

This Friday was also a special kind of dress casual day. The children were asked to wear Earth colours and to accessorise their outfit with something that has been recycled or upcycled. During the parade at lunchtime the children showed off what they had made. The money collected will be going to the charity Redress Asia and WWF.
To focus on how much waste each class makes, especially from packaging in our lunchboxes, each class’ rubbish bin was weighed today. The classes with the lightest bins will be given certificates next week. The light bins shows that the class recycles a lot of their waste and that the children have nor brought in food in unrecyclable packages. Unfortunately more and more of our students are starting to drink drinks out of cartons/ juice boxes and eat unhealthy foods, such as biscuits or crisps, wrapped in one or two layers of single-use plastic. Thank you to everyone who brings their food in reuseable containers and who aims to use as little plastic as possible.

There have been numerous activities and competitions for the children in their break and snack times throughout the week as well as a lunchtime movie. I hope your child has been able to share something that they have enjoyed doing this week.

Jane Faragó

School Yearbook

Year 6 Exhibition Food Drive

Why are We Doing This:

While we were doing our research, we found that:

–  1 in 3 elderly people in HK struggle to get their basic needs met!

– There are 600,000 working poor in HK!

– Hong Kong has the highest income gap between the rich and the poor of any developed economy in the world!

– 1 in 9 people in the world will go hungry tonight!

What You Could Bring Into School To Help

We are asking for donations of the following:

Cooking Oil, Seasoning eg Oyster Sauce, Soy Sauce, Rock Sugar, Salt, Canned Food and Dry Food Products such as Snow Fungus, Black Fungus, Red Date, Dried shrimp, Dried mushroom, Vermicelli etc.

Snacks such as Cookies and Candies are also okay.

You can also bring in money for donations, which will be used to buy even more food!

Donations of food and money will start on Thursday the 4th of May until Wednesday the 10th of May!

Please hand donations in at the reception area.
Thank you for helping the BHS food drive!

Year 3 Action Day

Professor Peter Sullivan

Peter Sullivan is Professor of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, at Monash University in Australia. He is the immediate past President of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers and was the lead writer of the Australian Mathematics curriculum.

Professor Sullivan is one of the world’s leading authorities in Mathematics, and will be making his first visit to Beacon Hill School from May 18th-19th. During his visit, Professor Sullivan will work alongside the teachers to challenge all our students to reach their full potential in Mathematics through the use of open-ended, rich learning tasks and problems.

We are thrilled to announce that Professor Sullivan will run a workshop for parents in order to enhance your understanding of how you may help your children in the development of Mathematical thinking. This is for parents only, there is no need for children to attend.
If you would like to attend, click here to register.

Thank you to the Y4 students & families for your home-made Bake Sale goodies.  Y4 helped to raise $3174 for the BHS PTA to support BHS.

Reminders:

1. Tuesday 9 May 2017 Y4 Pizza Lunch
2. Tuesday 23 May 2017 Y1 Bake Sale

Enjoy the long weekend!

Rowena Chow

Chair, BHS PTA

Health

Herpangina (Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease)

Both Herpangina and HFMD are caused by a virus from the same family, Coxsackie A virus.

With Herpangina, the child may feel generally unwell, lacking energy, headache, fever and sore throat.

With HFMD, the child may experience all the above (as Herpangina) and in addition, spots on the hands and feet (that is, skin rash with vesicles).

The prevention is by means of maintaining good personal hygiene and good environmental hygiene.

Please consult the doctor about pain relief medication for the (very) painful mouth ulcers.

It is important to keep the child as comfortable as possible and hydrated.  Due to the (very) painful mouth sores, the child may not want to eat and to drink oral fluids.  Parental support or guardian support is part of the treatment.

Please re-visit the doctor, if the pain relief medication is ineffective and the mouth ulcers remain for more than ten days.

At present, we have one child on sick leave diagnosed with Herpangina.

Please closely monitor other children in the family.

IMMUNIZATION RECORDS (FROM PRIMARY ONE & SIX STUDENTS ONLY)

All documents submitted by parents or guardians, we have returned them all to your child (via your child’s class teacher) together with any instructions from the Immunization Team of the Department of Health for you to follow-up, if applicable.

Always Keep Hands Clean.

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.