Newsletter #10

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

PTA News

ESF News

Other News

Dear Parents,

 

Another week has passed so quickly – I hope you have had a positive week. The children at school are all having fun learning in so many different ways. Today 5F shared their class assembly. They showed us their learning journey, from what they were looking forward to before they began in Ms Fearn’s class up until now. They performed great dances, shared their artwork and their descriptive writing, amongst many other things. They have been so busy since August! Well done 5F. Thank you to Ms Fearn, Ms Priya and Ms Kannis who guided the children. Thanks to parents for coming along to support the children – it means so much to them.

Last Sunday ESF held its first ‘marathon’ event in Central. The weather was fabulous and it was wonderful to see such a great showing of ESF families, including of course, many from BHS. Well done to all of you who joined in the various runs. Our student and community choirs joined forces and entertained the crowds later in the day. A tremendous effort from everyone.

Last Friday whilst teachers and educational assistants were engaged in professional development, some ESF support staff, parents and their children supported an effort to clean Bayside Beach. Thank you to the BHS families who took part:

Marcus Chan, Cecilia Wu, Nivana Lam, Ava Leung, Taksh Maru, Namrata Maru, Seraphina Chow, Sethiel Chow, Serina Lee, Athena Gong, Jingwei Tang, Karl Loynd, Mark Loynd and Jamie Loynd

From the photos it is clear that there was a huge amount of rubbish on the beach and by the end of the day, the beach was looking in a much better state. Thank you!

 

Thank you to those who have already sent in their ‘Box of Hope’. Box of Hope is an annual charity project aimed at providing useful/educational gifts to underprivileged children in Hong Kong and Asia donated by Hong Kong school children and local organisations. You fill old shoe boxes with NEW interesting and EDUCATIONAL gifts at home and drop them off at school by Monday 6th November. The boxes are then collected and delivered directly to the children in need. Some of these children have never received a gift. Each child at BHS will be given an A5 sticker to bring home which has ideas about items that can be included in the box. It would be great if each family could donate a box of gifts. The website gives more information: http://boxofhope.org/home/main/en/ Let’s hope we can  brighten the lives of many children.

 

As ESFs 50th Anniversary events draw to an end with the Gala Dinner in December, our very own BHS 50th Events continue. Here is what is coming up:

 

	PTA 60s Fashion Disco Years 1 to 3 – 30th November at 3.15pm Years 4 to 6 – 1st December at 3.15pm Watch out for ticket sales.
	Great BHS Christmas Bake Off 14th December 2017 At home, as a family, bake your best festive, Christmas bakes – biscuits, cakes or desserts. Deliver them to school on the morning of Thursday 14th December where they will be judged. The winners will be announced that evening at our BHS 50th Christmas Concert.
	Quiz night with curry buffet – adults only. 19th January 2018 Look out for the ticket request form which will be in an upcoming Newsletter. Before then, why not start to get a team together? Alternatively, you can form a team on the night.

 

IMPORTANT DATES

 

Parent Information Evenings Offered This Term

Please look out for emails asking you to sign up for these.

 

Community Choir

Our BHS Community Choir began again this week on Thursday. Please sign up if you would like to come along. The evenings are fun and casual and no prior singing or performing experience is necessary.

https://goo.gl/forms/INxcht0TaEQXvyFR2

For existing members, click HERE for the audio files.

 

The Year Group Weekly Updates and Single Subject Monthly Updates are available on the school website – so please remember to refer to the website or our app (https://www.beaconhill.edu.hk/mobile-app/ ) each week to learn about what is happening in your child’s class.

 

Have a great weekend!

 

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James Harrison

Principal

News from the English Team

Author visits

The children in Year 4 have recently been treated to stories from the life of Jan Latta, a wildlife photographer from Australia.  http://www.truetolifebooks.com.au/ Her work in the field of animal conservation and education linked briliantly into the inquiry the Year 4s are doing into living things and their interdepence on each other.

The children enjoyed hearing about all the animals she has met and how she takes such great photographs.  I was amazed to hear about the length of time she invests in each book, “Lena the Lion” took over 6 years from the first photograph to completion.

 

Last week, Year 5 met Hong Kong based author Ritu Hermani, who has recently published a colourful and thought provoking picture book which describes the story of the migration in India which happened in response to India’s independence in 1947. The book has been very well received in Hong Kong, if you are interested in buying a copy for family or friends please use the attached order form.

Order Form Beacon Hill -October.pdf

 

Comprehension focus:  What is inference?

Many of the children at BHS have a reading target to do with inference because it requires a lot of practise. Often described as reading between the lines, a reader must look at the the things the author doesn’t say to infer.  Authors, illustrators, animators, advertisers and film makers deliberately leave out information to allow us to engage with their characters, answer our own questions and generally get us thinking about the text.  It is a way of making us “part owners” of what we are trying to understand.

For example, if I was to look at this picture from the book “The Invisible Boy” by Ludwig and Barton and said

“I see a boy who is drawn in grey and there is a lot of colourful children playing a game,”

I am NOT inferring.

Inference comes when I use my background knowledge to make a judgement about that. For example,

“I infer that the boy is feeling sad and left out because the other children are happily playing a game without him.  I don’t think they invited him to play the game and he is too shy to ask.”

An important thing to remember about inference is that as we use our background knowledge to make a judgement they can differ from another person, however when reading that background knowledge often comes from the rest of the book so the same inferences will be made.

Try these tips at home for helping your child to develop their ability to infer:

1. Ask your child to infer from pictures in books, cover up the words or find a great wordless book, we have lots in the library.
2. Challenge your child to describe a certain character, say an old grumpy man, without using the words old and grumpy.
3. Watch a short movie clip without the sound, can your child infer what is going on?
4. Listen to some music from a movie, can your child infer what action might be taking place at that moment?

As always if you have questions about how you can help your child with reading do not hesitate to get in touch with me, Ms Jeves- jevese2@beaconhill.edu.hk

 

Tinkering Tuesdays

Tinkering Tuesdays have continued this year in the library, these lunchtime sessions are a chance for the children to get creative and have a go at making things with very little guidance from adults about what that should be.  The children who choose to participate are developing a whole range of skills including, importantly, their ability to problem solve.  So far this term we have made paper planes, constructed with Lego, play dough, newspaper and straws.  We have made jewellery and created bookmarks of all shapes and sizes.  This week saw some of the children creating clothes for some mini mannequins.  This revealed a desire in several of the children to learn to sew, if you are a keen sewer and would like to help me teach a small group of interested children at lunchtimes I would love to hear from you.

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Sunshine Action Fund Raising

I am very pleased to announce, thanks to your generosity and the hard work of our students, we raised $150000.  This is a tremendous sum and I think it shows what a special community we belong to.  We can now start to purchase the food so on 8th December our students can work with Sunshine Action at school to make the food parcels for the different charities.  To help our students with the food parcels we need parent volunteers, approximately 30.  These parents will be working with groups of students to help them make the food parcels.  If you are interested please click here.

 

Andy Thompson

Vice Principal

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ESF Christmas ECard

Christmas is fast approaching!  ESF wish to prepare an e-card for Christmas and are inviting ESF students to come up with a design. The Christmas artwork could be a painting or drawing on A4 or A3 paper with any media such as water color, pastel, photography or digital. Please send the original artwork to Ms Yu by 13, November if you would like to enter this exciting competition. Please refer to the above pictures for cards from previous years.

DBIS/HLY Football Tournament

 

On Wednesday 25th Beacon Hill entered three teams into the DBIS/HLY football tournament. All teams represented the school well and played some great football. The boys ‘B’ team won one game, drew one and lost two. The boys ‘A’ team progressed to the bowl competition after winning one game in their group stage. In the semis they defeated Bradbury by penalties. In the bowl final they faced a strong Hong Lok Yuen squad and lost 3-1. The girls team were undefeated in their group stage and qualified for the cup. In the semis they defeated Clearwater Bay 3 nil. In the final it was against Kennedy, who had defeated the girls at the previous tournament and in a tense game we were narrowly defeated 1 nil.

 

Thanks to the wonderful support from our parents and thanks to Mr Pheasant and Miss Mak for their coaching.

 

Results

Boys B

BHS vs Glenealy B	2-2	Matthew, Andy
BHS vs Hong Lok Yuen C	2-1	Andy, Douglas
BHS vs RCHK B	0-1
BHS vs Kennedy B	0-3

 

 

Boys A

BHS vs CDNIS	0-1
BHS vs DBIS	0-2
BHS vs NAIS	2-0	Armaan, Joshua
Bowl Semi BHS vs Bradbury	1-1 (4-2 on penalties)	Jayden
Bowl Final BHS vs Hong Lok Yuen	1-3	Sho

 

 

Girls

BHS vs Kowloon Junior	6-0	Mia 4, Rei 2
BHS vs Hong Lok Yuen	5-0	Mia 3, Sophia, OG
BHS vs AISHK	2-0	Mia 2
Cup Semi BHS vs Clearwater Bay	3-0	Mia 2, Rei
Cup Final BHS vs Kennedy	0-1

 

 

Thanks to Kaeli’s dad and Dylan’s dad for taking photos on the day. Photos can be viewed here. 

 

Tim Teahan

Uniform Shop

Winter Uniform order forms are available in the foyer along with samples of all sizes.

If you’d like order sent direct to classroom please include $0.5 for the plastic bag levy so we can package up your order.
If you wish to buy direct from the uniform shop, opening hours are:

Mornings : Monday – Friday, except Tuesday 8:15-9:15

Afternoons : Monday and Friday only 2:45-3:15

 

Please note the following:

• We’re still waiting for supply of medium & large blue fleece, hopefully they’ll be here early November
• We now only have large stockings left.  Stockings will be discontinued and replaced with long socks.  We’re ordering them now but will take 2 months so should be available in Term 2.

 

Year 6 Bake Sale

Year 6 Bake Sale will take place on Tuesday 31st October during break time.  Items are $5-10.  Please remember to bring some money so your child can treat themselves to some delicious cakes or cookies.  All proceeds go back to school.

Year 1 Pizza Lunch

Year 1 Pizza Lunch will take place on Tuesday 21st November.  Order forms have been distributed, please return by Friday 10th November.

DeliFresh

Deli Fresh hot lunch orders for November 2017 has now lapsed.  If you have not handed in the form and still wish to order, please contact DeliFresh directly for processing.

 

Regards

BHS PTA

To mark ESF’s half-century, we are publishing a commemorative book: ESF The First 50 Years. This volume will chronicle the ESF story, highlighting key events over the last 50 years. It will also celebrate the successes and contributions of our students and staff, both past and current.

The book will be published in November 2017. Place your online order before 30 October to enjoy 10% off and the very special ESF 50th Anniversary Commemorative Book Jubilee Gift Set!  Order link: http://www.esf.edu.hk/50th-book/

Enquiries: 50book@esfcentre.edu.hk

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Health

Immunization Records

Reminder:

All documents submitted by parents or guardians, they will be returned to your child (together with any instruction for you to follow-up, if applicable) via their class teachers or their educational assistants the week starting Monday, 30 October 2017.

 

Thank you.

Ms Chen

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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.