8 Dec 2017

Newsletter #16

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

Today was our ‘Sunshine Action Day’ where we had teams of students, ex-students and parents working brilliantly as teams to organise and bag the food items which were bought as a result of the vast amount of money raised by the BHS community earlier this term. The atmosphere was vibrant as the precisely planned operation began. It is heartening to know that the Beacon Hill community has worked collectively to bring some joy and hope to those in our community who are not as fortunate – an important message to remember as we approach the Christmas holidays. The food parcels are being delivered to a number of different local charitable organisations who will distribute the food parcels. This is a great example of BHS taking positive action. A huge well done and thank you to everyone who has helped especially Mr Thompson and Mr Pheasant who have coordinated the whole project. Photos can be found HERE.

4W treated us to a wonderful assembly this morning and it connected so well with the Sunshine Action Day. The theme was positivity and they showed how they have been Positive Detectives, looking for good, doing good and showing gratitude. They explained how our brains naturally look out for danger and that we need to develop them to look for the positives. Well done to class 4W and thanks to Ms Wu, Mr Lee, Ms Kannis and the parents, some of whom also starred in the assembly!

Our sporting teams have been competing in many tournaments lately. Well done to those who played in last Saturday’s ESF Football and Netball Tournaments at KGV. Our teams did well – further reports can be read later in the newsletter. Thank you to those teachers who have given up much of their own time this term to enable BHS students to participate.

We continued our close links with Island School when our Chamber and Community Choirs sang at their Winter Fair last saturday afternoon. If you missed that performance, you can see the Chamber Choir at various shopping malls (see the schedule below) and at the BHS Christmas Concert next Thursday evening at 7pm. Photos can also be found HERE.

Our Great Beacon Hill Bake Off will take place next Thursday 14th December. To take part, you need to bake a cake, some cakes, cookies, gingerbread houses, mince pies etc etc at home which you are happy to donate and deliver them to school on the morning of 14th December – next Thursday – when they will be judged by a team of ‘highly qualified’ tasters. All of the cakes will then be on display and available for sale that evening at the Christmas Concert and the winner will be announced. Proceeds will be donated to the Operation Santa appeal. Please make sure your entry is clearly labelled and any containers you send your cakes in have your child’s name and class marked on them so we can return them to you.

Last week as I was involved in the annual ESF Teacher Recruitment process, interviewing many candidates from Hong Kong and overseas. I am delighted to announce that I have appointed Ms Samantha Saxena on a permanent basis as from next August. Sam is currently teaching in Year 3 covering Ms Mulligan who is on extended maternity leave this year. It is wonderful to know Sam will be joining the BHS family on a permanent basis.

IMPORTANT DATES

A reminder of our upcoming events to mark the BHS 50th Anniversary:

Quiz night with curry buffet – adults only.

19th January 2018

Tickets for our Quiz and Curry Night are now available – $225 per person including an Indian Curry Buffet. You have received an eNotice which contains a ticket reservation form and further details. The form can also be downloaded HERE.

Tickets are limited so hurry and get a team together for what promises to be a fun evening.

Student Achievement Beyond School

We can share news of several students’ achievements outside of school recently. Karen (5C) earned a third place bronze medal and her sister Kylie received a first place medal in the ESF Swimming Gala on 2nd December, held in South Island school. Moreover, the both participated in the Girls 50m Parent/Child Relay. Well done girls and family!

Cameron (5C) also competed in the 17th annual ESF Swimming Gala and was the winner of the girls 8-9 years old 25m breaststroke race. Awesome effort, Cameron.

Natalie (3F) competed in the 2017 HK Aerobic Gymnastics Age Group Competition which was held on November 19th. She and her partner finished 2nd runner-up in the 6-8 years old mixed pair group. Aerobic gymnastics combines the skills of gymnastics with music and fitness exercise. Well done, Natalie.

At the 2017 Hong Kong Golf Open Zoie (5D) helped run a golf session to train up future HK golfers to improve their golfing skills. Well done Zoie!

Last weekend, Avi (4W) went to China as he was awarded a first prize place in a drawing competition hosted by Guangzhou Children’s Palace. There were contestants from China, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong. Congratulations to Avi.

Community Choir

Our BHS Community Choir has started up again. 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!

James Harrison

Principal

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Green Team

The Green Team would like to remind everyone of a few environmental reminders so that we can cut down on the amount of waste at this celebratory time.

Please bring all food in recyclable containers with your child’s name and class clearly printed. This will mean that we don’t need to throw any containers away and you can use the container again.
Please bring enough food for 6-8 people. 30 students bringing enough for one each will be too much food and we don’t want any food going to waste.
Please carefully unwrap your secret Santa gift so you can re-use the paper. Maybe you could you use it to wrap another present or make some arts and crafts. You might want to wrap your present in some old paper that you redesign or use a cloth to wrap the present.
If you have reusable non-breakable plates, cups and utensils at home you might want to bring these to school for your party. This will mean that we use less paper or plastic ones at school and means we will have less waste.

Thank you so much for helping with this.

Merry Christmas from the Green Team

Jane Faragó

Environmental Officer

Maker Jam Slam

On Wednesday the 29th of November a group of Year 6 students took part in the Maker Jam Slam at Victoria Shanghai Academy.

The event was split into two parts. The first part was an expo of Making with technology in each school. Our students showcased technology projects from Years 3 to 6 including:

Drawing Machines from Year 6
3D printed cars from Year 5
Light Painting from Year 6
Micro:bit from Year 3 and 4
Cardboard construction from Year 3
Scratch games, 3D faces and game controllers

The second part was a design and making challenge. Looking at Global Goal number 6, Clean water and sanitation, students had to build a machine to transport and clean dirty water while carrying it over a PE bench from one tray to another. It was quite difficult but the students followed a design thinking process to come up with some fantastic ideas.

The students final machine was a cardboard tower with connected cups that can be lifted by strings. The cup then empties onto a slope and funnel (made of popsicle sticks) then down a tube made of cups. At the end of the tube there is a filter we made from fabric and sand.

Here is a video of the machine working: http://gg.gg/y6machine

Our Year 6 students did an amazing job and made one of the only working machines. They showed excellent problem solving and teamwork skills.

Stu Lowe

ICHK’s Football Tournament

On Friday 1st December our U9 girls team (Kanna, Rei, Yvaine, Crystal, Sakurako, Gingerlily and Linda) travelled to Hong Lok Yuen to take part in ICHK’s football tournament. For many of the team it was their first ever tournament. There were 2 rounds of the group stages and the girls showed great spirit. We drew our first game with GSIS with Gingerlily making some awesome saves. We then went on to win our 2nd and 3rd games against ICHK and Kellet winning 6-0 and 4-0 with Sakurako scoring her first goal in her first tournament, Rei scoring 6 and Kanna scoring 3 of the goals. In the second round we unfortunately lost 1-0 to GSIS despite our defence and midfields working hard. We continued our goal flurry beating ICHK 6-0 (Rei 4, Kanna 2) and Kellet 7-0 (Rei 5, Kanna 2). This got us to the finals where we were playing against GSIS. The girls all worked incredibly hard, creating many chances that just didn’t go in the goal and fought some heavy marking. Unfortunately, they lost 2-0 to GSIS finishing as runners up. This was an amazing result for the girls in their first tournament. Thank you to the parents who travelled to Hong Lok Yuen for their support and to the girls for giving their all on the pitch and being such good teammates.

Haymen Mak

ESF Football

Well done to the school football team who played in the ESF football on Saturday 2nd December. We played some very good football but were just unlucky with the results. Our first game was against Glenealy and we dominated the match but just couldn’t score in the small goals. Against Kowloon Junior B we scored a nice goal early on from Mia and held on strong in defense to win one nil. Our third game against Kennedy, the strongest team this year, we defended strongly and gave them a tough game in a two nil lose. Things didn’t go to plan against DBIS and we lost 2 nil. WEW had finished third in our group and qualified for the plate semi finals. In the plate we lost two nil against Kennedy B but it was one of those games were if the ball had bounced differently we might have won. Sho was chosen as our player of the tournament. Thanks to Mr Thompson for coaching and the parents who supported us.

Thanks to Sho’s dad for taking photos. They can be viewed HERE.

Tim Teahan

HLY Netball Tournament

On November 27^th, we were invited to take part in the Hong Lok Yuen Netball Tournament. Our first game was against Kellet Kowloon Bay. We weren’t really settled down for our first match and unfortunately lost 9-2. Our next game was against Harrow. As a team we worked hard for our second match and beat them 5-0. We continued our group spirit for the third match against RCHK and won 10-0. We had our hardest match against DBIS losing 11-3. Finally we came a respectable 4^th out of 11 schools. I would like to thank Ms Andrews, Ms Younie and all the other parents for supporting us.

Carrie Chan

Captain of HLY Tournament

ESF Netball

On Saturday 2nd of December, Australian International School and ESF hosted the annual U11 netball tournament at KGV. We had a fantastic start winning the first two games against RCHK and Kellett School, both 3-0. The third match was the toughest match which was against FIS and we unfortunately lost 4-0, however we got into the quarterfinals. This match was against DBIS who we had lost to in a friendly game earlier in the morning. We made a huge improvement as a team and surprised ourselves and everyone by winning the game 5-1. This got us into the semi-finals which was against FIS which we knew was going to be a tough game, we sadly lost to them. FIS went onto winning the whole tournament so we put up a good fight. Onto the finals where our last match was to determine 3rd and 4th place overall out of the 20 schools competing. This match was against QBS, which was a tough, hard fought match where we managed to score the only goal in the game to get our 3rd place. Thank you to Miss Younie and Miss Andrews for coaching us to this tremendous win and to all the parents who supported us in all our matches this season.

Photos can be found HERE.

Poppy Wong

Captain of AISHK ESF Tournament

Students vs Staff Annual Netball Game

Our last training of the season was the annual student vs staff netball game. It was a fantastic turnout with Y5 and Y6 mixed teams and great way to end a successful netball season. The teams fought hard against the staff and played some exceptional games of netball. We would like to thank you to Mr Harrison, Mr Pheasant, Mr Thompson, Mr Hubbard, Mr Hoskins, Ms Younie, Mrs Fletcher, Mrs Sanghvi, Mrs Craig, Mr Douglas, Mrs Fisher, Ms Andrews, Mrs Detaramani, Ms Barr, Mr Teahan and Ms Kannis for taking the time to play against the students. Another thank you goes to the Y6 umpires, Mia Lo, Carrie Chan, Poppy Wong and Nikita Dawes. A huge well done and thank you to all the students involved in this year’s netball club!

We look forward one last netball friendly and netball celebration against KJS on Thursday January 18th 2018.

PTA Christmas Hampers

Our last drive for donations to the Xmas hampers… These shall be assembled 11 December so if you have any items that can be included please bring them into PTA office. We kindly need your donation of items to fill our Xmas hampers. The lucky draw will take place on the night of the Xmas Concert.

Christmas Concert

Deadline for purchase of tickets to the Xmas Concert was 1 December. Note, tickets will not be available to purchase at the door and must have been bought in advance. All performers will be given free pass into the event. For those who have purchased tickets, these will be distributed on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Grand Raffle Prize Donations

Huge thanks to parents who have donated prizes / cash towards our Grand Raffle. Without your generosity we cannot make the event so successful. If you would like to contribute please reply to the E-notice which was sent out on 22 November. Your generosity is much appreciated.

DeliFresh

Menu for January has been sent home. Please note deadline for ordering is 12 December (Tuesday).

Uniform Shop

Please note from now until the end of term, Uniform Shop will only be open in the mornings.

Opening hours are:

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

Afternoons : Closed

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. Order link: http://www.esf.edu.hk/50th-book/

Enquiries: 50book@esfcentre.edu.hk