2 Mar 2018

Newsletter #23

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

It was good to get back to normal at school this week with the students returning after the school closure period. I would like to thank our community for their support and understanding during this time. As mentioned before I would ask all families to check the temperature of your child each morning prior to sending them to school and keep them at home if there is any indication of fever. We have rescheduled our China Cultural Day activities to Monday 19th March which means that the children can still enjoy the different cultural experiences of the morning with friends across the year groups. Children should come to school on that day dressed in traditional Chinese clothes. Our hip hop group who were going to perform in our Chinese New Year show will now perform at the ESF 50th Anniversary Carnival on Saturday 17th March at KGV. 3A’s class assembly will now take place next Monday 5th March at 9am. We have a busy four weeks leading up to the Easter holiday – details of the events can be found later in the Newsletter.

1P managed to reschedule their trip to Ark Eden this week and enjoyed a fabulous and educational experience with lots of mums and dads joining the day. Our Year 5 children and teachers are busily preparing for their Market Day as part of their Big Business Unit. All the school will have the chance to buy the amazing products they have been making on the Market Day on Friday 16th March. Yesterday our Year 6 students kicked off their Exhibition preparations with an introduction session attended by parents. We are excited about the Exhibition and know that the parents will be truly supportive of their children.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to attend the Student-Led Conferences today. We hope you found the sessions helpful and informative. We also hope you found time to visit our special 50th Anniversary Art Gallery and made a bid in our Silent Art Auction. We will announce the successful bidders next week. Photos can be found HERE.

ESF Stakeholder Survey

Parents will be invited by email early next week to participate in the biennial ESF Stakeholder Survey, which will be open from 5th to 19th March 2018. Through this survey we and ESF 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 5th 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. (The students will complete the survey in school). If you do not receive the email, please check in your ‘Junk Email’ box. If you have any problems or questions please email me directly – james.harrison@bhs.edu.hk

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). All responses are anonymous unless a stakeholder explicitly chooses to identify themselves.

The final event of ESF’s 50th Anniversary Celebrations is taking place on Saturday 17th March with the Anniversary Carnival. Tickets are available online and also on the day. It is being held at KGV from 3pm. Our BHS Ukulele group and our Hip Hop dance group will be performing at the event. We look forward to seeing many of you there.

The following Friday 23rd March is our BHS International Food Fair. I know the raffle tickets have been selling really well. I hope you, your family and friends will be able to support the evening which begins at 5pm.

Today was Ms Detaramani’s final day at BHS as she takes maternity leave. I would like to thank her for doing a wonderful job over the last few months, settling in to BHS so well in rather unexpected circumstances. I wish her and her husband well for the exciting future ahead and hope that we may see her again in the not-too-distant future. Ms Luisa Andrew has been with Anjali and the students all this week getting to know them and the routines and we are excited to welcome her to BHS for the remainder of the school year.

Principal

IMPORTANT DATES

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Portfolios

Year 1 & 2 E-Portfolios

You will see evidence of learning from their units of inquiry as well as from some single subject teachers. These can be accessed in the same way as the first release in December.

Portfolios (Paper Based)

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.

The children will bring these home today after your student-led conference and we would appreciate your help in returning the portfolios to school by Friday 9th March.

Please share and enjoy the portfolio with your child.

Susan Chung

Vice Principal

RCHK Basketball Tournament

Well done to the Beacon Hill basketball team who played in the RCHK basketball tournament today. They played well in all their matches and all the games were very close. Our first game was against the always strong RCHK and despite playing strong defensive basketball we lost 8-2. In our next game we defeated another strong team, CIS, 5-4. Our next two games (Quarry Bay 3-6 and GSIS 4-8) we again played good basketball and if our shots had go in the results might have been different. In our final against Kennedy it was end to end basketball and once again we narrowly lost 3-6. This meant we finished 5th (out of 6th) in a really tough group. The players chose Isaac and Mia as the Beacon Hill players of the tournament.

Thanks to Isaac’s dad for the photos which can be viewed HERE.

Tim Teahan

International Food Fair

23 Mar 2018 (Friday 5-8pm)

A donations and volunteering form for the Food Fair has been sent out. We really appreciate your generosity, be it food, prizes, cash or time so we can run a fun and successful fair.

As requested by our students to cut down on waste and save the planet we would like you all to bring your own containers and eating utensils on the day. For those unable to do so we will have disposable containers available for purchase.

Please keep the money and stubs for raffle tickets rolling in. Huge thanks to all those who have already returned. More tickets are available upon request. Remember the top selling class in Y1-3 and Y4-6 will be awarded with a class event/outing. Please ensure all tickets & monies are safe guarded and correct balances returned to BHS PTA as all numbered tickets & monies are Audited under requirements of the HK Lottery License.

Y5 Pizza Lunch

This will take place on 6 March. Deadline for order was 1 March.

Uniform Shop

We will close from 1 March as we’re busy preparing for the Food Fair. However orders can still be placed and left with reception. These will be processed as soon as possible and sent direct to classroom.