Newsletter #2
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
SEN News
PTA News
ESF News
Other News
Dear Parents,
It has been another busy week here at BHS. The Year 1 students are settling in very well to new routines and are quickly making new friends. Our Year 3s went out on their first excursion to the airport and explored how signs are used in our community. No sooner have we welcomed our new Year 1 students, that we turn our attention to Year 1 admissions for 2019-20. Please see below for details. Ms Emily Jeves and a group of Year 6 students welcomed over 100 prospective parents for an induction into a BHS education and a tour of our school. The Year 6 students were wonderful ambassadors for BHS. Thank you to the students and Ms Jeves!
Uniform
Beacon Hill School students proudly wear their uniform. It is always pleasing to see the students so well presented in their uniform as it fosters an ethos of high standards in our school community. The expectation is children wear white socks and all white trainers for PE days and black shoes with purple socks on other days.
A school hat is mandatory to ensure sun safety. We have a ‘No hat, no play’ policy at BHS.
Health & Safety
Mosquitoes
The safety of the children at BHS is our highest priority. We recognise that particularly during the summer months in Hong Kong, mosquito bites can be a problem. In light of this and the recent cases of Dengue Fever in nearby Lion Rock Park, we have worked with ESF Facilities department to complete an intense spraying on the school grounds. Our caretaking staff have also attended to drains or areas where water collects to reduce mosquito breeding environments. Please be reminded that mosquito bands and repellent may be worn as extra protection.
Healthy Snacks
Beacon Hill School recognises the importance of children staying healthy and fit for their own well-being, health and fitness. We encourage and support the children bringing healthy snacks to school and seek your cooperation to ensure your child has healthy snacks rather than cakes, cookies and chips. Mr Hoskins has introduced Fruity Fridays again and we encourage children to bring fruit for their snack every Friday. The fruit peels will be collected for our compost. It is also timely to remind you that BHS is a ‘nut free zone’ as we have some students who are extremely allergic to nuts and any products containing them; this includes peanut butter and nutella sandwiches. Thank you for your support with this!
Wellbeing Focus
Making Connections and Growing Friendships
This week our Well-being focus has been centred around making friends and how to be a good friend to others. We shared ideas about how the children could join in games and invite others to play. Playing cooperatively is a complex skill for the children and requires understanding of people’s actions, feelings and needs. Playing fair, involves different skills such as: following game rules, taking turns, sharing, listening, expressing feelings, speaking with kindness, cooperating, compromising and solving problems.
At home, when the children are playing with others, re-inforce and encourage inclusive play. Prompt the children to:
- Ask, “Can I play with you?”
- Ask, “Do you want a turn?”
- Ask, “What do you want to play?”
- Ask, “Can I use that when you have finished?”
- Ask, “Can I have a turn?”
- Say, “You can go first!”
Over the course of the year, we would like to run some parenting workshops on different aspects of wellbeing. Please complete the survey so that we can prioritise the workshops based on interest. Click here for survey.
Student Achievement
Congratulations to Gabriel Chan 4W, Julien Leung 4F, Marcus Su 4F and Felix Lee 4F for taking part in the Active Kids – Chess Academy Hong Kong Inter-School Team Championships. The children were awarded 1st Runner-up in the Lower Primary Category.
As a PYP school, we encourage the students to take action with their learning. Muchan Kim did just that! Muchan single-handedly organised a book drive to donate books towards the South African Mobile Library on behalf of Beacon Hill School. Well done, Muchan, what an inspiration to us all!
Additionally, congratulations to Davy Wong! He participated in Asia’s largest ice skating competition ever held on 5-12 August 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand! He took part in seven competitions where he won first place three times, second place two times, and also won third place two times. He said it was challenging and fun!
At BHS we value the importance of developing the ‘whole’ child and this means valuing their achievement and interests outside of school. If your child has achieved something special, we would be happy to share that with the BHS community through this newsletter. Please email details and a photograph to kannis.tsui@bhs.edu.hk
Important Dates
Susan Chung
Acting Principal
Year 1 Admissions 2019 – 2020
Central Applications Year 1 (2014birth) admissions in 2019-2020 enewsletter.pdfSummary PYP Evaluation April 2018
In April 2018 Beacon Hill School completed a successful PYP Evaluation involving the whole community. This Evaluation is based on the school development for the time period between May 2013 to April 2018. It culminated in the school completing an in depth self study involving the whole community and a 3 day school visit with two external PYP Evaluators from the International Baccalaureate. The purpose of this document is to summarise the major findings of the evaluation report which highlights our strengths and next steps to ensure we continue to provide a high quality education for all our students.
The PYP Evaluators commended BHS for having a deep understanding and commitment, across our community to the Primary Years Programme (PYP). They found strong pedagogical leadership across the school built on effective communication and transparency to enhance the learning and teaching at BHS. It was also noted that members of community feel they are consulted and involved in the PYP through a high level of communication and transparency. Our Information Literacy Teacher and Information Technology Teacher were recognised as having a significant impact on the learning of students. The redevelopments of the library was recognised for fostering and enhancing the student’s ability to learn through inquiry. Our teachers and students were praised for making optimal use of information technology to enhance learning. BHS was praised for its high level of inclusion and support to meet the individual needs of our students and the range of systems to guide and counsel students if needed. Finally The Evaluators noted the high level of planning and preparation the teachers complete to ensure the best learning possible.
Although it is very satisfying to receive commendations our recommendations provide us with useful guidance on professional development. A major focus will be developing the students ability to reflect on how best they learn. This will involve students become more aware of the relevance of what they are learning and the skills and attitudes that will help them to succeed. We will continue to develop and review our units of inquiry and their relevant assessments to ensure that they are relevant, challenging, engaging and significant to our community. We will also look at how we learn about and celebrate the variety of cultures at our school and the links we can make to our units of inquiry. We will continue to enhance our Exhibition through developing our students understanding of real life issues. Developing the students skills, attitude and understanding of meaningful action will also be a whole school target. Finally, we will continue to share the best practice of our teaching staff to develop our approach to inquiry teaching.
The report findings will be integrated into our school action plans and will be a focus for our professional development over the next five years. If you would like to read the report in full, click HERE. Please contact me if you have any questions at andy.thompson@bhs.edu.hk.
Andy Thompson
Vice Principal
Japanese Mother Tongue Language Group
Our Japanese Mother Tongue Language groups will be starting up again every fortnight on Friday afternoons. Thank you to the parents who coordinate and lead this! Please see additional information below.
Johns Hopkins Centre for Talented Youth
Greetings from the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth! As part of the Johns Hopkins University, CTY conducts the oldest and most extensive university-based Talent Search worldwide by offering above-grade level testing to students in Years 3 through 9. For qualified advanced students, CTY offers challenging summer and online courses as well as family academic programs.
CTY is hosting an upcoming information session at Beacon Hill School (BHS). The schedule is below:
Date: Thursday September 6 2018
Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Venue: BHS 7th Floor Conference Room
RSVP: https://centerfortalentedyouth.formstack.com/forms/2018_19_info_session_bhs_rsvp (on or before Monday, September 3)
During the session, we will provide information about CTY summer and online programs, including their benefits to students and admission requirements. We look forward to seeing you!
Best regards,
Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth
T: HK–(852) 3104-3494 | CN–(86) 15507574758
Counselling Service at BHS
Last year we started a new counselling service at BHS and many children were able to benefit from working one to one with either Alex Meyer (counsellor) or Ann Bridgewater (clinical psychologist). Sadly we have said goodbye to Alex as her family have returned to the UK, but will be welcoming a new counsellor to our support team. Yuki DeLong from HK Social Talk has had experience working with adults and children both in a private practice and in an international school setting. She is familiar with many of the social thinking programs we currently use at BHS and we are confident she will be a good fit for our team.
Last year, both practitioners established a positive relationship between the school, families and the children with whom they are working. The teachers and families who were involved in these services were all very positive about the input and support provided. We are very keen to continue to promote positive mental health and well-being and this will be a focus area across the school. The counselling services could be of great benefit for children needing help with depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues, stress management, social skills, resilience building and emotional regulation amongst others.
Generally children who have a formal diagnosis e.g. autism will be best suited to working with Ann Bridgewater who is a clinical psychologist. Those children without diagnosis but requiring some support/counselling to improve behaviour/emotional stability either at home or school are likely to work with Yuki. Although the service is parent funded, the ESF have made mental well-being a priority and have provided us a budget to subsidise those children referred.
The referral process can be initiated by parents and / or teachers. If you would be interested to know more details about the counselling services and feel that your child may benefit from the therapies offered please contact Colette Davis- colette.davis@bhs.edu.hk for more information.
Colette Davis
Head of SEN
Greetings to all our new families and a warm welcome back to our existing ones.
Hot Lunches
The feedback from our children of our new lunch provider Delicious Chef King Catering Ltd has been very positive. Here are some more photos of what they’ve been eating. We hope you continue to support and order these hot lunches. We shall inform you as soon as the October menu comes out.
Wine and Cheese Welcome Evening
For new parents, the Cheese and Wine Welcome Evening is on Wednesday 29 August commencing 5pm in the 7/F Staff Room. This event coincides with Meet the Teacher which is also that evening.
PTA Volunteer and Donation Forms
Please return the PTA Volunteer & Donation Forms. The various events run by the PTA rely on your support, generosity and valuable time. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Sponsorship form.pdfPTA Welcome Social
The Annual PTA Welcome Social – Bowling Night shall take place on Friday 14 September. This is a great way to socialise and meet fellow parents in a relaxed and fun environment. Please RSVP before Friday 31 August.
2018 welcome social ' inviation.pdfUniform
From Mon 27 August uniforms shall no longer be purchased directly from PTA shop and instead we have set up an online ordering system. The form can be downloaded from BHS website as per the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/YGtQJSc1XwbrFUoO2
To order please download the form, click on the items required, place the cheque in tray at reception and your order will be sent direct to classroom.
Have a great weekend
Regards
BHS PTA
ESF Festival of Music
The ESF Festival of Music – Secondary Showcase, organised by ESF Secondary Music Department and ESF Centre, will take place between 18th and 20th September 2018. Featuring students from Discovery College; Island School; King George V School; Renaissance College; Sha Tin College; South Island School; West Island School.
ESF HK Run 2019
After the huge success of the ESF HK Run last year, the second ESF Hong Kong Run is scheduled for 24 February 2019.
Details of the Event:
Date: Sunday, 24 February 2019
Time: Starting from 07:30am
Venue: Lung Wo Road, Central
Distance: 1Km, 3Km and 10Km
Open to: Students and families, teachers, support staff and their families and friends
Registration fee: Individual $180 / Family Run $400 / School team relay challenge: Free of charge
Online registration: Available by early September
Island School Redevelopment Update
Message from Principal, Mr Stephen Loggie
Dear Parents,
Island school has just recorded our best ever academic results which included
- 5 students scored 45pts
- 6 Students scored 44pts
- 99.1% Pass Rate
- 32.5% over 40 Points
- 91% over 30 Points
I value our partnership with Beacon Hill School and as such I would appreciate the opportunity to give you a thorough briefing on these results as well as:
- An update on the move to Sha Tin
- Share details of the design and timing of moving back to our redeveloped mid-levels campus
- Explain our philosophy and the programs which are driving our success
If you are interested in attending this session, I will be at your school at 2pm on 7 September.
To assist with our arrangements, please RSVP via this linked Google form (Click here).
I hope to see you soon.
Warm regards,
Stephen Loggie
Principal
Island School
Health
The Student Health Service (SHS) / School Dental Care Service (SDCS) 2018 / 2019
Each year, we are requested by the Department of Health to distribute joint enrolment forms for the SHS / the SDCS. These forms have arrived and you can enrol in either one or both.
We have passed them to your child’s class teacher or your child’s class educational assistant (for you) and if you have not received one, please could you let us know ASAP.
Reminder:
- If you enrol for the dental service, you will need to return the completed joint application and consent form together with “a cheque made payable to Beacon Hill School of HK$30.00 (thirty now) with your child’s name and class at the back of the cheque”.
- Students who joined last year will still need to fill in the joint enrolment form for the 2018 / 2019 school year, if they wish to join the service(s) again.
- Please “omit the Student Reference Number” on this form.
Thank you.
Rosalind Chen
Rosalind.chen@bhs.edu.hk
70th Hong Kong Schools Speech Festival
The application form for entering 70th Hong Kong School Speech Festival will be ready for you to pick up at the school front desk from Monday 27th August. If your child/(ren) wants to participate in this competition, please return the application form and application fee HK$120 in a cheque payable to “Beacon Hill School” to the school office on or before Tuesday 11th September, 2018. Any late application received after the deadline will not be accepted.
Please note that ESF school education level is not equivalent to the local school system. If you enrol in the year group programme, please cross check with the following table for the correct age group. HKSMSA is based on the local school system for enrolment.
Should you have any queries, please contact Ms Shiree Yam at the office.
| ESF Level | Local School System |
| Y1 | K3 |
| Y2 | Y1 |
| Y3 | Y2 |
| Y4 | Y3 |
| Y5 | Y4 |
| Y6 | Y5 |
Shiree Yam
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.
