Ms Sue Hill: Weekly Update 01/12/2017

Dear Parents,

7am on a Saturday morning is usually a quiet time here at the BIS campus. This was not the case last Saturday! Despite the cold weather, I was pleased to join approximately 100 cyclists in the Primary playground, who had gathered for the annual KOTO Dream Ride. A team of BIS cyclists took part in the event. Ms. Fitzpatrick, Mr. Allison, Mr. Kelly and Kanta from Year 7 completed the 55 km ride to help raise over $14,000 for the KOTO vision to end the cycle of poverty for disadvantaged youth in Vietnam.

KOTO is one of our community partners. It currently has approximately 200 students who are receiving training in the hospitality business. A group of BIS CAS students have been visiting the training centre every Thursday to work together with the students on art, English and PE projects. Our BIS community can also get involved in sharing festive cheer this year, through our KOTO Xmas project. Please click here to find out further details.

English at the heart of our curriculum

At BIS, we are always exploring different ways of encouraging students to speak confidently in English. Over the course of this term, we have offered a series of parent workshops which have explained how we teach correct pronunciation and reading skills through our phonics programme and how reading is developed and encouraged through the Primary phase. Many events and opportunities for our students to speak English in front of different audiences have also been promoted, for example through the Phase Exhibitions and Year Group assemblies. This afternoon, the Year 2 children presented on the stage and celebrated their learning. I would like to thank all parents for their support of these initiatives.

In Secondary, the emphasis on English continues. This term has seen initiatives such as the use of Reading Doctors who can be found in the library and can ‘diagnose’ the best book for reluctant readers. The Battle of the Books is also taking place in the library in addition to students contributing to reading blogs in order to inspire good reading habits and enjoyment of books.

Today, I received wonderful news that our Year 9 students have come 2^nd in a World Mania competition which was open to over 2000 schools. The completion involved students creating words and they managed 250,000 English words! This is an incredible result. Well done, Year 9 students in Mr. Hoare’s class!

One final note. I would like to thank all Korean parents who have donated books to our library. It is so important for children to continue to access reading materials in their home language as well as English. Yesterday, parents were busy cataloging and arranging books so children can access a greater range of Korean text.

Festive Parent and Teacher Social Event

 Please see below for details of our BIS Xmas Bash which will be held in our last week of term. I hope to see lots of you there to help celebrate the end of a very busy term. Tickets are limited and can be purchased from Admissions and Marketing.

Ms Sue Hill, Principal