Secondary School Updates (1 April 2022)

Secondary School Updates (1 April 2022) As we head into the Easter break, as Secondary School, we wish you all the best for a wonderful holiday surrounded by family.

Key Dates | Pastoral Update | Learning Showcase

Weekly update from Head of Secondary

Dear Parents,

As we head into the Easter break, as Secondary School, we wish you all the best for a wonderful holiday surrounded by family.

It has been a turbulent Term 2, with a great deal of change. I am immensely proud of the community – students, teachers, and parents – for the perseverance shown during this time. I hope as the year progresses, we will see more opening and returning to normal in the school and the city.

Please watch out for communications from school towards the end of the break in case there are any changes to school arrangements. Happy holidays, everyone. 

Chris Newman 

Head of Secondary

Key Dates

• Monday 18 April: First Day of Term 3 
• Thursday 21 April: Study Leave begins for Year 13s 
• Wednesday 27 April: Study Leave begins for Year 11s 

Pastoral Update

Year 7s have had a competitive final week of Term 2 with the second edition of ‘Battle of the Tutors’.

Tutor Reps gathered ideas from their groups and worked with Mrs Brawn to select this term’s challenges. It all kicked off on Monday with a Quiz challenge. Each tutor group had to collaboratively create a quiz on the theme ‘Term 2 at BIS Hanoi’ to send to a rival tutor group. We tested each other’s knowledge of key facts in topics from History to STEAM, we checked if we had been paying attention to the challenges and achievements of others in assembly and we challenged each other to word games revealing our names.

During Tuesday’s Wellbeing lesson we held a mini-model competition designing and building replicas of the BIS Hanoi building out of resources we could find around our home. Wednesday featured a code-breaking challenge where we learnt a special dance language called ‘Labanotation’ – Ms Flavin impressed us all with her moves on our padlet wall! Bonus points were available throughout the week for participation, increased house point totals and attendance. The week culminated in a celebration assembly where we revealed the house point milestones for individual students. I was so proud that almost every single Year 7 student has already achieved their bronze award this year. A special mention was made for Tae Hoo Kwun in 7B who is the first student to reach the Sapphire milestone with a whopping 829 house points so far this year! The assembly ended with the big reveal…who was the champion tutor group in our battle? Super 7S stole the trophy from 7B with a consistent week of challenges!

The coveted ‘Mrs Brawn’ trophy will be making its way to Mr Kassebaum’s tutor room for Term 3.  

Emily Brawn 

Head of Year 7

Learning Showcase

English | Maths | Korean | Science | History | Art | Vietnamese | MFL

History 

This term the Year 8s have been studying a topic on "How do modern and historic slavery compare?".

They have been studying the historic Atlantic Slave Trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas examining life before enslavement, capture, transportation, forced labour and the abolition of the slave trade. Throughout this course students have been making direct comparisons to modern day slavery. Using information from NGOs, including organisation such as Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, students have seen the scale of modern slavery and in particular the ways slavery operates in Vietnam. This has been a huge learning curve and many students have been shocked by what they have found out. They are not undertaking an independent inquiry, examining how supply chains link to modern day slavery.

We were fortunate enough to have a guest speaker. Francesca Livesey is an established leader and subject matter expert in sustainability, social value, responsible business procurement and management.  Ms Livesey has worked with small and medium-sized businesses, non-governmental organizations, research organizations, as well as having worked for the UK government writing their modern slavery statement. Her talk was invaluable and our students will be returning to reflect on it in their enquiry after the holidays.  

Mathematics 

In Year 8, we have been learning all about shape, space and measure. Our enhanced technology skills have enabled us to use a fantastic online tool, Desmos, to learn all about line and rotational symmetry. We then combined our maths knowledge with our creative skills to create some wonderful art pieces too. Along with this, being back in the classroom has meant we have been able to experience some great hands-on learning.

Who would have thought a simple pencil and piece of tracing paper could be so powerful! These two items are key when transforming shapes. Being back has also allowed us to see how we can take maths outside the classroom too. Estimating and measuring lengths are both tricky skills to master but seeing how objects compare to each other in real-life settings allows for a much deeper understanding. 

Korean  

Year 8 and Year 9 students produced Instagram page after reading a novel named ‘소나기’ and ‘봄봄’ in Korean lesson. They practised close reading and thought of the setting and images illustrated while they were reading texts. They learned how to read a text carefully to capture the significant elements in literature. They also created a hashtag for their illustration. In addition, this Instagram cover will be used for the next school year’s Korean textbook. They must be proud of their work! Great effort! 

Ms Song and Ms An   

Korean Teacher

Art

FOBISIA Art Competition 

I would like to congratulate the following students for being shortlisted in the FOBISIA Art competition: 

This competition required students to create an artwork based on the theme ‘A New Normal’ as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has changed life as we know it. Students considered their own cultural and personal context to inspire these stunning artworks. Their work was selected and shortlisted out of all the submissions from Nord Anglia schools and they have been commended for their effort, their concept and the skills demonstrated in their work.  

Well done to all of these students! We are so proud of your achievement! 

Eibhlin Goppert 

Head of Art 

MFL

For the IBDP, there are several different routes you can take to study MFL (Modern Foreign Languages). One of these routes is ‘Ab Initio’, which means that you start the language as a beginner in Year 12.  

Our French Ab Initio class have been learning directions and places in a town in French, so this week they practiced this by using Panda Robots. This cross-curricular activity was a great way to collaborate with the Computer Science Department. The students used basic coding to direct the robots across the town whilst being directed by their partner in French.

It has been so lovely to see this Ab Initio class grow in confidence of speaking in French and using the language to communicate in real life situations, all whilst having a bit of fun too! 

Ms Georgina Dorr 

Head of MFL

Vietnamese 

Year 7 students are learning about informational writing. Students practice how to search, filter and organize information. This week, the students have presented to each other about famous places in Vietnam such as Son Doong cave, Ha Long Bay, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Cu Chi tunnels, Ho Dynasty citadel. The activity is not only giving them more knowledge but also their pride in the homeland. 

Year 8 students are learning about the topic of short stories. They have studied a series of works written in the early 20th century by Nam Cao, Nguyen Cong Hoan, etc. In addition to learning key features of short stories, students have learned more about the socio-cultural context of the country during this period. At the end of the topic, students have a role-play experience to create breaking news relating to a short story. They are very excited and have done a great job with this challenge! 

English 

Being back in school has given us the opportunity to bring some more varied and interesting approaches to lessons. In our Year 10 first language lessons last week we prepared a debate on nuclear disarmament. During our lesson on Wednesday, Mr Hoare’s class and Ms Price’s classes were able to stage a debate between both groups. Combining the classes in this way provided a more competitive edge to the debate and afforded the opportunity to collaborate with a different group of people. The results were two very lively debates, where both sides were able to generate some excellent ideas and showcase some well-developed debate skills. 

Conducting debates is a great way for students to develop their vocabulary for writing an argument. This is useful for all kinds of different writing students will do in the future. It also helps develop confidence in public speaking and presentation skills. Speaking skills are increasingly assessed as part of school examinations as students progress through Secondary school. 

Science

It has been great to have students back into physical learning this last couple of weeks and we have been hitting the practical's hard in Science. In Year 10 Biology, students have been looking into animal nutrition, discussing diet and the role of nutrients within the body. Students have also been busy carrying out nutrient testing on different food samples. It's wonderful to see the students getting hands-on again and opening the doors of scientific discovery!