Mr Simon Higham: Weekly Update 07/10/16

Initially, the collaboration between Nord Anglia Education and The Julliard School in New York was intended to enhance the already outstanding provision that we currently have for Music across BIS, HCMC. However, as our school begins to embark upon the integration of its music scheme and pedagogy, following a one year pilot across ten other schools within our Nord Anglia Education family, it seems that the benefits go far beyond just the musical.

Alongside the improvements in musical abilities, students in schools with the programme noted an impact on transferrable skills such as creativity, confidence and problem solving. In addition to this, teachers also noticed an improvement in other areas of learning such as collaboration, global awareness and independence.

Attached to this week’s Update, are three supporting documents that directly relate to the Julliard Music School programme as BIS, HCMC embarks on its integration into our music lessons.

Further information regarding the programme can be found by reading this post.

PTG Update:

Parent Liaison Volunteer, Ms Ying bisvnptgap1@gmail.com

PTG Family Picnic

Please be reminded of the forthcoming PTG Family Picnic this Sunday, 9th October from 9.30-11.30am at the An Phu Primary Campus. We all look forward to seeing families attend for a fun morning together.

If you require a ticket, they are on sale on the day. This event is FREE for all new families and adults. Child tickets are just 50,000vnd each, whilst adults go free!

Fun activities on the day include:

- Bouncy Castle

- Candy Floss

- Balloon Man

- Dance performance on stage (plus kids can also go on stage to dance)

- Bubble Show on stage

- Games from Funnyland (Creative activities - Pop Arty - making fashion rings, necklaces, Aquabeads, Batroborg and Tailbattler competition)

- Mascots - Chocolate Rabbit and Walnut Squirrel

- Football and Basketball on the big field

- Upcycled uniform shop

Food and drink can be purchased from stalls by St Honore Bakery, Om Restaurant, Shalom Coffee and Osterberg Ice Cream.

See you on Sunday from 9.30am for a chance to bring our school community together, make new friends and have a fun filled family morning.

Community Partners Exchange

As part of our on-going commitment to provide our children with high quality and relevant community service learning, our teachers and TAs took part in a Community Partner Exchange on Tuesday afternoon. In this post read more about how 65 teachers, 52 TAs, 100 community partner children and two local community partners benefitted from generously giving our most effective commodity – our time!

Enterprise Day – Thursday 13^th October

On Thursday 13th October between 10.00am and 11.15am, the front playground will be transformed into a colourful, noisy and frantic market place. Classes across the school are shortly going to receive their starting capital and have begun the process of designing a game, service or product that will attract the attention of their customers; other children in the school. In addition to every class becoming a business for the day, every child will be invited to bring in maximum spending money of 100,000 VND.  This will enable them to experience managing their own budgets by being selective in deciding how to spend their money from the array of tempting offers.

Parents are very welcome to come and observe the young entrepreneurs in action, although we would ask parents to resist the temptation to buy from the stalls so that the customer base of the producers is not confused. 

Further details from F1 to Y1 parents and Y2 to Y6 parents can be found in last week’s letter that can be accessed here.

Learning Together During Book Week – Insights from Y1, Y6 and EYFS

Although Book Week was concluded last Friday, posts relating to the positive impact it had on learning across An Phu primary Campus are still being written. To find out more about what EYFS, Y1 and Y6 students have been doing to promote the written word, take a look at this post

European day of Languages

The European Day of Languages is celebrated on the 26th of September each year. Read more about how this day was celebrated at our school through this post written by Ms Alice Ragouzaridis-Clark, Primary MFL Coordinator.

In the Spotlight - Meet This Week’s Teacher in Focus

This week, we would like to introduce Ms Grace to you, our new Primary Chinese teacher, who is in the spotlight. She is in one of the unique Primary positions by working at both An Phu and Tu Xuong Campuses.  Read about her first impressions of both Vietnam and BIS, HCMC by accessing this post.

Dropping Off and Picking Up at An Phu Primary Campus

As mentioned in both the New Pupil Orientation and Meet the Teacher presentations at the beginning of the academic year, please can all parents ensure that all children are dropped off at school in school from 7.30am and not before, unless they have adult supervision. Recently, I have noticed a growing number of children in school before this time. Please note that the first organised playground duty begins at 7.30am.

In addition to this, please can all parents also ensure that all children are picked up from their classrooms at 2.30pm. As part of school procedure, any child not collected by 2.40pm will be taken to the Late Room in the Canteen where a register of all late pick-ups are recorded.

It is the expectation of our school, that any child attending a late club (3.40pm onwards) should be supervised by a suitable adult prior to the club commencing. Recently, children have been left unsupervised on campus from 2.40pm until their clubs begin at 3.40pm and beyond which has serious Health and Safety implications in the event of an emergency. I thank you for your on-going support in this matter.

If, during your visit to school, you have any reason to be concerned about the safety of a young person, please contact the Designated Safeguarding Person (Ms Dee Grimshaw) or the Headteacher (Mr Simon Higham)

Half Term Sports Programmes

As the British International School HCMC continues to develop its sporting programmes, we will once again be offering a holiday sports camp for our students. This proves to be the most action packed and exciting programme run to date with quality sports providers SSA, FOX, Richard Soriano and Vinh Nguyen offering basketball, football, t-ball, multi skills and swimming for children in years F2 to Y11.  

An overview of the sports on offer is as follows:

If you would like your child to attend one or more of the camps, please collect the relevant form from the AP1 cashier and return it with payment on or before Wednesday 12 October.

SSIS Invitational Swimming Meet

Last Saturday, in preparation for our upcoming BIS Swimming Invitational this Saturday, a variety of Primary and Secondary squad swimmers gained valuable experience in taking part in the SSIS Invitational Swimming Meet. Read about the strength, depth and support of our team in this post by Mr Rick Wheeler, Aquatics Director.

Saturday Morning Football

The Saturday morning BIS football training has started really well for our boys and girls. We have over 60 children signed up already. We have been lucky with the weather so far and the children have been concentrating on close control, ball skills and passing. For the Year 4 and 5 boys FC Barcelona’s methods have been our inspiration and we are committed to improving our player’s skills.  We are in the process of ordering the children’s new personalised football kits for the season, the children are excited to be getting these very soon. 

All are welcome and it’s never too late to start training!  If you are a parent wanting to help out with the training sessions or admin please do let us know.

For more information on sessions or if you can help with coaching, please contact: 

bissaturdayfootball@gmail.com

Upcoming Dates for your Diary

October

Sunday 9^th: PTG Family Picnic. A fun day for all with food, drink, stalls and fun activities for both parents and children. (FREE for new families).

Thursday 13^th: Enterprise Day –

• 8.15am – 9.15am: EYFS (in F1 to F3 classes)
• 9.00am – 9.45am: Y1 (in Y1 classes)
• 10.00am – 11.15am: Y2 to Y6 (on the small field)

Monday 17^th to Friday 21^st: Half Term Holiday

Monday 24^th: School reopens

November

Friday 11^th: 100 Years of the Somme exhibition

Monday 14^th and Tuesday 15^th: Andy Gleadhill (percussionist) visits An Phu Primary Campus

Friday 18^th: Teacher’s Day celebrated at school

Thursday 24^th: F2 and F3 Sports Day – 8.30am

Friday 25^th: Maths Workshops (Y1 to Y6) – 8.15am

And Finally………

You asked, we responded……….

A concern highlighted by parents was that the Parents’ Essentials section of the website was too hard to find. So we have responded by adding a link to the main navigation.

Parental feedback has stated that communication from school to home could be further enhanced. Therefore, under News and Insights you will now find our Social Wall. This is something that anyone can get involved in by attaching the hash tag #BISHCMC to their social media activity - Please note that this is moderated centrally. Feel free to explore and share.

I wish you a very enjoyable weekend – see you at the Picnic on Sunday! Don't forget to share your pictures with us! #BISHCMC

Mr Simon Higham, Head Teacher at An Phu Primary Campus