Ms Deirdre Grimshaw: Weekly Update 15/10/2021

In assembly today, I mentioned the many and varied events that have taken place over the last 10 weeks.

Tea Time Recitals, Virtual Runs, Maths competitions, Global Challenges, Blue Dragon Charity Runs, Moon Festival celebrations, Virtual CCAs covering all areas including, sports, the arts, technology and community as well as the many and varied lessons from class teachers and specialist departments.

Throughout the 10 weeks we have seen strong engagement from students. Attendance at lessons has been excellent and completion of tasks set has been of a high standard. We know that this level of student success would not be possible without the support and encouragement of you, the parents and for this we thank you most sincerely. 

We are all looking forward to the half term holiday and we hope that everyone will take the opportunity to step away from screens and now that we can go outside, to spend some time outdoors and catch up with friends and family.

Virtual Co-Curricular Activities (VCCAs)

Our next block of  VCCAs have been shared with all parents now. They will start on Monday, 1st November and finish on Friday,  3rd December.

Any questions please contact Ms Thanh or Mr Chris in the Office.

Digital Citizenship Webinar for Parents

We are delighted to be hosting a Digital Citizenship Webinar for parents on  Thursday October 28th at 3pm. The session will be led by Mr Jonathan Taylor, from the UK’s BeSafe Online. He has worked with many UK and International schools and will be working with our students also.

This Online Safety Workshop is the most up to date, relevant and available workshop that Parents, Carers & Trusted Adults can access. This workshop will allow all attendees the opportunity to understand the possible danger and subsequent harm that can occur as a result of inappropriate online behaviour. Jonathan Taylor has designed this Parent Online Safety workshop to guarantee knowledge, awareness and understanding of the Online world, to protect children, young users, and young adults.

Headteacher’s Coffee Morning

It was lovely to welcome many of you to the Headteacher’s Coffee Morning this week. If you were unable to make it, please take a look below to view the recording. Focusing on enrichment, Ms Lauren Binnington, whole school Deputy Headteacher gave parents a good insight into what is available beyond the classroom for our students.

Primary Headteacher’s Coffee Morning

NAE Global Campus Virtual Swimming Gala

Dear Parents and Athletes,

 Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to those of you that do not know me. My name is Sophie Roberts and I am the Aquatics Leader at BIS. I joined BIS in August and whilst the first few weeks have been challenging working virtually, I am thoroughly enjoying being part of the BIS community and getting to know some of you virtually.

We are ready to launch the NAE Global Campus Virtual swimming gala. This event is due to take place from 6th-14th November 2021. The event is available to all students from Y1-Y13.

 There are 4 swimming races that competitors can participate in; 2 individual races and 2 relay races:

Individual races:

• 25m Freestyle
• 100m Freestyle

Relay races:

•  4x25m Freestyle relay
• 4x100m Freestyle relay

Competitors can take part in more than one event if they wish to. I am aware that you will need access to a swimming pool to take part in this competition. The size of the swimming pool does not matter as long as you are completing the distance required (25m or 100m). For example, if your apartment swimming pool is 20m long, you will need to swim 5 lengths in order to complete 100m.

 The races are ‘freestyle’, which theoretically means you can swim any stroke that you like; however, as we are looking for your fastest times, it is advised that you swim front crawl as this should be the fastest stroke.

 For the relays, there are 3 options. You can either:

1. Get together in one pool with 3 other students in your age group and create a relay team by entering your names and overall relay time.
2. Tell us who is in your relay team but enter your individual time for 25m or 100m and we will combine the time together with the other students of your choice.
3. If you do not have a team, just enter your individual time for the 25m or 100m relay and we will combine it with other students wanting to be in a relay team.

 Please note that if you are able to train for and complete the race/races, the following should be done before participation:

•  The distance to be calculated 25m/100m
• The pool to be clear of obstructions and hazards
• Agreed permission and supervision by an adult at all times

 The times of the races will be done on a trust basis (no evidence is required) although you may wish to submit a picture or a video of you swimming the race or the stopwatch you used to time it.

 If you would like to enter this competition, please complete the SIGN UP form before the 5th November 2021.

 Once you have signed up, you can complete the race/races anytime between 6th- 14th November and submit the RESULTS to me before 16th November 2021.

 I hope to see lots of you being ambitious and competing against other students from Nord Anglia schools around the world.

Sophie Roberts, Aquatics Leader

Health and Safety

Please remember the 5K to keep safe.

16/10/21              Half-term break begins

25/10/21              Term 1.2 begins

28/10/21              Digital Citizenship Talk for Parents

01/11/21              Virtual Co-Curricular Activities: Block 2 starts

03/11/21              PTG Afternoon Tea for parents

PTG 2021 - 2022

Primary PTG Update

On behalf of the Primary and Secondary PTGs as well as the Year 12 students responsible for the  “Parcels of Hope” CAS Project, we would like to thank everyone for their participation in the Virtual Community Quiz yesterday evening! It was a tremendous amount of fun and really good to see the faces of so many from our BIS community supporting this event.

We are thrilled to let you know that we have reached the target amount of VND 118,000,000!  Thank you for your generosity and care which has enabled us to purchase 236x food parcels for distribution to the Friends For Street Children families, this truly is a life impacting gift.

We are planning to do the lucky draw shortly so do be on the lookout for a possible winning message!

We hope you enjoyed our PTG Virtual Community Quiz!  The event was a lovely opportunity for our community to come together and in doing so raise money for Parcels for Hope.  

Did you have any winners at your house? As a community we have raised enough funds to pay for over 130 Food Parcels already.

We look forward to welcoming parents to our Virtual Primary Afternoon Tea taking place on Wednesday 3rd November.  More details will follow but please put 1.30pm on this day in the diary for now. 

 If you have ideas to share or would like to get in touch, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Our email  is primaryptgbis@gmail.com  

 Enjoy your weekend and hope to see more sign ups.

 Thank you,

Gayatri Shankar Primary PTG Coordinator, and the Community Service Team

And Finally…

Congratulations to all the students for participating in the Rube Goldberg Challenge last week.  The quality of the machines was fantastic.

Here is a short taster of some of the machines that were made by students on the Junior Campus, more videos are linked in the Learning Letters this week for each year group.

View the Rube Goldberg video here .

Have a wonderful Half term Holiday everyone.

Deirdre Grimshaw, Headteacher of Junior Campus