Ms Deirdre Grimshaw: Weekly Update 21/01/2022

Ms Deirdre Grimshaw: Weekly Update 21/01/2022 It has been wonderful to see the children visiting their classes this week to collect their uniforms, meet their teachers in person, and get an understanding of the rules we need to enforce to ensure their safety when they come back after the Tet holiday.

It has been wonderful to see the children visiting their classes this week to collect their uniforms, meet their teachers in person, and get an understanding of the rules we need to enforce to ensure their safety when they come back after the Tet holiday.

Thanks to all the parents for adhering to the guidelines for the visits and trusting us to look after your children in terms of their health, safety and wellbeing.  For students that were unable to visit this week, please contact your child’s class teacher and we can rearrange another time to visit. 

For our Year 3 parents, we would like to extend an invitation to you all to visit the campus for a tour and orientation visit. This will take place after the children return to school and we will be in touch with more information, including dates and times, after the Tet holiday.

Exchanging Uniforms

Today was the last day to exchange uniforms at the Junior Campus. If you still need to exchange uniforms, you will need to go to the uniform shop at the secondary campus.

If you wish to exchange uniforms, please make sure the labels are still attached. For any uniform exchanges from Monday 24th onwards, please contact Ms Katie Walsh or Ms Nguyen at the secondary campus to make an appointment.

Katie.Walsh@bisvietnam.com  / Nguyen.Huynh@bisvietnam.com

You will need to register your visit on the PC Covid App (scan in at the gate).

Visiting the Junior Campus

For all other visits to the Junior Campus, it is essential that all parents have a confirmed appointment before visiting. If you need to visit the Junior Campus for any reason, please contact Ms Ngoc at reception to make an appointment. n.le@bisvietnam.com You will need to register your visit on the PC Covid App (scan in at the gate) on your first visit.

It is everyone’s responsibility to keep our school community safe, so I ask that you know and follow all the rules for you and your child(ren) when coming onto campus. The directives from the Ministry of Health and the Department of Education and Training are non-negotiable.

Please note the following: If you or a family member living in the same household is a covid positive case, you should not be coming on site until you or the family member have received a negative PCR result and you have tested negative on a Rapid Antigen Test.

If you have recently returned from overseas, you must wait 5 days if fully vaccinated ( 2 doses completed) and have a negative PCR test.

If you or your children are not vaccinated, you must wait for 9 days before returning to campus and have a negative PCR test.

Please can all families adhere strictly to the above in order to keep our BIS community safe.

Looking ahead

We are so excited that we will soon be able to welcome our Primary students back to BIS HCMC, and we are certain you will share our enthusiasm. Contained in this message are some expectations we have before the return to school in order to keep our community safe, but also some guidance on how to keep your family as safe as possible outside of school. There will be a ‘Parent Back to School Webinar’ at 11am on Friday 11th February 2022 - details to be shared closer to the event.

Keeping our Campuses safe:

When we return, a community approach to risk reduction is vital. Research tells us that no single preventative method is enough, and instead we look at a Swiss cheese model where multiple layers greatly reduce transmission.

Returning to School:

Prior to returning to school, all students will be expected to produce a negative Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) result, as well as a full Health Declaration which will be emailed to all parents leading up to re-opening. It is vital that the RAT is completed effectively, and that results can be confirmed.

 It’s OK to feel worried about going back to school

Below are some important tips to help support your child as they return to school from Ms Sarah, Primary Learning Support Leader and Ms Saskia, School Counsellor

Your child might be excited and eager to get back to face-to-face learning and seeing their teachers and friends. They might also feel uncertain, worried or anxious about catching up on learning, fitting back into friendship groups and coping with a school routine.

It is NORMAL for your child to experience some of these feelings:

Sadness, anger, needing reassurance, changes in sleep or appetite, having a stomach ache. They may have difficulty falling asleep the night before school, or be slow to get ready in the morning.

On returning to school they:

•  may be very tired
• overwhelmed by the noise
• overwhelmed by the number of people around them
•  they have to learn to socialise face-to face again
•  they may have less movement breaks
•  have to focus for longer periods of time
•  have to climb stairs
•  pack and carry a school bag

So, how can you help your child?

• Even if you have worries too - be confident, enthusiastic and calm about your child going back to school. This sends your child the positive message that they’ll cope and have fun when they get back into the school routine.
• Tune in and listen to your child’s feelings about returning to school, and let them know that their feelings are OK. For example, ‘It’s OK that your brother is excited and you’re nervous’. Tell them what you do to calm down when you are nervous
• Let your child know it’s OK to feel nervous or uncertain about returning to school, but reassure them that they’ll get through it. For example, ‘It’s OK to feel unsettled – it’s another big change’, ‘A lot of kids will be feeling the same as you’ or ‘The teachers will tell you what to do’. Together find one positive about being at school.
• Help your child reconnect with their classmates. For example, you could organise a playdate  before the first day back, or practise lunchtime conversations.

• Getting used to noise and crowds can help prevent them becoming overwhelmed when returning to school. Use the Tet holiday to spend time with wider groups of family or friends, visit supermarkets and parks.
• Give your child some control. For example, let them choose a new pencil case or decide what they want to do after school.
• If your child has become used to being alone  more often, that is Ok. Encourage them to bring a book or some colouring in their school bag, so that they can read quietly at breaktime, if they need a rest.
• Ask your child’s class teacher where your child can go when they need to be quiet.

• Plan some exercise for each day to help with stairs and PE.
• If they are feeling anxious the day before school, do something fun with them- watch a movie, bake a cake, practice yoga, read a book, play football.

• Remember it will take time for your child to readjust to being back at school and that is OK- they may need breaks, feel tired, or need to be alone.

(Thank you to NHS Scotland, NHS Sheffield and The Australian Parenting Network for some of these resources)

NAE Virtual Young Musician of the Year Competition 2022

Deadline 25th January

To enter students are invited to perform pieces for any of the 11 different categories, encompassing all styles of music and instruments! The categories are split into two sections, Classical/Art Music and Popular Music, so it doesn’t matter if students love Bach or Beyonce, Mozart or Miles Davis, there’s a category to showcase their musical talent in. It is open to all NAE students from age 7-19 across all schools and students can win Global Campus badges for entering. The winning entries will be showcased on Global Campus and receive winners’ certificates.

Please log into Global Campus for entry details and to upload your performances, using this link: NAE Virtual Young Musician of the Year Competition 2022

VinaCapital Foundation's Heartbeat Vietnam Program

We are a group of Year 12 students, and we would like to introduce you to our IBDP CAS Project in collaboration with VinaCapital Foundation's Heartbeat Vietnam program.

 Since 2006, Heartbeat Vietnam has funded life-saving heart surgeries for more than 8,900 children, providing them with pre-treatment and post-operative care which includes nutritional support, travel fees, health check-ups, as well as scholarships to help them remain in school.

 In Vietnam alone, approximately 16,000 children are born with congenital heart defects every year, ranging from milder conditions to more serious ones which prove to be fatal. Without surgery or intervention, these children will have a poor quality of life along with inadequate mental and physical development.

We hope to raise awareness about this problem in Vietnam and collectively raise money to help Heartbeat Vietnam save the lives of more children with these conditions in this country. For every 28 million VND, or 1200 USD, Heartbeat Vietnam will be able to provide a life-saving heart operation for a child.

 We will be taking donations via bank transfer using the following details:

Beneficiary's name: The VinaCapital Foundation

Beneficiary's account number: 007 100 478 0103 (VND)

Bank name: Vietcombank - HCMC Branch

Bank address: 8 Nguyen Hue St., Ben Nghe, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Swift code: BFTVVNVX007

Transfer Note: Heartbeat BIS - [Name] - [Phone number]

 Donations of any amount would be greatly appreciated and will help us achieve our goal: to save the life of at least one child. We would like to invite you to visit our recently launched Instagram page (@heartbeatbishcmc) to find out more about this project.

 Thank you for your support.

Sean Sia 12C

Congratulations to our King’s College MA Graduates!

At BIS we have a strong commitment to our teachers’ continued professional learning, as well as research and evidence from our own school, impacting on the way we do things in BIS. We’re proud of our Nord Anglia Education partnership with King's College London, one of the top universities in the world.  Each year, teachers can apply for a part time place on the Masters in Education programme. Teachers study online in weekly seminars, engage by reading research articles and text books on issues relating to international education, form a network with teachers from other Nord Anglia schools around the globe to share best practice and write assignments. The programme culminates in a 12,000 research-based dissertation. For the last two years, Covid-19 has impacted on the ability to travel to London to celebrate and take part in graduation ceremonies, so this weekend the ‘students’ hosted a graduation celebration for the Classes of 2020 and 2021.

We’re proud of their commitment to learning, to them as role models for adults continuing to learn and to see research carried out in our own school to benefit teaching, learning and our school community. Well done students!!

Parent Satisfaction Survey

Your feedback is so essential for whole school matters.  Our strategic plan is not fixed; one thing the pandemic has taught us is the importance of agility in school leadership.  We have had to adjust our priorities according to the current circumstances. Moving forward, we need your feedback to help us to adjust our priorities for the ‘new normal’.

Please take a moment to complete the survey as we work together to make BIS an even better place for our children to learn.

Here is the link:

2021- 2022 Parent Satisfaction Survey

Health and Safety

Please remember the 5K to keep safe.

27/01 - 13/02/22: Tet holiday

14/02/22: Term 2.2 begins

01/03/22: Book Day at BIS

07/03/22: Photo week at the Junior Campus

And finally...

We have a short week starting Monday, with school finishing on Wednesday 26th January for all students ahead of the TET holiday.  Please do keep a close eye on communication from school over the holidays as there may well be further updates ahead of our school reopening to students.  In the meantime, I wish you all a very  enjoyable weekend.

Deirdre Grimshaw, Headteacher of Junior Campus