Weekly Updates on 15/9/2023

1. Thank you for joining UK festival!

Firstly, I would like to congratulate everyone who was involved with the Vietnam/Britain celebration event at the weekend. It was a great occasion and thank you to all those who came along to support.

2. Recap of information events for parents

We continue with the important information events for parents and this week I personally led two important information events on Year 9 and Year 11 options processes.

3. The school strictly follows the health and safety regulations

As you know, we take the health and safety of your children very seriously. Since the start of term you will be pleased to know that we have been further enhancing the level of safety at our swimming pool that includes:

• Upgraded safety equipment
• Additional lifesaving training and formal qualifications for key staff
• Swimming teaching training and formal qualifications for a number of our PE staff
• Regular safety audits to test our processes and systems
• Regular emergency drills at the pool to ensure our safety systems are effective
• Ensuring a good ratio of staff versus children whilst in the pool in line with international standards of safety

These are well and above normal expectations, but as you know, I continue to strive for the best for your children and this will make our pool even safer than it was before.

4. Little Dragons - program for 12-36-month-old children

I am delighted to announce that we have launched our Little Dragons program for 12-36 month children. Please details below that you can share with friends and family.

• Time: 9:00 am - 10:30 am | Every Thursday
• Location: EYFS classrooms, BVIS Hanoi, Royal City, 72A Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi

For more information, click HERE.

5. University Fair 2023

I am delighted to announce that on Monday morning 18th, we will be hosting the morning part of one of the largest University Fairs in Hanoi. There will be representatives from approx. 150 top universities worldwide including universities in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and many more. They are keen to come and meet our students.

The University Fair is a great chance for students from our school and other schools in Hanoi to approach, get to know many universities and consider their suitable future destinations. Students will meet the university representatives to learn about the admissions requirements and application process. This event is complimentary and exclusive to students from BVIS and four others schools only including our sister school BIS. Students across KS4 and KS5 will be organised at specific times to attend the event.

6. NAE annual Senior Leadership Conference in Switzerland

Next week I shall have the pleasure of attending the NAE annual Senior Leadership Conference in Switzerland. This is an annual event that brings together 83 Principals from across the world together with the NAE leadership team to meet and discuss the latest innovations in education. It is an opportunity to share further good practice to bring back to our schools. I will report back on my return from the conference.

7. Last day to register Saturday morning CCA for families hosted by BIS Hanoi

I would like to remind that today is the deadline to register to join the CCA hosted by BIS Hanoi. Please see attached link HERE further details. Kindly note that the CCA is applied for students from F3 and will be held in BIS campus.

8. Register Fun Run 2023 now

Finally, another reminder about the Britcham charity fun run that is taking place in November. Please see the details below.

• Date & time: Sunday, November 5th, 2023 | 8.00 - 11.00 (tentatively)
• Location: British University of Vietnam - BUV, Ecopark, Hung Yen Province

To participate in the event, all members of the BVIS community purchase a Running package “T-shirt and Ticket Combo” with a price contribution of 330,000VND. These funds will be distributed directly to the charitable activities of BritCham Fun Run. This combined price of 330,000VND is reserved for BVIS community members only.

Please kindly click HERE to register and order your shirt size.

* Deadline for registration: 5pm on Sunday, 1st October 2023.

1. Development of communication skills

As the children in Early Years are now more settled, the teachers are focusing on children’s development of communication skills. Communication skills are vitally important in the children’s mother tongue, but children are also able to absorb languages quicker than most adults. This is done through songs, rhymes, stories, repetition and talking. Children’s speech develops from babble, to words, to simple sentences through hundreds of hours of interactions with adults. Studies show that once babies begin to understand words, their vocabulary increases quickly:

• by age 1, children understand about 50 wordsby age 3, children understand about 1,000 words
• by age 5, children understand about 10,000 words

Receptive language is usually developed first followed by expressive language. As speaking and listening develops, children build foundations for literacy, for making sense of visual and verbal signs and ultimately for reading and writing. It has been wonderful to watch the children across the Early Years use their home language to communicate but also to listen to them trying new words by repeating sounds, looking at signs and copying speech.

2. Hobbies

The children of Year 1 have been learning about daily routines and hobbies. They enjoyed looking through pictures of themselves at the weekend and sorting activities into likes and dislikes.

3. Cooperation

We are so proud that Year 2 children are getting more confident to do any teamwork this week. They worked well in pairs during Maths lessons to practice counting in 2s, 5s, 10s and 3s or working well in their team to explore new holiday vocabulary in English and Vietnamese.

4.  Maths is fun!

Year 3 learnt Maths through games and practiced with visual objects (counter, hundred, ten and one blocks).

5. Making Viking Helmets

Year 4 have been learning about Vikings. In STEAM, they have been learning how to use paper mache to create their own Viking helmets.

6. Biodiversity

During IPC, Year 5 learnt about how to classify livings things, food chains and biodiversity.

7. Presenting – Young People Responsible for Progress

In IPC, the Year 6 students have been busy researching, preparing, collaborating, and sharing their knowledge about their chosen ‘person responsible for change’. We are looking forward to their presentations. They have also been getting to know their model text well and are testing each other's knowledge by playing Hot Seat Questions.

1. School value ENQUIRY– learning all about new techniques

Year 10 IGCSE art class practicing water colour techniques using only primary colours: red, blue and yellow!

2. School value GLOBAL CITIZEN - studying culture from other countries

Year 11 researched for information and prepared for their group presentations about Greek mythology and Ramayana - The Indian epic.

3. School value PERSEVERANCE – Developing skills over time

Year 12 A Level art students have been working on using oil paints over the last few lessons, their work is now looking awesome, the power of perseverance!

4. School value ENQUIRY– learning all about new technique

Year 10 have been developing their skills of dribbling facilitated through the game of handball. This is building of their skill of decision making in the last lesson.

5. School value GLOBAL CITIZEN - studying culture from other countries

6. School value ENQUIRY– learning new topics

Year 7 have been learning the new topic of negative numbers, it is not an easy concept, but they are doing fantastically well, keep it up year 7!

7. School value GLOBAL CITIZEN - looking at Digital Society

Year 7 have been exploring our newest subject at Key Stage 3, Digital Society.

8. School value RESPECT

The Year 7s were really excited to listen to Ms Ba’s library induction today in English. They were extremely polite and appreciative during the session!

Primary

Secondary

We wish you all a very relaxing weekend ahead.

BVIS Hanoi's Senior Leadership Team