Weekly Highlights 10/02/2023

Mr. Simon Higham, Principal

Dear Parents

This week we have been privileged to welcome a huge amount of visitors to our school, meeting with teachers, non-teaching school staff and students.

School Visitors

On Monday, we had 12 visitors from Durham in the UK on a cultural visit to our school. It was very pleasing to see them in school and interacting effectively with our own Year 10 students who acted as the perfect chaperones for the day. Read more about their visit in Mr Bate’s section of today’s Highlights.

On Tuesday, we were visited by colleagues from our Nord Anglia Education School in Pattaya, Thailand who were here to learn more about the unique way in which we teach the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) within Primary. Being part of the biggest premium schools' group in the world allows us to share our experiences, pedagogy and resources to ensure that every one of our children receive the best possible education that we can provide.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we were visited by members of our NAE ExCo team who have come together in HCMC to take part in their annual meeting. Mr George Ghantous (Chief Operations Officer) met with myself, members of our Admin leadership team and our Secondary Student Leadership Team. He was extremely impressed with our school’s positive culture, demand for the highest standards in all that we do and, the recent upgrades we have made across the whole school site.

Following Mr Ghantous’s visit, we welcomed Ms Vanessa Nicholls (Group Strategic Programmes Director) to BVIS. This was Ms Nicholl’s first visit to our school and she met with our IT Integration Team, Mr Luke Curran (Head of Safeguarding, Welfare and Guidance) and Ms Dung Mai (University Guidance Counsellor) to discuss some new and exciting programmes that will be coming soon to Nord Anglia Education students.

All these visitors were in addition to welcoming Ms Jo Pearce, outlined in Ms Mary’s Highlights last week and the impending visit of our artists from Juilliard who will be in school in early March to work with teachers and students in their drama, dance and music lessons – read more about this in Mr Bate’s Highlights below.

Upcoming Residential Trips

Following this week’s theme of visits, I would like to wish all of our Year 4 and Year 5 students all the very best for their residential visits that take place next week. There is a great deal of excitement already around these year groups as many of these children will be spending time away from home for the very first time.

I look forward to hearing about the adventures they had and friendships that were made (or made stronger) in future editions of the Highlights. Year 6 students must wait until early March to attend their final residential of their Primary years.

Outstanding educational experiences lie at the heart of what we offer at our school and more can be found out about how we bring this aim to become a reality by clicking here and visiting our website.

Parent’s Satisfaction Survey 2022-23 – we need your help!

As mentioned in last week’s Highlights, we have recently launched our 2022-23 Parent Satisfaction Survey which will remain live until Friday 3rd March 2023.

So far, we have received over 100 completed surveys but still need your help and support to exceed last year’s 60% response rate.

All responses and feedback will be combined with those of other parents at our school and will remain anonymous. Results will be shared with you later in the academic year.

To complete this year’s survey, please click on the link that has been sent to all parents.

Contact Us

To further engage and connect with us and your child’s learning, please do not hesitate to use the contact information below. Our staff are looking forward to assisting you and answering any questions that you may have regarding your child’s BVIS education:

Thank you again for taking time to read this week’s Highlights and on behalf of everyone at our school, I would like to wish you a safe and peaceful weekend ahead.  

Mrs Mary McAloon, Head of Primary

Preparing for the Residentials

Next week our Year 4 and Year 5 students embark on their annual residential experience.  Teachers and students have been preparing all week, so they know what to pack and what to expect when they arrive at their destination.  

Year 4 students and teachers will travel to Long Hai for a 1-night stay with some incredibly fun and rewarding activities planned for them by their teachers.  Meanwhile, Year 5 are going further afield and will stay in the Mekong Delta for two nights.  The Year 5 students will participate in activities that enhance their learning in their topic on Rivers.  Year 5 will also spend time with other students from a local school as part of their community partnership to help renovate their school library to inspire them to increase the time they spend reading.

We look forward to hearing all about their experience when they return.

Year 3 Entry Point

This week the Year 3 students were introduced to their new Lien Ket topic through an exciting Entry Point.  The initial hook began with an email from Mr Simon with the subject, ‘’Emergency! Dinosaur escaped’.  Mr Simon explained that Saigon Zoo have been, “experimenting with some dinosaur DNA that they managed to extract from a fossil. Using the DNA, they have been able to create a dinosaur.”  The unfortunate circumstance was that the dinosaur had escaped! The Year 3 students split up into teams and worked hard to find out what type of dinosaur had escaped.  In each clue, the children had to apply their knowledge from different areas of the curriculum to get to the next clue.  For example, measurement and measuring the height of the dinosaur based on a hole it had made in the ceiling!  They also used their critical thinking, perseverance and collaboration to solve each problem.  The students were fantastic detectives and discovered that the escaped dinosaur was…. A Triceratops!  

Students were enthused to join the trail and completed their activities inspired and excited to begin their new topic about dinosaurs.

U11 Badminton City Championships

This week we welcomed schools from around the city to compete in the U11 Badminton City Championships.  The BVIS Girls and Boys Badminton Teams have been working tirelessly with Ms Kim, their badminton coach since the beginning of the Season 1 clubs programme and were ready to take the challenge of the City Championship.

Both teams played well, supported one another showing the true BVIS Bulldogs spirit.  We are all proud of their passion, dedication and commitment to the sport.  The great habits that they have adopted over the past 6 months to reach the city championships and achieving what they did this week have helped to mould and shape their attitudes and drive for future challenges and experiences in all subjects.  

Congratulations to our U11 girls and boys badminton teams for the great sportsmanship that they showed this week!

Upcoming Events 

• 13/02/23: Season 3 clubs begin
  
  
• 15/02/23: Y5 Residential Trip
  
  
• 16/02/23: Y4 Residential Trip
  
  
• 21/02/23 and 23/02/23: Parents Evening for B and I classes
  
  
• 27/02/23 to 03/03/23: Book Week Celebration
  
  
• 28/02/23 and 02/03/23: Parents Evening for V and S classes
  
  
• 01/03/23: Positive Parenting Workshop 5: Wearing your firm parenting hat for Upper Primary
  
  
• 03/03/23: World Book Day dress-up celebration
  
  
• 07/03/23: Y6 Residential Trip
  
  
• 07/03/23: EYFS Sports Morning

• 15/03/23: Positive Parenting Workshop 5: Wearing your firm parenting hat for Lower Primary

Mr Toby Bate, Head of Secondary

Visit from UK School

On Monday of this week BVIS welcomed ten students and two teachers from a school in Durham, in the UK.

The visiting students toured the school and attended lessons with some of our Year 10 students. Both sets of students enjoyed discussing the similarities and differences between their lives and this cultural exchange will have been very valuable for our students who are considering going to university in the UK. 

The visitors were hugely complimentary about the school and the learning experiences they took part in and I know they also especially enjoyed the food at BVIS as well.

A huge thank you goes to Ms Stanley, our Head of Maths and Computing, who helped to organise the whole visit, and to all the students and staff members who made our visitors feel so welcome.

An Update from our Vietnamese Department

This week, Year 12 students have been very excited in their Geography lessons because of an important and interesting project. With the topic of “Travelling to the North, Centre and South of Vietnam”, they had to present and discuss the unique features of each regional part and compare the difference between local culture and food after looking for information, selecting contents and photos. 
 
“Tourism in Vietnam” topic has been mentioned a lot recently, especially after the challenges from COVID-19. The students learnt that Vietnam has lots of potential beauty, many natural and cultural heritages have been recognized, and there are gorgeous landscapes and various cultures in each region. They also learnt that there were difficulties and challenges in exploiting and managing tourism. Then, they questioned and discussed together about issues relating to: 

• Why is Vietnamese tourism not in line with its potential yet? 
  
  
• What are the unique features of tourism in Vietnam to attract foreign tourists? 
  
  
• Why did the tourists visit Vietnam only once and will never return? 
  
  
• How to retain the tourists? 
  
  
• What should the Vietnamese government do to sustainably exploit the tourism resource? 

They were working so hard to finish the project. Well done!

Juilliard Visit to BVIS 

As part of our performing arts programme at BVIS we are partnered with the renowned performing arts school Juilliard.  

On the 2nd and 3rd of March our visiting artists Tania Hakkim and Stephanie Cunningham will be coming to school to work with students and staff on the drama curriculum.  

On Thursday 2nd March between 8.40am and 10.20am, Tania and Stephanie will be running a parent workshop.  

This workshop is ideal for parents who are keen to find out what the benefits of drama are for students and will give you a hands-on experience of taking part in a typical drama class.  

• Discussion of how a drama education benefits your child 
  
  
• Question and answer session about the course and skills 
  
  
• Practical drama activities  
  
  
• If you are interested in participating, please click here to register. 

Year 7 trip to Mui Ne review from Pemica 7S 

“During the Y7 trip, One of the things that I enjoyed a lot, was the time playing and hanging out with my friends who aren't in the same tutor group as I am in.  
 
I also enjoyed the sand art making activities as well - It was fun, and we could use our imagination. The Fairy Stream Hike, and the Ta Cu Mountain were cool too! 
 
I would definitely go back there!”

Year 8 Trip to Cat Tien Review by Max 8I

“Hi, my name is Max, and I’m a Year 8 student at BVIS. Today I’m going to share what I was most interested in on my trip to Ta Lai Cat Tien. We stayed at Orchard House Resort and went away for 4 days and 3 nights. Overall, I felt interested and excited. I was having fun with my friends in activities, each day were 2 main events with a camp fire one night. I also saw Jupiter & Mars while relaxing beside the camp fire.

Now I will tell you about what were my favourite activities in the trip:

Kayaking – I loved the gorgeous views in the deep forest in the Lake. Secondly I saw fish jumping out of the water through the algae in front of my eyes! I felt really relaxed with the cool water in the hot sun.

Mountain biking – Again the views were beautiful with the rocky and challenging road made me feel adventurous and excited. The jungle had cool and fresh air. I went and visited the bear sanctuary.

Me and my group were lucky, we saw a deer eating grass and we also saw gibbons that climbed from trees to trees and howled to call each other. I found that so cool and exciting.

Swimming – On our last night me, my friends, teachers and the AsiaMotions staff were having so much fun with the tornado we made by running around in the small pool.  The water got so fast and it pushed me and everybody around the pool. Then me and my friends also had a swimming race and I finished 1st, it was so much fun!

The last night after swimming I was so tired and fell asleep after preparing my clothes for the next day heading home. This year’s trip was so fun and I can’t wait for the next one!”

Breezeway no longer

The sixth form common room, known as the Breezeway has recently been redesigned and redeveloped and this Wednesday was officially reopened by Mr Adams, our Head of 6th Form.

Following a naming competition across Years 12 and 13 the newly named ‘Freezeway’ represents a significant improvement in the space available for our oldest students. 

Kevin and Minh from Y13 were instrumental in the design process and also the final name selection and a huge thanks goes to them for the legacy they have helped create for future students at BVIS.

Champion of the Week

This week’s Champion is Nguyen Anh (Tony) from 7S. 

Well done to Tony, let’s see if you can defend your title next week!

Champion Tutor group of the week

Congratulations go to 7S who earned a huge 249 Housepoints last week! Well done to everyone in that form group.

Upcoming Events 

• 10/02/23: RMIT Visit for Y13 students planning on attending
  
  
• 10-12/02/23: FOBISIA Leadership Conference in Bangkok
  
  
• 13/02/23: Y11 and Y13 Mock grades sent home
  
  
• 13/02/2023: Season 3 clubs start
  
  
• 14/02/23: Y11 Parents Evening

• 21/02/23: Y13 Parents Evening

• 23-27/02/23: U13 FOBISIA Games

• 03/03/23: World Book Day

• 03/03/23: Y7-10 Grade reports sent home

Safeguarding and Child Protection

The health, safety and wellbeing of our students remains the number one priority at BVIS HCMC.

Should you have a concern for the welfare of any child in our school, please refer to our Safeguarding poster below: