Message from the Principal
Dear Parents,
As you will have seen in my previous message, we have announced both our contingency plan for the delayed opening of our Tin Wan campus and the exciting development of a new campus in Sai Kung. It is in a wonderful location and we are all looking forward to working there and developing the same ethos both there and at Tai Tam, as we have in Lam Tin. We are going to have great opportunities to develop learning and for children to grow in our system from age 3 to 18 in the near future.
Best wishes to our team participating in the COBIS Secondary Games at Sheffield in the U.K. I know they have already enjoyed a tour of Manchester United’s football ground so I hope it inspires them to do well. Good luck to them.
As usual it is a busy period both in and out of school : I am speaking in a panel discussion on The Future of Education on Wednesday evening, at a Kindergarten Fair next Saturday then at British Chamber business innovations session on education, where I am sharing the work we do in STEAM development. My wife says it keeps me out of trouble!
Have a good weekend.
Brian Cooklin
Principal
UPCOMING EVENTS:
22 May
COBIS Secondary Games
Primary and Secondary Assessment
Visit from Juilliard Curriculum Specialist Erin Wight
23 May
ISSFHK Girls U12 (Year 6/7) Football League
Visit from Juilliard Curriculum Specialist Erin Wight
24 May
Visit from Juilliard Curriculum Specialist Erin Wight
25 May
U12 & U14 Netball Matches
29 May
CPD Day for Teachers (no school for pupils)
31 May
U12 & U14 Netball Matches
1 June
Books & Buns event
IT’S TIME FOR INTERHOUSE BADMINTON
Yes it’s time to see which House has the best badminton skills. Please remember to wear House tops for PE next week. Good luck!
THANK YOU BOOKAZINE
We’d like to extend our thank to Bookazine for their kind donation of books to sell at our Books & Buns fundraising event. If you know of any other company willing to support, please put them in touch with us.
GETTING READY FOR COBIS GAME
Our team has arrived safely in Sheffield after a fantastic day exploring Old Trafford and managed to have a great lunch at Hotel Football directly across from the stadium. Everyone’s going to bed early so that they are ready for the first day of competition today.
SEE OUR BUDDING ARTISTS IN ACTION
Our students had lots of fun this week designing their contribution to our art installation. Inspired by Ms. Erdmann’s artistic vision they have explored sketching, creating paper silhouettes and developing fine motor skills. Find out what they’ve been up to from our Facebook page.
HARRY POTTER EXCITEMENT IN YEAR 4
This week our Year 4’s got their Harry Potter Theme underway with a ‘sorting hat’ ceremony. These famous books form the basis of a unit of work that includes developing their learning in both English and Science. Expect lots of fascinating experiments in the next few weeks.
YEAR 6 TACKLE THE IMPORTANT SUBJECT OF PUBERTY
Our oldest Primary students took part in a series of lessons on this vital part of growing up. The children approached all the lessons with maturity, interest and (a little) embarrassment, but their teachers were very impressed with their overal learning. Our Year 6’s are taking part in a variety of activities to get them ready for the crucial transition up to Secondary school.
JOSEPH AND THE TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT
Not only are our Year 6 pupils busy with their regular learning they are also rehearsing hard for this end of year peformance. You can hear both the boys and girls humming the music in the stairways, playgrounds and classrooms…it is looking like a real treat for us all.
FANCY AN EARLY START?
While many of our children are still eating their morning breakfast, some very keen and dedicated pupils are training hard in the pool with the ‘swim squad’. They start training at 7am and get in a fair few meters before lessons in the morning…phew! Top work Knights!
YABADABADOO WITH YEAR 1
As part of their topic, Year 1 have been learning all about life in the Stone Age. Here you can see some of our youngest historians with their models of how people used to live. They have also been exploring the world of animals and learning all about different ones. How they move, eat and most especially…how they feel.
STAFF TRAINING
Every week our wonderful teachers take part in a whole host of professional development activities and meetings. This week the primary staff were working together to evaluate the impact that our work on ‘Talk for Writing’ has had on primary writing throughout the school. Led by Hannah Haines and a group of dedicated teachers all the primary staff have been engaged on using T4W in their lessons.
Meanwhile in another meeting, our dedicated KS3 staff were working together with Darren Sutton (STEAM Coordinator) to devise a new cross-curriculuar unit of work for our KS3 students next year. Staff work far in advance to plan and deliver a quality and innovative curriculum to your children. It looks like being an exciting and engaging unit of work for KS3.
COLLABORATIVE SCIENCE WORK IN YEAR 3
Pupils in Year 3 continued learning about how to make Science experiments more reliable and fair. They worked in small groups to test how friction effects cars rolling down a ramp. They learnt the importance of careful measurements as well as the concepts around the force of friction.
CODING IN YEAR 5
Year 5 have been continuing learning how to create coding and identify errors in code. Using scratch software they have been increasing their computing skills and having fun with their learning.
THIS WEEK IN MUSIC
Students continued to work towards the Summer Concert, with all instrumental students learning their parts for ‘Blue Monk’, our core work of choice! Students exploring ‘Blue Monk’ in the curriculum, have begun to develop their improvisational skills, collaborating in small groups on differentiated tasks. To see examples of this, please do check out our twitter feed @musicNAISHK.
The department is also excited to welcome back Juilliard Curriculum Specialist, Erin Wight next week, for her third and final visit of the year. Erin will observe lessons, run demonstration lessons and play in assembly as well as working with some of our talented violinists. Joining Erin will be Richard Mannoia, Director of Global K-12 Curricula and Professional Development who will lead a professional development session for the teachers.
If you are interested in finding out more about the benefits of the Juilliard Nord Anglia collaboration, please also take a look at the NAE blog https://www.nordangliaeducation.com/article/2017/5/18/seeing-my-students-minds-evolve-through-music It is such a privilege to be able to share our experiences of music at NAIS HK with parents across the company. There is also a fabulous article written by Rachael Howarth (Director of Music, Bratislava) about the Global Virtual Choir. If you haven’t yet seen the video, please do watch, like, share and comment! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-YNWScKbzA&feature=youtu.be
LOOKING FORWARD TO ERIN’S THIRD VISIT
Juilliard Curriculum Specialist, Ms Erin Wight, will be making her third visit to NAIS from 22nd to 24th May. Ms Wight has been working closely with the Music department in her past visits and we are excited to welcome her back (with her viola!) so that she could see the progress students have made in this time.
The Curriculum Specialist visits are a great strength of our collaboration with The Juilliard School as together, we constantly strive to improve the musical experiences of young people to ensure their holistic individual growth.
More highlights on our school Facebook page and our Music department’s twitter feed https://twitter.com/musicNAISHK
NAIS INTERNATIONAL FOOD FESTIVAL INITIATIVE
The PTA is back in action again and would like to ask for more contributions for the NAIS International Food Festival Initiative. Our intention is to reach at least 100 recipes in order to show the diversity of our school but we are still short of around 40 - that is just two per class! We are keeping the recipes we have already received and welcome many more during the next couple of weeks. Remember to use an A4 size paper; you can design it on your computer or ask your kids to write it by hand, draw, colour or use pictures to show us your incredible recipes. Please remember to save it as a PDF. Please send us your lovely recipes to naisrecipebook@gmail.com. The deadline for new recipes is the 25th of May.
PTA MASQUERADE DINNER - Saturday, June 17th
Tickets are selling well so please join us on what looks to be a fun evening planned. This event is open to all friends and families too. Please do not bring any children. Please find the invitations attached. Tickets can be purchased at naisptamasqueradeball.eventbrite.hk. Chinese information here. English information here.
PRIMARY ASSEMBLY
In the Assembly this morning, 5E reviewed some of the key activities they had done recently. They shared highlights from the Yangshuo residential trip and the new friendships they’ve made. They also gave an exceptional dance performance inspired by Space Day. They learned a lot about the universe from this special event, such as creating fact files, researching from different sources and making discoveries in the Space Dome.
Mr Bishop ended the Assembly with an update of house points. Loud cheers were given to Caernarfon for their champion title in the previous term and the 8,865 house points they gained.
SECONDARY ASSEMBLY
In our Secondary Assembly this morning, Mr Bishop discussed the importance of “digital diet”. He reminded us the shortcomings of texting over voice calls. Maybe it’s a good idea to put our phones aside sometimes and develop our creativity in an old fashion way with a piece of paper and pencils.
STARS OF THE WEEK – Music
Another week and more to celebrate. Congratulations to the following students:
Year 1: Becky Sun, Harry Savagar, Shinnice Sy, Albane Goulin, Peggie Lin
Year 2: Rayyan Ali, Isabelle Cappelin, Jontae Law, Aryan Lokesh, Sophie Wang
Year 3: Marco Murphy, Nazar Bondarenko, Ginevra Conzato, Elaine Shiao, Larisa Holt
Year 4: Arianna Muggeri, Will Loudoun, Tahlia Mistry, Andrew Li, Dylan Shim
Year 5: Vasavi Singh, Matthew Ng, Cici Li, Rylan Holt, Ophelia Cravo
Year 6: Brendan Cheung, Isabelle Farran, Sylvia Li, Jacko Chan
HIGH COMMENDATION AWARDS – Music
Year 7: Saffron Goggins
Year 8: Brian Jung
Year 9: Alex Tam
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KEY CONTACTS
Quick list guide of who to email for what:
Please do not use the info@nais.hk for any of the above queries.
Have a lovely weekend.
