Message from the Principal

Dear parents,

I hope that you all had a fabulous time during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and that you all managed to enjoy yourselves, whilst navigating the thunderstorms and Red Rain over the weekend. Nothing gets in the way of everyone having a good time here in school, and we have another exceptionally busy and rewarding week ahead.

Having settled into the new academic term, the pace and energy across all campuses is certainly picking up as sporting fixtures, enrichment activities, and the curriculum really begin to come to life. Enrichment is very much in the headlights as the ECA’s in both Primary and Secondary get underway this week and next, with a wide range of clubs, teams and activities to choose from this year. If you have not yet had time to do so, please do check out details of each of our ECA programmes on Firefly where you will also find further information and instructions on how to sign your child up.

Hi Ho Silver!
This week also sees the school embark for the next stage of accreditation within UNICEF’s prestigious Social Impact Award. As one of the original pilot schools for the award when it was introduced in 2021, we are now ready to progress from our current Bronze status towards Silver as the award’s ambitions and purpose is embedded across the school.

For those not fully aware of the award, it is part of Nord Anglia Education’s ongoing formal collaboration with UNICEF to ensure that all NAE students are able to engage with the world they live in through the work of UNICEF and the United Nations. Through the award, students become familiar with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and are given opportunities to have an impact upon their local communities through engagement, service and action. The Award has been highly successful for students of all ages, but for our Primary and Secondary children in particular where it is now integrated within the taught curriculum, Global Campus, the Futures programme, PSHCE and in the provision for student voice and student leadership opportunities. The accreditation process is a rigorous one and the school’s Social Impact Leads, Eliza Mann, Charline Procter and I look forward to sharing the outcome with parents later in the year.

Training School status
As a British International school, NAIS Hong Kong has always enthusiastically supported the development and training of all its staff, with a significant number of colleagues having completed their training to become a teacher through us. We have also supported teachers new to the profession in gaining their qualified teaching status (QTS) within the school as part of our role as a BSO teaching school. At the other end of the spectrum, we have staff at all stages of their profession who have received the full support of the school and Nord Anglia Education to complete the Master’s degree in International Education through King’s College, London. On average there have been a minimum of two NAIS teachers per year who have elected to complete this highly challenging qualification since 2016 and then share the benefits of this exceptional training back to our school.

This term we have been successful in our selection as a COBIS Training School, and as such we will be collaborating with other exceptional international organisations in providing training and development of each of the 45O COBIS schools across the globe – all 17,000 teachers. We are incredibly proud and privileged to have this recognition and responsibility and through this to learn more about the diverse and innovative methods used in some of the world’s leading schools through this active collaboration. I hope to share some of the work we do in these roles with you later in the year.

Ritzy Hong Kong Education Awards
I am going to end this update with a rather presumptuous request! Never ones to chase accolades or awards, we focus very much on what we do in school each and every day to gain support, recognition and to strengthen our reputation as an international school – our reward is having your support and the privilege of educating your children. However, each year we do receive several education awards, both regional and global and this has been very pleasing for the school in seeing that our work is valued by our community and recognised by professional organisations elsewhere.

This year, as part of our 10th anniversary year, I would be very grateful if you would feel able to support the school in the annual Ritzy Hong Kong Education Awards - it would provide a wonderful recognition for the work that we do and a great way to kick start this anniversary year. The school has been nominated within 5 categories, and voting can be accessed via Ritzy’s website here. Thank you in anticipation of your support.

So, that’s it for this week, I hope that you have time to dive into the updates from across the school. Have a great week and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.

Kind regards,

Kenny Duncan
Principal