10 Mar 2017

Newsletter #25

Beacon Hill School latest newsletter available to read now. Find out the latest news around the school and upcoming events.

Other News

nl_principal

Dear Parents, Family and Friends,

The Year 3 Sharing this morning was a wonderful opportunity for our students to celebrate their learning with their parents. It was a wonderful mix of singing, speaking, dancing, and time for the children to talk about their learning with their parents. Thank you to parents for sparing the time to come to school and thanks also to the teachers and other adults who have supported the children throughout the unit of inquiry. Photos can be found HERE.

International Food Fair

The raffle tickets are selling very well but there is still time to sell even more. Remember the two classes that sell the most tickets will win a prize – a day out for the whole class! All proceeds are put back into improving Beacon Hill School, so please do what you can to help.

Please keep selling raffle tickets! We are looking forward to seeing you on the 24th March – please bring along family and friends.

Action

Starting from March 13th we will be celebrating books and reading in our annual ‘Book Week’ which this year lasts for just over a week! We will be having author visits, exciting activities for the children to take part in and as part of this event we would like to support Heifer organisation and their ‘Read to Feed’ programme. You can find details about this and some resources and a sponsorship form to download later in in this newsletter. I hope that you can encourage your child to read more books and help foster a love of reading whilst helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

BHS 50th Anniversary – ‘design a logo’ competition

We will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of BHS throughout the 2017-18 academic year. We have a planning committee who are already working on some special events to mark this milestone. One important feature is to use a special BHS 50th anniversary logo which will be used on publicity materials, communications and items linked to the anniversary. We are opening this up as a competition – anyone may enter; students, parents, ex-students, teachers, educational assistants, site staff; in fact anyone with a connection to BHS. The only criteria is that it is represents BHS 50th year. Entries may be submitted in any medium and either electronically or by hand. Please send entries to:

james.harrison@bhs.edu.hk

or post to Beacon Hill School, 23 Ede Road, Kowloon Tong

or hand in at Reception.

The closing date for entries is Monday 8th May.

Here are some of the upcoming events to note:

IMPORTANT DATES

Home Learning at BHS

We are reviewing our Home Learning policy (you are probably more familiar with the term ‘homework’) to ensure it aligns with our philosophy. We value parental input into our policy formulation so would appreciate just a few minutes of your time to complete this very short survey.

https://goo.gl/forms/ZrGQKRrsvGi3BjFm2

Heifer Read to Feed – Reading for Empathy, Reading against Poverty!

We are delighted to inform you that BHS is participating in the Heifer Read to Feed program, an educational fund-raising program that fosters a love of reading in students while empowering them to make a difference in rural China. We hope you can support your child to join this meaningful program. The sponsored programme will kick-off on Monday 13th March, the first day of our Book Week and run until Tuesday 18th April, the first day back at school after the Easter holiday.

Students taking part are encouraged to read while collecting sponsorship from parents, relatives and friends based on the number of books read or a single donation. Funds collected this school year will be used to assist impoverished families in Wadu Township of Baoshan City in Yunnan Province. The money will be used to help them become self-reliant by providing livestock and training with the ultimate goal of helping more families in the community from “Passing on the Gift” – that is recipients donate their animal offspring and pass on their new animal husbandry knowledge to other villagers.

We appreciate your encouragement and support of your child while he or she participates in Read to Feed, allowing them to enjoy reading and helping others for a better world. Thank you!

Please click below to download a sponsorship form

Read to feed Sponsorship Form.pdf

Please click below to download a Reading Record sheet

Read to Feed Record Sheet.pdf

Best wishes,

_

James Harrison

Principal

nl_around

News from the English team

Seven days of ABCs and 123s

We are all looking forward to our Seven Days of ABCs and 123s which begins on Monday 13^th March. This year we will be having special activities to celebrate the special link between Maths and books. Has your child joined our pattern photo competition? If not details are below.

Dress Up Day – Monday 20^th March

Our traditional dress up day will take place on the 20^th March. All the children and staff in school will dress up in costume. We encourage the children to be creative and imaginative with their costume. So please try and avoid football kits or the children coming as themselves!

To celebrate the collaboration between books and Maths, this year the children can choose to dress as a book character or something maths related.

Here are some pictures to inspire your child’s creations.

Book related costumes

Maths related costumes

Photo competition- Closing date 21^st March

Seeing and understanding pattern is very important in Maths for many reasons, for example to improve our knowledge of shape and space, to help estimation and solve problems in algebra. Pattern is also very important in the English language, it can be seen in spelling, sentence structure and of course poetry. Many stories follow a pattern too and understanding this can help develop children’s comprehension. This year our photo competition celebrates pattern.

Your child needs to take a photo on the theme of pattern and send it to Ms Jeves at the following address: jevese2@beaconhill.edu.hk Please can you make sure the subject header for the photo contains your child’s name and class. Closing date: 21^st March.

Author visits

The children will be listening to some visiting authors over our Seven Days of ABCs and 123s. One of these, Chris White who is a poet, will have some of his books on sale on Monday. Information and an order form are attached.

Chris White Book Price List 2016.pdf

Year 5 Big Business

Year 5 Market Day

The Year 5 children have been busy creating products to sell, putting up posters and broadcasting adverts in school for their Market Day which will be held next Thursday, 16th March in the hall from 9:30 – 12:00. All of the other year groups will be visiting the market place during the morning and we would suggest that the children bring $50- 70 to spend. Please note that due to the space available we can only allow the children and teachers to attend.

All profits from the market day will be donated to the Immanuel Kindergarten in South Sudan. This is a charity that Mrs. Quinn, one of our ex-staff members, has been involved in for a number of years. It is a charity that we have supported in the past and would like to support again, especially in light of the extremely difficult situation that many find themselves in South Sudan.

Their website can be found at http://www.immanuelkindergarten.org/

Last year we donated just under $30,000 which was a fantastic effort. We would love to be able to send a similar amount this year too.

If you would like to make a donation to the kindergarten then we would happily accept any cash donations that could be added to the amount raised on our market day.

Year 5 Big Business Presentations

Congratulations to all our Year 5 businesses who were presenting to our expert panel this week. Each group had to present their business plan, showing the products they were making and explaining how they were going to attract customers to their stalls. The panels were impressed with the ideas, creativity and the energy that all the groups had. We are all looking forward to seeing how well they do on Market Day next Thursday.

nl_pta

International Food Fair Poster Competition

Congratulations to Alyssa Ho (6F) and Yuna Konishi (2M) for winning the poster competition to promote our upcoming International Food Fair. Make sure you keep an eye out for copies of their winning designs in the coming few weeks.

Raffle Tickets

2 sets of Raffle Tickets (totalling $400.00 worth) have been sent home with each BHS student to sell to friends & family for 8 weeks until Friday 24 March 2017 Fair Day. Please check with your child that they have brought the tickets home & ensure all tickets & monies are safe guarded and correct balances returned to BHS PTA as all numbered tickets & monies are Audited under requirements of the HK Lottery License. All proceeds from Raffle ticket sales will be directly donated to BHS for “school garden enhancement”, an Art project involving our students for the 50th Anniversary of BHS this coming 2017/18 Term 1.

We’ve been receiving a steady stream of returned sold raffle tickets and students requesting more tickets! Thank you for your enthusiasm and support! Keep selling & don’t forget there are 2 class outings for the highest raffle ticket sales for Y1-3 and Y4-6 classes!

We are currently almost 50% of our annual $200,000 target!

Reminders:

IFF Food and Hall Game Prize donations & volunteering form for the Fair Day on Friday 24 March 2017 has been sent home. Appreciate your support to run a fun & successful fair.

Beacon Hill School International Food Fair & Grand Raffle Lucky Draw! Friday, March 24th, 2017, 5 – 8:30pm, Lucky Dray @ 8:00pm

Fantastic chance to win One night stay at the W Hong Kong Fantastic Suite & breakfast for two at Kitchen restaurant, iPhone 7, DSLR Camera, Playstation, 2 sets of 4 tickets to May and June ABA show and many more Grand Raffle prizes (HK Lottery License #4581)
Delicious homemade cuisine & treats
Talent show
Hall Games & prizes
Bouncy Castle
Karaoke
Shopping bazaar
Great family evening & friendly atmosphere open to community!

[23 Ede Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong]

[Inquiry contact BHS PTA Co-ordinator pta@bhs.edu.hk / 2337 8932]

Tuesday 18 April 2017 Y6 Pizza Lunch

Thursday 20 April 2017 BHS PTA ExComm Meeting

Tuesday 25 April 2017 Y4 Bake Sale

Have a restful weekend.

Rowena Chow

Chair, BHS PTA

Health

Influenza A

We would like to inform you of the fact that one student is on sick leave diagnosed with Influenza A.

As advised by the Centre for Health Protection (CHP):

“To prevent outbreaks of influenza and other respiratory infections, it is of prime importance that children with fever (oral temperature higher than 37.5°C, or ear temperature higher than 38°C), regardless of the presence of respiratory symptom, should not be allowed to attend school. They should be advised to seek medical advice and should avoid school till 48 hours after the fever has subsided.”

Please consult the doctor promptly and please check the child’s temperature (prior to coming to school).