Dear All,
We hope you had an enjoyable week off. This is now the last stretch of the school year and preparations have already started for 2015-16. There is a lot of information to share with you this week:
Co-Principal Arrangements for 2015-16
As you would have all seen, an email was sent out from our Deputy Director about the retirement of Cherry Chen. Cherry has been a wonderful leader at our Pudong campuses over many years. For those who have come in more recent years, you may not know that in the earlier years of Pudong, Cherry was the Co-Principal for the whole school and oversaw the move to Regency Park Campus from Seasons Villas and then the addition of Century Park Campus. It is only in more recent times that she has cut back her load to to oversee the ECE section. No matter what task she has taken on, she how done so with care, enthusiasm and energy. As a leader, Cherry’s contributions to our school have been extremely significant and she will be greatly missed. We hope Cherry will continue to visit us from time to time and we will ensure there are opportunities to celebrate Cherry’s career and retirement later this school year.
With Cherry’s retirement there has been an opportunity to align ourselves with PX campus and have a set of Co-Principals overseeing ECE and Primary together, and another set of Co-Principals overseeing Secondary. Mary has been appointed as the ECE and Primary Co-Principal and we feel this will allow for a very smooth transition next year. We have excellent VPs/Coordinators in place both in the ECE and Primary and we are confident that we are well placed to continue leading this great school. A letter for the parent community to announce Cherry’s retirement and the structure for next year will be sent out later this week.
Music Concerts
This year we have decided to hold a Gala Music Concert at the end of the academic year, and it will be on Tuesday, June 2 at the Da Ning Theatre in Puxi. The concert will feature the Yr 2-3 Violin Concert as well as music activities such as the orchestra, choirs, and a scene from the very successful Pirates of the Curry Bean musical. We chose an outside venue to seat the large audience and we hope that this theatre will enable us to show our great music programme in the best light possible. We will definitely need the help of our teaching staff – an upcoming meeting with music staff and team leaders will get the process started. June 1 and 2 will be rehearsal days at the theatre. We will keep you informed. EJ will be responsible for the concert and Andrew has agreed to handle logistics and backstage for this major event.
The Year 1 Violin Concert will now be a stand alone performance on Wednesday May 20. The students will sing some songs and play the violin in a more simple format than previous years. It will still give us a chance to share the violin progress of Year 1s with their parents.
We welcome back Sophie this week from maternity leave, and she is just in time to start the preparations for these major concerts.
This Year the ECE classes have also had Music lessons taught by two music teachers from a music company (outsource provider). The children have really enjoyed the lessons, and there will be open lessons / performances in June (depending on the age level of the students) to showcase to parents the music learning.
Also, on Saturday, April 25, there will be an IIIP recital for those students who are learning an instrument through our instrumental programme. Judy is informing the parents of the details. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Judy on the first year of IIIP. It has been quite a learning curve for her and us as we started this programme from nothing, but at last count we have 116 students participating which far exceeded our expectations. Well done to Judy for her hard work in starting the IIIP.
Sports News
Even though ACAMIS is an upper secondary event, we are really proud as a school to see our senior students participating in these ACAMIS tournaments against other international schools throughout China. Congratulations to Dale who has put this programme together – with the same enthusiasm he shows with the Sports Expert competition. CP is hosting the Soccer tournament which runs over a few days but you will all be able to watch part of it – on Thursday, April 23. The girls’ soccer will be played at RP campus from 2:00 – 5:00pm and CP campus will host the boys’ soccer. Class teachers are welcome to take the students out from 2:00pm to watch and cheer the players on. We are really excited to host and that our students can watch and aspire to that type of competition when they are older.
FYI we have had a very positive response to our survey about a YCIS swim team for 2015-16. We will be putting together a swim team across Year 3-6 for strong swimmers to compete against other schools in various swim meets throughout the year. We will also run swimming ASAs for those students who need coaching as part of the swim team. Special thanks to Lennart for getting this new initiative started.
There are a number of sports events coming up such as K3 sports day, K4-Year 3 and Yr 4-6 sports days, track and field days etc… The PE teachers will no doubt be busy along with the team leaders.
Year 6 Maths Team
Recently some of the extension maths students in Yr 6 participated in the High Four Maths competition – which is becoming a major competition putting teams up against each other in a highly challenging competition. Our teams did extremely well in the last round which they joined, with a number of our teams finishing in the top 10 – which is a remarkable effort for the first time. A number of international schools across Asia are now participating and thanks to Andrew and Cat for getting this started.
Planning for 2015-16
At this time of the year, we are starting to think about school calendars and strategic planning for the year to come. Whilst this process is led by the Senior Leaders, we certainly welcome input from our teachers. The ECE teachers will have the opportunity to brainstorm new ideas, initiatives, suggestions at our staff meeting next Wednesday. For Primary, we will be having a brainstorming session with Team Leaders on Thursday, April 23. Primary teams can share their ideas with their team leaders who can bring the ideas and feedback to the leadership meeting.
Accreditation
We are now at the stage where the Self Study is being finalized. Those who participated in Section B curriculum committees, will have their comments and evidence collated into an ECE Section B report and a Primary Section B report. All the work that has been done in those section committees will help the ECE and Primary teams complete their work. In the other sections (A, C, D, E, F, G and H) the chairs of RP have been meeting with the chairs of the other campus committees to create one section report for all YCIS SH. This has occasionally meant changing ratings as there has needed to be an agreement between all campuses. Those who have been involved in these meetings have found them to be interesting and thought provoking. We thank Rob in particular for leading this whole process along with the Coordinators, Committee Chairs/Co-Chairs and the Steering Committee. We are on track for a really good self study report which will help us celebrate our successes and also guide our self improvement.
Kim Marshall Memo
We have received positive feedback from teachers about the Kim Marshall memo which was sent out. There were some very interesting articles based on research which people found useful. We will continue to send this out weekly and hope people find time to read some of the articles of relevance and interest.
Ed Tech Conference
Preparations for the May 15-16 Ed Tech Conference are going very well. Regency Park Campus will host the conference and we hope that even though we have only been able to ask a certain number to attend, you will all enjoy having the visitors on campus and will have a chance to meet some. There will be approx. 100 participants from YCIS and YW schools in HK and mainland China, Apart from 1 keynote speaker, all the other presenters will be from the participants themselves. On the Friday afternoon participants will visit classrooms to see technology in action but it will be carefully planned (not people just wandering around). There will be some disruptions to the school day on May 15 and we will inform you of the details closer to the event. Special thanks to Amita for leading the conference preparations, as well as committee members: Alex, Sandy, Sissy, Laurel, Richard and Wendy.
ISA Results
This year, for the first time we will be sharing ISA results with parents. ISAs are a standardized international test in Maths and English which our Year 4-6 students do each year. Rob will be leading 2 parent meetings to share the general results and explain the reports that parents will receive for their child. He will also share the results with Primary teachers a the staff meeting on Wednesday, April 22. Even though the 3 year levels do the tests, they are a celebration of the work of all Primary teachers (even ECE for the long term students).
Primary SLCs
Thanks to Melissa for her arrangements with the SLCs and all of the teachers for contributing to the work in the portfolios. This is a particularly important part of our school calendar and really appreciated by the parents. We are also looking forward to the Art Shows running alongside SLCs – special thanks to Anita and Mo for arranging this – a great added feature and celebration of student work.
Chinese Handwriting Competition
Many of the Primary students are currently participating in a handwriting competition. Their beautiful work can be seen on display across the school. Well done to the Chinese leaders and teachers for their arrangements and support of the students.
Co-Teaching
Thanks to Mike Kostera for making presentations to the Primary Staff at the recent staff meetings. It was very well presented and provided teachers with some interesting discussions. If you would like any support with co-teaching, please see one of the Co-Teaching Facilitators – Jennifer Chan and Sissy Shen. As we have said many times, co-teaching is a really important part of our programme and one of the key features which makes us stand out from our neighboring competitors (international schools) who don’t provide co-teaching.
That’s about it. A lot going on at the moment. Thanks everyone for your great efforts and all you do with the students. All the research points to the fact that the quality of the teacher and their relationship with the students is the single most important influence on the success of a child at school – so always keep that in mind.
Enjoy the rest of your week and the weekend to follow.
Damien, Mary and Cherry
Quotes:
“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
– Albert Einstein
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.”
– Tao Te Ching
