Bradbury Newsletter 18th December 2015

PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE

Festive greetings to all of our Bradbury Community. It always seems that Christmas comes around so quickly and the year races by.

What a great term we have had! So many wonderful learning experiences for our students.  Thank you to a great team of teachers and staff who make it all possible and work so hard everyday to make learning an enjoyable and engaging experience.  Thanks too, to our parent community, for the solid support you offer us here at Bradbury.

Next term will be busy with 2016/2017 Year 1 interviews and recruitment.  Not many Bradbury vacancies at this point, but as we recruit as a Foundation, all Principals take part in the process, so I will be out of school from January 20 – February 4.

We have a Mathematics professor running a CPD day for staff on 11 March around Mathematical literacy as well as ensuring our programmes are challenging and extending all learners, so that will be a day to look forward to.

Congratulations to Mrs. Carmody on the birth of her son Mannix Eoin, born on November 29, weighing in at 7.2 lbs.

On behalf of all staff at Bradbury, I wish you a peaceful break and a very merry Christmas.

Sandra Webster

Principal

IMPORTANT DATES

TERM 1 INTERIM REPORT 2015-2016

Log into Gateway using your parent login details. (If you can’t remember either your User ID or Password for Gateway select “forgot password or login name” on Gateway login page.)

In Gateway select:

o    ARR from the menu bar

o    ARR Report from the dropdown menu

o    Printing from the tabs

o    School Year (2015-16)

o    Student Name

o    Annual Report 2015-15

o    Print

A PDF file of your child’s Term 1 Interim School report should now download onto your computer. You can save this file as a PDF document and print it out.

If you cannot see the report then you may need to update your PDF reader (e.g. Adobe) to the latest version or enable Chinese Characters on your PDF reader.

Please note that the objectives that your child has been assessed against in this report are end of year expectations, therefore, they may still be working towards achieving the goals stated in the report.

John Ainsworth – Vice Principal/Middle Phase

ART FOR ST. MARY’S

Amanda Bremner – P.Y.P. Coordinator

AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES FOR TERM 2

All fees charged for these activities are to cover the costs of buses, pitch hirage and coaches.

If there are too many children for an activity enrolment will be on a first come, first served basis. Assume your child has a place in the activity unless you hear otherwise from me.

If you enroll your child in these activities remember that the expectation is that they are committed to the activity for the term.

 If activities are cancelled we will ring you around lunch time on the day to make arrangements for your child to get home. All school based activities will go ahead regardless of the weather.

Amanda Bremner – P.Y.P Co-ordinator

2016 HONGKONG YOUNG WRITERS AWARD

Bradbury School has registered for this year’s Hong Kong Young Writers Awards. The theme for 2016  is “New Tales of the Terracotta Warriors” and all entries should be based around this theme.

“ This year’s topic explores the vast and extraordinary Terracotta Warriors. Otherwise known as the Terracotta Army, over 8,000 sculptures represent what were Qin Shi Huang’s armies. Qin Shi Huang was the First Emperor of China, famous for conquering and uniting all the warring states of China, also uniting the diverse state walls into what is now known as the Great Wall of China. The Terracotta Warriors were tasked to protect their Emperor in the afterlife, discovered in 1974; the Terracotta Warriors have been buried for close to 2200 years! The Terracotta Warriors are special, in that each figure is so unique that it has been said that they were based on real soldiers.”        HKYWA website

The competition is open to student from all Year levels and we encourage students to take part and get busy writing over the next few months. The categories are:

·         Fiction

·         Non-Fiction

·         Poetry

·         Cover Art

You can also access online information about the competition at home on www.hkywa.com ( although at the moment there are no resources up about this year’s theme, as they have done in past years)

A very important rule to take notice of is the rule about no parental involvement or assistance from others being allowed – “ All entries must be the students’ own, un-aided work” .  Whilst we would expect that students will chat about their ideas with family members, and even get feedback and suggestions about their drafts, we cannot forward any entries  to the competition that appear to not be the students own work.

Entries will be due into school by Friday, January 8 (to either myself or Ms Fritzi at the front office).  Entries can be hand-written or printed off to hand in at school.  All entries will be included in a foyer display and a panel of teachers will select the entries will be forwarded to the competition. Each school is limited to submitting 10 written entries and 5 Art entries.

Word limits for entries are :

·         Fiction and non-fiction

o     Years 1, 2 and 3 – up to 500 words

o     Years 4, 5 and 6 –up to 1000 words

·         Poetry – no limit

·         Cover Art– must be on A3 paper size and portrait orientation .  Pieces of A3 paper will be available on request from Ms Fritzi at the front office.

Therese Gallen – Vice Principal/Lower Phase Leader

YEAR 4 CAMP IN ACTION

SUNSHINE FORTUNE FOOD BAGS – PACKING AND DISTRIBUTING

Bradbury students, staff and parents were recently involved in the packing and distributing of food bags for the poor and elderly in Hong Kong. Over two weekends, the volunteers packed over 3,380 food bags containing rice, tinned food, toothpaste, shampoo and body wash which were then distributed through 25 centres across Hong Kong.

Amanda Bremner – P.Y.P. Coordinator

HIKE FOR HUNGER 2015

Amanda Bremner – P.Y.P Coordinator

YEAR 1 CHRISTMAS CAROL SURPRISES

Imagine my surprise when on Monday our weekly Senior Leadership Team meeting, held in Mrs Websters’ office, was interrupted by a knock on the door and then  all 120 of our Year 1 students crowded into the front office area to ‘surprise’ us with some great Christmas carol singing.

Our creative Year 1 teachers came up with this fun alternative to the Christmas Carol ‘extravaganza’ of the last few years , particularly as our hall was not available with the big renovation.

The Year 1 team have been rehearsing with the students for the last few weeks, and our meeting interruption was the first in a series of  ‘surprise’ or ‘flash mob’ Christmas Carol singing performances which have happened all week on an ‘impromptu’ basis around the school. The students did a good job trying to keep their appearances ‘a secret’ until the last minute, although I was becoming a little suspicious with lots of hints being whispered to me on my morning playground duties – “We are going to sing, Ms Gallen, but it’s a secret!!”

Have a look at the pictures and on the class blogs.

The Year 1 students have had lots of fun doing this and spread some Christmas cheer across the school.

Therese Gallen – Vice Principal/ Lower Phase