Hillside Newsletter 30 November 2018
Hillside Kindergarten’s latest newsletter is available to read now. Find out the latest news from around the school and upcoming events.
Important Dates
Click HERE for the Full Hillside Calendar and instructions to subscribe.
| 13 December | Last Day of Term 1 (Children’s Party) |
| 7 January | First Day of Term 2 |
| 10 January | Kids Fest Theatre Trip – HK Academy of Performing Arts |
Principal’s Message
Dear Parents
Thank you for another successful Sports Day! The weather was perfect – not too hot and not too cold. I think you would all agree that the HK Football Club is a great venue to host our Sports Day and that scheduling Sports Day at this time of the school year helped us to ensure that we had both cooler and more cooperative weather.
Hillside Sports Day 2018
Finally, I would like to thank you all for taking the time to support your children on this day. Numerous Hillside staff members and parents commented that the day had a lovely feel about it and I personally think it was wonderful to have our whole school together at the same time for an event. I would like to say a special thanks to the 10 student teachers from Yew Chung Community College for assisting us on this special day. Finally, thanks to the team at Hillside for their efforts in planning activities, collecting the required resources, setting up the field etc. The games offered last Friday were both very age appropriate and engaging for our children (and in many cases also our Hillside parents that joined in with great enthusiasm!!!)
ESF Primary School Transition Meetings for Current K2 Children
As you are aware, starting from September this year, the offering of a Year 1 place will be made following a collaborative process involving the ESF kindergarten and primary school teachers, instead of the stressful interview process. Over the past few weeks, teachers and leaders from the ESF primary schools visited Hillside to meet with the teaching and management team and to observe the K2 children in preparation for the transition to Year 1 for 2019/20. These visits were extremely positive and helpful for both the children and teachers, and give primary schools a more in-depth, meaningful understanding of the children at this current stage of their learning.
All Hillside parent should receive a letter from the primary schools today (30 November), regarding the status of your child’s Year 1 application. Please feel free to contact us or the primary schools if you have any questions about the process.
Fire Drill
It makes me proud when a number of my ESF Primary Principal colleagues mention to me that when their new cohort of YearOne students commence at the beginning of each new academic year, they are able to quickly identify ex-Hillside children. When I ask them ‘why is that….?’, there is a similar theme to their responses and that is because the Hillside children on the whole are confident, cooperative, articulate and are excited about learning, in addition to having a genuine interest about the world around them.
As a part of our Health and Safety Procedures, we had our first Fire Drill of the year last week, and it went very smoothly and quickly. Prior to the drill, the children have been introduced to the concept of a fire drill through stories and songs. Amazingly, we did not have any tears during the drill and the children were all very calm and cooperative, following the lead of all the adults to evaluate the building. We are able to clear the building in just under five minutes – well done everyone! Next time we will have “surprise” drills!
Hillside Annual Christmas Appeal – Supporting the work of HK based Animal Charities
Each year, Hillside Kindergarten selects a charity to support at Christmas time. This year Hillside Kindergarten would like to assist those charities and organizations in HK that do such a wonderful job caring for the hundreds of dogs and cats that sadly end up in their care.
Commencing from now, we will have large collection boxes placed in our school foyer ready to receive donations from the Hillside community. We would very much appreciate your support by sending into Hillside with your child some and dry dog and cat food.
Please join us in caring for the abandoned and unwanted animals at this festive and cold time of year. Our appeal will run until Monday 10 December 2018. Collection boxes shall be available at the Hillside Kindergarten reception up to that date. As always, we thank our wonderful Hillside community for your on-going support.
Get Your Tickets! Theatre Trip for Hillside – “Kids Fest 2019” – Thursday 10 January
We have received information from HK ‘Kids Fest’ 2019 about an upcoming opportunity for the Hillside children to see a live theatre production. Over a number of past years, Hillside children, staff and parents have attended this event and we have always found the live theatre productions to be of an extremely high standard, along with being well targeted to the age group of our children.
We are pleased to inform you that we have secured a booking for the entire theatre (for both the Hillside AM and PM sessions) to see the production titled “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts (1 Gloucester Road, Wan Chai). The date for Hillside to attend this production is Thursday, 10 January 2019. We believe this will be a great experience for our children and we are excited to be able to accommodate the whole school to see this production on one day!
We will meet all attending families directly at the venue; please do not come to the Kindergarten on that day and the school buses will not operate. The show runs for approximately an hour. The morning families are invited to the 9:45am show and the afternoon families are invited to the 12:00noon show.
We get a special school discount price of $430 for TWO tickets. Please send in payment to secure your booking, we will need to confirm final numbers with the production house before Christmas. Payments can be made by cheques, payable to “ESF Educational Services Ltd”. TICKETS ARE CONFIRMED UPON RECEIPT OF PAYMENT (First-come-first served-basis).
Please place your cheque in a sealed envelope labelled with your child’s name and class, along with the number of tickets you wish to purchase.
Please contact us on 2540 0066 or kinder@hillside.edu.hk for any enquiries.
ESF Hong Kong Run – Saturday, 26 January 2019
The ESF “Run for Our Future” is the major community engagement event organized by the English Schools Foundation (ESF) among the annual ESF
calendar of events. It will be comprised of a running course of 1km to 10km, with adjacent community activities and carnival at Hong Kong Science Park.
The ESF Hong Kong Run:
Date: Saturday, 26th January 2019
Time: start from 0830
Venue: Science Park, HK
Distance: 1Km, 3Km and 10Km
Open to: Students and families, teachers, support staff and their families and friends
Registration fee: Individual $200 / Family Run $450 (shuttle bus service from University Station to Science Park)
Online registration: https://hkrun.esf.edu.hk/en
Have a wonderful weekend!
Kind Regards
Chris
Principal
Class Blogs
Please click on the links below to visit our class blogs on the Hillside Learning Hub for your child’s latest class news and photo gallery. Please contact kinder@hillside.edu.hk if you cannot access the Learning Hub.
| Dolphin | Dragon |
| Frog | Gecko |
| Monkey | TigerAM TigerPM |
| Panda | Turtle |
| Chinese | |
Inspiring Futures
Data Privacy The information we collect from you is in accordance with the ESF Personal Data Handling Policy and its related Personal Information Collection Statements (“PICS”). Our PICS statement is available online. http://www.esf.edu.hk/privacy
