Hillside Newsletter 25 May 2018

Hillside Kindergarten’s latest newsletter available to read now. Find out the latest news from around the school and upcoming events.

• • • Important Dates
    • Principal’s News
    • Sun Protection and Outdoor Play – ‘No Hat – No Play’
    • ‘Zero Plastic’ Snack Day
    • Mosquitoes and Biting Midges are back!!
    • Upcoming PARENT WORKSHOPS on offer at Hillside NEXT WEEK
    • Payment of Advance Fees for Returning Children
    • Hillside K2 Leavers’ Ceremony – REMINDER: SAVE THE DATE!!!
    • Class Blogs

  Important Dates

  Click HERE for the Full Hillside Calendar and instructions to subscribe.

  28 May	Parent Workshop – Bringing Active Learning Home
  31 May	Parent Workshop – Wellbeing for Early Years: Friendships, Resilience, Transitions
  8 June	‘Zero Plastic’ Snack Day at Hillside
  12-13 June	K2 Graduation (Please see schedule below)
  12-13 June	K2 Peak Trip (Please refer to earlier email for details)
  18 June	Public Holiday
  28 June	Last Day of School
  29 June	School Closed for Children – Professional Development Day
  15 August	First Day of School for K2s

  Principal’s Message

  Dear Parents

  I would like to begin this newsletter by thanking you all for attending the recent Hillside Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTC’s). We know that sound communication and on-going honest dialogue between school and home enables productive partnerships to be developed. A strong partnership enables the development of a shared understanding of the education process. Having a mutual understanding between home and school ultimately has great benefit for each and every child. PTC’s are one way for parents to find out how they can best support their child in all aspects of the Education process.

  Another way to find out how you can support your child is by attending Parent Education Workshops. Two parent workshops are on offer next week (details can be found further in this Newsletter). The focus/content of the parent workshops has been based on responding to the areas of interest/feedback that we have received from the Hillside parent community.

  Sun Protection and Outdoor Play – ‘No Hat – No Play’

  With the start of the very hot weather season in Hong Kong its important to re-visit our ‘No Hat – No Play’ Sun Protection policy that we have at Hillside.

  Children must have a kindergarten uniform sun hat to wear when they play outside or are engaged in kindergarten excursions/outdoor events.

  Hats are essential every day, and therefore should be accessible in your child’s school bag. Mosquito repellent at this time of year is also highly recommended due to the location of our kindergarten.

  Please note that we follow the advice/guidelines provided by the EDB/HK Observatory in regards to hot weather warnings. If it is too hot for outdoor play, our teachers will be advised, and indoor play will be rearranged to accommodate the closure of the outdoor play stations.

  ‘Zero Plastic’ Snack Day

  As part of Hillside’s commitment to caring for our world and promoting sustainability, we will be taking part in CNN’s ‘’Zero Plastic Lunch Day,” (which we will adopt as ‘Zero Plastic Snack Day’). The date for this event is Friday June 8th 2018 (this date also coincides with World Ocean Day). Children will be asked to bring to school with them a snack on this day that has been packaged with no ‘single use’ type of plastic. More information can be found here: https://www.cnn.com/specials/world/zero-plastic-lunch-day

  Learner Agency (children taking some type of personal action in response to what they have been learning) is an important component of the Primary Years Program (PYP). Therefore, we would also like to encourage all Hillside children to make a pledge with their parents to commit to an effort to reduce/reuse/recycle and to make choices that are more sustainable.

  Together with your child it would be great if you could write in their diary the action that your child has taken at home to reduce/reuse/recycle. If possible have your child do a drawing of what they have done to help promote sustainability in your home.

  That time of year… Mosquitoes and Biting Midges are back!!

  At Hillside we are extremely fortunate to have a large outdoor play space that backs onto a lovely natural ‘green’ space (which is quite rare on the densely populated HK Island. The only downfall of this area is that at this time of year those annoying little mosquitoes begin to cause issues for us.

  “There are no known efficient methods of controlling biting mosquitoes, but personal protection will help in reducing exposure to their bites… and apply a repellent to exposed skin. These measures will assist in limiting exposure to these biting flies.” – Dept. of Medical Entomology

  Unfortunately, some children are more susceptible to being bitten. If this is the case with your child, we would encourage you to apply some mosquito repellent/patches onto your child before they leave for school each day. We do take health and safety issues seriously, of which mosquito control is one, and in actual fact, have put measures in place to address and alleviate this problem. For example, there is a mosquito lantern installed under the covered area outside and four (4) industrial fans to keep the air circulating.

  In addition, Fogging is carried out on a regular basis throughout term time and also during the holiday breaks (this cannot be done if the children will be accessing the outdoor play area right after) and, at the start of every term, we arrange to have pest control measures to be carried out in our classrooms and in the outdoor area. We constantly ensure there are no areas with stagnant pools of water and recently carried out major repair work on the cracked and broken sections of concrete in the driveway to assist in avoiding any possible water catchment.

  We are regularly inspected by ESF Centre facilities staff to check for possible mosquito breeding grounds. As you may have noticed when you visited our outdoor play area, we are in an area that is surrounded by a lot of trees and foliage, and because of this, we have an on-going battle in carrying out measures in controlling the incidence of mosquitoes at Hillside. We will continue to work with ESF Centre facilities to explore further options that will help to alleviate the issue of mosquitos in our playground.

  Upcoming PARENT WORKSHOPS on offer at Hillside

  Workshop on offer next week:

  Bringing Active Learning Home
  (Workshop date: Monday 28th May 2018    TIME: 3:45-4:45 pm)

  Are the children just playing? Or are they actively learning? This workshop aims to demonstrate what active learning looks like at Hillside, and we hope parents will take away ideas on how to support and extend learning at home.

  Our K1 and K2 teachers will each share different learning opportunities with parents and explain the learning intention behind each one (with the aim of enabling parents to reinforce and extend their child’s learning at home). We hope that this parent workshop will provide parents in attendance with a bank of ideas and activities to do with their child at home (both now and over the upcoming long summer holiday break).

  Well-being for Early Years: (Friendships, Resilience and Transitions)
  (Workshop date: Thursday 31st May 2018    TIME: 9.00-10.00am and 1.00-2.00 pm)

  The social, emotional and well-being of young children is integral to their learning and development, but what does it actually mean? How do children establish and maintain friendships? How to deal with change and setbacks? How to face new challenges? As important grown-ups in their lives, what can we do to help? In this workshop, we hope to provide parents with some strategies for fostering well-being in young children.

  The workshops will take place at Hillside International Kindergarten. To assist in facilitating our planning we require participants to please register for a place (in either one or both of the workshops on offer). To do this please call Hillside on 25400066 and our reception staff will be happy to book a place for you.

  Payment of Advance Fees for Returning Children

  For current K1 children returning in K2, you should have received an email outlining the details of payment for advance fees. The advance fees will be debited from your designated bank account on 1 August 2018 and will be used to offset September 2018 school fees. Please see the following link for details http://www.esf.edu.hk/2018/05/11/advance-fees-2018-19-hillside/

  Hillside K2 Leavers’ Ceremony – REMINDER: SAVE THE DATE!!!

  One of the highlights of Term 3 is always our K2 Leavers Ceremony. The date set for your child’s K2 class Leavers Ceremony can be found below. Further details regarding this event will follow closer to the date.

K2 Leaving Celebration Arrangements

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.

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