Hillside Newsletter 28th April 2017
Hillside Kindergarten’s latest newsletter available to read now. Find out the latest news from around the school and upcoming events.
Important Dates
Click HERE for the Full School Calendar in PDF.
Click HERE to subscribe to our Google Calendar which includes reminders and alerts.
| 1 May | Public Holiday |
| 2 May | Professional Development Day – School Closed |
| 3 May | Public Holiday |
| 9 – 12 May | K1 Parent Teacher Conferences |
| 16 – 19 May | K2 Parent Teacher Conferences |
Principal’s Message
Dear Parents
Welcome to term 3
I hope you all had a lovely Easter and school holiday break – managing to get some enjoyable downtime with family and friends. Term 3 is always a great term….however as I look at the remainder of this year’s academic calendar, I can see that we have a great deal to get done in this rather short ten-week term!!! A highlight for K2 will be the K2 Leavers Celebration event (please make note of the details and dates for this event now in your diary – full details can be found below)
At the end of the last term, the teachers in both K1 and K2 planned this term’s Unit of Inquiry (UoI) and I know the children are going to have the opportunity to develop many new skills along with enjoying and participating in their new UoI (please visit our class blogs on the Hillside Learning Hub for your child’s latest class news which will include information about your child’s Unit of Inquiry). It would be great if you could encourage your child to share and talk about what they have been doing and learning in their new UoI. One of the purposes of our class blogs is to provide parents with information about the learning being undertaken at Hillside so that it can then be discussed at home between parent and child.
Professional Development Days for Hillside staff – school closure days
To ensure that we offer the highest quality educational programme here at Hillside, it is essential that we provide high quality and regular professional development for all staff. It is ESF policy to provide at least 5 days of Professional Development for all Teachers and Educational Assistants and the following dates in Term 3 have been set to undertake our final (2) professional development days at Hillside. Please make note of these dates, as the Kindergarten will be closed on each of the following days:
• Tuesday 2nd May 2017
• Monday 29th May 2017
Hillside K2 Leavers’ Ceremony – 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
(Monday 12th – Thursday 15th June 2017)
4.00-5.00pm
| Mon. 12th June | Tues. 13th June | Wed. 14th June | Thurs. 15th June |
| Tiger AM | Tiger PM | Dragon AM | Dragon PM |
| Turtle AM | Monkey PM | Gecko AM | Gecko PM |
Latest Unit Report
The latest Unit of Inquiry report (for both K1 and K2) is now available for parents to access on Gateway. Please log into Gateway https://hs.tg.esf.edu.hk to access your child’s report. If you forgot your password or login name, please use the “forgot password or login name” function. Gateway will send you an email for resetting password shortly.
Once you’ve logged in, on the menu bar at the top left you should see ARR. Click on it then choose ‘ARR Report’.
Select the relevant school year “16/17” and report template “Unit Report – March 2017”. If you have more than one child at the school select the appropriate child then click on “Generate Report”. This will create a PDF file that you can save as a soft copy or print out if you wish.
Please contact admissions@hs.esf.org.hk if you have any trouble accessing your child’s report.
Parent-Teacher Conference
Parent-Teachers Consultations (PTC) are coming up, you will need to login to your Gateway account to book your appointment. The online sign-up will be available from Monday, 3 April, and will close on the Friday prior to your week of PTCs. Please follow the instructions HERE on how to make a booking.
The appointments are about 10-15 minutes long for each child. If the dates indicated do not work for you, we can try to arrange alternatives. However, please be aware that these are the dates when we have arranged cover for teachers and we would like to keep to them as much as possible. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us on 2540-0066.
| K1 | Dolphin | Frog | Monkey | Panda |
| Date | 11 May
12 May |
9 May
10 May |
9 May
10 May |
11 May
12 May |
| K2 | Dragon | Gecko | Tiger | Turtle |
| Date | 16 May
17 May |
18 May
19 May |
16 May
17 May |
18 May
19 May |
K1 Leavers – Withdrawal notice due
If your child is currently in K1 and you have decided that your child will not be continuing at Hillside for K2, it would be appreciated if you could let us know as soon as possible to assist us with our planning. Please submit a completed Withdrawal Notice Form (available HERE) to the kindergarten at least two months prior to your child’s last day of school. The debenture will not be redeemed without the two-month advance notice of withdrawal. It is the parents’ responsibility to confirm with individual kindergartens the receipt of the Withdrawal Notice Form.
If you do have any questions please do not hesitate to contact our Admissions Manager, Jasmine Lau, by phone or by email admissions@hs.esf.org.hk for assistance.
For K2 students who are graduating by the end of June, there is no need to submit the withdrawal notice and the debenture certificate.
Hillside Driveway / Playground resurfacing
The current flooring of our outdoor area was made up of very uneven, cracked and broken concrete. Due to securing Capital funding from ESF this academic year, we have been able to arrange for this work to be carried out over the Easter term break. The outside play area now looks great with all the cracks, broken concrete etc. filled and repaired and the entire area covered with a dazzling blue heavy duty paint material (that hopefully will also be strong enough to withstand our buses entering and exiting our playground four times per day!!!).
This revamped area has now been made safer due to the work undertaken, along with being aesthetically beneficial (a nice bright blue colour instead of the current drab grey concrete).
Wishing you all the best for a wonderful Term 3!!
Regards Chris,
Principal
K1 News
Please visit our class blogs on the Hillside Learning Hub for your child’s latest class news and photo gallery. Please contact kinder@hs.esf.org.hk if you cannot access the Learning Hub.
K2 News
Please visit our class blogs on the Hillside Learning Hub for your child’s latest class news and photo gallery. Please contact kinder@hs.esf.org.hk if you cannot access the Learning Hub.
