Hillside Newsletter 8 March 2019
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.
| 15 March | Professional Development Day (School Closed) |
| 18 March | Parent Workshop: Bringing Active Learning Home |
| 8-9 April | Hillside Book Fair |
| 11 April | Book Character Parade! (Last Day of Term) |
| 12 – 26 April | Easter Break |
| 29 April | First Day of Term 3 |
Principal’s Message
Dear Parents
A week last Saturday, we had 400+ families come through Hillside to participate in their K1 Play Visit / Admissions interview. The feedback from the visiting parents has been extremely positive. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to lead and be a part of this outstanding kindergarten, and I thank all members of our wonderful community for their support. As a team, we look forward to working in partnership with all the Hillside families to ensure we achieve the best possible educational outcomes for each and every child at Hillside.
In the past, Term 2 will often be a time of anxiety for children, parents, and teachers, as this is when the majority of our children are going through the Admissions interview process. We are incredibly pleased that ESF kindergarten children can transition to an ESF primary school without having to go through a formal interview. Instead, there will be professional dialogues and collaboration involving the child’s kindergarten and primary school teachers. As part of this process, our primary colleagues will be visiting Hillside over the new few weeks to get to know the children better and also work with our teachers. The Hillside team also had opportunities to spend time in Year 1 and Year 2 classrooms to better prepare our K2 children for transition into primary school.
We are very excited as ESF moves toward a “Through-Train Education System” in August 2020. Please read this latest announcement hot-off-the-press today! https://www.esf.edu.hk/2019/03/08/through-train-system/
As a PYP School, we are committed to an Inquiry, Play-based approach. Here at Hillside, we ensure that play is beneficial to children’s learning – we do this by planning for ‘purposeful play’. Creating a well-ordered environment communicates a sense of structure and order. The provision of open-ended materials helps to encourage children’s imaginative use of materials in multiple ways to develop their creativity and problem-solving skills. The Hillside staff enhance the children’s play experiences and make it more meaningful by being on hand and asking questions that challenge the child’s theory or help facilitate them in their thinking through prompts and guidance. These interactions between teacher and child allow us to find out more about what the children are thinking and the meaning of what they are doing. When children play they are constructing meaning, and most importantly they are learning. To find out more about our approach, please join us at our upcoming Parent Workshop on Bringing ACTIVE Learning Home (details below).
As part of our commitment and 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 five days of Professional Development for all Teachers and Educational Assistants. A warm reminder the final professional development day of the school year is next Friday 15 March.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Kind Regards
Hillside Team
Upcoming Parent Workshop at Hillside
We cordially invite parents to join our next Bringing Active Learning Home (Art Focus) workshop on Monday, 18 March from 3:45-4:45pm. Please feel free to pop in if you are available. You are not required to make an appointment.
Please note: This session is intended to serve as an informal opportunity for parents to gain some insight into our programme and see the children’s work around the classrooms. It is not intended to be a time to discuss your child’s progress formally.
Bringing Active Learning Home (Arts Focus)
Workshop date: Monday 18 March 2019 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 Creative Arts learning experiences 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.
Hillside Book Fair – Monday 8 April and Tuesday 9 April 2019
As parents and educators, it is important for us to foster a love of reading. With such a focus and reliance on Information Technology in our current world, it is important that we provide ample opportunities for children to connect with books (with words and pictures) rather than just text on a screen. On this note, Hillside will be hosting our book fair in partnership with Bookazine on 8th and 9th April.
Each class has been allocated a time slot on their given book fair day. In small groups, accompanied by the Class Teachers and Educational Assistants, the children will come down to the Resource Room on the ground floor (this will be the venue for our Book Fair). They will have the opportunity to browse the books on offer, and if they have money to make a book purchase, the adults in the room will assist the children to do this.
Parents are invited to join your child’s class to assist children with choosing suitable books (schedule to follow closer to the time). Parents are also very welcome to collect their child from class at a time that is convenient during the school day to purchase books. A wide range of age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction books will be available for purchase. 15% of the total books purchased will be returned to Hillside in the form of book credits, allowing us to obtain more new books for our Hillside library. Please note that it is not compulsory for your child to purchase a book – the choice is up to you.
Please feel free to visit Bookazine site to look at some of the books that might be available at our Book Fair and also to look at the price range for these children’s books. Click HERE for Bookazine link.
Hillside Book Character Parade – Thursday 11th April 2019
As a fun way to conclude our Book Celebration Week and End of Term 2, we will be having a Book Character Parade. This will take place on Thursday 11th April. We would like, if possible, all of the children to come to school on this day dressed as a character from a book/story that they enjoy. Costumes do not need to be elaborate or detailed – just something fun (and safe) for the children to wear (please note all children will need to have suitable footwear on this day as the parade will take place in our outside play area).
Unfortunately, due to space limitations in our outdoor play area, we will not be able to accommodate parents and caregivers at the parade – however, we can be sure of lots of photos being taken and uploaded onto the class blogs!!
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
