Dear Parents,

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their kind messages, cards and emails in response to my resignation. I’m looking forward to the next two months when I can hopefully catch up with many of you and say goodbye in person.

Covid/Quarantine Communication from Kennedy School
I am pleased to announce that our staff members that have needed to be quarantined as a precautionary measure have tested negative to all tests. They will be returning home very soon and will be back to school next week.

I thought it may be helpful to share the following protocols with you which we will follow if these covid/quarantine situations occur again:

1. All school based decisions in relation to any covid outbreak/quarantine situations will be guided by the CHP including school closures. The school will not make unilateral decisions.

2. If a staff member has been requested to quarantine due to a covid outbreak/CHP request, we will notify the whole school community whilst respecting the confidentiality of that staff member.

3. If the staff member is directly connected to a class/or year group we will inform that class or year group directly and name the affected staff member only if given permission to do so by the staff member.

4. Any quarantine situations affecting any non-staff member in the Kennedy School community will only be reported through school communications if the school is given permission to do so by that community/family member or on direction by the CHP.

5. Any school closures are only on direction from the CHP, EDB or ESF Senior management. The school will not make unilateral decisions in these circumstances.

Please note that all staff members are continuing to have fortnightly Covid-19 tests organised by the ESF. Staff members who are 14 days clear of their second vaccination are now exempt from this process.

ESF Stakeholder Survey
You will shortly receive an invitation to fill out the ESF Stakeholder Survey. This is a bi-annual survey which is very helpful to help us evaluate what we are doing well and how we can continue to improve as a school and as an organisation.
It certainly has been a very difficult and disruptive past 18 months but this is still an important time to reflect on how we are doing. Be kind!

Kind regards,
John Brewster
Principal

Diary Dates

May 5: Year 6 DTaP-IPV Immunisation

May 10 to 12: PYP Evaluation Visit

May 19: Buddha’s Birthday - Public Holiday

May 20, 21: School Days (CPD Days cancelled)

May 26: Year 1 Parent Consultation with Chinese teachers

March with Kennedy - We are halfway there!

The ‘March with Kennedy’ community challenge goes from strength to STRENGTH! We now have over 275 keen participants helping us around the world. Click HERE to sign up!

Due to your AMAZING efforts, destination #5, Namibia is out of sight and we’re closing in on destination #6, Italy. Can you believe we have travelled over 22,000 km and completed 3,300 activities? We are now half of the way through our mission and gathering speed...so keep up the incredible work everyone!

Click HERE for more information and to find out who this week’s winners are!

From Monday the 10th to Wednesday the 12th of May, two representatives from the International Baccalaureate Organisation will be virtually visiting Kennedy School to evaluate the implementation of the Primary Years Programme. Our PYP Team Leader for the visit is Mrs Adiakshmi Chintalapati an independent educational consultant from Hyderabad, India. Our PYP Team Member is Ms Jing Li a homeroom teacher from Victoria Shanghai Academy based here in Hong Kong. They are both very experienced PYP educators and have an understanding of our context.

The purpose of this visit is to celebrate our journey with the PYP and continue to build strong partnerships with the IB. It is also to help us identify our next steps in the development of our programme and to support us with this. The IB team will interact with and meet with members of the Kennedy community including parents, teachers and students. It is also an opportunity for us to share our achievements and how we implement the PYP programme at Kennedy.

We look forward to the visit and continuing to learn and grow as we go further into our PYP journey.

The 1st Chinese Language Festival Results

We have excellent NEWS to share!

This year, 149 Kennedy School students participated in the 1st Online Chinese Language Festival with great results. 3,621 participants from 400 schools worldwide entered various competitions, such as Reading out Pinyin, Poem Chanting, Singing Performance, Storytelling, Calligraphy, etc.  2,384 of them were Native participants, and 1,237 were non-native participants. 

Congratulations to the following Kennedy children on achieving excellent results in this global event: 

Lists of Winners-Native Category 

Lists of Winners-Non-Native Category 

Watch some of the children’s performances HERE

The Chinese Language Festival aims to promote Chinese language education and to provide an opportunity for the participants to understand and appreciate Chinese culture. It is a platform for young learners to showcase their interest and talent in using the language to create and present, and to communicate with others.

As one of the host schools and the school that initiated the event, we are proud of our teachers and students for their hard work and success. 

World Book Day Photo Competition

A huge thank you to all the parents, children and staff who helped make World Book Day such a great success last week. The children came to school in such a range of fabulous costumes and enjoyed participating in various book themed activities. 

Thanks so much to all the children who entered this year’s photo competition. It has been very difficult deciding on this year’s winners. All the shortlisted winners will receive a certificate and the first place winner will receive a $100 Bookazine voucher. Unfortunately we can’t give a certificate to everyone who entered due to the high number of participants. However all the photos have been printed and are up on display around the school. 

Here are the winners and runners up for each year level: 

Year 1: Tate 1B

Runners up: Aggy 1T and Stormy 1M

Year 2: Joshua 2T

Runners up: Harvey 2A and Lester 2T

Year 3: Brendan 3W

Runners up: Savannah 3H and Olivia 3M

Year 4: Kallie 4S

Runners Up: Harmonie 4W and Ameer 4B

Year 5: Julianne 5R

Runners up: Camille 5W and Moses 5R

Year 6: Gwyneth 6N

Runners up: Tudor 6C, Lucinda 6M and Jake 6N

View the photos HERE.

It has been a busy time in the music rooms in the last few weeks.

 Year 1 and 2 have been inquiring into dynamics and tempo through singing and using instruments. Year 3 and 4 have been learning how to play the Ukulele, that would be why you may have been asked about this instrument recently.

Year 5 and 6 have been creatively composing using different stimuli for inspiration.

A big thank you to all the students who have taken action and sent videos on Seesaw or Flipgrid of themselves playing instruments at home. We have even had a few family videos too! Keep them coming as we love to see all the talent in our community. 

What a fantastic week we have had with the return of  Kennedy School’s spell-a-thon! Thank you to all the parents, children, teachers and EAs who have collectively made this a really exciting and fun event.  Everyone who got all their spellings correct will receive a certificate of achievement. 

 Deadline for Sponsorship - All forms, transfers and donations must be with the PTA by Thursday 6th May. Prizes will be handed out the following week! 

The Medical room is in need of the following items. If you have extras at home, please send them in!

1. Small bath towels

2. PE shorts for older children - size 28 and above

Thank you! 

Tetrapak Collection - Update

What a great response for our Monday tetrapak collection drive! After 2 weeks, the Lions are in the lead with 4.6 kg collected.

It is important to note that we can only accept opened, washed and dried cartons - anything else will get binned straightaway as the packs cannot be taken to classrooms due to hygiene and allergy concerns.

To start our Sharing the Planet unit in Year 2, Karina from Animals Asia stopped by the Year 2 zoom to speak to 130 very interested Year 2s. She explained all about the important work she does at Animals Asia, and also gave practical advice about what pets need, how to approach dogs safely here in Hong Kong and what we can do to safely help animals around us. 

A donation of $600 was made on behalf of the students but please look at the website for more information for ways to get involved right here in Hong Kong.

This weekend, the Young Readers Festival has some great events planned for you and your children at Lee Garden Two. Take a look at what's on offer. There's sure to be something your children will enjoy. Book early and don't miss out!

Community Service Week (8 - 16 May 2021)

This year’s community service week, Serve-a-thon, organised by @handsonhongkong will unite the city’s volunteers from May 8th to 16th! The service calendar will feature over 100 virtual and in-person volunteer activities supporting dozens of local charities.

Many of these activities welcome and encourage the participation of families, children and young people. Since the launch of the initiative, 52,000 people in need have been supported. 

Check out Serve-a-thon programs open for volunteer sign up! http://www.handsonhongkong.org/calendar 

City Nature Challenge (30 April - 3 May 2021)

The City Nature Challenge (CNC) is an annual international collaboration for anyone to find and record wildlife in cities across the globe. Join over 430 cities around the world in promoting biodiversity awareness and engagement.

 From 30 April to 3 May, all you need to do is to take photos of the wildlife you see in our urban parks, countryside, beaches, neighbourhoods and islands and upload them to the  iNaturalist app. It’s a fantastic way to learn about the amazing biodiversity that is on your own doorstep!

Since first joining in 2018, Hong Kong - a dot on the map, has consistently been in the Top 5 for Species Logged, which is amazing considering our size! 

Last year, Hong Kong was among the top 3 of 244 cities that participated in last year’s City Nature Challenge. An amazing 3,007 species were recorded in 4 days!