Dear Parents and Caregivers,
 

Meet the Year Group

Thanks so much for attending the Meet the Year Group sessions - we hope you found them interesting and useful. The children are settling back into school and are starting to get back into the swing of routines and classroom procedures.

Year Group Assemblies

These have begun again and are facilitated by members of the Senior Leadership Team with the help of our musical rock star Mrs GG. The kids are enjoying the content and as this has a focus on social and emotional learning. This provides great guidance and ideas for well-being and relationships.

This week, we have been exploring Kindness and how to spread kindness, showing children that spreading kindness makes everyone feel good. We even encouraged the older children to do more chores at home as an act of kindness for you…I hope you get to enjoy this act of kindness!

We shared this graphic with some of the older children to set themselves little goals to work on around kindness - you may want to discuss this with your child and praise them when you see them following through.

Covid Update

We’re continuing to work hard with ESFC staff to gain further clarity from CHP and will update you when we have more information.

New Families

We are welcoming many new families into the community each week and I have been really proud of how the children are being ‘includers’ by welcoming new students into their friendship groups. Welcome to all of our new-comers.

Strategic Planning - the Year Ahead

We’re developing our strategic planning for the year and are keen to share focus areas with you so you understand the areas we are working to improve and enhance in the school. We will be holding a webinar for parents later in the month to share this with you. More details to follow.

As always if you would like to make contact with any of the leadership team you will find us in the playground or reach out to us via email at bcook@kennedy.edu.hk.

Kind regards,

Brenda

顧仁達

Year 1 Applications for 2023-24

Year 1 Applications for the Academic Year 2023-24 will commence on 1 September 2022. Siblings of current Kennedy School students can apply for Year 1 through the ESF website. Applications close on 30 September 2022 (Friday).

Year 6 students applying for Year 7

Parents who wish to transfer their child from an ESF primary school to an ESF secondary school need to submit a transfer application for Year 7 (available only on Gateway) from 1 to 16 September 2022 (Friday).

School Counsellor Introduction

Dear Parents,

My name is Cheryl Braganza and I joined Kennedy School as the School Counsellor in April 2022. In the short time that I have been with the school I have relished getting to know the staff and students and becoming part of the Kennedy School Community!

Prior to my time as a Counsellor, I worked as a Secondary School Teacher in London for over nine years. My background in education has provided me with an insight into the academic and social challenges faced by students. In recent years my career has transcended into the field of mental health and I obtained a Masters in Counselling with Monash University. Since qualifying as a Counsellor I have worked in both private and online counselling practices. However, the rewards of working with children have drawn me back to the school environment and working at Kennedy School.

As a School Counsellor, my primary responsibility is to promote the academic, social and emotional development of all students. I offer weekly support to students individually and in small groups with parent permission. The sessions focus on various issues including friendship/social skills, managing worries and anxiety, anger management, bullying and adjusting to change. I also meet with parents, collaborate with teachers and staff to benefit and meet the needs of all Kennedy School students.

My role as a School Counsellor offers proactive and early preventative intervention that can have a lasting positive impact on a child’s academic, social and emotional development. The counselling service offered also allows students to have access to support who otherwise may not be seen or might only be referred to external support when their problems have become more severe.

If you feel your child would benefit from school counselling, please contact your child’s class teacher who can then start the referral process and who will contact both myself and Debbie Sheward who oversees the counselling provision in the school.

A) Class Parents

Thank you to all the parents who have stepped up to volunteer as class parents.

We are still seeking class parents for 5B and 5P - please contact Fiona in the PTA office at pta@kennedy.edu.hk if you have questions or to register your interest.

All Class Parents receive guidelines giving assistance and outlining Kennedy Schools expectations and will be invited to attend a (Zoom) meeting to discuss them. They will also receive parent contact details so they can communicate with parents within their class.

ALL PARENTS: If you have not done so already, please make sure you go and electronically sign the “Sharing of Contact Details With Class Parent” eNotice on the ESF Gateway. We will not share your contact details with the class parent until you have signed this.

If you are not sure if you e-signed this already, please check.

B) Bus Users

Please ensure you always let the class teacher AND Steven Chen, who is responsible for bus service coordination, know if your child will not be taking the afternoon bus. They need 24 hours to co-ordinate this. The email for this purpose is bus@kennedy.edu.hk

Buses experience delays leaving school in the afternoon where parents have not informed Steven with sufficient notice to ensure the bus mothers have the information they need in a timely manner.

C) Bus Timetable

By the end of this week, all schools across Hong Kong will have resumed after the summer break, leading to a change in traffic flow at the start and end of the school day. Kwoon Chung will be reviewing the timetable to take into account changes to time taken for each journey. If there need to be changes, bus users will be informed in due course.

D) Community

The Kennedy School PTA supports our local community. We are lucky to have the HKU Sandy Bay Club across the road from school who not only have active Mini, Youth and Adult rugby teams - but they have recently launched their Netball section.

Whilst the well established rugby club is still accepting new players - it is the newly formed netball section who are particularly looking for players to join their U10 and U12 teams. Training is 5pm on Wednesday or Thursday with matches to be played on a Saturday.

For more information, please find links to the netball team information at the HKU Sandy Bay website. http://www.hkusandybayrfc.com/teams/

Mid Autumn Festival Recycled Lantern Competition Winners

We received many lanterns for our Mid Autumn Festival Recycled Lantern Competition. Have a look at this video of all the beautiful lanterns the children made!

Mid Autumn Festival Recycled Lanterns

The children voted for their favourites and we are pleased to announce the winners of the Recycled Lantern Competition.

Congratulations to the winners and to everyone who took part!

After School Sports Clubs

We are really pleased to see lots of students enjoying participating in sports clubs that began this week. The closing date to sign up for staff run after school sports clubs is this Friday 9 Sep 2022. If you wish your child to join a Kennedy Sports Club, please sign up on the Gateway.

This year, we would like to encourage our students to wear a Kennedy After School Sports Shirt. These can be purchased from the PTA for $75HKD.

Kennedy After School Club Shirt

Kennedy School hockey sticks are also available to purchase at the discounted price of $150.

Kennedy School Hockey Stick

Swim Safety Week

The week beginning September 19th will be Swim Safety Week.

This is a big safety component to our swimming programme where we introduce the students to what it feels like to be fully clothed when swimming. The children will also experience basic life saving techniques should they fall into a body of water.

The programme is designed to allow the students to experience how their swimming ability may change when in water with heavier clothes on. For the students to experience the change in the way they float, how much more tired they become, and survival techniques to use IF they were to be in water fully clothed, such as falling off a boat, being caught in a flash flood, accidentally falling into a pool etc.

For swim safety week students need to bring in a big T-shirt to wear on swimming that day IN ADDITION to their usual swim kit:

Only white or light coloured clothing will be permitted in the pool as dark colours react with the chlorine.

AT ALL TIMES THEY WILL BE UNDER STRICT SUPERVISION THE AQUAKIDZ EXPERIENCED AND FULLY ACCREDITED TEACHERS.

Please note that students with long hair must wear a swim hat. Good quality swim hats can be purchased online through the PTA for $10. Our swimming coaches would prefer these to be worn rather than the lycra material hats which often fall off during swimming.

Kennedy School swim hat sale

Please refer to the swimming timetable to ensure your child is prepared for swimming on the correct day.

Bookmark this page for the full swimming schedule for the term:

Term 1 Swimming Schedule

1) Fruity Fridays

Every Friday, we collect orange and banana peels to make compost to feed our school gardens. Please contribute to our recycling and greening efforts by giving your child a small unpeeled orange or banana for snack on Fridays!

2) Tetrapak Recycling at Kennedy School

Every Monday, our eco representatives collect washed and dried tetrapaks for recycling. Children can bring their packs between 8:00 to 8:20 am, which will be checked, collected and weighed according to House teams. Packs that are not prepared correctly will be thrown away as we are unable to process them at school. Do not bring tissue boxes or any other recycling materials.

What is a Tetrapak

Tetrapaks are beverage cartons that are actually made of plastic, metal and paper, which makes them difficult to recycle. Kennedy School works with Vitasoy to collect and recycle these materials in Hong Kong, which are then turned into reusable materials.

How to prepare a Tetrapak for Recycling

Tetrapaks must be completely cut open, washed and dried before being brought in to school, and the lid must be taken off. Flatten them before bringing them to school. See below!

Please click on the links below for the children's Chinese learning for Term 1. These links will be updated on a weekly basis. You may also bookmark the relevant pages for future reference: