Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Happy Diwali

We were all entertained with a lovely Diwali celebration assembly yesterday. A big thanks to one of our parents Garima Jain and other parents who helped prepare the students for the assembly. The children performed with a lot of pride and enjoyment. We hope you enjoyed it too.

Fun-O-Ween

What a fun week it has been already and you can imagine how excited the children are to dress up for Fun-O-Ween tomorrow. Please read the PTA section for more details.

Staffing

Tomorrow we say farewell and thank you to Jo Lacy who has been covering 4O whilst Colleen Osborne is on medical leave. Jo has been such an asset to our team and we look forward to welcoming her back as a supply teacher in a few months time. Priya Desai will be joining our team to teach 4O until Colleen returns in a few weeks’ time. Priya has worked in our school previously and is looking forward to working with the Year 4 teachers and students from next Monday.

Amy Ngan, Teacher of Chinese, will be taking unexpected family/compassionate leave from next week and will return to Kennedy School after Easter. During this time, we have recruited Jennifer Doo to cover Amy’s classes. Jennifer is a very experienced ESF teacher who is excited to join our team. We are sure Jennifer will hit the ground running and will be a great asset to the team. We wish Amy and her family all the very best in the months ahead.

Congratulations to Leigh Harris (3H teacher) and Paul on the arrival of their newest family member, Harper Harris. Harper was born on Wednesday 12th October and is a little sister to Hunter. Rachel Percival is teaching 3H whilst Leigh is on maternity leave. We wish the family well as they bond together as a family of 4.

Great News From EDB

I'm sure you were delighted as we were to read that EDB has relaxed the vaccination requirements to allow us to return to full day schooling. In the latest EDB circular, they stated that if 70% or more of the total number of students of the whole school have received two doses of vaccine for more than 14 days, the school may make an application to the EDB to resume whole day, face-to-face classes from Thursday December 1, 2022. Kennedy School is sitting at a high vaccination rate for 2 doses with 80% of the students falling into this category.

We will be making the submission to EDB to get approval so that we can begin full day schooling and resume normal lunch eating procedures in classrooms in December. This means timetable changes, slightly later pick up times for buses and school gates opening at a later time of 8.15am. The official timetable will begin at 8.30am. To avoid confusion and disruption mid-week, we will begin the new timetable and arrangements on Monday December 5th. This will ensure that children’s timeframes and programmes remain consistent during the week beginning Monday 28th November, 2022.

I will be sharing more details with you over the next couple of weeks so that as a community, we are all prepared for the positive changes in December. This is wonderful news and what we’ve all been waiting for.

We hope in the near future, we will be able to do away with perspex dividers in classrooms and to partake in more mask off activities rather than just lunch eating which we are doing now. It’s a great start and a wonderful step forward.

Principal Recruitment - A note from Chris Geary - School Council Chair

You will be aware that ESF is currently recruiting for the Principal role at Kennedy School. I shared the recruitment timeline at the parent webinar last night. Please see below. You will note that on Friday 25 November, the shortlisted candidates will make a presentation to the Kennedy School community. The timing has not been confirmed yet, however it is tentatively planned for around 2.30pm. All parents are welcome to attend and there will be a feedback mechanism to gather your thoughts on the candidates. More details will follow. Please be assured that I am keeping in close contact with the ESFC Management Team about the process and candidates. I look forward to sharing more details with you as they evolve.

Parent Webinar

Thank you to the many parents who joined the ‘Year Ahead’ SLT Webinar last night. For those of you who were unable to make the presentation, please find the slides here for your perusal. If you have any questions or comments please catch us in the playground or drop us an email.

Uniforms

Thank you for helping us ensure the children are wearing the uniform with pride. Please refer to these UNIFORM GUIDELINES for more information.

The uniform suppliers are currently producing long-sleeved blouses and shirts and also long sleeved PE shirts and these will come online to purchase shortly. This will be a good addition to the uniform bundle and we will let you know when they are ready to purchase.

School Photographers

School photos will take place next week. We are unable to do mask off class group photos, however, we will do individual photos with masks off. We have also decided to do a full school photo this year (mask on) on Wednesday morning, 2nd November at 8.20am.

Open Day Afternoon for Current Parents

Please take note of the times below for your child/ren’s open afternoon. This will be an informal way for you to see your child’s classroom, meet their teacher face to face and go for a walk around the campus with your child to see all the places they learn and play. A google form will be sent to you soon to RSVP and to inform us of any changes to pick up/bus arrangements. We look forward to having you in school.

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 me via email at bcook@kennedy.edu.hk.

Kind regards,

Brenda

顧仁達

Principal

A. School Photographs

Techni Photo will be in school from Monday 31 October to Thursday 3 November to take individual portrait photos of the children. Social distancing will be observed and all staff and children will be wearing their masks as usual. Each child will briefly remove his/her mask when taking the individual photo.

The children should be in their formal school uniform and hair accessories should be in purple or white.

The photo schedule is as follows:

B. PY101 Webinar - A Parent's Guide to the IB Primary Years Programme

Wednesday 2nd of November at 6.00 pm to 7.00 pm

This webinar is designed for parents to find out more about the IB PYP, which is the curriculum framework we use at Kennedy School and across ESF. This webinar will focus on the IB Mission, the Learner Profile, key features of the PYP, and how our curriculum is embedded into the PYP framework through our Programme of Inquiry.

In other words, this workshop will answer the questions:

1. Why is my child learning this way?

2. What are they doing? Why are they doing that?

3. How does the curriculum support the way my child learns?

This webinar will be interactive and you will be discussing and working with other parents. It is a great opportunity for us to share, learn and grow together.

Please fill out the survey here and we look forward to seeing you virtually on Wednesday 2nd of November. We will share the link and additional information about the webinar closer to the date.

A. Christmas Card Design Competition

A huge thank you to all our budding artists who submitted their designs for the annual Christmas Card design competition. We received over 360 entries this year across all the yearbands. Well done everyone!

A huge congratulations to our winners:

Year 1: Kate Lam 1L, Kayla Lau 1C

Year 2: Hana Ang 2S, Zara Johnson 2N

Year 3: Arielle Yeung 3R, Olivia Lam 3R

Year 4: Albert Xia 4R, Kayla Chou 4R, Sana Beed 4W

Year 5: Circle Leung 5K, Square Leung 5P

Year 6: Rachel Kwok 6RI, Brandon Chan 6RI

CHRISTMAS CARD WINNERS AND ARTWORK

We will announce more details with regards to purchasing mixed design card packs in due course.

B. Dress Up Days!

Yearband Led Dress Up Days

The Yearband led whole school dress up day on Friday 14th October was a huge success. It was wonderful to see all students and staff come to school in their pyjamas - and everyone enjoyed the opportunity to quietly “Drop Everything And Read” for a few minutes when the announcement was made over the tannoy.

PYJAMAS DAY PHOTO ALBUM

Thanks to everyone’s generosity, we raised $12,600 for Year 6. They will all be enjoying a “De-stress Doodling” art class led by Katie Flowers from Wild at Art and some new, fun items for their classroom.

Thank you Year 6 - that was a fun theme! The next Yearband to choose the whole school dress up day will be Year 5 - it will take place on Thursday 17th November. The theme will be announced in the next Whole School newsletter!

C. Diwali & Dress Brightly

A huge thank you to Garima Jain, parent member of our PTA, and many volunteer parents and children for entertaining us all with a celebratory assembly explaining the meaning behind this special celebration.

Thank you for sending your child “Dressed Brightly” for this event - it was a sea of vibrant colours arriving into school.

Here are a few photos from the performance:

DIWALI PHOTO ALBUM

You may watch a recording of the performance here:

DIWALI PERFORMANCE

D. Fun-O-Ween (28 October 2022)

Tomorrow, students and staff should come to school dressed in fun outfits as we celebrate “Fun-O-Ween”. The PTA have arranged photo booths for children to enjoy having their photos taken at break time in the Lower and Octagonal playgrounds.

E. Chinese-a-thon (11 November 2022)

See the next section below.

F. Quiz Night (18 November 2022)

See you there!

REGISTER HERE

To celebrate our children's Chinese learning and to make our Chinese programme even more wonderful, the PTA and the Chinese Department are jointly hosting a Chinese-a-thon on 11 November 2022 (also known as 11/11). (Please watch this video to see how excited our community is about the event.)

Funds raised from the Chinese-a-thon will be used for the benefit of all our students by enhancing the Chinese language materials we have in school. Please help your children by sponsoring their efforts (here are the wordlists by year group).

Once your child has collected sponsorship pledges on this sponsorship form, add them together and use this form to state the total amount that will be donated to school to fund Chinese projects. You will then be invoiced for a single amount to send the total amount donated by bank transfer.

Please ensure you submit the form so that your child is awarded House Points for their effort.

Deadline to submit this form: Monday 14th November 2022

Thank you for supporting the Chinese Programme at Kennedy School, and the PTA’s fundraising efforts.

Our Games Programme is now in full swing and our students are enjoying developing their skills and fitness levels in all year groups. The children take part in a wide variety of activities developing gross motor skills such as throwing, balancing, catching, kicking and striking games in early years through to applying the skills in the upper years.

In Years 1 to 3, Games is taught in the regular class groups. In Years 4 to 6, students are grouped into their Houses. Students have the opportunity to learn from specialist coaches from HKCC, Valley Fort Rugby, Tekkers Football as well as our specialist PE Teachers.

Students who do not currently meet the HKU vaccination requirements are taught games separately on the school site by our school Educational Assistants.

Our Yoga programme has begun this week and will run through to the end of May. Students in Year 2 - 6 will receive a total of 5 Yoga sessions delivered by yoga instructors from Pure Fitness.

The following classes will have their yoga sessions on Wednesdays till 23 November 2022:

Please note that students should wear their Kennedy PE kits on the days they participate in Games, PE and Yoga. Finally, as the weather is still very warm please ensure your child has their Kennedy School hat, replacement face masks and a water bottle in school.

We have had some amazing Boxes of Hope so far - these will be sent to families in Hong Kong and South-East Asia who are in difficult circumstances. Please send the boxes into class by Friday 11 November 2022.

Thank you so much.

The cold and flu seasons are right around the corner.

Like COVID-19, the flu can be a serious illness, particularly in the vulnerable. While influenza viruses and the Coronavirus spread in similar ways, and measures to avoid a COVID-19 infection are likely to lessen your chances of catching flu too - it is still important to take preventative measures to protect yourself and your family.

Here’s what you can do to be prepared:

• Get the flu shot.

• Wash your hands. Thorough and frequent hand washing is the best way to prevent many common infections.

• Eat right, sleep tight. Both poor diet and poor sleep can lower your immunity and make you more vulnerable to infections.

• Stay home when you are sick.

The Government Vaccination Programme (GVP) 2022/23 continues to provide free or subsidised seasonal influenza vaccination. For more information, visit https://www.chp.gov.hk.

Seasonal Influenza vaccination pamphlet

Please click on the links below for this week's Chinese learning.