Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Celebration of Learning and Three-Way Conferences.

We’re excited to bring back a fabulous opportunity for you to engage in learning with your child/ren and their teachers at school. Live! Face to face, on Friday 24 March 2023.

As this full-day process involves all students and teachers in the school, your family will get to choose a specific session during the day that suits you best. Formal classes will not be in operation on this day; children will come and leave with their parents and buses will not run. You will need around 60-90+ minutes for you and your child to engage in everything that is offered that day.

Families with more than 1 child at Kennedy School will have first priority to book times.  This will allow a more cohesive schedule for multiple visits to classrooms. These families will be sent a message on the APP  tomorrow for this purpose and we encourage you to book your session before the end of the weekend.

Families with only one child at Kennedy School -  Bookings open from 12 noon on Monday 27 February.  We will send an APP message on Monday to remind you to make your booking.

All appointments need to be made by 3 pm on Friday 10 March.

School Uniforms

We have given a little leeway in recent weeks due to the cooler weather, however, now it is time to smarten up our Kennedy School ‘look’ and wear our uniform with pride. The general appearance is not uniform at all at the moment so we need quite a drastic change. Please help us with this. In particular:

• Wearing of full school uniform on the days when children do not have PE.

• Wearing school uniform - not sports kits for ECAs. Children need to change into these kits after school.

• Wearing black school shoes with the uniform - not PE or trainer-type shoes.

• Ensuring the under shirt is NOT visible ie when wearing short-sleeved shirts.

• Wearing only uniform clothing - not other brands or styles.

• Hair accessories matching the uniform.

• Appropriate socks - not striped or multi-coloured.

Staff will be prompting children about this - so have this conversation with your child/ren at home and ensure their uniform is correct before leaving the house in the morning. Many thanks.

Kennedy School Uniform Guidelines

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Our weekly assemblies have continued to focus on celebrating differences and using these differences to know ourselves well and be open and embrace learning and knowing about others. As a school with an inclusive philosophy, we are continuing to focus on many areas of DEI. As a staff, we are learning more about:

• Identity

• Representation

• Intersectionality

• Stereotypes, unconscious bias, discrimination

• Oppression

• Microaggressions

• Privilege

• Allyship

Parent Education in DEI - ESF is also organising a DEI workshop for Parents called ‘Supporting Conversations about DEI with your child’. This will take place on Wednesday, March 22, 6-7pm via Zoom. A registration form will be sent to you soon.

Updated EDB information about RAT testing

The EDB (Education Bureau) announced on 21 February 2023 that it will maintain the requirements for students of primary, kindergartens and special schools to undergo Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) and temperature checks before going to school until 15 March 2023. The secondary schools have been exempted from doing these.

Please take note of the following :

• Please continue to ensure your child undertakes the daily RAT and temperature check every morning and update the information in the ESF App until 15 March 2023. We will distribute more test kits later.

• It is important that parents report the positive results in the ESF App each morning as schools are required to collect the positive RAT results from all students and report them to CHP (Centre for Health Protection).

• Students who have positive RAT results should not be allowed to return to school until they obtain negative RAT results.

• School will continue with our daily disinfection measures recommended by CHP (Centre for Health Protection).

• Thank you for continuing to ensure your child undertakes the daily RAT/temperature. Please do not send your child to school if they have any symptoms of illness (e.g. headache, runny nose, sore throat etc).

If you would like to contact any members of the leadership team, you will find us in the playground or you can locate our emails on the ESF APP. You can email me at bcook@kennedy.edu.hk.

Kind regards,

Brenda

顧仁達

Principal

Important Reminder for Bus Users

If your child will not be taking the school bus home, please notify Steven at bus@kennedy.edu.hk before 12 noon on the day so he has sufficient notice to update the bus mothers.

Yearband Led Dress Up Days - an update

Last Friday was our latest Yearband Led Dress Up day. Chosen by Year 4, the whole school wore outfits matching the theme “Clash of the Patterns.” Not only did we see a wide range of outfits we raised over $13,300 for Year 4 who are using the funds raised to hire a drama coach ahead of their Year 4 show.

Do you remember Year 6 were raising funds for Destress Doodle Classes with Katie Flowers - and Year 5 raised funds for HK themed art classes with Eleanor McColl? Over the last 2 weeks, the artists have been at school spreading creativity and mindfulness……

The next yearband led dress up day will be Friday 17th March. The theme is being chosen by Year 3 - announcement to follow next week!

Book Week

This March 20th to 24th, Kennedy School will dedicate a week to celebrate the joy of reading! This year's theme for Book Week is "Read. Grow. Inspire." Students and parents are invited to join us for many fun activities. Look out for details to follow.

Vision Screening at Kennedy School

ESF Kennedy School has arranged for optometrist Suzan Salnikow to conduct Vision Screening for Kennedy School students on 2 Tuesdays - 21 and 28 March 2023.  Suzan runs a children’s and baby’s optometry clinic at The Matilda International Hospital.

The fee for this service is $280.

Ten aspects of vision are screened. Please refer to the vision screening leaflet below. Reports and receipts will be distributed after the screening, together with further advice if needed.

Vision Screening Leaflet

If you are interested in this service, please register at Eventbrite link. The deadline for registrations is Tuesday 14th March 2023.

ESF Calendar 2023-24

Here are this week's Chinese learning links:

Year 1 Weekly Learning Notice

Year 2 Weekly Learning Notice

Year 3 Weekly Learning Notice

Year 4 Weekly Learning Notice

Year 5 Weekly Learning Notice

Year 6 Weekly Learning Notice