Dear Parents and Caregivers,

All programmes and activities are in full swing for term 3. It’s incredible to think we have only one more term to go and also fabulous to reflect on the myriad of learning experiences the students have been involved in this year. All face-to-face! It certainly makes me smile!

New PTA Committee

Following our AGM, I want to thank both the returning and new parents on the PTA committee. The PTA plays a crucial role in all ESF schools, including Kennedy School. It fosters strong relationships between parents, teachers, and the school community; serves as a communication channel between stakeholders; organizes community-building events and activities; raises funds to support school initiatives; coordinates parent volunteers; advocates for the school community, and supports educational programmes.

For PTAs to be effective, we need to work together towards common goals, communicate openly and honestly, and value all stakeholders' voices. At Kennedy School, we are always striving for continuous improvement and have achieved a lot this year thanks to the hard work and dedication of our PTA Chair, Natasha Petit O'Connor, our PTA Administrator, Fiona Bulmer, and past PTA members. We have a lot to be proud of, and there are more fun times ahead!

Update on the Progress of our Strategic Plan

We are happy to report that great progress is being made on our strategic plan. We are particularly excited about the lower playground refurbishment project, led by Debbie Sheward, which is being shaped with input from parent architects, Inge Goudsmit and Roberto Requejo Belette from 3F and PTA and staff representatives. This has involved a lot of student ‘voice’ too and is currently in the design phase. The lower playground will be completed in December 2023.

All staff have completed DEI seminars, which have been very well received, and we've held student assemblies to achieve a greater understanding of inclusion, belonging and gender stereotypes.

Our new VP and PYP Coordinator, Cath Wan is doing an excellent job refining our PYP Programme of Inquiry alongside teachers, and we're looking forward to implementing the results of the comprehensive review in August 2023.

We're also actively working on a Technology Road Map for Kennedy School, which will guide our technology efforts for the future. The team, led by Rudi Dray, is working hard to develop the roadmap, and we will be presenting updates at the next PTA parents’ coffee morning.

Recent Parent Feedback from Three-Way Conferences/Celebration Day - held on 24 March 2023 (126 parent responses)

I’ll share the results of the ESF Stakeholder survey once we have completed the analysis.

What can we look forward to this term?

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

Year 1 parents - please remember to hand in the MMR/MMRV immunisation consent or refusal form (with documents) to your child's class teacher tomorrow (Friday, 28 April).

For more information, please refer to the letter sent to parents on 24 April.

MMR/MMRV Letter to Year 1 Parents

Games finishes this Friday!

Our students have had lots of fun this week celebrating their last session of the Kennedy Games Programme.

Students in Year 1, 2 and 3 enjoyed playing a variety of Games with the teachers across their year group.

In Year 4, 5 and 6, students took part in the friendly Inter-house Games Festival and played against students in other Houses at sports such as Football, Pickleball, Netball, Rugby or Athletics.

Click on the Google Pholo Album links below for some gorgeous photos of this week’s Games sessions:

Year 3 Games

Year 4 Games

Year 6 Games

Swimming starts next week

The Summer Term school swimming programme will begin next week with our first classes on Tuesday 2nd May. If your child has not been swimming for a long time, and to ensure a positive experience with our swim coaches, I recommend that over the weekend students should visit a swimming pool to gain some experience of being in the water.

At Kennedy School, each class is taught by 5 experienced swim coaches.

• Students are grouped into smaller swim  groups based on their ability.

• All children are required to attend these essential life skill lessons.

• Please provide a valid doctor’s note should your child be unable to swim.

• All students will receive 6 lessons in total and we will conclude our Summer Swimming Programme with the Year 6 Swim Gala on Friday 16th June.

Swimming caters for ALL children from Years 1 to 6.

The aims of the programme are:

• Water safety

• Learn to swim

• Stroke development

In case of inclement weather, the swimming teachers will teach water safety to the younger students and simple, practical water safety techniques to the older children.

Here is next week’s Swimming schedule (2 to 5 May 2023):

For the full Kennedy Swimming Timetable please click here.

1) Parent/Staff Webinar - “Self Regulation”

Thursday 4th May 2023

Join us for the final of our wellness webinars as we hear from Bronwyn Timson, Occupational Therapy Team Leader at SPOT Therapy - on the topic of “Self Regulation”.

Key learning areas will be:

• Understanding the meaning of regulation

• Developing a deeper understanding of both Emotional and Sensory Regulation

• The relationship between regulation and learning

• Being able to identify behavioural vs. regulation challenges in our children

• How to change the script for children whose regulation and challenging "behaviours" lead them to feel negative about themselves.

• Starting to develop a personalised ‘toolbox’ of regulation strategies for use at home or at school

This talk would be beneficial to parents, teachers, teaching assistants and indeed any other professionals supporting our children's development and learning.

If you have not registered already, please register using the link below:

PTA Wellness Webinar

The link to the webinar will be sent to those registered early next week.

2) Parent Coffee Morning - “Technology at Kennedy School”

Friday 5th May 2023 8:20 am - 9:30 am

Join us for an informative talk on the topic of Technology here at Kennedy School.

Our office and IT team will run through how to use the following technology tools - ESF App, VLE, Gateway and Seesaw.

We will also hear from Brenda Cook, Rudi Dray and Rory Douglas on some exciting new developments for IT at school.

This is thoroughly recommended especially (but not limited) to parents who are relatively new to ESF.

Parent Coffee Morning Registration

3) School Buses

A huge thank you to all the families of our bus users for helping us keep the buses running smoothly by being on time and keeping us updated with any changes.

All bus absences should continue to be reported directly to Steven at bus@kennedy.edu.hk before 12 noon on the day to ensure school buses are not delayed departing school while they wait for children.

• Please take note of our Inclement Weather Procedures located on the school website

• Draft ESF School Calendar 2023-34- Updated 8 March 2023

• Kennedy School Health Guidelines - When to keep your child at home

• Chinese learning links this week:

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