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The Principal's Newsletter

Hanova’s celebrates ‘Movember’ event

By Mr Martin Hughes

Dear Parents and

Staff. Our library has been organised and run mainly by one of our volunteer parents, Ms Camellia Feng, along with Mr Sam Quan.  I am delighted to tell you that Ms Feng has accepted an offer following interview to become the full time Librarian.  Any questions or comments about the library, as well as book donations, would be most welcomed by Ms Feng.

Mr Mike Whitworth has also joined the school staff team.  He will already be familiar to many of you as the person who has been running a sports extra-curricular activity (ECA) and now an ECA on stage design.  Of course, he may be more familiar to you as Elodie, Kai and Amelie’s father and Ms Whitworth’s husband.  His role is as a temporary teaching assistant supporting learning across the school, whether that be in language, or other subjects, such as PE or technology.  We welcome Mr Whitworth and Ms Feng to the Hanova school team.

You may have seen a new face in the office in the last week or so.  Ms Mia Gu has been helping out around the school as a volunteer.  She is soon moving to USA to continue her studies there.

Movember and the Yellow River Soup Kitchen. Many of the students had a most enjoyable time last Friday, 30th November in assembly and coming to school in non-uniform. 

All of the students, staff and visiting parents were told about the good work done by the Yellow River Soup Kitchen with a touching story about a man the Kitchen had helped by paying to provide him with a prosthetic leg.  He was then helped to find a job, enabling him to turn his life round.  The generosity of the students, staff and parents raised a total of ¥3,350 which will be sent on to Yellow River Soup Kitchen before Christmas to help them in a small way to carry on their good work.

The students had voted for the worst and best moustaches or beards on the staff – these were all grown during the month.  Congratulations to Mr Gallerno and Ms O’Connor – I’ll leave you to work out who got which award!  A number of the female staff put up with the ignominy of having fake beards and moustaches put on them by the children, while a number of the men were “shaved” by children using whipped cream and wooden rulers.  Good fun for a good cause.

A Christmas Carol. The students and staff have been practising and working hard to prepare for the inaugural Hanova drama production.  Excitement has gradually been mounting as we get nearer the opening afternoon production on Wednesday, 12th December at 2pm.  To help us with our planning, please book your seats, by calling and leaving a message for May Liu.  Although these are at no cost we would like to know how many people are coming as we would like to invite some others to the performance and we want to ensure that there is sufficient room.

In the spirit of Christmas we are also thinking of others, and will therefore be taking a collection on the door in aid of our chosen charity, the Yellow River Soup Kitchen.

There will be pre show refreshments for the Thursday performance.  This is for parents and guests and will be held in the Library beginning at 6:15pm.

Students should have their formal uniform to change into for both performances.  Also every student needs to bring a scarf.  It can be any scarf they have at home or can borrow.  On Thursday all the main characters need to be here at 6pm to get ready.  Those who do not have costume or make up do not need to be here until later, but at least before 6:30pm.  There will be no extra curricular clubs (ECAs) on that Thursday.

Christmas Post Box. The magical Christmas helpers have put a postbox to write to Santa in our Front Lobby.  This is a tradition in many countries where (usually) younger people write to Santa Claus (Father Christmas) with something they wish for.  For youngest children this is usually something for themselves, but it is good if they can also wish for something for their family, their friends or their wider acquaintances or even the world.

Ideally the letter is inside an envelope addressed to Santa Claus, 1 The North Pole.  The magical Christmas helpers will ensure the letter is passed on to Santa in order to try and make the wish come true for Christmas Day. 

Supermarket trip. Ms Nunweiler’s class visited Vanguard supermarket on Tuesday.  This was part of their work on their Unit of Inquiry, How We Organise Ourselves.  The students thoroughly enjoyed shopping for their ingredients for “Stone Soup” and asking questions of some of the people who work there about what their job was.  They could see how these people work in our community and help to make our lives better.  The students also got to use their money skills that they had been learning about in Maths. The children represented our school very well in their behaviour and attitude.  A big thanks to our parent volunteer chaperones as well. Once the children returned, they enjoyed preparing and eating their Stone Soup probably even more and learned how when we all share things the job is easier to do – all good learning.

Thailand trip. The proposal for the middle and senior years to go to Maekong River Village for an educational trip seemed to be well received by the parents at the information meeting on Monday.  Letters will be going home soon to confirm your child’s place on this exciting trip.  We need to be booking the centre and the flights very soon in order to get the best price possible.  If you were not able to attend the meeting and have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. Please note that students who wish to join this trip must have a passport that is valid for at least six months as of March 2013.  Any students without such a passport should begin the application or renewal process as soon as possible.

Parents on bus. Occasionally parents and teaching staff do travel on the bus either to or from school.  We are quite happy to provide this service, especially as parents are usually only travelling to help us, of course.  This service remains in place while ever we have sufficient seats.  Students now have their own assigned seat.  This was done so that each student felt secure in where they were going to be sitting each day.  Please can I ask that parents travelling on the bus just sit in unassigned seats, if possible, as we continue to expect students to sit in their own seats. If children from the youngest class are travelling with their parents they are an exception and can move to sit with their parents.  Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Best regards,

Martin Hughes

 

Forthcoming events

December

Friday, 7th                                    Admissions Panel meeting for admissions at Chinese New Year

Wednesday, 12th                        Christmas Carol Performance at 2pm

Thursday, 13th                            Students (leads and costumed parts) to arrive at 6pm, all others before 6:30pm.  Pre performance refreshments for parents  from 6:15pm in Library

Thursday, 13th                            Christmas Carol Performance at 7pm

Friday, 14th                                  School closes at 1pm for Christmas Holiday

Saturday, 15th                             Performance at XIBF Christmas event, Shangri-la – about 7pm

January 2013

Wednesday, 2nd                         School re-opens to students


About the Author


Martin Hughes

Former School Principal

Mr Martin Hughes was the founding Principal of Hanova from 2012-15. Prior to his time at Hanova, he already had 23 years of experience as Principal in the UK and China at five different schools - including posts at Wuxi EtonHouse and EtonHouse's flagship Suzhou school. During his time as founding Principal at Hanova, he helped support the initial IB Diploma Programme authorisation (2014) and used his educational vision to help plant our then brand new school on a firm foundation. Under his leadership, Hanova's motto emerged, "Enabling children to become independent, creative and lifelong learners!"


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