School license. We are delighted to tell you that Hanova has been awarded its school licence well ahead of our 2 year target date. The final government department authenticated the paperwork on this during the school holidays. A lot of hard work from the school and in particular the Board has gone into achieving this. We are now officially Xi’an Hanova International School. All our school documentation will gradually change over to this name. The award means we are licensed in our own right to deal with all aspects of school governance including admitting students and running the curriculum, issuing graduation certificates and employing teachers and other staff to deliver this curriculum. This has little impact on parents but will streamline a number of administrative processes and also means we exist legally within our own right. (A shortened item about this was in last week and is repeated because a significant number of families arrived after the newsletter was sent out)
The first school week. It was fantastic to see the students returning from the summer holidays and the very large number of new students attending.
The challenges for our school have been significant with the vast majority of new enrolments having to be considered as late admissions well after our initial enrolment application date of 29th May. Most of the enrolments came during July. It is a real pleasure to have so many students and it will enable our programmes to grow further and develop
Welcome to all our new families, and, of course, to our returners!
Uniforms. All our new starters should have their complete school uniforms that were issued on New Family Induction Day last Friday or shortly after. As indicated previously, please check the size of your child’s uniform and return preferably with the tag still on and obviously unworn if the size is incorrect. Include a note detailing the new size. Attached to this newsletter by email is the full list of this year’s uniform. If there were any items mistakenly included please return them, also telling us about any items omitted.
Returning students should start receiving their uniform next week. You will be sent a uniform request proforma to let us know of your estimate of your child’s sizes. We will deal with these as they come in. Owing to the very late enrolment of so many students we are unlikely to have all the sizes requested for all items. We have put in a second order to the uniform supplier and hope to have these soon. We will update you when we have an expected delivery date.
I made the decision to issue uniform first to new enrolments as they were arriving for induction at school last Friday. This was to ease the pressure on distribution and also to get the new students to feel a part of the school as soon as possible. I also thought a number of our returning students may be able to manage with last year’s uniform especially those arriving during the second semester last year as they may have grown less and the uniform been washed less! I realise that this may not be possible for all and will understand if students aren’t able to wear all items of uniform at all times, until everyone has their full list. A number of parents may wish to purchase additional items. These will be supplied after the basic kit has been issued to all that need it. I do apologise for any inconvenience caused and am most grateful for your understanding and support.
Buses. The new bus schedule with the four buses has begun remarkably smoothly and able to run close to scheduled times. For the safety of the children please can I remind you that you should write to the school the day before or in the morning at the latest if there are any changes in your child’s transport. This is because we need to be certain who should be on the bus and who not. Late changes to schedules make it very difficult to ensure that safety.
We are so pleased that nearly all students are able to arrive in 50 minutes rather than last year’s limit of 70 minutes. If you have any comments on the schedule, especially as it affects your child, please do not hesitate to contact us via our Liaison Manager May Liu at may.liu@his-xian.com.
Assembly. A Hanova tradition in our short history is our school assembly. Once a week all the school community gather together to share some of the learning that we have recently done. This includes some classes presenting some aspects of their work. These assemblies are open to parents and friends. This year we have the pleasant problem that we are already outgrowing the auditorium. A number of the students will probably have to sit on padded gym mats at the front for the duration of the assembly in order that we can still open it to parents. It may be that if you attend you may even have to stand at the back! Even though it may be a little crowded we would be delighted to see you in assembly. Assembly is on Friday morning in the auditorium from 9:05-9:35. Everyone welcome!
Saturday Sports. On Saturday mornings last year a number of members of our school community gathered together to play sports. This happened from 9:30-12. Mr Sam Quan will be here throughout this time. Families and friends are invited and there is no age limit - everybody welcome. It is an event for all the family. There is no adult supervision provided by the school. Mr Quan’s role is just to help give out and collect the sports equipment. Transportation is also not provided. Saturday Sports will be cancelled if it is a wet day or the temperature too extreme. You will receive an email from Mr Quan by 9am if the day is decided to be "wet".
We intend to restart Saturday sports next weekend on 31st August depending on the weather.
Power Cut. Thank you to all the parents who were able to plan for a changed day today (Thursday). We were informed when the power went off at 8am that it would take the whole day to repair. We were concerned that the water stored in the tanks would run out by lunchtime meaning that it was difficult to wash hands and impossible to flush toilets. With 200 people in the building we consider this unhygienic. We therefore decided to close the school at the end of lunchtime and run the buses home 3 hours early at 12:45pm. Our office staff spent the morning making sure clear arrangements were made for the children to arrive home safely – thank you for your cooperation with this. Fortunately the power came on before our 11am deadline and we were able to keep the school open as usual. The safety and well-being of our students is our first priority. If there are flaws in our system of informing you please let us know so we can look to improve them for any future similar occurrence.
Best regards,
Martin Hughes
Forthcoming events
August
Friday, 23rd School assembly 9:05-9:35. Parents welcome
Saturday, 31st Saturday Sports begins. 9:30-12:00
September
Tuesday, 3rd Curriculum information afternoon
Tuesday, 10th Extra Curricular Activities begin
Thursday, 19th & School closed for Mid Autumn holiday and
Friday, 20th teacher IB Middle Years training
