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The Principal's Newsletter

Hanova begins its second school year

By Mr Martin Hughes

Dear Parents and

Our second year starts. Welcome to all our new families and welcome back to our returners for our second full year.  We hope you had an enjoyable summer and are looking forward to the new school year as much as we are.

Most, but not all, of our new teachers arrived two weeks ago to join the Senior Leadership Team, and then later our returning teachers.  We have all been busy preparing for the new year.

Things have been very hectic for the School Office over the summer with so much interest in our school.  We are delighted to have received many applications for the school, but have unfortunately not been able to accommodate all those who have expressed a wish to enrol here.  We are getting full in some year groups and in some courses, for example some levels of English Acquisition support.  We are also keen to ensure a balance of nationalities and have now got students from 21 countries.

We have offered places to a total of just over 160 students, doubling the roll at the end of last year.

This has made us very busy and has necessitated the revision of aspects of the school organisation – see below for some further information.  As always, when considering any new application we consider whether we can meet the needs of the applicant whilst ensuring the highest quality of education is maintained or indeed enhanced for our established students.

School license. We are delighted to tell you that Hanova has been awarded its school license 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.  This 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.

School lunches. The increased roll has made revision necessary in lunchtime arrangements.  In order to accommodate more students it has been necessary to move to two lunchtime sittings.  The younger students (N to Y6) will have their lunch first with the older ones eating after.

The kitchen is not large enough to feed all who may want school lunches every day.  We are planning a mix of options in the near future. You should have received more information with the school lunch menu in an email yesterday.

School bus. You should also have received an email identifying the pick up times and places for your children if they are on the school buses.  We now have four buses to accommodate all the students and to try to reduce the travelling time to a minimum for as many students as possible.  Our earliest pick up times are 7:40am at the moment, a considerable improvement on last year.  Drop off times are also similarly improved.  If your child is not going to catch the bus on any particular day please let the school know the day before in writing via email or the Communication Diary or call the bus teacher 30 minutes before pick up time

Please let our liaison manager, Ms May Liu, know if there are any questions about the new bus schedule or errors in it.  With so many changes we won’t have got everything right!

Collecting your child. If your child is picked up rather than going on the school buses, then please wait in the lobby as previously for the end of school.  At 3:35pm please go along the first floor corridor to meet them in Dining Room 1 (Primary) or 2 (Secondary).  We are making these adjustments in response to the greater number of students and to ensure safety and security are paramount.

Uniform. The uniform will be issued to the new families at the New Family Induction later today.  This is to ensure that the new students feel part of the Hanova family as quickly as possible.  We have ordered additional uniforms in response to the unanticipated growth of the school roll.  We are aware that there will be a delay until the uniform can be issued to returning students.  We apologise for this.  If you can manage without the new uniform for a while by using last year’s we would be grateful.  We are still working on the details of how this can all be distributed effectively.  We realise that some students may have to come to school without uniform for a while.  If you have any questions on this please do not hesitate to contact us.

Starting dates. As you will all know school reopens as usual on Monday, 19th August.  There will be no homework for the first week as we assess the students and get them used to routines.  This initial assessment programme designed to ensure the most appropriate levels of tuition in languages will be completed in the first week.  This means that Chinese and English leveled programmes will not start immediately.  There have been some minor difficulties with two teachers visas taking longer than is usual.  This means that specialist Art lessons will not take place for the first week or two.  There is also some additional English Acquisition Support that will not be fully in place in the first week.

Best regards,

Martin Hughes

 

Forthcoming events

August

Friday, 16th                                  New family orientation day 2pm

Monday, 19th                              School opens for students

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


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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