Typhoon Haiyan Fundraising. Hanova Student Council would like to sincerely thank the Hanova community for contributing to our fundraising drive to assist victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Through projects such as Movember, Learner Profile Week, and donations made during our production of "A Christmas Wizard of Oz", the final amount that will be sent to UNICEF on December 19^th comes to a grand total of 7393 RMB. We are pleased with the generosity displayed by Hanova students and parents. Thank you all.

Christmas Wizard of Oz. The students did fantastically well to produce 4 performances in a week of a Christmas Wizard of Oz.  The very hard work that the students, the staff and many of our parents had put into the production was clear.  It was lovely to see so many students and the audiences enjoying so many special moments in the play.

"A Christmas Wizard of Oz" DVD will be available for sale for the price of 50 RMB each very soon after the Winter Holiday. An order form will be sent home when they are ready. These labelled DVDs will be delivered to students or parents in an attractive plastic cover and will include edited video footage of the entire play, as well as a photo slideshow of the play. These DVDs will be playable on any computer or DVD player, and they make fantastic gifts for friends and family in your home country who may not have had a chance to see the play. Money raised from the sale of DVDs will be used by Hanova Student Council to benefit our students.

School Staff and Organisation for January. We received 51 new applicants for entry to the school during second semester.  Most of these applications were received less than two weeks ago, which has made for some rather rushed planning.  We had to turn down a number of applicants as the school is full in certain areas.  We are still able to maintain our policy on language groups with 9% having Mandarin as their preferred language, 40% with Korean and the remaining 50% being International and accessing the curriculum through English.

We had prepared ourselves to some degree for the unexpected number of enrolments and are very pleased to announce the arrival of five new teachers.

Robert Muntzer is a highly experienced International Baccalaureate (IB) educator.  Robert joins us as a Deputy Principal focusing on the Senior Years.  His last post was as Deputy Principal in an international school in India, with former posts including Diploma Programme (DP) coordinator at Dulwich College in Shanghai, Director of Studies and IB coordinator at Repton School, Dubai, and Head of English and Languages at schools in Thailand and Vietnam.  Both his wife and his 12 year old son will come along with him.

David Knowles has 17 years experience as an IB Diploma and secondary Maths teacher.  David will be teaching Maths in the middle and senior years.  He has been Head of Department and was also appointed as an Advanced Skills Teacher in UK to help train teachers in other schools to improve their practice.  David has taught mainly in his native UK, but joins us from a post in Costa Rica where he has been for the last 3 years in.

Andrew Thorpe joins us from his native Australia where he has taught for more than 6 years mainly with upper primary students.  He also has experience in IB Primary Years Programme (PYP).  Andrew is passionate about education, a profession he came to as a mature student having earlier had a career as a police officer.  He will join us as the teacher of Y6.

Hollie Dowling is going to be part of our English Language Support (ELS) teaching team initially.  She hails from Ireland where she trained as a teacher after gaining her Masters in Historical Research.  Hollie is in her 3^rd year of teaching joining us from her last post in a Shanghai International school where she was a Humanities teacher.

Emma Zhang gained her Masters in teaching Chinese at Xi’an International Study University after gaining a pharmaceutical degree at Shaanxi University of Science and Technology.  She has experience of teaching Chinese in Thailand and also teaching French students in Xi’an.  She joins us as a Chinese teacher.

We are anticipating as many as 206 students in the first few weeks after the holiday.

 

Numbers in each class  are planned to be as follows.

 

Lost property. Please check the items on display in the Front Entrance Hall.  These are items of lost property which don’t appear to be named and haven’t been claimed.

Best regards,

Martin Hughes

 

Forthcoming events

Thursday, 19^th               Assembly 8:55am

Thursday, 19^th               PYP Christmas Party 12:40-14:00

Thursday, 19^th               MYP team building day

Thursday, 19^th               Lost property in Entrance Hall

Thursday, 19^th               School closes for mid-winter break

2014, January

Monday, 6^th                   School opens for second semester

Friday, 17^th                    Reports home by email

Tuesday, 21^st Wednesday, 22^nd Parent Consultations