Y7 and 8 trip to Foping. On Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3^th and 4^th, Year 7 and 8 went to the Foping Ecological Village for their Education Out of The Classroom (EOTC) with Stella Zhou, Denis McKeown and Martin Herben.

The proposed trip for the students was carefully planned, by Mrs Elaine Gillick and Whitestone tour operators, to make it as enjoyable and informative as possible. Everyone had the chance to “escape from the bustle of the city to find long-lost inner peace, to take a deep breath of fresh air, to listen to the musical twittering of birds” and to enjoy the leisurely pace of rural life!

The students and teachers enjoyed painting rocks from a riverbed, hiking through beautiful mountains, tasting local food, watching animals in their natural habitat and simply spending some free time together outside of the classroom.

We want to thank all students and parents for helping us make the EOTC such a great experience, and hopefully positive one, for everyone.

Work Experience Placements for Years 10 and 11, 2014-2015. We are going to introduce a work experience programme for our students in Years 10 and 11 next year. Now that we have a fairly good idea of what our students want to do at university and beyond, we will be trying to place them in local businesses and organisations so that they can get practical experience in their preferred vocation.

In order for us to achieve this for our students, we need the advice and support of our parents. Many parents work in local businesses and organisations that might be prepared to host one of our students for a week in June 2015. Companies or organisations would not be liable to pay the student but we would appreciate it if the students could be given an orientation about the company and the work that it does, given simple, appropriate work to do and, if possible, a mentor who could supervise them for a week.

If any of our parents could arrange for this at their company or organisation, we would be very grateful. Indications of support should be emailed to Sharon Zhu, our University and Careers Counsellor at sharon.zhu@his-xian.com.

We have already received an offer from some of our parents for work placements in a company and in an embassy – thank you.

School Reports. The Second Semester reports should be with you tomorrow (Friday) as they should be sent home in a sealed envelope with your child.  We hope you will find these reports informative and reflect what you expected. After you have read them you may wish to have an appointment with a teacher or teachers to discuss any aspects of the report.  Please arrange this either directly with the teacher or through our liaison team (april.hu@his-xian.com , lucy.liu@his-xian.com )

Student Led Conferences (SLCs). As mentioned in last week’s newsletter, Student Led Conferences will be held on June 17^th. Student Led Conferences are a chance for students to reflect on their learning, share their work with you, and discuss what they have learnt.

RSVP for Primary: An invitation including the time for your child’s conference will have been sent home by the time you read this. Please do notify your child’s homeroom teacher if you will be unable to attend the conferences. A note will be included in Communication Diaries asking for your confirmation of attendance. Please note if you would like an opportunity to speak with a teacher with questions or comments about your child’s report card, this can be arranged for another day.

Secondary: Parents of Secondary school students – This is an invitation to come sit with your son or daughter on the afternoon of Tuesday 17^th to view their portfolio of work. Each student has compiled a sample of work from each subject throughout the year and would like the opportunity to show it to you. Please let the school office know if you can make it that day and you will be given an appointment. If you cannot make it, your son/daughter will save their eportfolio to a USB and bring it home. If this is the case, we would hope that parents would sit with their son or daughter as this is a great opportunity to show interest in your child's achievements. It would be great to see you on the day.

Year 5 and 6: As Year 5 and 6 students will be hosting the Exhibition on that day (see below), these students will not be running Student Led Conferences. All parents are welcome to visit the library, or auditorium to have a look at the wonderful presentations Year 5 and 6 have prepared.   

Dismissal: After the conference, parents are welcome to take their children home with them. Buses will run at 3:45 as usual for students who require them. Please note there are typically limited spaces on the buses, so if you would like to go on the bus with your child, this must be communicated via Ms May Liu beforehand.      

Digital portfolios: Please feel free to bring a USB memory drive to save your child’s portfolio. Please note file sizes are large. A memory drive of at least 2 gigabytes will likely be needed. 

Y6 and 5 Exhibition. On Tuesday 17^th June the students from Year 6 and 5 will be presenting an exhibition of their recent unit of work - Exploration leads to discovery and develops new understandings.   For the past seven weeks the students have been working enthusiastically investigating how explorers interacted with ancient civilizations. The culmination of this unit of work will be seven groups presenting their work in 30 minute presentations throughout the day.  Students will be invited to view the presentations throughout the morning. 

Parents, particularly those of Year 6/5 students, are warmly invited to a special showing of the presentations commencing at 1.00 pm to 1.40 pm.  Afterwards, the students in Year 6/5 will return to their homerooms after packing up the exhibited work samples and to complete reflection of their experiences. 

Assessments and Reports Review, Years 7 to 12. Parents and students are advised that, over the next few days, teachers of students in Years 7 to 12 will be meeting together to review all of our students' report grades and the recent language proficiency tests. Following these meetings and discussions, students and parents will receive confirmation of the subjects and levels that each student will be placed in for next academic year.

Additional Instrumental lessons for next year. Ms Maxine Lee-Morath is beginning to compile a list of local music teachers who have enough English to provide individual or small group private music lessons in school. If you know of a good, locally available teacher, then please let school know, either by directly writing to maxine.lee@his-xian.com or through our Liaison manager april.hu@his-xian.com if it is easier to write in Chinese or Korean. Ms Lee will soon be sending home a letter to take expressions of interest to get some initial numbers and instrument preferences.  Of course, this programme would be dependent on us finding suitable teachers.

Yearbook. We have already sent the yearbook off to the printer for the hardback version of our 2014 Yearbook.  We hope that you received not only the electronic version, but a hard copy of the yearbook order form.  This year, due to upgrading to a hardback version, the cost of the yearbook will be 200RMB.  If you would like to purchase a copy please send the order form back to the office in a named envelope (with your child's name on the front.)  The printers have said they will deliver the yearbook next Thursday, 19^th June, ready to be distributed for Friday.  If it were to arrive late then you will be able to collect it during the summer from school or pay to have it posted.  Alternatively you may ask for your money back.

Library. Please note that we wish to audit all the books that we have in the library.  Please return all library books at the start of next week, so we have them all by Tuesday, 17^th June.  If there are books that you cannot find please let Camellia Feng (camellia.feng@his-xian.com) as soon as possible.

Best regards,

Martin Hughes

 

Forthcoming events

Wednesday, 11^th                        Graduation (Y13) ceremony and dinner

Thursday, 12^th                            XHIS v Hanova football match

Friday, 13^th                                  Reports for second semester sent home

Monday, 16^th                              Read-a-thon assembly 11am

Monday, 16^th, Tuesday, 17^th   Return any remaining Library books on Monday or Tuesday

Tuesday, 17^th                              Student Led Conferences 1-3:30pm

Tuesday, 17^th                              Y6 Exhibition.  Presentation to Parents 1pm

Wednesday, 18^th                        Y9-11 (next year’s Y10-12) Curriculum (IGCSE and Diploma) option meeting 4pm in Library

Friday, 20^th                                  School closes 1pm Buses leave 1:15pm