Winter Weather. This past week there was often a freezing cold in the city. Our teachers continue to pay attention to the students while they play our have PE lessons outside. Please ensure that your children - especially the Primary students - bring appropriate jackets and inform the Homeroom and Classroom teachers of any special attention needed. As you can imagine, all students love to stay outside when the sky is blue or when there is snow on the ground.

For weather reasons (today’s snow) the Football match between Hanova Secondary Football team and Xi’an High-Tech International School has been cancelled, and will be rescheduled after the Chinese New Year’s Holidays.

PYP Reports and Portfolios. On the 22^nd of January, PYP Report Cards and PYP portfolios went out. The report cards contain information about your child’s progress for the first semester: please see it as a comprehensive view of student’s learning, growth and achievement toward his or her academic goals, reflecting student’s development at the time of assessment.

Please let us know if you need a soft copy of the report: we are considering to use also in Primary our ManageBac reporting system from next school year, so that parents could log directly into their account and check their child’s report online.

Geography Field Trip. The Year 11 Economics and Geography classes went on a very interesting field trip to the Shaanxi EDL Equipment Company Ltd., where they were able to apply the simple theoretical manufacturing model (taught in class) to a complex twenty-first production system. This is an example on how students can integrate experiential visits into their reports.

MYP Assessment and Managebac. On the 27^th of January, Mr. Joseph Hamkari – our MYP Coordinator – will present an information session at 3:45pm on “Assessment and Managebac”. The aims for this session are:

- To familiarise parents with the Managebac portal;

- To demonstrate what they can see via Managebac and the advantages in terms of assisting student learning of using the system;

- To review the principles of MYP assessment and explain some of its advantages of the MYP

- To give some concrete examples of this process.

Chinese New Year Celebrations. Our Chinese New Year organizing committee has finalized the activities and performances to celebrate this important festival in our school during Friday 29^th January.

We will begin the day with the Primary programme scheduled for 9:30am - 11:45am. A variety of performances by primary students will demonstrate their skills and cultural knowledge about our school’s host country. Afterwards, parents and students will enjoy a unique Shadow Puppets show, a cultural heritage of Shaanxi province which is also part the intangibles list of Unesco. We request that students wear Chinese traditional cloths to better celebrate the event and that parents inform us in advance of their attendance, to organize the space during the show. The Secondary programme will start at 12:00noon, and we will end the day with an acrobatic Lion Dance, which will start around 2:00pm: again, parents are welcomed to come and watch this traditional performance from external guests.

Board Game Day. The Board Game Day was again a good success: the students attending had fun playing board games and building miniature war zones using their artistic skills. Several have already asked about the next date, which will be again announced by Mr. Bonke.

Upcoming Events. Please take note of these last upcoming events during the month of January:

• PYP reports will be sent to students and parents on 22^nd January
• MYP information session on Assessment and Managebac on 27^nd January
• Chinese New Year Celebrations on 29^th January: primary School in the morning (from 9:00am to 12:00noon) and Secondary School in the afternoon (from 12:00noon to 3:30pm), both also hosting performances from external guests.
• Chinese New Year Celebration on 29^th January
• Chinese New Year Holiday from 30^th January to 14^th February (CNY Day: 8^th February)
• School Reopens on 15^th February

Thanks again for your continuing support.

Yours,

Francesco Masetti-Placci