Welcome back to all our Hanova community and Happy Year of the Pig 2019! To start this new year auspiciously, this newsletter will focus on our students’ achievements the school’s events in Primary and Secondary.

In this newsletter you’ll notice that we will begin with Primary School first. There is something I’d like to share with you all before we enjoy the celebrations.

You will recall that, last semester, I asked for parents who would be interested in joining ‘focus groups’ that would address and improve our school’s provision in certain areas. Thank you to those of you have shown interest so far. We hope to establish these ‘focus groups’ shortly. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in being a part of review process in ‘Student Support’, ‘Mother Tongue’, English and languages, please drop me an email.

My thanks to Ms. Trish Yang and Mr. Goden Zhou who kindly contributed their photos for this edition of the Newsletter.

News from Primary School. As has become part of Hanova’s community culture, Primary School classes all devised and presented their class performances. The proceedings were introduced by Year 6 students who ably introduced the whole show in English, Chinese and Korean.

Set against a beautiful backdrop designed and built by the Arts team in Primary, each PYP class sang or performed dances – in Chinese – that showed a wide range of cultural diversity from across the country.

Next up on stage came the little ones from Nursery and Reception classes who dressed in red and brought along their lucky fish lanterns.

The next performance featured Year 1 who dressed in traditional clothes and performed a lyrical poem that celebrates the first day of the new lunar month.

The combined Year 2 classes piled onto our stage and, in two performances, show-cased their language skills. The first performance was performed by the Year 2 Mandarin Acquisition class and the next song was performed by the Year 2 Chinese ‘Mother Tongue’ students. Special commendation goes to Tony, who is bi-lingual in Korean and Chinese.

Dressed in splendid period costumes, the Year 3 students performed a kung-fu dance. Congratulations to the students who watched videos, practiced and perfected their choreography.

Years 3 and 4 collaborated together in performing a song and a fashion “Qipao” show, and Year 5 also added to the fun with their song about Hanova.

Ending the spectacular performances came the PYP Year 6 students- pictured below – rendered a more modern song and dance routine called ‘Manual of Youth’.

When the applause died down, Mrs Jeannie Rice, our Head of Primary School, thanked all the staff of the Chinese Department, the Primary Art Department, the teaching assistants, the children – and all the parents who went to so much effort to prepare for this event.

News from Secondary School. In the afternoon it was the turn of the Secondary School and, as has also become a Hanova tradition, two main events unfolded that involved all the MYP students and staff, and even some IB Diploma students who took time out from their TOK Essays!

Chinese Calligraphy. During the morning, the first of these traditions started to take shape. Under the watchful supervision of their Chinese teachers and William, Angela, Gigi, Karen and Alicia from Years 8 and 9 Mandarin Language and Literature as part of their MYP Service Action programme- all the MYP students undertook the challenge of traditional calligraphy.

Firstly they designed and created a pair of couplets (Dui Lian ) for PYP Chinese New Year assembly in the morning. Secondly, they organized the annual MYP Chinese New Year calligraphy competition, and they also designed and created samples for the competition. The tasks were completed in a limited time. During the competition, the students gave support and guidance to their peers the students to ensure the competition went smoothly. As can be seen from the photo above, even some of our teachers tried their hand!

The students voted for their winners and the final judges were the students of Years 8 and 9 who organized the competition – so congratulations go to Song House!

‘Imperial Nibbles’. The ‘Imperial Nibbles’ dates back to 2014 when Hanova was developing its ‘House’ system. As we all know, all Hanova students are allocated to one of four different ‘Houses’ based upon houses of ancient Chinese dynasties; Qin, Song, Tang and Han.

MYP and even some Diploma students all planned what they would individually create and/or contribute to their ‘House’ feast. As you can see above, their efforts were supported by their elected ‘Student House Leaders’ and teaching staff allocated to their house.

Pictured above is one of the finished ‘feasts’. All the ‘House’ groups had a certain amount to time to do their final cooking and put together their presentations. Featured above is the Tang house table and below the Han House celebrate finishing their table of treats.

While Qin House enjoy their achievements (pictured below), at the House presentation, two of our staff added to the fun by enacting an impromptu dramatic vignette – don’t worry, no one was hurt!

Below are photos of the final presentations of Qin House, Song House and Tang House. If you look carefully at the last photo, you can see the amazing ‘pig dumplings’ they created.

After some difficult judging of food taste and presentation – thank you to Mr. Sam and Ms. Jessica – the eventual winner of the ‘Imperial Nibbles’ competition was Tang House. It must have been those cute ‘pig dumplings’!

After all the events that day, congratulations go to joint winners Qin House and Song House who tied equal with the most points overall!

Thanks again for your continuing support.

Yours,

Robert C. Muntzer

 

Upcoming Events

Please take note of these dates. As soon as they are confirmed, we will inform you about any additional events and activities that may take place in the following weeks:

Monday – Thursday, 18th – 28th February   Year 13 ‘Mock’ IB Diploma Examinations

Friday, 1st March                                                 Year 11 MYP Personal Project Exhibition

Friday, 8th March                                                Year 12 IB DP Interim Reports 1/2

Wednesday, 20th March                                    DP Parental Conferences (Years 12 and 13)

Wednesday, 27th March                                    Year 13 IB DP Full Reports 2/6

Friday, 29th March                                             MYP Interim Reports Issued

Friday, 29th March                                             Qingming Holiday begins