IB Diploma Evaluation Visit – 16th-18th October. As many of you know, to remain an authorized IB World School, each school has to go through a five-year evaluation procedure that culminates with a visit from the IB.
Hanova will have its first IB Evaluation Visit from Wednesday, 16thOctober, to Friday, 18thOctober. Parents of Years 12 and 13 are cordially invited to meet with the IB Visiting Team on Friday at 10.00am.
Any questions concerning the IB DP Evaluation Visit should be addressed to our IB Diploma Coordinator, Ms. Sharon Zhu, on sharon.zhu@his-xian.com
Hanova Parents Teachers Association – HPTA Annual General Meeting (AGM). We are very excited to announce that we can now hold our first HPTA AGM of the year. After carefully translating the HPTA Constitution in Korean and Chinese, we will be sending this out with our invitation to the AGM to all our parents next week.
The HPTA AGM is scheduled to take place at 2.30pm on Friday, 8thNovember.
International Day – Friday, 25th October. Last year, parents will recall what a success this annual Hanova event was; apart from the international parade and the fun national activities, the food that generously prepared and contributed by parents was amazing.
Students were given forms on Friday that they should be sharing with their parents over the weekend. The form is an invitation for our parents to contribute their favourite national dishes. The form has to be returned to school by Monday, 14thOctober.
The International Parade will commence at 9.40am and, after the break, at 11.00am, we have organized the following national activity groups:
Botswana (Jelena Dokic)
Canada (Jennifer Lazareck)
China (Janice Cao)
Colombia (Andrea Cárdenas)
Korea (HyunJu Jeon)
India (Petra Vejvodova)
Iran (Mashid Crockford)
Italy (Morena Camilletti and David English)
Mexico (Gerardo Nájera)
Turkey (Muhitin Gürbüz)
United Kingdom (Michael Windforhr-Byrne)
United States (Cheri Dowdy and Amelia Hall)
Parents or students who want to join in and help out with these activities can talk to the teachers indicated in brackets.
More information about International Day will sent to parents next week. However, in the meantime, parents can contact our Head of Secondary School, Mr. Aristipo Rodriguez, who is coordinating this event, on aristipo.rodriguez@his-xian.com
School lunches on International Day. Parents are advised that if they have already ordered school lunch on International Day, it will be served as usual. However, if a parent doesn’t want their child to have their school lunch on that day, please contact Lana on lana.li@his-xian.com
News from Primary School
Year 4 and 6 EOTC to Ban Po Village. On Thursday, Year 6 and 4 went to ‘Ban po’ village because we are all learning about culture. I liked that ‘Ban po’ people make their houses very tight, I also liked that Year 6 and 4 cooperated together very well. It was a great field trip. (Emily Wang Year 6)
Primary Parent/Teacher Conferences. On Wednesday and Thursday, 23rd-24th October, Primary Teachers will host parent conferences. These conferences are an opportunity for you to meet with your child’s homeroom teacher and together discuss your child’s learning and development at school. Unfortunately, although we will have translators available, we cannot provide translation for all these meetings. If you feel you need translation, please bring your own translator. Students will be unable to provide translation as these conferences only involve the parent and the teacher. More detailed information coming soon.
Reading Buddies. Our class has been having a wonderful time with our buddy class, Year 4b. The Year 4b students helped check how much Year 1b students have learned about how to be a good friend. Year 1b had to show their buddies how much they know! (Mrs. Dowdy, Year 1b teacher)
News from Secondary School
‘IB Diploma TOK Information Workshop’. Thank you to all the parents who attended the ‘IB Diploma TOK Information Workshop’ on Wednesday, 9thOctober. This was hosted by our IB Diploma Coordinator, Ms. Sharon Zhu, the TOK Coordinator, Mr. Luis Rauth, and the School Principal, Mr. Robert Muntzer.
Mr. Raugh outlined what Theory of Knowledge (TOK) was all about and, during the course of his presentation, solved a Maths problem. We all think we know the answer to ‘5 X 5’, don’t we? 25? However, Mr. Raugh showed us that alternative ways of calculating this gives us a result of 14!
Mr. Muntzer’s workshop on ‘Sense Perception’ got the parents to undertake a series of mind-boggling activities leading to the concept of ‘Perceptual Relativism’. After realizing how easy it is for our eyes to be misled, and how we often mislead ourselves, this concept suggests that it is impossible for us to share a common vision of the world around us. We can only live in our own realities!
A further IB Diploma workshop for parents – this time on Creativity Activity Service (CAS) – is planned for November 20th.
MYP Parent Student Teacher Conferences. The MYP Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences also took place on Wednesday, 9thOctober 2019. Thank you to all our parents who braved the miserable rainy weather to attend. Based upon the feed-back received, it looks like the students in MYP are enjoying what they are doing, and they are achieving well.
MYP Design Project. As you have seen from the previous newsletters this year, we are actively preparing for the move to the new campus in Chan Ba District. As part of this preparation, we are involving our students in a number of ways. Hopefully, over the next few months, with the support of our newly-formed HPTA, our parents can get involved too.
The MYP Design Project now involves most of the students in Years 7 to 11. As you can see, the project is now designing the interiors of various rooms in the new campus – starting with the Design Rooms!
Students in MYP Design classes have been learning how to make scale models of rooms and how to design furniture and furnishings within them. They have now been tasked with liaising with teaching staff in the school as ‘clients’. The aim of the project – which also constitutes MYP Service Action – is for the students to help teachers design their teaching rooms in the new campus.
University Visits Update. The university visits of this academic year have gone very well so far – and there are more to come! It has been an excellent opportunity for our students to learn more about four different universities and meet their admission officers. They have learned the differences between public universities, private universities and liberal arts colleges in the U.S. In addition, we also hosted a workshop for our DP students about how to write a personal statement.
| Date | University |
| August 30th, 2019 | Boston University |
| September 3rd, 2019 | EHL |
| September 18th, 2018 | Arizona State University |
| September 19th, 2019 | Wooster College& “How to write a personal statement?” workshop |
In the next following weeks, we are delighted to share with you that we coordinate more university visits for our students this month. Please find upcoming university lists as your reference.
| Date | University |
| October 15, 2019 | College fair:
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) University of Nebraska-Lincoln Trinity College |
| October 21, 2019 | Warwick University (U.K) |
| October 25, 2019 | Rose-Hulman Institue of Technology |
| November 5, 2019 | Pittsburgh University |
Parents are strongly encouraged to attend these events. If you have any questions regarding university visits or college applications, please feel free to contact our University & Careers Counsellors; Sharon sharon.zhu@his-xian.comand Jane jane.lei@his-xian.com
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:
16th– 18th October IB DP Evaluation Visit
23-24th October PYP PTM
Friday, 25th October International Day
Friday, 25th October IB DP 1 and 2 Reports issued
Thursday, 31st October Halloween
Friday, 8th November HPTA AGM
Wednesday, 20th November IB DP CAS Workshop for Parents
