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THE PRINCIPAL'S NEWSLETTER

MYP Arts Assembly

By Mr Robert Muntzer

Dear Parents and friends

In this issue:

  • Christmas Market and Winter Concert
  • HPTA Committee Up-date
  • Designing the New School
  • VEX IQ Robotics Competition
  • Hanova Re-visited
  • MYP Arts Assembly – Music and ‘Tragedy’
  • The ‘Hanova Heroes’ Basketball Team
  • Forthcoming Events

Christmas Market and Winter Concert. This annual Hanova event is just around the corner; Saturday 7th December. The organizers have made tremendous efforts to ensure that the day will be enjoyable and successful. There is a wide range of foods from our partner hotels, Hilton, Crown Plaza and Marriott, and we would like to thank them in advance for their continued support for this charity event.

We would also like to thank the many individual external and internal vendors who are providing food and beverages in support of our charitable donation.

Please come along and bring your friends and families from the community.

HPTA Committee Up-date. Many thanks again to all the parents who turned up in force for the HPTA meeting last Friday, 22nd November. It was delightful to see so many mums from our Korean community and everyone was pleased – after a lot of discussions – that two volunteers were elected to join the HPTA Committee. Welcome and congratulations go to Mrs Jenny Lee and Mrs You Ji Min for being elected to join the committee.

Also attending the meeting was Mrs. Jessica Xue who is coordinating the efforts towards the Christmas Market. She outlined what was being organized by her team of teachers and invited parents to help out where they could.

The school has devised a series of ‘events committees’ made up of staff from Primary and Secondary schools. It is hoped that this year, members of the HPTA could join these groups.

However, it was also pointed out that now we have a parent teacher association, parents could bring their ideas or concerns to the HPTA Committee.

The next HPTA meeting is on Friday, 29th November, and at that meeting there will be ballot elections for the official roles within the committee.

Designing the New School. As previously mentioned, our students are taking part in the design of the new school. Pictured below are the various MYP Design Projects being undertaken by Year 9 students. Each student approached a teacher in the Secondary School and, based upon their recommendations, designed their future room. This project involved designing floor plans, which were then developed into 3D models. The students themselves have explained what they have been up to.

This photo shows the layout of then tables and chairs that I have designed for the Art Room for Mrs. Lily. This layout gives everyone enough space to work.

Sally Park

My design project right now is to create a classroom for a client in the new school; my client is Ms. Alina Zheng, who is the Chinese teacher. In this photo what I am doing is gluing all of the chairs and tables in, so I will have an idea about where all of the different stuff is located for my design.

Lucas Rice

My client is Mr. Wood. The room is the Humanities Room. I’m showing that the room has enough space for teaching and it has enough chairs and tables for about 32 students.

Jayden Lee

VEX IQ Robotics Competition. Congratulations to William Dong and Zhang Tong Yuan (his partner) for being placed in the top 6 nationally in the middle school VEX IQ robotics competition. They have now moved forward and will be participating in the international competition in the second week of December in Korea and we wish them all the best.

Hanova Re-visited. On the 15th November 2019 the Secondary School was very pleased to host a former student Aino Jauhiainen in our assembly.

She reflected on her time at Hanova and this is what she had to say:

“How I benefitted from my studies in Hanova

On Friday the 15th of November, after almost 5 years, I returned to visit my old school, Hanova. I came to host a presentation on how I have benefitted from studying in Hanova and what kind of differences I have experienced with the IB school in China and the national school in Finland. In this summary, however, I will be concentrating on the benefits of studying in Hanova.

Perhaps the biggest thing that I have gotten from my studies in Hanova is language skills. I came to the school when I had just started to learn English. In an environment where no one spoke Finnish to me, I had to learn quickly and as one might expect my English skills improved immensely. I also developed an interest in other languages and that is why I continued studying Chinese in Finland as well as starting Swedish and German.

When studying in Hanova I developed a very strong work moral for myself. The IB school system taught me how to take responsibility of my studies and work hard towards my own goals. Yes, the workload was massive, and it sometimes felt unbearable, but all the “blood, sweat and tears” gave me good time management skills and persistence. The way I orientate to working and how I work towards my goals has come in handy many times later in my life.

When living and studying in an international community you learn to see things from different perspectives because people around you have different backgrounds and cultures and a different way of looking at the world. This truly makes you understand others and see why they look at things differently from you. It also helps you to appreciate the things that are well in your life. When I moved back to Finland, I saw the things that were good in Finland, like the nature and the air quality, because I had seen another reality and different perspectives in Xi’an.

Now I’m studying in my first year in the Diploma Programme. I wouldn’t have these language skills and learning capabilities without my years in Hanova. I don’t think I would be studying in the DP without my studies in Hanova. I want everyone to know and understand how you can benefit from your studies in Hanova not only because you get a diploma but because you will become an open-minded responsible young adult with a variety of skills needed for the world.

It was wonderful to be back in Hanova after such a long time and see familiar faces. My time in China and Hanova are very dear to me and I have good memories from there. I wish all the best for all of You!

- Aino Jauhiainen

After the presentation Micah Rice (Head Boy) thanked Aino for coming to speak to us.

MYP Arts Assembly – Music and Tragedy. On Friday, 22nd November, we had our first Arts Assembly of the year featuring two musical performances and two drama productions.

Yr8 MW students did a wonderful ensemble performance with two songs;

‘Sad Song’ and ‘Dinosaur’. Mina and Drake were the vocalists for the first song, and then they changed to guitar and Xylophone for the second song. Jenny played piano both songs, Grace played Violin and piano, Tony was a great drummer, and Daniel, Xuan, Henry, Steven and Noah all played guitar for the performance.

Drake, Xuan, Henry and Steven’s songs (what they made from music technology unit) were played as the background music in the past arts assembly.

The MYP students in Years 7 and 10 staged performances related to the Ancient Greek literary genre of Tragedy. Contrary to popular belief, Tragedy is not all about doom and gloom: according to Aristotle, Tragedy is all about learning from others’ mistakes. Aristotle suggested that by evoking pity and fear in an audience, the characters in a play could achieve a sense of catharsis – self-realization – in the audience. In other words, a tragedy would make us think twice before we make a mistake!

In a very challenging but successful production of Sophocles’ play ‘Antigone’, the Year 10 MYP Drama students staged a very effective performance of this Classical Tragedy. To reflect this traditional drama, the students wore robes and ‘persona’ masks as the actors would have worn back in Ancient Greece.

Congratulations to the cast and crew involved in this production:

Antigone + Chorus Member – Angela Jiafu Li

Ismene + Chorus Member – Jessica Hyeonji Yoon

Eurydice + Chorus Member – Karen Xinyao Tang

King Creon – Elijah Smith

Tiresias + Chorus Member – Jay Jaeyeon Park

Messenger + Chorus Member – Ethan Dowdy

Watchmen + Chorus Member – William Huaheng Dong

Haemon + Chorus Member – Albert Kangmin Kim

Chorus Member – Dylan Seunghun Lee

Song Leaders in Hebrew: Albert Kangmin Kim + Jessica Hyeonji Yoon
Chanting Chorus in English: Whole Cast

Year 7 GN – Tom Stoppard’s ‘Dogg’s Hamlet’. The Year 7 class performed a more recent and less serious version of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy ‘Hamlet’. The story reveals the tragic consequences of one’s decisions; greed and envy lead to murder, which in turn results in madness, suicide and bloody revenge. There were not many left standing on stage at the end of the play!

Congratulations go the cast and crew in the play: they did a fine job of entertaining and illuminating the audience in what is a difficult play to perform.

Isabella Seoyoung Jang – The Shakespeare’s, Wind, Gravediggers / Puppeteers
Peter Goohyun Jung –  Horatio (Friend of Hamlet), and Grand Finale Lead Singers
Jay Jaeyoon Kim –  Bernardo (Palace guard), Moon, Rosencrantz (False friend to Hamlet),
Larry Jiun Kim –  Marcellus (Friend of Hamlet), Polonius (Advisor to the King and father of  Ophelia), Young Fortinbras
Iris Daeun Lee – The Shakespeare’s, Sun, Gravediggers / Puppeteers
June Chaejun Oh – Ghost (Old King Hamlet), Gravediggers / Puppeteers, Osric (Master at arms)
Jiho Park – Francisco (Palace guard), Laertes (Ophelia’s brother), Guildenstern (False friend to Hamlet)
Tony Xinrui Wang – King Claudius (Hamlet’s Uncle)
Coco Tszching Wong – Queen Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother now married to Claudius)
Caleb Dowdy – Hamlet (Prince of Denmark)
Adele Hyeyoung Yoon – Frailty, Ophelia (Daughter of Polonius and Hamlet’s girlfriend), and Grand Finale Lead Singers

At the end of the Arts Assembly, the students presented flowers to the two teachers responsible; our thanks go to Ms. Krystal Jiang and Ms. Jennifer Lazareck for their outstanding efforts and support for our students.

The ‘Hanova Heroes’ Basketball Team. We are glad to let you know that, on November 20th, the Hanova basketball squad played a match against XIS. The ‘Hanova Heroes’ made great efforts fighting to win but we lost in the end because of too many turnovers on our side. Our players undertook tough practices before the match even though we don’t have an indoor basketball court.

The ‘Hanova Heroes’ have built up invaluable experience through playing against their opponents. Basketball is a sport that requires strong fundamental skills, certain principles and flexible tactics, which are the important aspects our players should still focus on and keep them in progress.

We encourage our players to maintain their passion and work hard in practices to achieve more in the next match. Our next match will be on January 10th, and we look forward to seeing you supporting and cheering for us around the court.

(Chris Chao)

Thank you 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:

Friday, 29th November    MYP Arts Assembly II

Saturday, 7th December   Winter Concert/Christmas Market

Friday, 13th December     PYP Reports

Friday, 20th December    End of Semester 1 (Half-day)


About our Head of School


Mr Robert Muntzer

School Principal

Mr Muntzer is the current School Principal of Hanova. He is highly experienced International Baccalaureate (IB) educator who has worked at Hanova as Deputy Principal, and Secondary IB Diploma Coordinator. His former posts include DP Coordinator in Dulwich College Shanghai, founding Director of Studies and IB Coordinator at Repton School Dubai along with Head of English and Head of Languages at schools in Thailand, Ethiopia, Zambia, India and Vietnam. He holds a Bachelor Degree in English from University of Warwick (UK). He has two children both educated in IB World School International schools


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