We hope this finds you and your families well.
The school understands that the last few months have been very difficult and traumatic – especially for those who have not seen or have been separately from their families.
It is therefore understandable that some families and staff may be planning to leave China to re-unite with their families or friends abroad – or even to visit other parts of China.
The school’s current understanding is that if people leave mainland China, they will be required to quarantine up to 28 days upon return – thereby missing more than three weeks of school.
Therefore the school’s advice is to try not to travel abroad or, when planning to travel within China, to be very careful about regional policies on COVID-19 and quarantine.
According to the existing government advice, any one – local or expatriate – who travels outside of Xi’an, will need to have to undertake a 14-day home quarantine in Xi’an before they rejoin the school. Alternatively, the school will accept a negative COVID-19 test result. This applies to staff and students.
Please also be aware that students who miss school will be marked absent and, in the case of MYP or Diploma students, an absence of more than 18 days per academic year may have significant consequences in terms of being promoted into the next academic year in August 2021.
Please also be advised that the school will not be able to provide remote teaching and learning (lessons) to students outside of the school.
Many of you are aware that on Fridays, all three schools on the Bodi Campus – Bodi, XIS and Hanova – release their students at the same time – 3.30 or 3.40pm. This has led to serious congestion at the school gate and has raised concerns about our students’ safety and welfare. Therefore in order to make sure our children get on their buses safely on Fridays, the Board has agreed to letting our children leave school at 3.10pm until a more satisfactory solution can be found. Parents should be assured their the children’s learning will not be affected by this.
News from Primary School. Reception kids have been having lots of fun learning through games and play. Recently they enjoyed playing Number Bingo to review the numbers they have learned. They also really enjoyed using their creativity making patterns on peg boards! Reception children are growing and having fun learning every day.
Primary House Activity. On Friday, September 11th the Primary House teams had the opportunity to meet their House Leaders for the 2020-2021 academic year. The students then enjoyed an exciting team game passing waters balloons as a team without breaking them! The House Leaders showed their Caring nature while assisting the younger students with the activity. They were Principled in taking their new position seriously.
ECA’s Begin. The students were very happy to begin Extra Curricular Activities. Wednesdays, Period 7 is a favorite amongst the students. Teachers offer a great variety of activities for students from skateboarding to cooking to gardening. Many students were being Risk Takers by trying something new for their ECA choice. The ECA program is an effective way to introduce students to new activities and learning opportunities.
News from Secondary School
Diploma Programme Updates
Y13 Examinations. The last End of Year Examination for our current Year 13 was postponed owing to the impact of pandemic, it has been rescheduled to the coming weeks. The examination starts from Monday, 21st September to Wednesday, 30th September. The examination order and duration are exactly following the real IB examination format, students are expected to show profession when attending the examinations. Our DP team would grade their papers and review the results to provide feedback to the teaching and learning.
Adaptation on May 2021 Session. To response to requests from IB schools in the world and to mitigate the loss of instructional time and logistical challenges that caused by the pandemic, the IBO has introduced a range of targeted removal and/or amendment of assessment components or submission requirements to address the loss of instruction time while ensuring the following objectives are met for all students enrolled in DP subjects:
- Rich, authentic and integrated curriculum
- Varied, valid and reliable assessment components to evidence student learning
- Student outcomes to be continuous and comparable with prior sessions
- Timely reporting of results aligned to national and international recognition standards
These adaptations aim to empower teachers to address each subject’s aims and objectives with flexibility and fairness in preparation for the May 2021 session. In Hanova, our Diploma teachers has been working tirelessly to adjust their teaching and assessment to meet the adaptation. If you would like to know more about the detail, please feel free to contact our Diploma Coordinator, Ms. Sharon Zhu via sharon.zhu@his-xian.com.
Year 8 Integrated Humanities. In integrated Humanities, our Year 8’s got off to a fantastic start this academic year as we began our unit on ‘Systems’, with a special focus on the Feudal system and Medieval society. The students spent the first two weeks making use of the strategy game Civilization 5, developing their own civilizations and understanding from the ground up how each part of a society works together as one complete system. As you may expect, the students were very enthusiastic during this endeavor and we received tremendous feedback from both students and members of staff.
University & Careers Counseling News. Starting from September 7th, our University & Careers Counsellors started to meet students from Year 13. By meeting with Year 13 students, we understood our current students’ needs and interests for their universities and started to assist them for applying universities this academic year. This week, we are meeting Year 12 students to discuss about their university application plans for their two years and check their first month of transition from MYP to DP. Starting from next week, we are planning to meet upper MYP students in Year 11 and then Year 10, discussing about the university and careers aspirations, diploma programme options and their provisional subject choices for future DP study. If you have any questions, feel free to reach our UCCs: Sharon Zhu sharon.zhu@his-xian.com and Jane Lei jane.lei@his-xian.com.
CIS Virtual International University Fairs
Date: September 23 (East Asia & Oceania)
Registration link: https://cis.swoogo.com/eastasia-oceania
Hanova, as a member school from EARCOS, received invitation for EARCOS-CIS virtual international university fair. During these unprecedented times for students preparing to graduate from secondary school, this virtual fair is here to help by connecting students, parents and counselors directly with accredited universities from around the world who are ready to discuss their queries and concerns and support students’ transition to university.
The fair’s date is on September 23rd. It will be open for three hours during the school day and two hours in the evening when parents might also like to join. It is encouraged for students to allocate sometime for the event where possible. Students can log in during the week leading up to each fair to visit the virtual university booths in advance and research who they want to talk to one the fair goes live. Also, 5 live sessions will be led by higher education specialists during each fair to enrich students’ perspective on admissions, the transition to university and their future after university.
If you would like to know about this event, please visit the website link: https://cis.swoogo.com/eastasia-oceania. It contains registration information, sessions schedule, and a list of participating universities.
School Charity – Chunshan Education Foundation. One of the fundamental tenets of the IB Diploma CAS programme is ‘think global; act local’. We are really happy that we will donate the second rural library through a worthwhile beneficiary – ChunShan Educational Foundation (http://www.chunshan.org) with the funds that the Hanova community has so generously raised in 2019.
Since 2009, Chunshan Education Foundation has donated over 107 libraries in Shaanxi rural areas. And they provide reading training sessions for over 600 teachers in those areas as well. Hanova has raised money and made the donation to the library project in 2018 and 2020. The money will be used to build a library in one of the schools in rural areas.
It is hoped that our students will be involved in the construction and implementation of the library that our donations will found.
Thanks again for your continuing support.
Yours,
Robert C. Muntzer
Upcoming Events:
Please take a note of these dates. As soon as they are confirmed, we will inform you about additional events and activities that may take place in the following weeks:
21st September-30th September DP Year 13 Examinations
Friday, 30th September MYP First Interim Report Issued
1st October-9th October Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day Holiday
Saturday, 3rd October SAT Test
