Hanova Young Scientist Win CREST Award - written by Ms Shirley Qi MYP Science Teacher. Congratulations to Hanova students receiving the CREST Bronze Award certificate issued by the prestigious British Science Association! There were 6 students from Y7-Y9 participating in the school's CREST Bronze Award program, and they have made a lot of efforts to achieve the CREST Bronze award. The CREST Award program provides an opportunity for the students to think like scientist to solve real life problems.
The topic of our student investigations is “Bath bomb challenge”. The students spent about 20 hours to do initial research, design, carry out experiments and analyze results. In this project, they learned about bath bombs, found out what makes bath bombs fizz and made their own homemade bath bomb with varied recipes to try to change how much they fizzed.
These are the recipients of the CREST Bronze Award:
- Huatian Li (Edward Y7)
- Yichi Constance Zhang (Constance Y8)
- Jiaqi Zhang (Jacqueline Y8)
- Xinran Lu (Amy Y9)
- Xiaozhi Wang (Emily Y9)
- Jiachen Liu (Jason Y9)
CREST is the British Science Association’s flagship education programme. It inspires young people to think and behave like scientists and engineers. It is the UK’s only nationally recognized accreditation scheme for STEM project work for 5-19 year olds. CREST has been running since 1986 and sees over 50,000 young people achieving CREST Awards each year.
What students who participate in the CREST program gain:
- Helps improve STEM subjects’ grades
- Helps overseas university application
- Helps young people become independent learners
We would to encourage Hanova students to take part in various science awards and competitions to boost their scientific skills and knowledge and enhance interest and passion in science.
If you are interested in getting more information about CREST Award and science competitions, please feel free to contact:
Ms. Shirley Qi - shirley.qi@his-xian.com
Mr. Salimun Salikun - salimun.salikun@his-xian.com
Ms. Mindy Li - mindy.li@his-xian.com
Community fundraising at Hanova - Written by Ms Emma Tidmarsh. Thank you to our Hanova Community for buying a sausage or supporting the Santa green screen and raffle at the Christmas Market. We are very pleased that the proceeds of these three actions raised over 3000 rmb. This money was divided equally between two charities that our students wanted to support. The Xian Orphanage and Xian Paws.
The Xian Paws donation paid for vet bills for much needed medical care and vaccinations for injured animals. The Orphanage required nappies for babies and young children, so our donation purchased over 1000 of these.
We were very pleased to have Miguel from Xian Paws who visited our animals at school. Miguel shared further information to support our animals and their on-going care.
Should you wish to further support these two charities please contact Emma (Early Years) or Emma (Upper Years).
Coordinators Corner - Written by the Hanova IB Evaluation Team. All staff at Hanova are working hard to develop our self-study for the Evaluation in October. Teams have been formed to focus on different aspects of our school, finding our strengths and identifying areas we can improve, to make Hanova an exceptional school in Xian. This aligns with our school mission and vision statements:
Our Vision
We strive to establish Hanova as a long-standing quality educational institution.
Our Mission
We aim to be an outstanding IB World School.
All that we do is in the best interest of our students’ future.
Encourage our staff and students to be accountable for their own behavior and be socially responsible as global citizens.
We strive to make a community of inspiring, wise, principled and active life-long learners.
The self-study process incorporates all members of our school community. This means that we will be sending surveys and questionnaires home for you to give your input. Some parents will be invited to participate in interviews with the IB Evaluation Team, but only those who participate in the process can be considered. So keep an eye out for these surveys in the coming months, and please complete them so that we can gain a better understanding to improve our practices. The more data we have, the more informed we will be to take action. Without your help we cannot achieve our goals.
Thank you for continuing to support us in inspiring lifelong learning!
Year 6 Parent Meeting - PYP Exhibition - Written by Mr James McCrory, Head of School. On Friday 24th February we held a very well attended meeting for Year 6 parents, focused on the upcoming PYP Exhibition.
Communication at Hanova is complex as there are 3 main languages, English, Chinese and Korean. Presentations to parents are therefore time-consuming is they have to allow for translation into 2 additional languages. Presenting in this traditional format results in only one third of presentation time being relevant to each parent. Of course this ‘down time’ can be frustrating especially as some parents may be spending 90 minutes traveling to and from coming school (45 minutes each way) to receive only 15 minutes of information. We have been conscious about this issue and have been thinking about ways to improve this experience.
So this time we experimented and tried something different!
Presentation - written text
As usual the written presentation slides were translated into 3 languages and made available to parents via a QR code which they could scan.
Presentation spoken
We set up a simple method of simultaneous translation of the teacher presenting in English. This allowed Korean and Chinese parents to jin 2 separate WeChat calls and put on their earphones to listen to the translation whilst the presenter was talking in English. Therefore, on this occasion, the one hour presentation was a full one hour of information for all parents.
This was our first attempt so as expected there were some minor technical issues. However, the whole Primary team were so happy to receive such positive feedback from parents for attempting this. We are sharing this feedback below (parents names have been removed for privacy). We promise to keep innovating to improve all aspects of our communications with parents and ensure a better experience for all.
Parent comments:
“The teachers worked very hard to prepare for today! It was good to hear their explanations. I think it has been a very helpful time for me to find out how to prepare for the exhibition and I will give as much encouragement and support to the kids as they prepare. I hope that the translation service will continue to be available. Thank you.”
“I was unable to attend today because my child was sick, but I was glad to be able to get the contents from home via WeChat interpreter. Thank you.”
“You worked so hard today. In the past, it took too much time to translate into English-Chinese-Korean, but it was good that today I could save time. The PPT also included all 3 languages, so it was very easy to understand. Thank you for your efforts to understand parents.”
“Thank you very much for sharing the roles of children and parents in preparation for the exhibition in today’s presentation and for making them aware of their importance. Thank you so much for helping our Korean parents.”
“I was a little vague on how to prepare for the exhibition, but it was very helpful to hear the presentation. Today’s explanation was more understandable because you translated. And I think simultaneous interpreting has saved me a lot of time compared to before. This will make participation in school activities fun and enjoyable. Thank you.
Finale of the Secondary School winter clothing collection - Written by Mr Gary Wood, MYP Humanities. This week saw the end of the winter clothing collection which Hanova Secondary School carried out in collaboration with the Xi’an Yellow River Soup Kitchen (西安市托妳济困公益慈善中心). There were plenty of donations by both students and staff, and in order to make it more fun the activity was made into a house competition. The winners will be announced in next week’s assembly! #caring
MYP Pen pal project - Written by Mr Gary Wood, MYP Humanities. After a two-year hiatus, the Hanova pen pal project has returned! Participating students were introduced to the project on Tuesday, and they will exchange letters every two weeks with Madison International School in Mexico. The letters will cover various topics such as the places they have visited, festivals, hobbies, and cuisine, to name only a few. During this activity, students will be able to activate their writing skills and develop their knowledge on different cultures. #openminded
