ap2 newsletter 29th may

BISbuzz Issue 34 | 1

BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL - HO CHI MINH CITY| SECONDARY CAMPUS

MAY 29 | ISSUE 34

IN THIS ISSUE

June

1st Year 12 Group 4 Project

3rd—4th AP2 Production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, 6pm

6th BIS Aquathlon, 7am

7th AP2 Flea Market, 9am

8th—11th LAMDA Examinations

9th Year 6 Parent Transition meeting

UPCOMING EVENTS

From the Head Teacher 02 Schedule of School Fees 2015 - 2016 04

Job Vacancies 04

Secondary Geography Quality Mark 05

AP2 Production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ 05

Community Service 06

Sport News 07

PTG 08

Quiz Night 09

From The BIStro & Underground 10


From The Head Teacher From The Head Teacher

Focus on Year 13

This week, with IB Examinations complete, the school has been remarkably quiet. Occasional Year 13 students visit to return textbooks, but we are temporarily impoverished by the absence of our most senior students.

They are certainly not forgotten, however. This week we celebrated our Visual Arts students with a spectacular and thought-provoking exhibition of work at Cargo, in District 4. Accompanied by live music from our own student band, guests mingled with the artists, learning about the meanings behind the work. Several graduates from 2014 returned to join the event and it was marvellous to catch up with them and learn of their experiences in their first year away from home.

Tomorrow, our Graduation Ceremony takes place at the historic and elegant Rex Hotel. Our graduands (yes, that is a word) arrive early morning to prepare for the events and don their caps and gowns. At 1130, families and guests will be seated and the students will enter in a dignified parade. Speeches, prizes and, of course, graduation certificates will be awarded and we will finish by mingling in a flurry of photographs, canapés, laughter and hugs. This event also marks the formal handover from our outgoing Head Students to the new team.

Following an afternoon to pause, rest and change outfits, we return for a formal but more relaxed evening dinner at the Rex. This is an evening of good food, good company, a smattering of speeches, student performances and dancing. This is a fitting way to mark the graduation from BIS and onto the next stage of the graduates’ lives. Look out for photographs and details next week in BISbuzz


Nepal – VND 36 000 000 and rising – THANK YOU!

Our student led campaign to support Nepal following the devastating earthquakes has reached a new high. By Friday morning, a total of VND36 033 500 had been raised. The fundraising will continue next week and then the money will be transferred to the British School, Kathmandu, to be used in their rebuilding projects. This message from Chris Phillips at the school describes how. At the moment we are working with our current charities because we can be assured that money pledged to our care will result in every single penny being spent on projects that TBS children and students can help them with and see develop over time. We will be directing our efforts to helping school rebuilding projects for our Dhading project schools, Bungamati DSA school (hearing and sight impaired children) and the Disabled New Life centre. The buildings have been devastated and they served large communities of people who needed them desperately. These projects will benefit children, are related to education, and we know they will give long term benefit to the children and people of Nepal. In the short term we are trying to get supplies and temporary shelter to these projects as many of the people are staying outside. We know for certain that one of the schools in Dhading has been completely destroyed. For more information on the projects we work with and for continued updates go to http://www.tbskathmandu.org/extra-curricular/community-service-charitable-work/ The best way for you to assist at the moment is to donate to the cause, which will go towards immediately supporting the projects and for the future rebuilding of earthquake proof buildings. For information on how to donate please go to the following link: http://www.tbskathmandu.org/extra-curricular/community-service-charitable-work/how-you-can-help/

Richard Dyer Head Teacher, Secondary


Schedule of School Fees 2015 - 2016 Dear Parents The Schedule of Fees for the Academic Year 2015 – 2016 has now been published. A copy can be viewed and downloaded from the school web site by following this link: http://www.bisvietnam.com/admissions/admission-information/fees/

You will note that compared to last year there has been an average increase in the school Tuition Fees of 6.1%, which is the lowest average fee increase for the school in seven years. We have kept the fee increase to the minimum that will allow us to maintain the same high quality of educational provision in a growing school. We remain convinced that we represent good value for money and are comparable with similar schools in Vietnam and elsewhere in the region.

Shaun Williams CEO and Principal

JOB VACANCIES

The school has a number of vacant jobs which may suit some of our parents. All of the posts are based at the An Phu Secondary Campus

ICT Manager

Community Service Project Manager

Online Marketing Officer

Learning Support Assistant Further details for each post are available on the school website at http://www.bisvietnam.com/careers/teaching-at-bis/recruitment/

If you wish to be considered for one or more of these jobs please email a letter of application, your CV, a recent professional photograph and the contact details for two referees to [email protected] putting the title of the job in the subject box of your email. Alternatively, you can deliver an application by hand to one of the school campus offices. Fluency in English is essential.

Closing date is 12.00 noon Wednesday 10 June 2015


Secondary Geography Quality Mark

Dear Parents, As part of our continued commitment to driving standards of teaching and learning at BIS, our Geography department is currently completing the authorisation stage of the Secondary Geography Quality Mark (SGQM). The award conferred by the Geographical Association, aims to identify and celebrate a quality Geography curriculum, and to provide a framework for subject leaders to analyse the curriculum in order to improve for all pupils the quality of the educational experience through Geography. As part of this process we would like to gain the views of parents on the Geography provision we offer. If you would like to add any comments, please follow the link below: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w6VG9BtwoMBXxlsx4FXZ1fLwaaKT48zdgeNw-Vh8P7Q/viewform?usp=send_form Thank you for your support, Sean O’Neill Assistant Headteacher

On Wednesday the 3rd and Thursday the 4th of June, Year 10 and 12 students will be performing ‘Romeo

and Juliet’ in AP2 Auditorium from 6pm. Doors open at 5:45. No ticket is necessary, but seating is limited

so ensure you arrive in time to secure a seat. This is an excellent opportunity to see one of Shakespeare’s

most famous plays but set in our very own Ho Chi Minh City. This is the third collaboration between the

English and Drama departments, and builds on successes like Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons’, and Tom

Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia’.

Abigail Griffiths Assistant Head of English

AP2 Production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’


Community Service

Year 12 – COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECTS – Review – Part 2 of 10 Over the course of this year we Year 12s have been divided into committees and tasked with the challenge to manage a community service project from start to finish. The second in our series of reports belongs to Loreto Committee 2 who worked with Loreto Kids Charity – bridging education gaps, lifting learners of our future.

Loreto Committee 2:

Our committee challenge was to raise awareness and funds for Loreto Kids. We wanted people to know how unfortunate the kids in those rural areas are and with just a little help we can make their world brighter. We also wanted everyone to enjoy our campaigns and activities so that our school community could embrace the organisation and support the work of Loreto Kids.

We met with Loreto and were inspired by their work. We then planned as a team led by myself as the chair alongside our treasurer, secretary and vice-chair to scheme a proposal and then present our ideas to the PTG and to the school in assembly. Our main activities included a pizza selling stall and an Eating Challenge Show. We worked hard to be efficient in our planning and progress review meetings.

We felt that we learnt a lot about ourselves and others. We felt we had developed our abilities, attitudes and values. I think we learnt that in this kind of Community Project, you need trust and respect of your teammates and without it you can’t work properly. As Chair I had to be firm when assigning work to everyone even though we are all very busy. I also need to be fair and helpful to the group when they are in need of my assistance. I learned to be patient and developed my leadership skills in this project as well.

The Eating Challenge Show was fantastic. We raised approximately 7 million VND and that is a no easy task. A lot of people have fun and we felt that the more people that came to watch the eating challenge the more people were aware of our campaign. We faced many difficulties such as not having enough people for our campaign day. To overcome this we enlisted other members of our year group to help and younger students who loved our campaign and friends to spread the news and increase popularity of our events.

Thank you to the Loreto for their inspiring work, to the PTG for their kind donation, to the willing teachers who partici-pated in our challenge and to all students involved and supporting our campaign. It was a great success. Phuc Nguyen

Two committees were partnered with Loreto Kids. Through their fantastic campaigns and competitions our students managed to raise awareness throughout the school and raise a total of 8,952,000vnd collectively. This donation will go towards the Loreto Kids School Packs program for rural children at ‘A’ O Lam Primary School – Tri Ton District – An Giang Province. One pack includes: 10 exercise books, 1 box of colour pencils, 2 pencils, 1 pen, 1 sharpener, 1 pencil case, 1 ruler, 1 eraser, 1 sports uniform and 1 pair of sports shoes. The total cost of 1 pack is 200,000 VND, which equals approximately 45 packs .

‘A’ Ô Lâm Primary School is area of An Giang Province. In Ô Lâm Commune where the school is located, there are 3,224 households, among which 878 are poor or near-poor. Average income per head is 12,537,000VND/year. Local residents’ main source of income is located in Tri Tôn District (450km from Ho Chi Minh City, used to be a war site before and borders Cambodia) – the poorest small scale trading, agriculture production, service and manual labour (carrying goods up and down the mountains, riding ‘taxi’ motorbikes etc.)

The students at the Primary School learn both Vietnamese and Khmer languages. The rate of ethnic Khmer students accounts for about 88 to 98 % of the total number of students of all schools (approximately 500 children in each school). Poor and near-poor students account for over 57%.

Loreto Kids Charity has assisted this school with a Computer Room in 2013 and a ‘Friendly’ Library in 2014. On 29th May 2015, Loreto will distribute School Packs to the students at this school so they are better-equipped for a new School Year.


On Saturday 6th June AP2 will host its 8th annual Aquathlon. This year the Primary event will take place a week later on Saturday 13th June. Further information will be sent from the Primary Campus shortly.

An Aquathlon is a fun and fast-growing sport that combines both running and swimming.

The swimming will take place in the An Phu Secondary pool and the run will follow a safe route around An Phu, past the Primary School. The race briefing will take place at 6.45am and the first race will begin at 7.00am.

In both races, boys and girls will set off at the same time but they will not race against each other. The distances for each age group are: 11 - 13 years: 300m swim, 1.5 km run 14 - 17 years: 400m swim, 2.5 km run Parents/Staff: 400m swim, 4km run

Please note the ages for this event will be taken as of 1st August 2014 (the start of this academic year). Students may wish to enter individually or as part of a team (where one student does the swimming and the other the run). Please indicate this on the entry form. You will require a swimming costume, goggles, a hat if you wish, towel and suitable clothes/trainers to run in (including a t-shirt). A small snack and refreshment is also recommended for after the event. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].

Sports Holiday Programmes Please see the following Holiday Sports Programmes which will take place during the summer break at BIS HCMC. Registration can be made at each of the school campuses. End of year Camp

Start of year Camp

Date Sport Time Head Coach Age Prices (all in

VND) Location

29/6-3/7 Swimming 8.45am-1.45pm Mr Vinh F2 upwards Various prices (see

letter) AP1 Swimming

Pool

29/6-3/7 Skills factory -

mini soccer 8.15am-9.45am SSA Age 3 - 5 years 1,600,000 AP1 small field

29/6-3/7 Football 8 am-11 am SSA Year 3 upwards 2,200,000 Big field

29/6-3/7 Basketball 1pm-4pm SSA Year 3 upwards 2,200,000 AP2 Sportshall

Date Sport Time Head Coach Age Prices (all in

VND) Location

21/8-25/8 Swimming 8 am-1.45 pm Mr Vinh F2 upwards Various (see letters) AP1 pool

21/8-25/8 Skills factory -

mini soccer 8.15am-9.45am SSA Age 3 - 5 years 1,600,000 AP1 small field

21/8-25/8 Football 8 am-11 am SSA Year 3 upwards 2,200,000 Big field

21/8-25/8 Basketball 1pm-4pm SSA Year 3 upwards 2,200,000 AP2 Sportshall

21/8-25/8 T-ball/Softball 4pm-5.30pm Mr Richard Year 3 upwards 660,000 Big Field

Phil Drake Director of Sport


PTG


From the Underground & BIStro

Menu 3 (1 June)

From the Underground & BIStro

DAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY

MAIN COURSE

CHOOSE 1

Cottage Pie-Beef OR

Chicken & Vegeta-ble Curry, Rice

Pasta with Pork Meat Balls OR

Fish Teriyaki, Rice

Roast Pork, Roast Potato/Rice

OR Chicken Noodle

Soup (Pho)

Fish Goujon & Potato Wedges

OR Beef & Vegetable

Stew, Rice

VEGETA-BLES

Morning Glory & Carrot Salad

Beansprouts & Carrot Salad

Choy sum & Carrot Salad

Chinese Cabbage & Carrot

Salad

SOUP Watercress Cabbage & Carrot Tomato & Tofu Spinach & Melon

DESSERT Mixed Fruit Mixed Fruit Mixed Fruit Mixed Fruit

VEGETARIAN

Vegetarian Cottage Pie

Chickpea Salad Mixed Fruit

Pasta Napolitana Mixed Beans Salad

Mixed Fruit

Vegetarian Noodle Soup

Tofu in Soya Sauce Mixed Fruit

Tofu & Vegetable Stew, Rice

Spinach & Melon Mixed Fruit

DELI BAR OPTION

Baguette / Wrap Fill it with a variety of choices including ham, chicken, cheese, tuna mayonnaise, beef, baked bean,

mixed bean, bolognese sauce

SNACK MENU

Curry Puff Samosa

Fruit Cup

Chocolate Mud Cake Swiss Roll Fruit Cup

Curry Puff Samosa

Fruit Cup

Banana/Carrot Muffin

Sponge Cake Fruit Cup

FRIDAY

Roast Chicken, York-shire Pudding

OR Pork in Dark Soya

Sauce, Rice

Broccoli & Carrot Salad

Mixed Vegetable

Mixed Fruit

Chickpea & Vegetable Curry, Rice

Mixed Vegetable Soup

Mixed Fruit

Donut Cream Puff Fruit Cup

ap2 newsletter 29th may

Education