PIC: This year’s concert “All the Stars Shone Down- a Concordia Christmas”

CONCORDIA NEWS

2 HIGH SCHOOL OPENING

The much-awaited Concordia Hanoi High School will officially be opening its doors next Fall. The Hanoi community will finally have the option of receiving an Advanced Placement Diploma!

3 MIDDLE SCHOOL SERVICE LEARNING TRIP

Giving out backpacks full of school supplies and spending time with students and their families from rural areas touched a lot of hearts. Little did the Concordia students know that it would be their own.

JANUARY 2013

WELL-ROUNDED STUDENTS

At Concordia, we pride ourselves in the nurturing and caring community that facilitates each student’s personal development and the new Concordia High School program will provide a rigorous academic program while promoting personal growth, participation in community, and care for self and others.

One unique feature of the Concordia High School program is that it provides a college preparatory curriculum to prepare students for further study. The Advanced Placement (AP) Program at Concordia offers university-level courses and exams to students who meet pre-requisite criteria. AP classes are completely elective; however, students who have demonstrated scholarship in prior related subjects are encouraged to consider AP classes.

More than 90% of 4-year colleges and universities in the U.S. grant advanced placement, credit, or both for successful scores on AP Exams, and 85% of selective institutions report that a student’s AP experience favorably impacts admission decisions. AP is also recognized by more than 3,600 universities worldwide and more than 600 universities in over 55 countries outside of the U.S. recognize AP.

While the Concordia High School program promises to be challenging academically, students will also have an opportunity to turn their home country of Vietnam into a classroom as well through weeklong “Interim” trips. The Interim program seeks to develop communication, leadership skills, self-reliance and compassion. The Interim experience draws a student out of their physical,

emotional, and intellectual comfort zone with a view to gaining greater self-knowledge and a richer understanding of the world around them.

With a balance of academics, art, sports, and seeking to develop each student in a holistic way, the Concordia High School program next year promises to have a great impact on the Hanoi community.

PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG GIRLCan you guess which budding Middle School artist’s portrait in ink

is this? Which student is the portrait of?Send answers to communications@concordiahanoi.org

A.

B.

C.

CONCORDIA NEWS JANUARY 2013 concordiahanoi.org2

HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM

PHU THO SERVICE LEARNING TRIP

The following letter was written by Middle School stu-dent, Michelle Frerking, as a thank you note to donors who contributed towards this year’s Walk-A-Thon and Service Learning project:

Thank you so much for sponsoring my sister, Kaylee, and me for our Walk-a-Thon. Concordia-Hanoi raised over $8,000 USD from the Walk-a-Thon and used the money to buy 410 backpacks filled with school sup-plies like pencils and erasers along with a toothbrush and toothpaste for Elementary students in Phu Tho . Once all of the supplies were purchased, students from Preschool to 5th Grade packed the backpacks within a week! On December 10, the Elementary students helped to load a van full to the roof with backpacks, sports equipment and cookies. The Middle School students (which includes me!) went to Phuong Vy com-mune in Phu Tho Province to distribute the backpacks to the children the same day.

Once we arrived at the school, kids crowded around the vans and bus to see us. We got out and moved the backpacks from the van to the small stage that they had set up for us. Concordia performed “Jingle Bells” with ukulele and guitar accompaniment (8 students in the Middle School play ukulele, one of them is me!) be-fore a few girls from the Phuong Vy school danced to a traditional Vietnamese song. Then, we played with the students. We had brought sports equipment that we left with them, like footballs, soccer balls, and tetherballs.

The school had set up two tetherball poles, which we tied our balls to. My friend, Daisy, and I demonstrated how to play while Tri, our translator, translated the instructions to the students. They had a blast! We also jumped rope with an old electrical wire, threw Frisbees, kicked soccer balls around with them. The smile on their face was the best part of the trip.

After we were done playing, the backpack ceremony started. Last year, each student was called up individu-ally, but we only had 200 backpacks to hand out then. Now, we had 410! So each class came up one by one to receive their backpacks and take a photo. Some of the kids tried to leave before the picture was taken! They were so eager to see the new school supplies they had been given. After the students came off the stage, we measured their height and asked them how old they were to collect some data for the 7th grade Social Stud-ies class, where we are learning how nutrition affects how tall you are. All of the Vietnamese students had fun, but I think that the students from Concordia had even more fun while getting some service experience.

I would like to thank everyone who donated money! Ev-ery penny counted, and it was your generous donations that helped Concordia Hanoi to purchase all of the supplies and backpacks for these students who needed them. Please enjoy the photos on our Concordia face-book page and 2 minute video my class produced from our service project.

CONCORDIA NEWS JANUARY 2013 concordiahanoi.org

“What’s this lovely gingerbread house doing here....yum, yum, yum.” - students enjoying the punch and cookie reception that followed the concert.

“Silent Night” never sounded

so beautiful until it was played

on a single violin resonating

throughout the entire Concordia

Auditorium

Bringing some of the best Christmas caroling in Hanoi to

the Concordia parents! The theme was “All the Stars Shone

Down- A Concordia Christmas”

The morning of the school Christmas

concert, Concordia students invited

neighboring kindergartens from

around Hanoi to visit the campus

and performed their Christmas

concert dress rehearsal. Over 300

kindergarteners filled the Concordia

auditorium and huge smiles broke out

as they sang along to many well-loved

carols and even had their own bells

to ring during the Middle School

performance of “Jingle Bells”. The event

was such a jolly one, Santa Claus even

stopped by and took pictures with each

of the classes after the performance.

‘TWAS A VERY MERRY CONCORDIA CHRISTMAS

PARENT SUPPORT ORGANIZATION (PSO) MEETING ON JANUARY 15 AT 10 AMAll parents are welcome to this planning meeting on campus to discuss the second semester school events that need parent assistance. This is also a great time to get parent feedback on the general activities of the school. No need to register, please just show up on the day.

PLEASE NOTE THESE CALENDAR CHANGES/ADDITIONSMarch 1- NOT a Teacher Professional Development day and there WILL BE school. This is also the day of our Concordia International Festival where teachers, students and parents are invited to share their own culture via food, games, etc.

April 19- King Huong Holiday is a Vietnamese National Holiday and there will be NO SCHOOL on this day. The Concordia offices will be closed for the holiday.

To share an event in the next newsletter, please contact Lia Garcia Halpin at communications@concordiahanoi.org

JANUARY EVENTS:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome back from Christmas Holidays

Hong Kong Service Summit (Middle School Students)

PSO Meeting with Classroom Parents

MS Soccer Game vs. UNIS- GO CONCORDIA!

Teacher Professional Development (No School)

MS Soccer Game vs. SIS- GO CONCORDIA!

Session 3 ASA’s begin

MS Soccer Game vs. HIS - GO CONCORDIA!

PSO Coffee Morning - New Concordia Parent Welcome

Session 2 ASA’s

CONCORDIA FEBRUARY EVENTS

Middle School Comedy “Big Bad”

MS Soccer Game vs. BVIS - GO CONCORDIA!

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