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TAIPEI EUROPEAN SCHOOL

EUROPEAN PRIMARY CAMPUS NEWSLETTER

Edition 14 Friday 23rd May 2008

TES MESSAGES / I NTRODUCT ION :

IMPORTANT MESSAGE…

BRITISH SECTION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Is taking place on Wednesday 28th May 2008

From 6.30pm to start at 7.00pm Where: Amphitheatre ‐ TES Junior Building ‐ EPC

Primary Campus

SPECIAL GUEST: Ms Adele Corry ‐ the new Head of the British Junior School. Please come along to the meeting to show your support for the

school and to meet the new Head of Juniors.

FORTHCOMING DATES FOR YOUR D IARY . . .

SCHOOL WEBSITE: www.taipeieuropeanschool.com

CONTACT: Taipei European School, Swire European Primary Campus, 727 Wen Lin Road, Shihlin, Taipei 11159, Taiwan Telephone: +886 2 8145 9007 Ext 123

Wednesday 28th May British Section Council Annual General Meeting Friday 30th May TES Graduation Ceremony ESC Campus Week beginning Monday 2nd June Year Six SATs Assessment Week Friday 13th June Year Group Exchange Day

I n th i s i s s ue…

Infant Section 2

Junior Section 5

TO REMEMBER...

Please remember to wear your new access card when visiting the Primary Campus.

Please remember that children in the British Section should be wearing the correct school uniform at all times. This now includes smart black shoes and TES caps.

Thank you

EPC – EUROPEAN PRIMARY NEWSLETTER British Infant School Section: NEWS and INFORMATION…

Dear Parents I hope you enjoyed the mid term break last week. I went to Bali to meet up with my daughter and her boyfriend. We had a lovely few days together and I had the opportunity to cuddle a young orangutan and two lion cubs – wonderful!

This is a busy time for teachers – they are writing end of year reports for all their pupils! The children will bring them home with them on the last day of term. If you are leaving before the end of term, it is really helpful if you can bring in a stamped and addressed envelope to the office. We can then mail you the report when it is ready.

I have been in many of the classrooms first thing in the morning recently, and I am a little concerned about the number of children who are late into school. All children must be in school by 7:55 so the register can be taken and learning can start. Some children are 15 minutes late every day and this amounts to 1 hour and 15 minutes of missed learning a week! Please try to get your children to school on time – it gets them into good habits for later in life!

We are saying goodbye to a few teachers and teaching assistants this year: Miss Boddez is taking up a post in Abu Dhabi, Miss Budde is getting married and then moving to Tokyo, Miss Bull is returning to Australia, Miss Holden is moving to Bahrain, Mrs Fieschi is starting a new life in Mumbai, Mrs Henderson is returning to England, and Miss Sullivan is returning to Canada. I am sure you would like to join me in wishing them much happiness in their new lives. We shall miss them, but wish them well.

I will introduce you to the new staff in my next newsletter.

Thank you for your continued support. Best wishes Ruth Martin


Year 2 News Letter In Maths Year Two‛s did a great job reviewing and preparing for their SATs. Now looking ahead until the end of the year we will be extending on previous topics. First we will look at partitioning addition and subtraction and extend number bonds to 1000. Following the number problems will be time. We will examine hours, minutes and seconds as well as revisit time to the quarter hour. Multiplication and division practice will follow and lastly we will cover double multiples, near doubles as well as halves and quarters.

In English the students have been learning about character descriptions, settings and writing descriptively using their senses. The children are now beginning to improve their writing by using adjectives, connectives and as always a focus on punctuation. For the last term we will be looking at various genres such as information, poetry and reports. The children will be creating their own mini information books. They will also have fun with words, creating silly sentences and writing their own tongue twisters. Please continue to assist your child with their reading, weekly spelling and maths homework. We have been doing some really exciting topics in Science this term and have been having lots of fun!

We learnt about materials; what are the differences between natural and human made materials and we have also examined the properties of various materials and asked questions like; are they transparent? Waterproof? Flexible? Strong? We then went on to learn about the 3 states of matter – gas, liquids and solids and how these can be changed by applying heat or cold.

We have learnt about electricity; we have discussed what it is, where it comes from and what uses it has. We have been building electrical circuits and have used these to test whether various materials are conductors or insulators. We ended out unit by making fabulous light houses, with real lights in them!


EAL in Year 2 The EAL students in Year 2 have recently been busy writing short stories about a lighthouse. Having already made a lighthouse and read some lighthouse stories the children were full of good ideas. The stories were short but the children practiced describing a setting and most stories also had a problem which was later resolved.

Some examples:

“One day the light went off. Mr. Nixon went in the boat to a special lamp shop.” Mijke Van de Ven in B2MB “Then at breakfast time Mr. Griling rowed the boat and went inside the lighthouse.” Jaclyn Liu in B2JB “The boat was a fishing boat but under the sea there was a bad shark.” David Bijlsma in B2MS “Then the boat wiggled! OH NO! There‛s a whale, said Granny.” Maria Yli-Krekola in B2CL

Important Dates: 29 th May - Year 2 trip to Danshui Thursday 29 th May is the Year Two trip to Danshui. The trip is during normal school hours and the children are to wear school uniform The children will leave school at 9:30am and be back in school about 1pm. Children should take either a packed lunch or if they have a school meal can get a packed lunch from the canteen. Please ensure your child takes a water bottle with them as the weather is getting warmer. Please could you send NT$80 for the MRT cost to your class teacher before the trip date. Each child can bring a maximum of NT$100 to buy an ice-cream.

12 th June - Year 2 Show The Year Two show will take place on Thursday 12 th June in the amphitheater at 12:45. Thank you to all parents for helping to sort out your child‛s costumes it is very much appreciated. Sorry to those parents that have ended up with the more difficult costumes!

25 th June – Year 2 trip to Children‛s Museum of Taipei More information will be given at a later date.

27 th June – Year 2 class parties The end of year class parties will take place on Friday 27 th June from 11:25 until the end of school. The class parent‛s will arrange these closer to the date.

Important Note If your child is going to be absent during the last week of school (week beginning Monday 23 rd

June) please could you let your class teacher know by Friday 23 rd May so that we have an idea of numbers for the last trip and class parties.

We would like to thank all our Year Two children for the amazing amount of work and effort they put into the SATs. Every child tried their hardest and worked really hard to gain the best mark they could.

The Year Two Team


Supporting Victims of the Burmese Cyclone and the Chinese Earthquake

The staff of the Infant Section feel it is important that the children understand the suffering that is going on in Burma and China caused by the 2 recent natural disasters.

The children are very young and therefore it has to be handled very carefully. I will be doing an assembly on Friday 23 rd May with the children, and I would like to follow this assembly with a

fundraising activity.

All next week there will be a big picture of a tap laid out in the Infant Office and the idea is that the tap is filled with coins. When the tap is full, we will count the money and divide it be-

tween the 2 equally tragic causes.

The children can bring NT$ loose change into school and their teachers and assistants will bring them over to the tap to put the coins in. It is a really visual activity, one the children will

enjoy and be able to relate to.

Thank you for helping us to help people less fortunate than ourselves!

EPC – EUROPEAN PRIMARY NEWSLETTER British Junior School Section: NEWS and INFORMATION…

Dear Families and Friends of TES,

A very warm welcome to the fourteenth edition of the EPC Primary newsletter.

EAL / SEN News: Welcome to the EAL / SEN edition of the Junior newsletter. We have lots of news and information from these departments in this edition and I thank the EAL and SEN team and the children they work with for their hard work in preparing these for us.

Fundraising: The school is currently supporting the fundraising efforts in China and Burma. The Junior Section is focusing on the Burma appeal and lots of events and activities are being planned to help.

Europe Day: On the 9th of May TES celebrated Europe Day. It was a great event at both campuses and the children participated in a joint assembly and worked together and had a lot of fun. I would like to thank Mrs Foster for organising and planning the day for the TES junior children and to all the staff and children for making the day so much fun!

Music Concert: The TES Junior Music concert takes place tonight. It will be a great evening, and very busy! Seating will be allocated on a ‘first come first served’ basis. The children have worked very hard and I’d like to thank Ms Katie Williams and Ms Edith Kao for preparing and presenting the concert tonight.

How do you spell Kazakhstan? With a Capital A! I am writing to let you know of a little change of plan! A few months ago the school sent a letter home to inform you that the Pritchards were off to new adventures in Kazakhstan! Well we were, but following some unforeseen changes, our snow boots are back in the cupboard and we have a new pair of clogs on instead! The Pritchards are off to the Netherlands to live in Amsterdam. Zoe and I will join the team at the British School of Amsterdam next year and we are delighted with the news. We are looking forward a new life in Holland! I now need to trade in my Russian phrasebooks for some Dutch ones!

Happy reading!

Best wishes, Chris Pritchard Head of the Junior School British Section Taipei European School

TES JUNIOR SCHOOL MUSIC CONCERT

TONIGHT! Seating - first come / first served

Where: EPC - Junior Building Amphitheatre

Time: 7.00pm to 8.15pm (free admission) ( P erformers are asked to be at school for 6.30pm to get ready )


BLUE

Blue is like the sky on a nice

day.

Blue is like water in a swimming

pool.

Blue is like a sharp coloured

pencil.

Blue is a stripe on our school

uniform.

Blue tastes like sweet grape

juice.

Blue is my second favourite

colour.

By Anton

Yellow

Yellow is a paper that you can write on.

Yellow is a hot sun that you can see.

Yellow is a sour lemon.

Yellow is the giving tree book that you can

read.

Yellow tastes like yummy banana.

Yellow smells like a flower.

Yellow sound like a buzzing bee.

Yellow feels like an old door.

Yellow looks like a pen.

Yellow makes me happy.

Yellow is my favourite colour.

By Yu Xin and Victoria

Yellow Yellow

Yellow feels like the sun. Yellow feels like the sun.

Yellow tastes like a cake. Yellow tastes like a cake.

Yellow sounds like a little chick Yellow sounds like a little chick chirping. chirping.

Yellow looks like a paper. Yellow looks like a paper.

Colours! Colours all around! Look! Smell ! Hear! Taste! Feel !

Which colour is your favourite?

Year 3 EAL Poetry Corner

Green Green looks like a hard

turtle shell.

Green smells like a sweet coconuts.

Green sounds like frogs croaking.

Green tastes like minty sweets.

Green feels like smooth grass.

We all like green.

By 3EAL CLASS

Yellow smells like pineapple. Yellow smells like pineapple.

Yellow smells like a pleasant flower. Yellow smells like a pleasant flower.

Yellow is like a minty ice cream. Yellow is like a minty ice cream.

Yellow is my favourite colour. Yellow is my favourite colour.

by Fatou by Fatou


Help Save Camp Taiwan! After returning from a spectacular four day residential trip, the students of Year 5 EAL were horri fied to find a letter waiting for them announcing that a highway and tunnel were going to be built right through Camp Taiwan. Wasting no, time the students sprang into action and produced these brilliant persuasive letters intent on saving the Camp! Well the highway and tunnel announcement

turned out to be a practical joke, but that doesn’t make these letters any less brilliant!

The Office of Highways Taipei County Government Chung Shan Rd #1 Taipei County, Taiwan

Dear Sir or Madame,

I’m writing you this letter because I heard that you are going to construct a highway through Camp Taiwan .It is a fun place for chil dren. Why construct a Highway through Camp Taiwan? You could construct the Highway un der, over or around Camp Taiwan, any thing that would not destroy this wonderful camp. When I heard those bad news I had tears in my eyes, .because if you destroy Camp Taiwan, you will destroy the environment, habitats of animals, everything . Please don’t construct a highway through Camp Taiwan. You could join the high way to another.

Yours sincerely,

Louise Jimenez

The Office of Highways Taipei County Government Chung Shan Rd #1 Taipei County, Taiwan

Dear Sir or Madame,

I was told that you will build highway through Camp Taiwan. Is that true? Anyway if it is true I would feel very upset. I would feel very upset because I really like Camp Taiwan and other people enjoy it too. Old people will also be upset because they also like it. Can you please not build it through Camp Taiwan? I beg you please don’t Build a highway through Camp Taiwan. There are already so many highways leading to the coast. There are other possibilities like you could build it around it or under it but please don’t build it through Camp Taiwan.

Your sincerely Marie Luise Ruf


In Year 7, I am looking forward to meeting new people and studying new subjects. Maybe having my brother and sister around would be good too. The challenges will be more homework and having to be more independent. Maybe I can handle it.

(Afiqah Zailani)

What I am really looking forward to in Year 7 is Algebra because I like Maths. For example, BXF=12 and people guess it’s actually 2X6. Another reason why I like Algebra is because it’s like a fun game of ‘Guess My Number”.

(Ivan LopezBuhrer)

Much bigger and stronger teachers in Year 7.

No more excuses for not doing homework.

No forgetting my pencil case.

Having appropriate hair. (Asavela Peter)

I am looking forward to going to Secondary School because I want to overcome a new challenge. My challenge is trying to answer questions about Maths. I am going to try very hard because I want to improve my Maths. I am worried about who my class teacher will be in Year 7. I hope I get good grades. (Albert Su)

I am nervous about Year 7 homework. We all know that Year 7 will be a big challenge. I‘m nervous about my friendships because some of my friends might go to a different school. I’m looking forward to studying more advanced subjects and becoming more independent. (EMing Huang)

My challenge is to improve my English so I that I won’t need EAL. I also want to challenge myself in every subject. I am looking forward to learning more English and meeting new friends.

(Nako Akashi)


Get Organised! Tips to help children organise themselves and become

more effective learners.

Create a study schedule – make a timetable with your child for use after school. Programme into it homework, ECAs, playtime/TV time/computer time and bed time. Make it a routine and stick to it as far as possible.

Make another timetable and mark on it days when your child needs to bring his gym kit to school, or the days he has packed lunch. Stick this on the fridge door or by the front door so he can refer to it easily.

Provide a quiet area away from distractions where your child can work. Ensure it is well lit and well ventilated. It is a good idea to have a pin board above the desk on which to stick important notes. To help with time management make sure there is a clock in the room where your child works.

Have a box or basket at home into which you put anything school related. That way when your child has lost something they need for school they can look there first.

Help children learn to organise their school bags. Provide them with an A4 folder into which they place any loose homework given to them. Use colour coded dividers that relate to the colour of their school books for each subject.

Help with organising equipment. For older students make a checklist that they look at each evening when packing their bags. For younger students let them have two pencil cases, one at home and one at school which is replenished each weekend for items that have gone missing.

Finally and most importantly encourage children to become independent. A child whose life is organised for him is not necessarily an organised child.

Véronique Garrett SEN Department


Helping Your Children Get The Most Out Of Reading

Reading is probably the most important skill that children learn at school. So much depends on it and those who have difficulties with reading are at a huge disadvantage throughout their lives.

Some children pick up reading ‘just like that’; others struggle, most fall somewhere in between. However, whether your child is a fluent reader or battles incessantly to decode words, there are many things that can be done to make the process more enjoyable and more worthwhile.

Reading out loud to your child – this helps them improve their listening skills and their vocabulary and broadens their interest in books. (Try using expression when reading, point to the words with your finger as you read and always involve your child by talking about the pictures or repeating the common words).

Shared reading with your child – this lays the foundations for your child to read on his own. Before reading the book talk about the pictures. Whilst reading

help your child tell you about what is happening. Encourage him to look carefully at ‘key’ words and to join in reading any of the words he recognises. When you have finished reading ask your child to retell the story in his own words.

Guided reading with your child involves you supporting him whilst he reads the book. Often it is a good idea to start the reading and then let him take over. If he hesitates or makes a mistake wait a few seconds (in order to let him work it out and correct his mistakes) then prompt. If he is still unable to say the word, help him out and then get him to repeat the word. Remember to offer lots of praise repeatedly as this is the best form of encouragement.

Supported reading is when a child reads a book to you. If the book is at the correct level he should be able to read most of it on his own, but you must be prepared to offer support with some of the words. Encourage your child to talk through the book with you before reading. Help him whilst reading by praising when he self corrects a misread word and ensuring that he reads words accurately. Always talk about the book and its contents when he has finished reading

Silent reading often referred to as independent reading is when a child reads to themselves. As children’s skills improve they will read alone more and more often. However whilst getting to this level it is important to mix in the other kinds of reading.


Helping Your Children Get The Most Out Of Reading Continued:

Reading with children can only be beneficial. It will help them – Practise decoding and alphabet skills necessary for the early stages of reading Develop reading strategies to work out unknown words Become more ‘active’ learners Become better at listening Benefit more from work done at school Experience a wider variety of books Enjoy reading more

Finally remember the three P‛s and the two E‛s:

Patience Cancel the session if you feel stressed, read a favourite story instead.

Positive Attitude Show that mistakes are part of learning and will show you what needs to be taught.

Praise Not just for successes but for effort as well.

Enthusiasm Books are fun; let your child see you reading for pleasure.

Encouragement When it gets difficult, try to stick with it.

Véronique Garrett, SEN Department

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