Newsletter 15/2015-16

Quarry Bay School’s latest newsletter is available to read now. Find out the latest news around the school and upcoming events.

 Principal’s Comments

 Portfolios and Interim Reports

 Expressive Arts News

 QBS Weather Station

 Donation to West Morninghope School

 Club News

 QBS Hour of Code

 Staff Vacancy

 Summerbridge Walkathon 2016

 PTA News

Principal’s Comments

This week the students have been looking forward to the annual PTA Christmas Fayre on Friday evening. It is lovely to see all the Christmas lights around the playground and the PTA continuing to support the various festivals of light families celebrate. Thank you for supporting the QBS community. Thank you to our hardworking PTA members and staff for working together at the Fayre and ensuring its success.

Welcome to Cynthia Ko our new Education Assistant in 2K. Mrs Ko started work at QBS recently and we are pleased to welcome her to our community.

Using your WITTS to solve a problem

From time to time your child may experience conflict with others. This is part of social development. Being able to self-manage conflict with others is an important skill for children to develop. I would like to share a helpful strategy called WITTS which can be used at home to solve a problem. WITTS gives a child a structured way to work things out.

WITTS is an acronym for:

• Walk away
• Ignore
• Talk it out
• Talk firmly
• Seek help

When you encourage your child to use their WITTS to deal with conflicts you:

• empower them to stand up for themselves;
• show an adult is available to help solve problems; and
• teach your child some skills they need to solve problems before things escalate.

You can encourage your child to follow their WITTS at home when faced with a problem. WITTS provides a common language for you to talk positively and proactively about conflict with your child.

Using your WITTS is something the children are encouraged to do at QBS. Please be reminded that if you are ever concerned about a conflict your child has experienced at school, teachers need to be informed. Our door is always open to parents so do not hesitate to raise any matters about your child with us.

Under no circumstances will bullying be tolerated at QBS and it must be reported immediately.

Regards,

Portfolios and Interim Reports

At QBS students create Portfolios of their work each year as an opportunity to celebrate their progress and learning. Next Friday your child will come home with their Portfolio which will contain a selection of learning chosen by your child and class teacher. These pieces of work have been carefully chosen to show progress and are those your child is most proud of. Please take time to enjoy the Portfolio with your child and to celebrate their progress.. There will also be a parent reflection sheet with some suggested questions to help guide discussion and a space to record your thoughts. Portfolios should be returned by Monday 14th December as they will be added to in Term 2 and 3.

Your child’s Interim Report is a comprehensive account of their progress so far this year. You will receive information about your child’s learning in English, Maths and their first two Units of Inquiry in the form of tick boxes and a written comment for each area. This will be available for you on Friday 18th December at 9:00 am via the Gateway.

Expressive Arts News

Christmas Fair

The Junior Choir, Senior Choir and Rock Band are looking forward to entertaining the QBS crowd tonight and getting everyone into the Christmas spirit. The children in these groups need to be back in school at 5:30pm. Rock band please go to Mr Lee’s room, Junior Choir to my (Miss Hill’s room) and Senior Choir to the multi-purpose room. The performance starts at 6:30pm. Junior Choir need to return to the Expressive Arts room to be collected after the performance.

Aladdin the Pantomime – Wednesday 16th December 6pm

It’s that time of year again – oh no it isn’t – oh yes it is! All these groups of children are involved in the QBS Panto this year:

• Drama club
• Orchestra
• Senior Choir
• Rock Band

Drama club and Senior Choir children have been given details about their costumes and the children need to bring in their costumes for a costume check on Thursday 10th December. Orchestra and Rock Band please can you wear black. You may also have some Christmas decorations such as tinsel or a santa hat.

Please click here to learn more about what costumes the children need:

The children are busily rehearsing in school. The children have been given this rehearsal schedule already. Here are the after –school rehearsal dates and the performance dates that will take place after school and which groups of children need to attend which rehearsals.

If you need any further information about the Aladdin performance, please do not hesitate to contact me. All the details above are also on the Expressive Arts, Performance section of Qoodle.

Miss Hill (Expressive Arts Teacher)

QBS Weather Station

The Quarry Bay Weather Station is operating again and next week Year 3 students will be using the data to forecast local weather. There is a link to the station data on the left hand navigation panel on Qoodle. There is also a free app available from the App Store for IPads running IOS 7 or later. This presents the data in a visually appealing and usable format. The App is called “WunderStation” and our local weather station name is “IHONGKON22”.

Donation to West Morninghope School – deadline on the 11th of December

We are very lucky here at Quarry Bay School because we can do lots of different things. West Morninghope School is located in Chai Wan. It is a school for disabled children. The school helps the students develop self respect, self discipline, self confidence and independence. They also teach the children life skills such as, personal hygiene, how to cook, how to dress, safety and how to communicate in English.

At QBS we all like to help. So the student voice would like to take action and ask all the students to donate a small Christmas gift so that they can deliver these gifts on Monday 14th December to the children there for them to have a very merry Christmas.

The types of gifts that would be great to give are: stuffed toys, simple puzzles, easy children books or easy duplo/lego packs.

Once you have bought the gift, please wrap it, attach a note to say whether it is suitable for a boy or girl (or both) and what age it would be good for. Then bring the gift to school, place it under the Christmas tree in the school hall and Santa’s big helpers from year 5 and 6 will deliver the gifts on everyone’s behalf.

From Ernest Yeung, Avi George and Destiny Lung.

Club News

Term 1 clubs finishing dates

There are a few clubs that will end later. Please note this and make sure you inform your children.

• QBS Girls Football 11th Dec
• QBS Rugby 17th Dec
• QBS Chess 15th Dec
• QBS Senior Choir 11th Dec
• QBS Chinese Dance 17th Dec
• QBS Lion Dance 10th Dec
• QBS Diabolo 11th Dec
• QBS Chinese Puppetry 16th Dec
• QBS Orchestra (please see email from Ms. Hill)
• Scouts 10th Dec
• ESF Ed Services Football 14th Dec (this is a make up class)

Term 2 Clubs

Registration will be start from Monday the 7th Dec at 12pm and close Friday 11th of Dec at 12pm. The procedure is the same as in the past. The clubs will be viewable today. If you have not paid the annual $300 QBS Academic fee or the $400 QBS Sports fee you will not be able to register until you do so.

QBS Hour of Code

“Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer
because it teaches you how to think.”

— STEVE JOBS, THE LOST INTERVIEW

It is now widely recognised that learning to code helps students develop important problem solving and thinking skills which can be applied to other aspects of their lives. In the past, coding or programming involved entering vast amounts of code and was quite laborious for students. Nowadays, several free apps and flash based web sites have been developed which make coding visual and fun allowing almost all students to participate creatively and become an inventor themselves.

We would like to invite all students to take part in a world wide “Hour of Code” during the period 7-11 December 2015. All year groups will be given an orientation to coding activities during their 45 minute ICT lesson during the and assigned a particular course. Links to the activities will be placed on the front page of Qoodle and a sticker with log in details stuck in student diaries. We would encourage students to continue these activities at home.

Further information about the world wide event “Hour of Code” can be found at https://hourofcode.com/us

Staff Vacancy

Quarry Bay school is looking to appoint an IT Technician. If you know anyone who might be interested in applying please forward the link to the job advertisement below to them.

https://recruit.esf.edu.hk/jobinfo.asp?jid=3003860

Closing Date: 08 Dec 2015

For enquiries, please contact Doris Wong at +852 25664457 or doris.wong@qbs.edu.hk.

Summerbridge Walkathon 2016

Please click here to learn more.

PTA News

UPCOMING EVENTS

“Christmas Fayre” : Today, 4th December 2015

Our biggest, festive and fun event of the year is TODAY and we look forward to seeing you here.

We are expecting the weather to be a chilly this evening, so please wrap up in warm wears.

Courtesy Shuttle Bus Service

Please click here to download the shuttle bus schedule.

Entrance Fees

There is a $10 entrance fees for all persons above 3 years.

Donations

If you would like to make donations you may do at the entrance of the fair at the registration desk.

We hope you enjoy the event this evening. Wishing you a lot of fun.

[ALL Proceeds raised at PTA events will be given as donation to school to enhance learning facilities for the betterment and benefit of all the students to
Make a Difference! ]

PTA Shop

Shop Enquires

Please contact Mrs Rathi via ptashop@qbs.edu.hk for any shop queries.

Winter Uniforms

Winter uniforms are compulsory for all students to wear now.

School Bags

School Bags have finally arrived. Please come to collect your bags from the PTA Shop commencing Tuesday, 8th December 2015.

Feedback or Suggestions

If you have any feedback or suggestions you would like to give on our event or services provided, please email directly to: ptasuggestions@qbs.edu.hk. Your email will directly be received by our Chairman who will reply you at the earliest available moment.

HELP US – IN OUR DRIVE FOR A GREENER ENVIRONMENT

We request all parents to support a greener environment by BYOB “bring your own bag” when you come to purchase items from the shop.

[With immediate effect the PTA Shop will no longer provide any shopping bags].

Please contact us on 2566 4242 (ask to transfer to PTA), or 2887 1004 for further queries, or by email to pta@qbs.edu.hk, during operation hours.

“Click here for PTA Office and Shop Operation”.