2013/2014 Issue No.

01

Friday 23 August 2013

PRINCIPALS MESSAGE
Dear Parents, Greetings to you all! A very warm welcome to the new school year at Bradbury. If you are new to the Bradbury community, an especially warm welcome and I look forward to getting to know you and your child over the coming weeks. Welcome also to the following new staff: Suzanne Allan Year 3 Teacher and Year Group Leader Katie Townsend Year 1 Teacher Melanie Broomfield Year 4 Teacher Simon Pang-Part time P.E. Teacher Connie Leung Library Assistant Joanna Hamilton-Dick Educational Assistant Annemiek Van Bemmel Educational Assistant Jill Shepherd Educational Assistant This year promises to be an exciting one for us. We have a curric ulum focus on language and differentiation, so well be sharing more about these areas with you throughout the year. Please read my blog for some of my informal reflections on teaching, learning and our school. You can find the link on our school website: www.bradbury.edu.hk. Please read about the parents log on to gateway below as it contains an important message. I look forward to meeting you at our upcoming Parents Introductory evenings and at our P.T.A. Welcome Picnic on 6 September. Regards,

Sandra Webster Principal

IMPORTANT DATES
DATE
02 September 2013 (Monday) 03 September 2013 (Tuesday) 04 September 2013 ( Wednesday) 05 September 2013 (Thursday) 06 September 2013 (Friday) 11 September 2013 (Wednesday)

EVENT
Start of Term 1 After School Activities (P.E. Dept) Y5/Y6 Parents Introductory Evening Y3/Y4 Parents Introductory Evening Y1/Y2 Parents Introductory Evening Family Welcome Picnic (TBC: Details to follow from the P.T.A.) Year 6 P.T.A. Cake Sale

TIME
3.00 p.m. 5.00 p.m. 6.00 p.m. 5.00 p.m. 6.00 p.m. 5.00 p.m. 6.00 p.m. 5.00 p.m. 7.00 p.m. 10.30 a.m. 11.00 a.m.

BRADBURY SCHOOL IS A NUT FREE SCHOOL

We have a number of students who suffer from severe allergic reactions that can lead to anaphylaxis. In order to ensure that all of our students health and safety is maintained, Bradbury School is a nut free school. Please bear this in mind when sending in snacks, lunches and birthday treats.There are a number of foods commonly found in lunches that commonly contain nuts and/or sesame. For nuts, foods to avoid are: Peanut butter

Nutella Other nut butters (almond, hazelnut) Muesli bars and other snack bars - e.g. Alpen, Nature's Best Biscuits containing nuts, including macarons Cakes, including fruit cake, that contain nuts Breakfast Cereals - e.g. Crunchy Nut cornflakes, muesli, Fruit and Fibre Pesto (most contain cashew nuts) Chocolate bars - e.g. Snickers, Nougat, Toblerone Thank you. Steve Fennelly Vice Principal/Upper Phase Leader

WELCOME TO BRADBURY YEAR 1S

We welcome our new students and families to Year 1. We are looking forward to lots of fun learning over the coming year.

MESSAGE FROM THE LOWER PHASE LEADER/VICE PRINCIPAL

Welcome to Term 1. This week I have enjoyed meeting our students on the playground each morning as they have returned to school, keen to be back and full of holiday stories. A special welcome also goes to our new Year 1 students and their families. The Year 1 students have been very keen to get into the classrooms with their teachers and there was barely a tear in sight not even from parents! They have started their full days, in their smaller class groups this week, and all Year 1 students will be at school from Tuesday next week. We also had a very smooth start with students travelling on our school buses this week. Year 1 students who are travelling on the buses have bus buddies who are older students who will collect them from class at the end of each day and take them to the correct bus. This will operate for the first two weeks of school. Just a reminder that students who do not catch buses need to be collected from school by 3pm. If the person collecting your child is unavoidably delayed it is helpful to ring the front office to let us know. To ensure the safety of our students, all children waiting at school for after-school activities that start after 3pm must have an adult supervising them. Students should not be left unsupervised on the school grounds while waiting. There is no teacher supervision at this time and teachers are often not available as they are at meetings inside the school building. Also for safety reasons, the school climbing equipment is also closed and out of bounds for all students after 3pm. Further information about bus arrangements to help you: CHILDREN ON BUSES AND WALKERS NOTE May we please remind parents (new and old) that changing travel arrangements last minute often causes confusion and delays the buses. So please avoid changing travel arrangement unless it is an emergency. Please note that a written instruction must be given in the diary on the day or emailed to the teacher on the day beforehand for all students in Years 1,2 and 3. The default position is that students will always travel on the bus unless

we have been notified otherwise. Thank you. Therese Gallen Vice Principal/Lower Phase Leader

LIBRARY NEWS
Official Library Newsletter for August/September: https://smore.com/s2rm Fantastic news: The Bradbury Library will now be loaning Y2 toY6, 5 books at a time. Please discuss this with your child. We do not want children carrying too many heavy books in their bags. Children do not have to borrow 5 books, they may choose how many they borrow. Mother Tongue Language Guest Readers: We really enjoyed welcoming parent and staff guest readers last year to Bradbury Library. Parents and staff members shared a book in their Mother Tongue. We will continue welcoming parents and staff to visit the library on Wednesdays during Y1-3 and Y4-6 lunch times to read books aloud in their mother-tongue. Please email me to book a time and indicate your interest: librarian@bs.esf.edu.hk. Remember that you are welcome to bring your own books to share or use library mother tongue language books as available. Volunteers are needed NOW in Bradbury School Library: Official volunteer working tea will be on September 2nd, 8am12pm, please email if you are able to help during this time, it is not necessary to stay for four hours. librarian@bs.esf.edu.hk The library needs numerous volunteers to support adding hundreds of new books to the library and additionally help shelving the 300 books per day that are returned by students and staff. We would appreciate support of volunteers who could provide 15-30 minutes of their time before or after they volunteer in the classroom in addition to volunteers who are willing to volunteer for 1-2 hours per day. We would provide volunteers with training and would appreciate any support provided. Thank you! Please welcome Ms. Connie Leung to the library. She is our new library assistant. Thank you, Mrs. Debbie Alvarez, Teacher Librarian, Bradbury School

CLASS PARENTS
If you would like to volunteer to take on the role of class parent for your childs class this year could you please e mail me with your name, your childs name and the class that you would like to volunteer for. This role involves: o supporting your childs class as a link between the PTA and the families o organizing class volunteers for cake bakes, pizza sales & fund raisers o Supporting the teacher when collecting resources for the class o Touching base with new families informing them about things such uniforms , after school activities, etc. o Most of this can be done through emails using an email contact list which you are provided with. Thank you. Therese Gallen Lower Phase Leader/Vice Principal

UNIFORM
Please note that all students are expected to wear the correct uniform. Details can be found on the website:

www.bradbury.edu.hk , ABOUT us

Parent Handbook 2013/2014

page 32.

One area to note is that shoes for P.E. are to plain black or plain white. No coloured inserts are acceptable. If you want your child to wear specialist shoes for specific activities, please bring these to school to be changed into/out of for that lesson only. Thank you. Sandra Webster Principal

ADMISSIONS NEWS
New Year 1 intake for School Year 2014-15 The registration period for the intake of 2014-15 will begin on September 1 through September 30, 2013. This intake is only for the children who were born in 2009 and will be admitted as Year 1 students from August 2014. Parents can go to the ESF website at www.esf.edu.hk for online application at the time specified above. Please be reminded that this is the only time of year we accept on-time applications. All received after October will be treated as late. Y7 Transfer Application for Y6 students The application period for current Y6 students to submit the Y7 transfer form will start from September 9 (Monday) until September 19 (Thursday). Parents should login to Gateway and access it by choosing Admin>Change Request > select Transfer Application for Year 7 > click Go. Please be reminded that you are required to attach/upload the proof of address if the residential address has changed. All Year 6 parents need to amend and/or confirm the information and check the box to confirm if the Y7 place is required or not. Please note that this is NOT a confirmation but application of request for secondary place. The confirmation of school place according to the school of zone will be sent on 2 December by individual secondary schools. All new Year 6 students joining on or after 19 August is guaranteed an ESF secondary school place but not necessarily at the school of zone. Request of Change of Demographics As we have new parents coming by, this is a gentle reminder that you are required to submit address proof of the new residence if you would like to update the correspondence. Valid address proofs could be any utility bills or lease contract. There are three ways for you to submit your request: In person Please attach a copy of the address proof alongs ide the completed Change of Correspondence form and submit them to the School Office. The form can be obtained from our front desk. Email Please send the formal request with the attachment of the new proof of address to enquiries@bs.esf.edu.hk Gateway Alternatively, the easiesr way for you to do it is by submitting the request electronically on Gateway. After logging in you should choose Admin > select Change Request. Please update the information on the screen and attach/upload the necessary document for proof of address for approval. For further enquiries regarding admissions, please feel free to talk to me at the school office from 8am 3pm every school day. Johnny Wong - Admissions

PARENTS PLEASE LOG ON TO GATEWAY

You may have noticed recently that when you log on to Gateway, it will ask you to update your data. Please do so urgently. There is a section which asks you to opt in or opt out in receiving promotional materials which may be deemed direct marketing from ESF, ESL and the P.T.A. Starting end of September, parents who opt out in receiving these will not be able to receive certain types of information for example: - Bake sales from the P.TA. - Spell-a-thon that raise money - Dress casual day where donations are made - Promotion of workshops to parents offered by third party - Extra curricular activities offered by non-staff members - Year 6 Graduation party which asks for a fee - Outings to Ocean Park - P.T.A. Quiz Night - Mandatory uniform orders - Yearbook pre-orders The list is quite exhaustive and you need to think carefully about opting in or out as the new law is extensive and covers many areas. If you have any questions please see me about it. Thank you. Parents new to Bradbury School will receive their Gateway login user name and password by mail within the next week. Sandra Webster Principal

Below are examples of promotional materials which you will not be able to receive if you opt out.

P.E. NEWS
Welcome back! I hope you all had a good holiday and are ready for another exciting year of P.E. here at Bradbury School. This week we welcome Simon Pang to the P.E. department. Simon will replace Mrs. Grantham and will be working alongside me three days a week. Another exciting development is the arrival of our Bradbury School swimwear range. As you can see from the photos below the swimwear looks fabulous! It also matches the other items of our current P.E. kit. The swimwear will be worn by our swimming teams at swimming meets and is available for sale to all members of the school. It is not compulsory for the children to wear the Bradbury swimming kit during swimming lessons, however, we will be strongly advising that members of the school swimming team purchase their own. The girls costumes are $175 and the boys jammers are $150. Both are available in a range of sizes from the PTA shop.

Today is the last day for after school activity forms to be handed in. However, if you have not yet done so we will accept late forms on Monday. The form is also available on the Bradbury School website on the home page under the nd community button. All activities start the week beginning Monday 2 September. If there are any parents who wish to help out with any of the activities please contact me on marie.farry@bs.esf.edu.hk After School Activities for Term One 2013 Please print out and fill in the following form and return it to Miss Farry before Friday August 23rd. All activities will start nd th on Monday 2 September and run until Friday November 29 . All fees charged for these activities are to cover the costs of buses, pitch hirage and coaches. If there are too many children for an activity enrolment will be on a first come, first served basis. Assume your child has a place in the activity unless you hear otherwise from me. If you enroll your child in these activities remember that the expectation is that they are committed to the activity for the term. If activities are cancelled we will ring you around lunch time on the day to make arrangements for your child to get home. All school based activities will go ahead regardless of the weather. I would like to enroll my child _________________________class _________for the following activities: Dates Monday Sport Field hockey Year groups Years 3-6 Boys and girls Time 3.00pm4.00pm Venue Blue playground Cost $300 Tick activities you wish to attend

Tuesday

Pilates

Tuesday

Soccer

Years 2-6 Boys and Girls Max of 20 in a class Years 4-6 Boys and Girls

3.00pm4.00pm

Hall

$275

3.00pm4.15pm

Wednesday

Rugby

Years 3-6 Boys and girls

3.00pm4.15pm

Happy Valley Pick up is from Happy Valley Happy Valley Pick up is from Happy Valley Bradbury playgrounds Happy Valley Pick up is from Happy Valley

$350

$350

Wednesday

Netball

Years 4-6 Boys and girls Years 4-6 Boys and girls It is a good idea to enter running if you wish to join biathlon in term 3 Years 4-6 Boys and girls

3.00pm4.00pm 3.00pm4.00pm

$100

Thursday

Long Distance Running

$200

Thursday

Basketball

3.00pm4.00pm

Gym & Blue playground

$300

I understand that I am responsible for making arrangements for my child to be picked up at the designated time. I enclose a cheque, made payable to Bradbury School, for ______________ (Please write your childs name and class on the back of the cheque and attach it to this form) Signed_________________________________ Emergency contact number, to be used if necessary during the activity ______________

PERFORMING ARTS NEWS

INSTRUMENTAL LESSONS Children at Bradbury School have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument and lessons are taught by experienced peripatetic teachers as follows: Violin Guitar Clarinet Saxophone Years 1 to 6 Years 2 to 6 Years 4 to 6 Years 5 and 6 Voice Flute Cello Drums Years 4 to 6 Years 4 to 6 Years 4 to 6 Years 2 to 6

These lessons are generally taught individually, either at lunchtime or after school and on a private basis. The school has several clarinets and flutes that can be rented for $500/term and guitars for $400/term.If you would like your child to begin lessons, please email Mr Clothier in the Music Department (clothierg@bs.esf.edu.hk) stating your childs name, class and preferred instrument. One of the instrumental teachers will then contact you to discuss specific arrangements such as time and cost of lessons, purchase of instrument, any books needed, etc. SCHOOL CHOIR The School Choir, for children in Years 4 to 6, will recommence in September on Thursdays from 3 pm to 3.45 pm and I will send out further information about joining nearer the time. Gethyn Clothier - Head of Performing Arts