DBIS News

Latest news

Dear Parents

School Fees – 2010 / 2011:  The School Council has approved school tuition fees for the upcoming 2010 / 11 school year as shown below.  School fees were not increased for the current 2009 / 10 school year.  In light of increasing costs, the School Council has approved modest increases for 2010 / 11.  Please note these increases are subject to approval by the Education Bureau.  

Kindergarten fees have been increased by a slightly higher amount compared to Primary School fees, to more accurately reflect the costs associated with operating our Kindergarten.  Our Reception classes are full day and we have enhanced physical education, Mandarin, ICT and music classes, introduced in recent years.  Secondary School fees have been held at the current year level and will be subject to review for 2011 / 12 when our new Secondary building and associated facilities are expected to open.

 Fee structure for school year 2010 / 2011:

School fee ( p.a.)                  2010 / 2011        Increase

Kindergarten

- Nursery (Half-day)   $61,000 $460 per month

- Reception (Full-day) $76,000 $460 per month

Primary                  $80,600 $200 per month

Secondary                  $105,000         Nil

Year Five Production:  Our Primary students have a focus on being ‘Better Than Before’ in so much of what they do.  Our Year Five production team has clearly adopted the same focus.  Following on from an outstanding show in every regard last year, our complete production team presented a simply superb opening gala performance last night.  I am sure that tonight will be an equally entertaining performance for everyone concerned.

Every effort is made to thank those who work so hard for such productions, on the evening of the performances.  It is equally important to thank everyone in this forum.  Work on any backdrop is a challenging process – requiring many hours, usually bent over or working on your knees.  The backdrop and props are simply stunning – worthy of any professional performance.  Thank you to the parents for this amazing work.  Costumes require a focus on every detail – they add so much to the colour, tone and feel of individual and collective performances.  Thank you to our parents who work so diligently to present the brilliant costumes for every one of our ninety performers.  Thank you also to the many parents who helped with the make up on all of the sparkling faces.

Our back stage and our production crews made up of many staff members were fantastic.  Thank you all as always for your time and care taken to support our students and your colleagues.  Finally, a huge thank you to our teachers responsible as directors, producers, choreographers, designers, acting and singing coaches, technicians, musicians, writers and composers – absolutely special yet again.  To Jane Engelmann, Jayne Gonzales, Jason Edwards, Amber Walker, Linda Pryce and Paul Allams (with overall responsibility for the show direction) – thank you so much – you make us so proud of our students through making a quality difference.  Well done! 

Gecko Mathematics Competition – Island School:  On Monday 8th March eight of our Year 6 pupils took part in a mathematics competition which is held annually at Island School.  There were 16 teams competing and half of them were Year 7 pupils representing Island School.   Our teams thoroughly enjoyed the competition and once again our school performed with distinction in mathematics.  The boys’ team - James Rice, Jason Chan, Tion Wong and Sean Lee came in 6th place. 

The girls’ team of Vanessa Tidmarsh, Renee Chiu, Jene Han and Yoonseo Jo quickly established themselves as one of the leaders and eventually were beaten into 2nd place by one point!  Congratulations to both teams on their splendid performances.

Secondary School – Parent Evening:  We will be hosting an informal ‘meet the teachers’ gathering for current and prospective parents of DBIS secondary school students.  You are warmly invited to come along next Tuesday, 23 March, for approximately an hour, starting at 7:00 pm in the Globe (our Primary School hall).  Drinks and canapés will be served.

It will be an opportunity to meet most of our Secondary School teachers, including our new Head of Key Stage 3 and 4, for the coming 2010 - 2011 academic year.  We will also provide a brief update on Secondary School matters.  If you haven’t done so already, could you please contact Jean at our school office to indicate that you will be attending?  

Special Welcome:  Congratulations to Jane and Mike Noonan with the delightful arrival of Lachlan Michael John Noonan.  Jane and Lachlan are doing just fine – and Mike is managing as well.  A very special welcome to Lachlan Noonan.

New School Raincoat: We are pleased to add a further item to our school uniform selection.  Our DBIS raincoat is now available for purchase through our school uniform shop.  The raincoat is lightweight and it designed to be clearly visible by way of the strong colour and florescent strips.  It is available in sizes XXS to L and is priced at $75.

Students Arriving at School:  While it is great to have students eager to come to school, we do ask that they are not in our school grounds until 8:20 am, unless they are involved in extra curricular activities.  Your assistance is most appreciated.  We have some keen students arriving at 7:30 am.

Guided Reading Book Stock Take:  Our reading team will be carrying out an annual stock take of all guided reading books next week.  As a result, there will be no reading books sent home.  Our students can still borrow library books and our library is open most break times and lunchtimes for issuing and returning.  To help with our stock take, we would really appreciate your help in sending back any reading books that may have been left at home by your children.

DBIS Hockey Season Re-cap: It only seems like yesterday that we had over 70 students lining up and registering for the 2009 / 10 hockey season!  With six Sunday tournaments and many 7:30 am training sessions, the season has now come to a close.  From a coaching point of view, the skill level of our players this year has truly been fantastic.  I have also received a lot of positive comments from parents and other coaches complementing our students on their fine play this year as well.

Season highlights:

• Record numbers (over 70 students) sign up for hockey!

• Professional coach Mark Kake works with all teams for 6 weeks.

• The under 12’s win 4 out of 5 tournaments.

• The under 10’s produce 3 teams and compete in 3 divisions.

• The under 8’s develop over 20 new players.

• 10 DBIS students play in the HK All-stars hockey tournament.

While there were many stunning individual performances and accolades this year, it was the team spirit and camaraderie that made this season so enjoyable.  Thanks must go to Mrs Young, Miss Backham, Miss Noonan, Miss Phelps, Mr Kake, and all of our amazing parents who supported the teams throughout the year.  We look forward to seeing you next year for another enjoyable season.  Matt Corbett

Hong Kong Hockey All-stars 2010:  This year 10 students from DBIS were selected to compete in the All-stars hockey games held at HKFC last Friday.  Each player is put into a team with other top players from around the school and club scene to form a country that they represent on the day.  All of our students represented the school brilliantly. Philip Van den Berg (Year 6) and Julian Chan (Year 5) were members of the winning teams, with Tegan Pye winning the player of the tournament award, a huge accolade.  Congratulations to all of the students involved. Matt Corbett

Rugby Report:  For the second Monday in the past month, our DBIS contact rugby team set off to Happy Valley for matches against AISHK and FIS.  After an unbeaten outing on our first trip, the team’s goal was simply to continue to improve.  With two more training sessions under their belt and some sharp looking new playing jerseys, the scene was set for a successful afternoon.

The first match was against a strong Australian school team. After a back and forth battle, our DBIS came out on top 4 tries to 3. The French school then went on to draw with the Australian team.  Following a good old coaching rev-up between games, our DBIS boys played as a team, scoring some brilliant tries and coming away victors against the French team 10 tries to 0.   Congratulations to all of those involved.   Matt Corbett

Huge Variety of Student Activities:  Every Friday, our Primary assembly presents an array of achievements accomplished by our very talented students.  We enjoy similar successes and results in our Kindergarten and in our Secondary School.  All too often we take the huge range of activities offered to and undertaken by our students for granted.

In fact in every situation, the activities require real commitment from our students and the constant capacity of our staff to organise, coach, teach or just supervise the developing talents of our amazing students.

At our Friday Primary assembly we had our orchestra performing, complete with our new addition of two trumpet players!  Our rock band performed.  We congratulated six hockey teams and our basketball team on their recent tournament performance.  We acknowledged the achievements of our Year 6 students in mathematics with particular congratulations going to our two mathematics teams – and that was just one assembly.

We have sports teams in so many codes it is hard to keep up.  I don’t see other schools at the amazing number of tournaments to the degree of involvement coordinated by our school.  We have a large number of students involved in the performing arts – aside for the major Year 1, Year 3 and Year 5 productions – we have choirs, an orchestra, rock bands, dance club, Mandarin club and an ICT club.  We are involved in mathematics, speech, science, art, writing and reading competitions or exhibitions.  We have camps, trips and visits including a netball tournament to attend later this year in Beijing.

Our school calendar is constantly packed with activities including parent evenings, open mornings, parent conferences, swimming days, sports days, special events days, charity events, visiting authors, focus weeks as well as our Friends of the School events including of course our International Food Fair.  Add in our increasing co-curricular Secondary activities including golf, surfing, rock climbing and orienteering and the list just continues to build.

We do understand that it is sometimes very hard to keep up with all that is happening, especially when you have two of more children at school.  We try to limit the number of communications while also trying to ensure that you are informed ahead of time – so please keep referring to our website calendar as well as your child’s class web page.

The key purpose of this message of course is to amplify the huge variety of student activities available to our versatile and talented students – from Kindergarten to Primary and now through to Secondary.  We appreciate how busy this also keeps you as parents.  Of particular importance however is the ongoing thanks to our simply amazing staff who constantly work hard to provide the time for the organisation, coordination, coaching supervising of the activities and events offered at our school.

We all work hard to ensure the quality of academic, cultural and sporting engagement for our students.  Our school is very special because of your support, the enthusiasm and talent of our students – and quite simply because our staff make a real difference.  So thank you to everyone!

Year 4 Camp:  Thank you to everyone involved withy our Year 4 camp.  Everyone enjoyed the great learning adventures packed into the two days.  I am sure you had some tired children returning to you on Friday!  Thank you in particularly to Fran Walden and her Year 4 teachers for your careful planning and work associated with the camp.

Dogs at School:  A general reminder that dogs are not allowed within our school grounds, including the pitch and basketball areas – at all times.  All of these areas are controlled by our school, and as such are deemed most inappropriate for dogs due to the associated health and safety reasons.

We do make provision for dogs to be brought to school at the start and the end of the school day.  This issue is under ongoing review by our Advisory Committee.  If dogs are brought to school at these times, they must be tied up to the fence at the car park end of the pitch.

End of Term:  A reminder that we are coming up to the end of our second term.  Thank you all for your ongoing support in all of the events, activities and most importantly through the day to day teaching and learning with your children.  Kindergarten, Primary School and Secondary School classes will all finish at their normal times on Friday 26 March.  School will reopen for all classes on Monday 12 April.

Upcoming Events:  Please refer as always to our school website calendar as well as the attached list of upcoming events.

Kind Regards

Grant Ramsay

Principal

Community Notices

Disclaimer - The following notices are presented as a community service.  While the content is proofed and generally summarised, it is important to state that the information contained in these Community Notices in no way reflects Discovery Bay International School policy or practices.

Animal Adoption Day:  On Sunday 21 March, the animal society PALS (Protection of Animals Lantau South) will be holding another of its successful animal adoption days at the Gazebo of the DBIS car park.  The event runs from 12:00 pm to 2.30 pm and gives you a chance to meet some of their animals and to decide if you could offer a permanent or temporary home to one of them.  See you there!

ESBC Tigers Basketball:  The 2nd Annual ESF Primary Schools Basketball Tournament was recently held on10 March at King George V School.  The games were fantastic and thrilling with games going down to the wire!  We had numerous participants from our own ESBC Tigers Basketball Club represent their school!  Congratulations to Philip Nicholson and Michael Zamora of Discovery Bay International School for a well played tournament!