DBIS News 
Keep up to date with what's happening in the school with our fortnightly newsletter.
Our latest news update
Saturday 15 November
In Memory
On behalf of our school community, I am sad to inform you of the passing of two special people.
Wendy MacCullum
Founding Principal of Discovery Bay International School
Mrs Wendy MacCullum was the founding Principal of our school. Wendy was a dedicated teacher and Principal who always demonstrated absolute care for children. She had the desire and the drive to set up a quality school to meet the academic and social needs of our children in Discovery Bay. The values that Wendy was party to establishing continue to form the cornerstone of our school’s practices today.
Our thanks have been conveyed to Wendy’s husband, Mr Ian MacCullum, and her family for sharing the wonderful attributes of this special person. In keeping with the wishes of Wendy’s family, a donation has been made to the Methodist Study Trust, a group that Wendy was closely involved with and chaired for a number of years.
Beatrice Leturmi
Beatrice Leturmi, loving and much loved mother of Anja in Y4KR and Franz in Y1CA passed away earlier this week. Beatrice cared very much for her family and also for our school. I had the good fortune of meeting and communicating with Beatrice on a number of occasions. Her various suggestions, from time to time, were always aimed at improving the way we do things for all students at our school.
Our thanks and condolences go to Hans, Anja and Franz.
Advisory Committee 2008 – 2009:
We have a new DBIS Advisory Committee which has already had their first meeting earlier this month. Thank you to those parents who put their names forward for this committee. The DBIS Advisory Committee parent representatives are as follows:
Sam Bray: Sam moved to Discovery Bay from England five years ago with her husband Marcus and daughter Poppy, who is currently in Y5PA. She was involved with the DBIS PTA and as a consequence became involved with the Advisory Committee. She has her own catering business and runs cooking courses from home. She previously worked at First and Second Friends.
Email address:
Katryna Murtagh: Mother to three girls – Ella (Y2JP), Charley (R-Airport) and Jemima (future kindergarten student). A qualified lawyer originally from Australia, she lived and worked in England and Japan before arriving in Hong Kong (and DB) nearly four years ago. With three young children starting their academic career at DBIS, Katryna is keen to help the school to continue to grow and develop in partnership with all parents. Katryna is most easily contacted via email and would love to hear any suggestions or comments you may have to make our school better.
Email address:
Milos Frohlich: Milos has lived in Hong Kong for fourteen years, thirteen of which have been in Discovery Bay. He is currently employed by Cathay Pacific Airways as a Senior Check and Training Captain on the Boeing 777. He was born in Czechoslovakia and now is an Australian citizen. Milos is married to Michelle who is from Singapore. They have three children, Natasha, Bianca and Marcus. The youngest is currently attending DBIS in Year 6. Their elder two, Natasha and Bianca, are in Island School and are ex students of DBIS having spent six years here.
Email address:
Martin Wardle: Martin Wardle has been in Hong Kong and Discovery Bay since 1993 and originally comes from the UK. He is an audit partner with KPMG, one of the "Big 4" accounting firms. Martin is married to JR (aka Janet) and has four children, all of whom are currently in DBIS. Rebecca is in Y6 , Jeremy in Y4, Stephen in Y3 and Rachel is in Nursery. Martin has been involved with the Advisory Committee since Rebecca joined the school and is a parent member of the School Council. He is also chairman of the School Council's finance sub-committee.
Email address :
Julian Wyatt: Julian has lived in Discovery Bay for the last ten years. Married to Alison , they have three children, Lucy (Island School), George (Y5PA) and Toby (Y1EL). Julian has been an active member of the Committee for the last seven years, and is currently Chairman of the Facilities Sub-Committee and a Parent Representative on the School Council. Julian is a Senior Director of Savills, the British property services company.
Email address:
Art and Design Gallery: We have recently added another page to our class web page collection. Our art and design gallery shows off some of the wonderful works of art that have been created by our students. The class page collection gives all visitors to our website a good feel for some of the studies our students are involved in. We hope you are able to take a look at them from time to time.
Friends of the School: As indicated previously, this group has replaced our PTA. We were having real difficulty in getting people to stand for the various positions on our PTA. It had become a struggle to also get members to come to the meetings, while the workload of the PTA continued to grow such that the outgoing PTAs were all ‘volunteered out’ by the end of the year.
It was agreed with our PTA in the 2006 – 2007 school year to reform the operation of this group and rename it accordingly. At that time, the group to be known as Friends of the School was tentatively established. This group was to operate from January to January with the sole responsibility of coordinating a maximum of four community events: the Flower Market, the Art Exhibition, the International Food Fair and the Carols by Candle Light.
The focus of the Friends of the School group was to be on bringing our school community together for a set number of events. The focus was to move away from a fund raising emphasis. While the Friends of the School would still raise funds, as a matter of course with their four events, this is incidental to the community focus.
Any funds raised by through the events coordinated by our Friends of the School are still to be used very quickly to provide additional resources for our students, as well as helping out our two designated charities: The Heifer Foundation (Read to Feed) and World Vision.
Once our International Food Fair and Carols by Candle Light have concluded, we will look to establish the four to five Friends of the School coordinators in January of 2009.
International Food Fair: Work continues to be carried out as we move closer to our big community day for the year. Our organisation is on track for another successful day. Information will continue to go home over the coming days, some of it will be advance information and some of it will be requests for assistance, like the cake stall baking request. Any help is always hugely appreciated.
Class Parent Meetings - Our Class Parents will continue to meet at the Kindergarten staffroom every Tuesday, up until the Food Fair, at 9:15 am.
Food Stalls – We have a good number of stalls on offer this year – so it will be another taste sensation. Our food stall organisers are keen to borrow a mini oven. If you can help, please leave your details with Jean at our Primary / Secondary School office.
Commercial Stalls – Most spaces have been allocated. I understand that a very limited number is still available. Please contact Minoli Samarakkody as soon as possible on either 6460 1617 or 3441 1191 if you still wish to register a commercial stall.
Raffle and Entertainment – We are building up an amazingly impressive prize list for our raffle. We are on the verge of announcing a major prize! More details will follow soon. If you are still able to donate a prize for our raffle, please contact Stephanie Foster on 6072 8847 or Sarah McGill on 9152-1026 or contact Jean at our main school office on 2987 7331.
Raffle tickets and Games Cards will go on sale next week and will be available up to and including the day of our Food Fair. The tickets and cards will be sold at our Kindergarten and at our Primary / Secondary School.
Library Book Stall - Please remember that if you have any books to donate for our very popular Library Book Stall, could you please contact Kate at our library on the first floor of our Discovery Centre.
Food Fair Funds: Any proceeds from this year’s DBIS International Food Fair will go towards the purchase of additional resources for all of our students now at school. A proportion of these funds will also go towards our two designated charities: The Heifer Foundation (Read to Feed) and World Vision.
We are working hard to go eco-friendly at our Food Fair this year. Where possible, all food containers, cups and utensils given out at our stalls will be biodegradable.
Remember to keep Saturday 29 November clear for our DBIS International Food Fair. We look forward to welcoming your family and friends from 12:00 onwards along to our Big Day Out.
School Uniform: A gentle reminder that our school uniform is compulsory. I appreciate that the recent drop in temperatures has caught some parents out with the warmer uniform items. Queues are a little long, but we are managing to provide the items in demand. Could you also ensure that your children are wearing the correct footwear for school and physical education use.
Year 1 Class: We will be opening a ‘one off’ additional Year 1 class at the beginning of term two. We will be able to provide the necessary classroom space for this additional class as they move through our school. We are taking advantage of this opportunity to reduce our highest waiting list. All of the organisation for this new class is in hand. The new class will be based in the recently vaccated Safari classroom at our Primary and Secondary School site.
Year 3 Production: The Year 3 production is all set for tonight. Peter Pan promises to fly as high as our previous Year 3 shows and we look forward to the company of our Year 3 families tonight. Please bring along your tickets for this major event. Best wishes to all of cast and crew for a spectacular night!
Peng Chau Transmitter: Many of you will already be aware of the planned installation of this transmitter. I have written to District Lands Office the seeking further and specific consultation along with an assurance that the international safety standards for any such device are applied.
Community School / Open Door Policy: Thank you to our many parents who make contact with teachers and senior staff members whenever necessary to discuss issues, outline problems or provide general feedback. We pride ourselves in being a community school. We continue to operate an ‘open door’ policy.
As I have reminded you previously, while we can’t promise to solve all problems that are presented, we do promise to listen and do our best to help where possible.
Carols by Candle Light: Advance notice – Thursday 4 December in our school hall. Arrive at 5:30 – seated at 6:00 pm and concluding at 6:30 pm. This is a very special family event.
Kind regards
Grant Ramsay
