DBIS News

Welcome back to Term 2

Dear parents

Welcome:  Welcome back to the start of term two to all of our students.  A very special welcome is extended of course to all of our new families and to our returning families.  On behalf of all staff, we hope you enjoyed a wonderful time with your family and friends over the break.  There is a very positive ‘learning buzz’ around our school as students quickly move into their various learning activities and opportunities.  The end of term break seems to have beaten off the many and varied bugs that caused difficulties for many students towards the end of our long first term.

We have plenty of special events happening this term along with the normal range of classroom based challenges and experiences.  Please check on our school website and in particular on your child’s class web page.  You will find information about your child’s class, along with a Year Group overview.  Please scan through the website calendar and mark down any important dates.  While our school website is an excellent source of information, there will be times when you are unsure about something happening at your school.

As always, if you have a question, a suggestion, a concern or a ‘thank you’, please contact your class teacher or call in at the school office.  While we can’t promise to provide the answer you may be seeking, we do undertake to listen and do our very best to assist where at all possible.

New Class and New Students:  We have opened our new Year 1 class, located in a refurbished classroom previously used by Safari Reception.  As we head towards the end of week 2, our new students are already settled into their learning routines under the careful and skilful guidance of our new teacher, Mr Brendan Kean, and our new education assistant, Mrs Claire Jensen.

Our school continues to grow steadily.  Obviously with a new class, we add a significant number.  We have also increased our numbers over the break with new students arriving in Hong Kong or transferring from other schools.  Our school roll now stands at 803 in total.

Staffing:   We welcome Ms Anna Shere back in the role of Deputy Principal – with key responsibilities for our Discovery Centre and Specialists. Mrs Laura Self has returned from maternity leave to her role in the Learning Support team.  Mrs Eleanor Loran is on maternity leave and Mrs Granouch Minasian is teaching Y1EL.  As noted, Mr Brendan Kean has joined our staff along with Mrs Claire Jensen.  

Mr Matt Corbett has started as our full time physical education teacher.  Mrs Jane Noonan has taken on a further part time role teaching physical education, ICT and music.  Mrs Angela Webb is working as an education assistant in Primary School.  Mrs Tracy Hau joins as us an education assistant in Mandarin. Mrs Mary Jones has transferred from Kindergarten to work as education assistant in music and Mrs Dawn Law is working with us as an education assistant.

Thank You Coaches:  A number of are our staff and parents volunteer their time to coach sports teams before and after school as well as supervise at tournaments after school and in the weekends.  Unlike many schools, our volunteer coaches are not paid.  In addition our school works hard to provide for as many teams in as many codes as possible.  While other schools will provide in this manner, not all cover the range of sports and numbers of teams that we do.  Hockey is a classic case where we have a large number of teams, yet only two other schools participate.  The other teams come from clubs.

Again, and unlike clubs and many other schools, we don’t charge for our extra curricular sports, nor for the cost of the travel to the many tournaments.  Our focus is on competing, participating and having fun.  It is just brilliant to have your support as parents – encouraging your children to take part, helping them get organised and prepared for events, coming along when you can to cheer our teams on the day – just doing what we all do as parents.

Please remember to also value our coaches – they are giving of their time and doing their best.

Friends of the School:  We are setting up our new Friends of the School Organising Group for the coming year.  All families are automatically members of our Friends of the School. The role of our Organising Group is to coordinate four DBIS school community events each year (The Flower Market – which is already organised, The Art Exhibition in term 3, The International Food Fair in November, The Carols by Candlelight in December).  We are looking for a small group of parent volunteers to carry out this role.

If you are interested in helping out as a member of this Organising Group, please come along to a meeting being held in our Meeting Room in the Primary School Discovery Centre (on the first floor) at 7:00 pm this Tuesday evening, 20 January.  Members of our Senior Management Team will be there to welcome you and chat further about the role of the group.

A Special Cause to Make a Real Difference:  Miss Gill Hadley, our physical education coordinator, returned from a recent trip to Rwanda and is determined to make a real and lasting difference for some children in an isolated community.  Gill has been working during her own time to raise funds for these children and will be returning in the summer break to work on specific projects.  Gill has also been training for a marathon over recent months, as a means to attract sponsorship for her project.  If you are interested and able to assist, please contact Jean at our school office to sponsor Gill on her challenge ahead.  For further information, please click on the link below to read more about the project Gill is directly involved with, and see if you could help to make this a resounding difference for the futures of these children.

 Click here to read more about this great fundraising project

Chinese New Year: To celebrate the Chinese New Year, we will have a Chinese New Year Assembly on Friday, 23 January, 2009.   It would be most appreciated if you could prepare a Chinese outfit for your child to wear on that day.  The children can also dress in gold, red, yellow or silver if you can’t get an outfit for them.   If you wish to purchase a Chinese outfit, the Lanes (Lei Yuen East and West Street) in Central is a good place to go.      

Flower Market:  The DBIS Annual Flower Market, to celebrate Chinese New Year, will be held from 7:30 am to 8:30 am on Wednesday 21 January at our Primary / Secondary site.  As well as flowers, our Mandarin department will be running the ever popular calligraphy stall and there will be hot drinks available.  We are looking for volunteers to help out on the morning.  If you are able to lend a helping hand then please contact Mrs Amy Gidwani on .

School Break In:  It is most unfortunate to advise you that our school was broken into on Thursday evening or early Friday morning.  At least two thieves broke in and stole three computer units, one computer monitor and two DVD players.  Police believe that this theft was carried out by ‘amateur thieves’.  This is the first break in and robbery that our staff can recall.

If you happened to see anyone carrying objects from the vicinity of our school late on Thursday evening or early on Friday morning, could you please contact Jean at our Primary and Secondary school office.

Student Health Issues: Please be informed that there have been several cases of head lice in various year groups in the school.  We strongly urge you to regularly check your child’s hair and to inform the school nurse as soon as possible if your child is affected.

Hong Kong has also during the past month had an outbreak of viral gastroenteritis.  Gastroenteritis is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines. The infection is caused by a variety of viruses, which is more commonly found during cooler months of the year.  The most common viruses are Norovirus and Rotavirus.

The main symptoms of viral gastroenteritis are diarrhoea and vomiting.  Other symptoms include headache, fever and abdominal cramps.  In general, the symptoms begin 1 to 2 days following infection and may last for 1 to 10 days, depending on the virus causing the illness.  Most people will not be seriously ill by viral gastroenteritis.  Those who get viral gastroenteritis require fluid replacement and usually recover completely without any long term problems.  However, it is contagious, so we emphasise the importance of maintaining good personal, food and environmental hygiene.

Students developing vomiting or diarrhoea should refrain from attending school.

Bus route from Tung Chung:  A few of our families attending DBIS now reside in Tung Chung.  If you are resident in Tung Chung and you are interested in signing up for a proposed new bus service, please contact Mr Hunt  He will arrange for your details to be passed onto one of our parents in Tung Chung Mr Kwok, and to the bus company.  The monthly fees are likely to be around HK$700.

Discovery Centre Lights:  Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by the lights being on at various times in our new Discovery Centre, during the day and night.  We have tried a number of solutions to fix or adjust the timing and switching systems over the past four months.  We hope that we may have the system sorted and will continue to monitor the situation.

Kind Regards

Grant Ramsay

Principal