22 Jan
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For this Week
Quick Admin Update
Hillside Team Shout-Out!
Sports Day Update
Cold Weather this Week
ESF Wellbeing Strategy
Grammarly
- Staff Calendar
Good morning, team! Congrats to CJ, Penney, Vicky and Yammi for completing their respective marathon races this weekend! The weather was beautiful, so I hope you all enjoyed the race. Well done all! 🎉🎉
For this Week
Monday - K1 incursion in the grass area. Outdoor OP to start @ 2:45pm (no change in AM)
Tuesday - K1 incursion in the grass area. Outdoor OP to start @ 10:30am (no change in PM)
Wednesday AM - K1 Admissions Play Visits in Resource Room
Thursday - Bradbury Y1 Visits
Friday - Bradbury Y1 Visits, Vision Screening
Quick Admin Update
It will be Karis' last day this Wednesday 😢.
We have a candidate who has worked in another ESF school and is familiar with the ESF systems, but she cannot start immediately, so we are just working out some details to secure her. In the interim, we will bring in a supply admin until then.
Hillside Team Shout-Out!
I was part of the ESF-wide ARP moderation panel last week, and I must share that Hillside was highly praised by the ARP team members who came to visit. They said all our children are calm, busy, engaged and know what they need to do.
Cathy McSweeny, who visits both our K1s and K2s, shared that our kids are lucky they are in well-supported classrooms with many universal designs such as visuals, focus tools and staff using shared language and approaches. They visit different kindergartens for ARP, and ours is "miles apart from others." Team Hillside! 🎉
Sports Day Update
Due to some logistics issues with IRC, so we will have to push the timings back 15mins. 9:45-11:45am (morning classes) and 12:45-2:45pm (afternoon classes).
I went over this weekend to take some videos/ photos of the venue. It's really hard to show what it looks like because it's not a straightforward field, but I hope the videos and photos will give you an idea. We're thinking one year group can be in the training court (about the size of 2 tennis courts). The other group can be in the grassy area. I'll speak with Katie again to get her advice and draw up a map for everyone. We cannot use the lawn ball area, the square patch without much grass.
The IRC said we could only enter via the main entrance. They cannot open the gates near the HK Stadium.
There's parking across at Hong Kong Stadium, which provides 41 parking spaces ($7/30mins). There are also public parking meters outside the IRC.
Happy hour at IRC is a bit complicated as well, so I would suggest heading into Causeway Bay for those interested.
Cold Weather this Week
As we anticipate a cold front, the A/C system was switched to heat mode over the weekend. In the heat mode, the sun ☀️icon must be selected. It won't do anything if you change it to ❄️.
If you feel it's too warm, you need to lower the temperature (opposite to the temp you want to feel.) If in doubt, please ask admin for help.
On this note, we might need to adjust outdoor play timings if it is too cold to stay outside.
ESF Wellbeing Strategy
During the principal's meeting last week, Belinda invited a general surgeon to speak with the principals on physical wellness. He talked about people living under stress for the past few years and living with the residue of COVID. This significantly impacts physical wellbeing, with illnesses rising over the next 10 years. As such, he shared the importance of completing regular health screenings (e.g., mammograms and colonoscopies). Since ESF will be changing health service providers, they will be looking at whether there's a way to include specific screeners into our healthcare plan.
She shared that the strategy has four pillars, and ESF will focus on physical wellbeing next.
- Physical wellness
- Mental wellness
- Social equity
- Emotional wellness
She spoke about work/life balance and the feeling of being in control - It's ok not to be ok and recognise to get help. She shared that the number of staff accessing the two ESF Employee Assistance Programmes has increased in recent years, an area ESF will continue to support.
Grammarly
A warm reminder from ESFC that we have a premium version of Grammarly, and it is available to everyone. If we don't use it, we will lose the funding. This helpful cross-platform writing application reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, and errors and suggests appropriate replacements for mistakes.
A new feature: GrammarlyGO is also activated for all ESF staff. It's an on-demand generative AI tool that provides the ability to compose, rewrite, ideate, and reply quickly and can be used alongside Grammarly.
Check out ESF Writing Style Guide & Grammarly on Yammer for more info. Please reach out to IT Jeff if you need help installing Grammarly on your device.
Upcoming Dates
Please check our internal calendar below, as we might forget to remind everyone of odd dates. We will continue to add events to the calendar as soon as it's confirmed. Here's the full 2023/24 Calendar
Thank you!
