6 May
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For this Week
EOY Staff Social
ESF Strategic Planning 2030: Discovery Phase (22 May)
Planning for the New Academic Year
Mental Health Resources
Autism and Girls
Staff Calendar
- Old Posts
Morning all, I want to start off with some exciting news. As mentioned last week, there's been a lot of traction on the developments of the Early Years Strategy. I'm thrilled to share that ESFC has made a commitment to ensuring Y1 transition for all ESF kindergarten students, including those who require learning support placements! 🎉
We do not have all the details and timeline yet, especially regarding communication with our wider community, so please be mindful that this is privileged information for now. 🤐🙏🏼 I'll share any further updates with you as soon as I can.
Last week, I also mentioned new working groups and initiatives. One of them is the stakeholder consultation on the 2030 ESF Strategic Plan. ESFC are asking for small groups of reps. Please take a look at the details below and let me know if you're interested.
For this Week
Tuesday - Kennedy School K2 - Y1 transition visit
Wednesday - KJS School K2 - Y1 transition visit, New Insurer Flexible Benefits Roadshow Zoom
Thursday - Bradbury School K2 - Y1 transition visit
Friday - Bradbury School K2 - Y1 transition visit, Chinese PTCs, YCCC Prac Students last day
EOY Staff Social
Please take a moment to complete this poll to share your thoughts around the EOY staff social. We will try to look into any suggested venues ASAP. Thanks!
ESF Strategic Planning 2030: Discovery Phase (22 May)
As part of the ESF Strategic Planning consultation, our Director of Education, Mark Blackshaw, and Head of Education—Curriculum and Learning, Chloe Pollack, will come to Hillside to speak with our staff and children on 22 May. They would like to meet with a teacher group, a support staff group (EAs/ admins/ site staff), and a student group.
They have five key questions they would like your feedback on, and it will also be an opportunity to share any other thoughts on the direction of the Foundation. I'm not sure how we should structure this feedback from the children yet, so any suggestions are welcome. Please let me know if you would like to meet with Mark and Chloe on the next Google Form below.
Planning for the New Academic Year
We've been giving this a lot of thought after seeking feedback from the teachers. Our current thinking is to keep all the K1 children together in their current K1 class and move up as a class in K2.
As for staff teams, please complete this Google Form to share your preference for next year, but no promises that you will get what you want as we need to balance the collective strengths across the school.
This is the first "mask-free/ pandemic-free" school year, and it's been a long time since we've been able to all be together with some normalcy. For this reason, I would like to maintain some level of stability before we make any big internal changes, and I also anticipate some external changes coming from ESF.
Mental Health Resources
As you may know, wellbeing is one of the top ESF priorities. HR has been promoting a number of training and events related to this, and I recently attended the Mental Health First Aid course, which ESF colleagues highly recommended.
We learned about several community resources available to individuals struggling with mental health issues and some strategies to provide immediate mental support. The course covered types of depression, anxiety, substance use and psychosis. It was both eye-opening and concerning to hear that some children as young as 11 years old are grappling with substance abuse, often linked to mental health disorders. In Hong Kong, the statistics reveal that approximately 1 in 7 people experience some form of mental health concern. Anxiety disorder is one of the most prevalent conditions affecting children, adolescents, and adults.
I have scanned the Community Resource Booklet to share with everyone. The booklet's last page lists some online platforms and social media channels that the instructor recommended.
The course gave me a lot of context and understanding. It is a course offered regularly throughout the year. Sign-up is available for those interested in Gateway.
Autism and Girls
Thank you for attending our lunchtime PD on Autism. Here is a link to Naomi's slides on ASD and Girls.
Please feel free to reach out to Laura if you would like to discuss any observations of the children in your class, or if the LET team can create any visuals or resources to support our LD children.
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!
