18 November

  • For this Week
  • Maternity Cover Update
  • Class Parents
  • Christmas Community Event
  • Early Years Connect - November issue
  • ESF Marketing Projects
  • Fire Drill (To be Tuesday, 26 November)
  • Staff Calendar

Good morning!

For this Week

Tuesday: Teacher meeting in staffroom @ 12:15 

Friday: Parent Webinar - All you want to know about Speech Development


Maternity Cover Update

Congratulations to our two internal candidates🎉 We have decided to give both internal applicants the opportunity to take on the teaching role. Penney will take on the position from Christmas until June, and Joyce will step in from August to October. We hope this arrangement will provide both individuals with valuable experience and ensure a smooth transition for children during the handover periods.


As we move forward, we will now need to backfill Penney's role on the Learning Enhancement Team. Ideally, we would love for someone familiar with our kindergarten and with the experience necessary to support our diverse learners. I appreciate the potential impact this may have on individual classes, but we also want to provide opportunities for our colleagues to grow and develop professionally. If you are interested in this role or would like to learn more, please do not hesitate to reach out.


Class Parents

We had our first meeting with our Class Parent volunteers on Friday, and we have a group of eager parents ready to support us this year, especially with fundraising. If you need any help or support for your classes, e.g. call-outs for special projects, recruiting volunteers, or sourcing resources (asking around for props, materials etc.), please feel free to reach out to them. You can find their details in the attached class parent contact list.


Christmas Community Event

We'll head back to Repulse Bay for our annual Christmas family event. We're shaking things up a bit this year by skipping the beach-wide scavenger hunt. Instead, each class will run their own activities, whether a fun social mingle, a little sing-along or games and building sand castles. We'll also get some candy canes, festive face paint stencils and tattoos for each class to enjoy!


Early Years Connect - November issue

So much fresh thinking this month! Explorations include:

  • Following Lisa Burman’s visit to Hillside, we reflect on the ‘programatisation of school’. In particular, why do we feel reading schemes deprive us of our teaching expertise and skill?
  • The shift from creativity as a personal trait to something every child can participate in (podcast recommendation)
  • EY tech resources and a new favorite tech tool - Autodraw
  • A word of wisdom from Abbott Elementary's Barbara

 Check out the November issue here.


ESF Marketing Projects

ESF is working on updating the website for all 22 schools, and we've been busy getting content ready for our school's site. We're also launching our official Facebook and Instagram accounts soon to build our social media presence and celebrate our fantastic work. We have raised concerns about child protection and have been reassured by ESFC. Jasmine LAM will work closely with the website developers and ESFC to implement this new marketing initiative. Keep an eye out for updates as we roll this out!


Fire Drill (To be Tuesday, 26 November)

We will reschedule our fire drill for Tuesday, 26 November, weather permitting 🤞🏼. Please make a note of this date and review our Evacuation Procedures. The times will be around 9:10 a.m. and 1:20 p.m. We will evacuate to our playground and line up by class. 

The auditors are very particular about the 6-month requirement, so we have planned our next one for Wednesday, 7 May, to ensure we meet this EDB requirement. 

Upcoming Dates
Please check our internal calendar below. We might forget to remind everyone of odd dates. We will continue to add events as soon as they're confirmed. Here's the full 2024/25 Calendar.

Thank you!