12 January
- For this Week
- Upcoming Staff Meetings
- ESF Impact Walks
- General Admin/ Updates
- Friday, 13 February – Non‑Children Half Day
- Staff Calendar
Morning everyone,
For This Week
Monday: K2 Science Museum | K1 Admissions (2nd visits)
Tuesday: Bradbury visits K2 for transition | Staff Lunch Meeting
Parent webinars on Tuesday and Thursday
Our next staff meeting will focus on safeguarding and provide updates on the new mandatory reporting requirements that come into effect in Hong Kong this month.
We’ll go through a few scenarios together, so please ensure that all teachers and EAs attend, regardless of whether you are a designated mandatory reporter, as we all play a role in keeping children safe.
For the following Tuesday staff meeting, we’ll come together for some vertical sharing. Please come prepared to share:
- Any learning diversity (LD) or medical cases that would be helpful for everyone to be aware of.
- Your Observable Impact (OI) team focuses. We will identify common themes and allow colleagues to exchange strategies and ideas around shared goals.
For the upcoming round of ESF Impact Walks, we are partnering with Tsing Yi Kindergarten (TYK).
- Visit to TYK: Wednesday, 4 March (AM)
- TYK visit to HSK: Thursday, 5 March (AM)
We’ll need a few volunteers, please! Unfortunately, it does clash with K1 PTCs, but we’re sure we can work around this if any K1 colleagues would like to participate.
Purpose of the Impact Walks:
- Support the ESF School Enhancement framework.
- Provide the host school with an external lens and evidence to validate the progress of a current enhancement initiative.
- Gather focused observations and conversations from classrooms, corridors, and shared spaces.
- Strengthen understanding across schools about the depth and range of enhancement work happening across ESF.
- Build trust and openness through structured, transparent, and collaborative learning.
Organisation:
- Each walk is facilitated by a member of the ESF Education Team.
- The full process takes about three hours, including an introduction/orientation, the learning walk, and a feedback/debrief session.
- Each visiting school sends four observers (two pairs), including one SLT member and three teaching staff.
If you’re interested in joining this round of walks, please let me know by the end of next week. It’s a great opportunity to see another ESF kindergarten in action and to share insights from Hillside.
General Admin/ Updates
ESF Centre Move
ESF Centre has officially moved to its new office as of today. Please note the address below for any future visits to ESFC:
12/F, Island Place Tower, 510 King's Road, North Point
The closest MTR is North Point, and the most convenient exit is B3.
Staff Social
Our staff social has been rescheduled to after school on Friday, 30 January.
We plan to arrange a bus to take us there together; details will follow closer to the date.
Sports Fun Day
Our annual Sports Fun Day will take place on Friday, 6 February at Hong Kong Football Club, following a similar format to previous years.
Please coordinate with your class teams to prepare for your assigned activity station.
A change to note: Friday, 13 February will be a half-day for staff (no children).
This is part of an ESF‑wide adjustment, moving the usual half day before Easter to align with Lunar New Year.
We’d like to ask teams to assist once again in running one Admissions Play Visit session from 9:00–10:00 a.m., as we are currently under‑enrolled for incoming K1s. Your help in welcoming and engaging these families is very much appreciated. 🙏🏼
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 2025/26 Calendar.
Thank you!
