26 January

  • For this Week
  • K2 ARP Visits – Tuesday & Wednesday
  • Sports Fun Day Planning
  • Data Privacy and Cybersecurity
  • Staff Calendar

Morning everyone, it’s a relatively light newsletter this week. 

For This Week

  • K1: Curiosity Kids Incursion this week
  • Tuesday–Wednesday: ARP Visits (K2)
  • Friday: Staff Social 🎉

I will be in and out for a few days with various meetings, there will be no staff meeting this week. We’ll pick up our Observable Impact discussions and Sports Fun Day preparation next week.

K2 ARP Visits – Tuesday & Wednesday

The Admissions and Review Process (ARP) visits for K2 children being considered for a Learning Support place in Year 1 will take place this week.

The primary purpose of the ARP school visit is to gather information about the child’s learning and development, which will inform the panel’s recommendation regarding the most appropriate level of support within ESF.

During the school visit, one or two panel representatives will:

  • Observe the child in class with their usual class teacher
  • Meet with the class teacher / Student Support Coordinator
  • Meet with the child’s parent(s)/guardian(s)

Observation
To gather the most relevant evidence, it is helpful for ARP representatives to see a range of learning experiences that highlight both strengths and challenges.
Please ensure:

  • The child is observed in a learning environment that reflects their current level of support
  • Any usual support remains in place during the observation

Please also note that children can become anxious if they know they are being observed. For this reason, please do not inform the child about the scheduled ARP visit.

Thank you for your care and professionalism in supporting these visits.

Sports Fun Day – Friday, 6 February

Our annual Sports Fun Day will take place on Friday, 6 February at Hong Kong Football Club, following a similar format to previous years.

Key reminders:

  • Please coordinate with your class teams to prepare for your assigned activity station.
  • Each EA team will be stationed at a specific activity, while teachers guide their classes around the stations.
  • There will be five stations per rotation, with a water break built in for each group.

We’ll begin the day by greeting everyone together and leading one English and one Chinese warm‑up song to get the children energised and ready. After the warm‑up, classes will move to their first station, which will be run by their class EAs (e.g. Gecko class will head to the station managed by the Gecko EAs).

  • K1 rotations will be supported by the ESF Explore Sports coaches
  • K2 will have a rest station, supervised by the LE team
  • Each activity will run for approximately 10 minutes, with flexibility to adjust as needed

Logistics:

  • Please arrive before 9:00 a.m. to support set‑up
  • All equipment should be collected in the office by Thursday lunch, so our admin team can organise it for deliver
  • Please check the spreadsheet for your station details and any specific equipment needed

Here are some photos from when we had our last Sports Day there and go through everything together at our next staff meeting.

Thank you all in advance for the teamwork and organisation that make this such a positive day for our children.

Data Privacy and Cybersecurity

As mentioned previously, there have been several data breaches across the system, and ESF is reviewing and auditing file‑sharing settings.

Please remember to:

  • Be mindful of share settings of “Anyone with the link” and turn off unnecessary sharing
  • Log out of work accounts on home devices, especially Google Photos, to prevent any accidental sharing of children’s images

Jeff has been doing some background testing and checking, and we’ve identified thousands of files currently shared with “Anyone with the link”. This makes it difficult to manage access safely, particularly as many files are owned by individual staff. Some of you may also have noticed new access restrictions due to recent Google updates.

To address this, we’ll be gradually reorganising shared documents and moving the Hillside shared folder into a shared Google Drive that can be securely accessed by all staff.

I’ll share more details at our next staff meeting. Please be reassured that personal documents will not be moved. Going forward, it would be really helpful if everyone could be mindful of where files are stored and who they are shared with.

Thank you for your understanding and for helping us keep everyone's information safe.

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!