16 March

  • For this Week
  • Impact Walk Feedback & End-of-Term OI Sharing
  • Staff Meeting - This Tuesday
  • Neurodiversity Week (16–20 March 2026)
  • ELC (ESF Principals' Meeting) Sharing – Key Updates
  • ESF Stakeholder Survey
  • Staff Calendar

Morning all, Just two more weeks until Easter — the finish line is in sight.

Thank you, everyone, for your support with PTCs over the past two weeks. It’s been a busy and productive period, and now another full week with excursions, training and visitors.

Your professionalism, care and commitment to learning through play continue to make a strong impression, both internally and externally! See below 🤩

For This Week

Monday: 

  • Literature Circle @ Lunch

Tuesday:

  • Staff Meeting (Contingency Protocols)
  • Pre‑K Chinese teacher visiting Chinese classes

Wednesday:

  • Teacher Meeting (Continuum Review, Please bring your laptops - staffroom)
  • EDB Inspection (PM)

Tuesday & Thursday:

  • K2 Tai Tam Trip
Impact Walk Feedback & End-of-Term OI Sharing

I’m incredibly proud of our recent Impact Walk 🥹. The video summary JP created (with the help of NotebookLM) captures the essence of what visitors saw — strong evidence of our strategies in action and clear impact on children’s learning.

(Quick note: the first three minutes are more of an AI‑generated introduction, and a few colleague names were mispronounced — but the overall summary is very accurate!)

Next week, we will dedicate some time during our staff meeting to reflection and Observable Impact (OI) sharing. Please bring along:

  • An impact story, or
  • An artefact that demonstrates student learning and progress

We will continue building our shared understanding of impact across the team.



Staff Meeting - This Tuesday

Following last week’s bomb scare, it is timely to revisit some of our contingency planning, risk register, and emergency protocols.

We will review:

  • Weather procedures (including online learning continuity)
  • Emergency arrangements
  • Health & Safety protocols 

These conversations are important to ensure clarity and collective confidence.

Neurodiversity Week (16–20 March 2026)

There are excellent resources available at neurodiversityweek.com to support awareness and classroom conversations.

We’ve also purchased:

  • Noise‑cancelling headphones
  • Brain & neuron plushies

Please reach out to Laura if you would like to borrow these for your class.

Some recommended resources:

We are also considering making the last day of term a dress‑up day, linked to the message that everyone has superpowers (strengths-based) or everyone deserves to shine. We will include information for parents later this week to build awareness across the community.

ELC (ESF Principals' Meeting) Sharing – Key Updates

At the recent ELC meeting, two key areas were highlighted:

1. Pay & Fees (Upcoming Board Discussion)

There will be an upcoming Board meeting reviewing:

  • ESF funding allocations to schools
  • Organisational running costs
  • Fee levels

One notable point shared was ESF’s significant investment in Health & Wellbeing, including:

  • Medical coverage and insurance (with levy increases)
  • Mental health support and Employee Assistance Programmes (approximately HKD 1 million per month in spending)

Please do make use of these supports if needed!

Regarding salary review, ESF has implemented above‑inflation pay adjustments in recent years, with a differentiated model that provided proportionally larger increases for support staff, recognising the greater impact of inflation on lower‑paid colleagues.

2. Middle East Conflict (Western Asia)

It was noted that the current conflict in the region (Western Asia) may affect colleagues in different ways. If you are impacted, please reach out for support.

For safety reasons:

  • ESF staff are recommended not to attend the upcoming IB Conference in Mumbai.
  • Schools have been advised to monitor the situation closely, particularly in relation to Easter travel.

ESF Stakeholder Survey

A gentle reminder to complete the ESF Stakeholder Survey. The data is extremely valuable at the Foundation level.

Currently:

  • 21% of parents have completed the survey
  • The staff survey remains open for another week

Please take a few minutes to contribute your voice.

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!