Principal's Message

Dear all,

With the major government announcement on Wednesday, I would like to once again thank all staff and parents for their continued patience and understanding in these challenging and ever-changing times.

Despite the ongoing challenges of the Coronavirus Omicron variant that we are all so conscious of at this current time, lessons have continued as usual and learning is taking place each and every day.

As always, we are taking the appropriate precautions of mask-wearing, ensuring enhanced cleanliness routines and making sure that we are keeping an appropriate distance from one another to name just a few things that we do to keep our students, staff and the community safe.

In addition to these measures, we are tightening some other operational protocols in doing everything we can to keep students safe in school for face-to-face learning. These measures will be in place between now and the Lunar New Year break:

• All staff and student movement between ESF schools will be stopped; this means we will have cancelled ACCESS and other visits to ESF schools.

• We will cancel all large gatherings and non-essential group activities; assemblies will be moved online. We will minimise as much as practicably possible mixing of staff and students from different classes.

• All off-campus activities like kayaking and RDA will be cancelled for the period.

• All school visits will be cancelled and parents will not be allowed to come into school; all meetings will be postponed or moved online. Please see further details below regarding planned parent meetings.

• The swimming pool will be closed.

We will continuously review and assess the need for adaptations to our daily operations and will inform the school community of any changes.

One of the best ways to protect yourself and others from COVID-19 is to get vaccinated. Everyone aged over 12 who is eligible can receive their COVID-19 vaccine and/or booster. Parents can contact class teachers if they need support with preparing their children for their vaccination.

Please note that the Government has recently announced the expansion of the “Vaccine Bubble” programme, which will be implemented in more premises with effect from 24 February 2022. This means only parents and visitors that are vaccinated will be allowed to come to school. I am pleased to say that already 100% of our staff are vaccinated.

Lastly, we have to continue to stay vigilant and we ask all school staff and students, if they are unwell or have any symptoms, that they should seek medical advice promptly and refrain from going to school. Staff and students need to follow medical advice before returning to school.

If school staff, students and their parents/household members residing together are diagnosed with COVID-19, they should not return to school and should inform the school immediately.

I would like to once again thank all staff and parents and carers for their support.

Please read on to find out more about some exciting building improvements that took place over the Christmas break. My thanks go to our fantastic support staff that worked tirelessly to make sure the school is ready for students so we can all enjoy the updated school environment.

Warm regards,

Anna

Library Books

At present, we are able to continue to send home reading and library books to support student learning. Many students have a ‘home reader’ which is a levelled reading book specifically matched to a learners reading level. These are usually read at home every day and sent into school each day in the reading folder. Some classes also borrow library books which are self-selected by students. These are usually kept at home all week and returned to school on ‘library day’. We would like to remind parents to keep these library books in school bags after reading.

Please remember to wash or sanitise your hands before and after handling books and to please put them back into reading folders after you have finished reading. At school, books are placed into 7 days of quarantine on return to school to avoid any cross contamination. 

Thank you for helping us to reduce any risk for our students.

Graduates Information Evening: Postponed

EVENT POSTPONED: January 19th - What’s available for my son/daughter following graduation from JCSRS?

Due to current restrictions, this event will be rescheduled to later this term.

Principal Meet Up: Postponed

Due to the tightening of the anti-pandemic control measures, and not being able to host the meeting face to face, we have decided to postpone the first Principal Meet Up event to after the Lunar New Year break.

The meeting will now take place on Friday 11th of February at 9.15 am on the school campus at the Innovation House.

If the existing restrictions continue after the break we will move the meeting online.

AAC Top Tips & Morning Meet Up

AAC Top Tips: Helping Beginning Communicators Expand Their Sentences - Part 2

As soon as the learner produces the target utterance, respond to the intent (not the form). For example: “Want more milk” should result in getting more milk, not a comment on ‘good talking’ or ‘saying the whole thing.’ Your child saying “Want go to store” should result in an acknowledgement even if you can’t comply with the request (e.g., “Tomorrow. We can go to the store tomorrow.”)

Remember what you learned in the AAC meetup. Model, model, model! We highly recommend this until the AAC learner is familiar with his/her AAC system and uses it fluently.

AAC Morning Meet Up

Click here to enlarge.

Please click above to sign up. We look forward to seeing you there.

JCSRS PTA Update

Dear JCSRS Parents,

Happy New Year! We hope you all enjoyed your Christmas celebrations and the holiday break with your family. For many of us, we missed spending time with loved ones due to ongoing travel restrictions. Could 2022 be the year this changes, I'm sure we all hope so!

Some good news to start the new year, the PTA Committee has decided to cancel the Annual Fee - normally the standard $600 covers costs for administration, community building initiatives, and social functions. The transition from Limited Company to an Association status, planned to begin in January 2022, requires limited financial activity during this time, so the PTA Committee deemed cancelling this year's fees might allow both the benefits of financially supporting our parent community as well as expedite the transition process during this yet another extra ordinary year of pandemic measures.

If you have any queries regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us at: jcsrs.pta@jcsrs.edu.hk

Best regards,

Megan McCoy & Sandra Lee

Co-Chairs JCSRS PTA Committee

School Improvement Update

Priority Area: Growth of the Organisation - Improvements to the school building

As a school, we are constantly reflecting on how we can improve our physical environment to make it more inviting, engaging and supportive to learning but at the same time safe for our students.

We are happy to report some improvement and maintenance works that took place over the Christmas period:

• As we come into school we can see a new fence around the playground which not only looks great but also makes playtimes a lot safer.

• We have cleaned the area around the entrance to the school and repotted some of the plants into nice big planters that will not be knocked over by strong winds. Over the next few weeks, we will sort out the rest of the plants to keep enhancing our outdoor learning area.

• The newly decorated reception area is now a bright and inviting space for students, staff and visitors. It is amazing how removing some grey panels and repainting the walls made the area look so much bigger!

• Access control is now installed on all doors which have improved the safety of staff and students and can save lives during a fire evacuation.

• Upstairs, you will no longer see ugly paint peeling off the corridor ceiling as it was all fixed and repainted.

• A new glass door was fitted upstairs to create an accessible connection to the KGV. We now have easy access to the cafe and KGV areas for staff and students.

We would like to thank all the staff for their hard work over recent months to develop different areas around the school which undoubtedly are enhancing our provision for all students. We will keep you informed of any further developments.