Principal's Message

Dear all

I hope that you all had a relaxing half-term break.

At JCSRS, we are incredibly fortunate to have a supportive parent body. Our parents and carers recognise that providing the best education to our students is a process that involves a positive partnership between parents and carers, staff and the wider school community. We all want students to flourish, progress and achieve in an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding. For these reasons, we continue to welcome and encourage parents to participate fully in the life of our school.

Today we celebrated Diwali, a very important festival for many JCSRS families. Our creative Therapy Team prepared various interactive activities for students to learn about this festival. We are also very thankful to our parents who volunteered their time and supported our students in this year's event.

Over the next few weeks, our students will engage in many sports activities, and finally, they can be cheered on by their parents and family members.

• Special Olympics Golf is taking place today in the afternoon;

• We are looking forward to meeting parents during our Walkathon on Wednesday 2nd of November, and;

• Primary Sports Day will be held on Wednesday, 9th of November and Secondary Sports Day on Wednesday, 16th of November. Please keep an eye out for the Sports Day eNotice and join us at Perth Street Sports Ground.

Last weekend our students and alumni took part in the 24h Dingy Race and were supported by our wonderful and committed teachers, Mike and David. Please read on to find out what a success it was for our community.

On Wednesday morning, our school bus broke down. I want to express my sincere thanks to our support staff, Paul, Karen, Summi, Shirley and Queenie, for the way they have managed this emergency. Thanks to their commitment to achieving the best outcomes for our students and their efficiency, we were able to get the service running within hours of the breakdown.

Save the date:

• Parent Teacher/Therapist Conferences will be held on Monday, 14th and Tuesday, 15th of November (Zoom meetings). More information will be sent out soon.

• Meet the Principal is another opportunity for our parents to be engaged in a personalised, small group session with school leaders on various whole-school topics. Our first session this year will be on Monday, 7th of November at 4 pm at school.

• A consultation meeting with JCSRS parents and ESFC representatives on the future of the bus service will take place on Thursday, 24th of November at 4.30 pm in the school hall.

Finally, I would like to congratulate and thank our JCSRS PTA Committee members, staff and parents, who either stayed on or just joined the Committee.

I am looking forward to working in partnership with you all to promote close cooperation between parents and members of school staff for the general welfare and education of the students.

Warm regards,

Anna

PTA Notice: AGM

Dear Parents,

On Monday 24th October we held our Annual General Meeting for the PTA in the school hall. Thank you to all those who were able to attend and support us. We really appreciate your time and effort to attend. The meeting was both efficient and productive in passing all the agenda items. A very pleasing result!

One of the agenda items was to elect the PTA Committee for 2022-23. It gives me great pleasure to share with you our Jockey Club Sarah Roe School PTA Members for this academic year.

Office Bearers (Parent Representatives)
Megan McCoy - Chair, Director
Rob Mirfin - Vice Chair
Shuk Ting Chan (Suki) - Honorary Treasurer, Director
Ronald Wong - Honorary Secretary, Director

Parent Representatives
Claire Hudson - Director
Michelle McEwan – School Council, Parent Representative
Marie Claire Slama – School Council, PTA Representative
Margaret Chung
Sheetal Dalal
Kyoko Dobashi
Charlotte Li
Matthijs Dolsma

Principal Member, Ex Officio
Anna Smakowska - Principal, Director

Teacher Representatives & Staff
Jackie Newman - Teacher Representative
David Bridger - Teacher Representative
May Henderson - Speech Therapist

Thank you to all our PTA Committee Members for volunteering to serve our PTA and support our Jockey Club Sarah Roe School community this year. Throughout the remainder of this year, we hope to complete the transition process to an Association and organise social gatherings to provide opportunities to meet and connect with one another. Stay tuned for details. 

If you do have any queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the PTA through our email: jcsrs.pta@jcsrs.edu.hk.

Yours Sincerely,

Megan McCoy

PTA Chair

Curriculum Update

This week we started our new units of work across subjects and began our newest NPDL project called ‘Makers Wonderland’. 

The project will focus on further developing the Global Competencies of creativity and communication. We aim to enhance students' experiences of innovative thinking while fostering an appreciation of creating safe homes and communities. The project ties together several subject areas including Play, Recreation and Leisure, The World Around Me, Creative Arts and Literacy. This project promises to be hands-on, meaningful and fun and will culminate in a showcase of learning within our Christmas Show.

Classes have some great learning opportunities planned which include creative thinking and problem solving related to building and construction, creating sculptures and props for the Christmas show, creating music and dance and honing their persuasive writing skills by making posters. The primary classes are also planning a trip to the Hong Kong Science Museum in November.

Class teachers will share the focus for each subject with you for your child’s pathway within the next week.

Collecting Items for Junk Modelling

To support our learning connected with the Makers Wonderland project, we would like to invite families to send in items for us to use in junk modelling. Please send in the following:

• Clean cardboard boxes (large and small)

• Cardboard tubes from kitchen roll (please do not send in toilet rolls for hygiene purposes)

• Small, washed containers

PE: Sailing

Hebe Haven 24 Hour Dinghy Race

Congratulations to JCSRS students Aadi Dalal, Jadon Young, Sze Yan Fong and Paolo Medalla for taking part in the Hebe Haven 24 Hour Charity Dinghy Race.

They joined the event last Saturday and Sunday, racing for Sailability alongside students from KGV, Renaissance College, Kellet School and French International School.

Out of a total of 43 boats in the competition, Sailability entered 15. The Sailability Para Warriors boat came first overall with the most laps in 24 hours, and the second overall were Sailability Saturday Sailors, which included Aadi, as well as JCSRS alumni Leo and Cole Purdie, Greig Carruthers and Simon Mountain.

When Jadon was asked to sum up his race experience, he said, “There was no wind.” And that pretty much summed up the whole weekend’s weather! Patience was certainly required throughout the 24 hours.

Many thanks to JCSRS teacher David Bridger, who supported the event with multiple slots on the water, and to the parents of our school community for supporting their child on the day.

If you would like to join the volunteers of Sailability when they sail at the weekend, please contact Kay Rawbone at kay@sailability.org.hk or check the Sailability website.

Walkathon

We are looking forward to welcoming our families to our whole school event at Perth Street Sports Ground on Wednesday, 2nd November.

Reminder to complete and return the declaration form to enable your son/daughter to enter the site.

Families are required to present their LeaveHomeSafe Vaccination Pass to enter the site and negative RAT result on arrival to our JCSRS staff.

The Student Council have been making preparations to promote the event and inform our community about ImpactHK. Please give what you can to support. Sponsorship donation forms are to be returned to the school before 11th November.

Core Vocabulary of the Month (2)

Click to open as PDF and access YouTube links!

Kellett School Dance Performance

To enrich students’ learning in the JCSRS expressive art curriculum, five secondary students from Kellett School: British International School, led by choreographer Victoria from Move for Life, were invited to come to our school on 13th October to perform a dance.

The performance aimed to promote inclusivity and embrace diversity for both the students from Kellett School and the students from Jockey Club Sarah Roe School. The Kellett students performed two sessions, one for the primary students and one for the secondary students.

The students from Jockey Club Sarah Roe School enjoyed the performance and the interaction with the Kellett School students, and are looking forward to more collaborations with other schools and organisations.

Jackie Newman, Expressive Art Coordinator