Full calendar and term dates here.
1-12 February | ESF Stakeholders Survey |
6 February | PTA meeting, 5.30 pm on Zoom |
8 February | 'What's next after JCSRS?' Graduates Information Evening, 5 pm at JCSRS |
16 February | Parent/Carer Educational Technology Meet Up, Innovation House |
27 February | Principal Meet Up on Zoom |
1-3 March | Secondary Camp (Please sign up by Wednesday, 8th of February) |
2 March | IEPs shared with parents |
6-7 March | Parent Teacher Therapist Conferences |
8-13 March | Art Exhibition |
20 March | PTA meeting, 5.30 pm on Zoom |
28 March | Walkathon, Perth Street Sports Ground |
31 March | Last day of Term 2; students will finish lessons at 11.45 am with buses leaving school at 12 pm |
Dear all,
I hope that you all had an enjoyable Lunar New Year break.
On the last day of school before the break, our primary students went on a trip to the Flower Market and secondary students joined the KGV assembly to watch the Lion Dance. Today our Speech Therapists, together with volunteers from the HKU Speechians’ Action, prepared interactive activities and storytelling to learn about Lunar New Year. It was a real pleasure to see our students enjoying these fun and exciting activities and celebrating Lunar New Year.
I want to thank Mike and Katrina for organising and preparing our students for the softball tournament. It was a real privilege to watch our students play their final game and I could not be more proud of them. They all showed great skills but most importantly passion and enthusiasm for the game. It was a fantastic community event and I am glad it is back on our school calendar. I hope our students can be engaged in more events like this in the near future.
I want to reassure all parents that together with the wider ESF team and JCSRS PTA we are working on options for the provision of effective and sustainable student bus services for JCSRS. The working group includes parents who are willing to engage in the detail and nuance of bus service provisions, provide input into possible options and support the bus service development process. The working group will provide regular updates to all families.
Before Christmas and over the last two weeks, we have been busy recruiting for several positions at JCSRS. I can now confirm that we were successful in filling some of them.
This week Sheetal Dalal joined our team as Occupational Therapy Educational Assistant. We are very excited to welcome her to our team.
I am also pleased to inform you that Liezel, Pearl class teacher, will be starting her maternity in Term 3. Please join me in congratulating Liezel on her exciting news. At the same time, I want to congratulate Novia Trottier on her successful interview and for taking on a new role as Pearl Class Teacher once Liezel starts her maternity leave.
We continue recruitment for a couple of other EA vacancies.
The annual ESF Stakeholder Survey has very recently been opened, and I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to spend a few minutes to complete it if you haven’t done so already. This survey will provide us with important feedback that will inform the development of the school. Also, please read on to find out more about parents' feedback from the Principal Meet Up, and students and staff AWE surveys and what actions we are taking in response.
Kind regards,
Anna
Thank you to all parents that joined our Principal Meet Up in January to continue our conversation about Home School Engagement. Our aim is to improve communication between home and school and parents' access to relevant school information. During the last Principal Meet Up, we focused on gathering parents' views on what is working and what we should focus on next.
Parents confirmed that ongoing education on how to use school platforms and tools e.g. ESF App or Seesaw is important. The first Technology Meet Up is planned for the 16th of February at 9 am and we encourage parents to attend.
Parents want consistency in the platforms and tools that we use. The simpler we can make the access, the better, e.g. by having everything in one place. We are working on a solution to have one-step access to all platforms and sites that we use. However, we may have to put it on pause due to planned changes in all ESF schools' data management systems in the next 12-18 months. We will keep you informed on any future developments.
Parents want to easily know what is planned in the coming weeks. In response to this feedback, we moved all important dates to the top of our newsletters for ease of access, and we will send reminders as and when needed.
Parents receive lots of communication from the school and it is important to streamline it. Most importantly, we have to be clear on the purpose of different modes of communication. In collaboration with parents, we will develop a Home School Engagement handbook that will support our families in making sense of all communication platforms, strategies and tools we are using at school.
The next Principal Meet Up is on the 27th of February at 5.30 pm on Zoom.
The Assessing Wellbeing in Education (AWE) survey is designed to help schools measure and track wellbeing of their school community via an online wellbeing assessment. The assessment consists of a collection of validated psychometric scales and scientifically informed questions from the psychology literature that assess various aspects of wellbeing. The AWE assessment covers all major theories of wellbeing, rather than one particular theory or perspective.
The assessment was administered to JCSRS in November 2022.
Detailed individualised reports are generated and shared with all participants.
* Students who were able to access the reading content were invited to participate.
RESULTS
Identified strengths:
Staff identified the people and relationships as the best part of their job.
Students enjoy the range of activities available at school.
Staff responses to questions around work competence, vitality, autonomy, motivation and effort are all higher when compared to scores of teaching staff worldwide.
Students have a good sense of belonging, feel good about themselves and are able to solve problems at school.
Analysis of comparative scores indicates:
Overall staff reported to be ‘pretty happy’.
Overall students reported to be ‘pretty happy’.
Staff reported to have an average level of resilience.
Students reported to have a high level of resilience.
Staff responses whilst lower than global scores do suggest relative challenges around time pressures and work-related stress. Actions: report shared with all staff and invitation for feedback. Wellbeing team to lead staff in further exploration around challenges with time pressures.
Student responses indicate a collective view that a later starting time would be preferred. Responses around happiness and friendships are followed up on an individual basis.
Wow, what a tournament we had today joining the 7th Po Leung Kuk Anita L. L. Chan (Centenary) School Softball Competition.
Congratulations to all players and support staff.
Along with KGV and DBIS, we joined Po Leung Kuk Anita L. L. Chan (Centenary) School (PLKCS), Po Leung Kuk Yu Lee Mo Fan Memorial School (YLFM) and TWGHs Kwan Fong Kai Chi School (KFKC) in a 6-team battle.
We won our first game against YLFM 7:2 and then lost to a very strong PLKCS in our second.
This gave us 2nd place in our group which meant we played KGV who were 2nd in their group.
It was an eventful game and KGV were triumphant with a 7:1 win.
Over the last few weeks, students have made friends with other school players and it was this interaction that was so special to see. We also saw improvement in many areas of the games as well as connections between schools in our community.
We have lots of plans for more interactions so watch this space.