THE BULLETIN BPS NEWSLETTER

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The Bulletin BPS Newsletter

19 August 2016 TRUST THE MAGIC OF NEW BEGINNINGS

REMINDERS

Welcome back to school by Mr. Peter Sloan

Dear Parents, We’ve just completed our first week of the new term and it has been a delight to welcome our wonderful children back to school after the Summer Holiday. I would like to give a special welcome to those families who are joining the British Primary Section and TES family for the first time. It’s a pleasure to have your children learning with us and I look forward to meeting you all as the year progresses. Work has been in progress on the Primary campus during the holiday. In addition to the usual cleaning and maintenance jobs, there have also been a number of special projects that will give our children additional learning opportunities. In the Early Years, outdoor activities that are structured and of a high quality are very important learning experiences for children. In order to promote this we have expanded and improved the outdoor play areas for our Nursery and Reception pupils. The new facilities increase opportunity for imaginative and adventurous play in a safe and attractive environment. All these changes meet strict health and safety requirements.

We are also pleased to put in place the final piece of the jigsaw in the British Section’s expansion plan. With the addition of an extra Year 6 classroom we now have four classes for each Year Group. We have furnished the Year 6 classes with the very latest in school furniture designed to promote children’s learning. You can see some examples in this newsletter. We have also invested in a range of excellent resources that our children will be using in class. This includes the addition of iPads, Chromebooks and Macs to our already large provision of IT devices. In a forthcoming newsletter we’ll update you on teaching and learning in IT across BPS. Finally, I would like to say thank you to Diana Doo, one of our senior BPS administration staff. Diana has taken on the role of producing this weekly newsletter. As we are well aware of our environmental responsibilities, we’ll only be producing the newsletter electronically. I trust you’ll enjoy this weekly flavour at life of BPS.

Class Blogs All class teachers will start updating their class blogs, if it is your first time checking the class blogs in your tesmile account, the password for the pop pop-out winder is ‘’tesparent tesparent’’.

Year 1-6: 1 Swimming Lessons Year 2 / 3 / 5: from 22 22.08.16- 28.10.16 Year ear 1/ 4/ 6: from 31.10.16 31 – 13.01.17 Kindly indly be reminded to complete your child/children’ swimming level proforma: child/children’s https://goo.gl/04W7kh

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Looking Good in Year 6 by Mr. Duncan Millward

The Year 6 classrooms have undergone a redesign in the use of their learning spaces. Innovative furniture has arrived from an educational specialist to create the best learning spaces for our Year 6 students. During this term we will be hearing more about how the new furniture is being used in Year 6 to facilitate collaboration, creativity and modern teaching and learning.

Lots of Lovely Learning through Play Mr. Duncan Millward by

Foundation Stage outdoor play areas have had an exciting make-over over during the holidays. The Reception area has now increased in size and has been resurfaced to allow for a bigger learning area. It will be exciting to see how the children and teachers use this space this year. The Nursery playground too has been developed, and although work has not been completed, our newest children have had a sneak preview of the work going on with the new bike track and huge sandpit. san Our Foundation Stage children will have fabulous outdoor spaces to explore, to be creative and to move about.

Welcome all new staff members Teachers: Ayesha Hichou (Reception), Colette Armstrong (Reception), Dean Kirt (Year 6), Joyce Duxfield (Nursery), (Nursery) Michael Norris (Foundation Stage// Learning Support), Support Petra Hoeve (Dutch Section/ LS Support) Support), Ruth Haworth (Year 2), Sean Monks (Year 5) EAL and EYE Teachers: Naomi Mullins (EYE), Yulia Maksymova (EAL) Learning Assistants: Elaine Tsai (Year 5), Shruti Mondal (Nursery) Office Staff: Lena Hsu, Water Chang

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Learning Support at BPS by

From left to right: Silva Leung, Sophia Fang, Karen Rowe, Mojdeh Burriston, Nicole Jin, Skylin Kuo

The British Primary Section has an excellent reputation for providing high quality learning support for our children. The Department’s role is to provide support for those children with a variety of different needs. These may be specific or general learning issues, physical needs or emotional issues. Children receiving support may need it only for a short time, while others will need support throughout their school life. The support allows them to access the curriculum and take full advantage of learning opportunities at BPS.

Mr. Peter Sloan

Catherine Gill, who was appointed to the post of Educational Psychologist, has not been able to join us due to a very serious family illness. We are sorry that she won’t be working with us at TES this year and wish her and her family the best at this difficult time.

Supporting Ms. Rowe and Mrs. Burriston we have a team of very capable and well qualified teachers and Learning Support Assistants. Their work with children will make a very positive difference in their learning in the classroom.

Despite this change in staffing our Learning Support Team will continue to offer excellent support. The new Pupil Support Team Leader, in charge of Learning Support and EAL, will be Ms. Karen Rowe. Ms. Rowe will provide oversight and be in charge of the administrative side of the department, in particular contact with families regarding support for their child. Mrs. Burriston will continue to provide assessment and will also provide teaching support. She has a very wide range of experience to draw on and will also be the link with any external agencies that may be involved.

We will wil have an Educational Psychologist who will visit school twice a year to provide assessments for children referred by Mrs. Burriston. This diagnosis will support the ongoing work of our team. Counselling will be available through one of our current staff. Ms. Kuo is a qualified Art Therapist who has worked in the UK as a school counsellor and will provide support for children referred to her. Once again Learning Support at BPS will support high quality learning for all our children.

This new school year sees some changes to our Learning Support Department.

Be Safe Online. Essential Information for Parents! By Mr. Peter Sloan

Next week Jonathan Taylor, aylor, an Online Safety and Social Media Expert, will be visiting TES. Mr. Taylor has combined his previous role with the Metropolitan Police in London as a Child C Protection Officer and fifteen years of experience as an internationally recognised expert in the field of online risks to children. Mr. Taylor works with schools in the UK and with a range of international schools and other agencies providing advice, information info and strategies to keep children safe in the challenging world of internet safety. Jonathan has worked with parents all around the world providing suggestions and advice for ways in which you can help keep your children safe online. Next Thursday, 25th August, we have organised a meeting with parents of primary children. The meeting, which will take place in the Amphitheatre, will begin at 6.00pm 6.00 and last for around an hour and a half. There will be a meeting for High School parents the previous evening. eve

THE BULLETIN BPS NEWSLETTER

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18 AUG 2016 CURRICULUM EVENING:

Here are the presentation slides for your reference:

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Presentation slides lides for your reference:

Nursery: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-BN BN Reception: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-BR BR Year 1: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-Y1 Year 2: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-Y2 Year 3: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-Y3 Year 4: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-Y4 Year 5: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-Y5 Year 6: http://gg.gg/Curriculum-Y6 Specialists: http://gg.gg/Curriculumn-specialists http://gg.gg/Curriculumn

Up Coming (Wed) 24 Aug - TES Welcome Coffee Morning at EPC 9:00-10:30am 9:00 (Thu) 25 Aug

- Jonathan Taylor Safeguarding Parents Information Evening 6:00-8:00pm

(Mon) 29 Aug - ECA Semester 1 starts - BP PTA Welcome Coffee Morning for New Parents 8:30am For more details of the school academic calendar, please click the link below: http://www.taipeieuropeanschool.com/calendarM.php

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