26 Oct 2018

26 October 2018

Jockey Club Sarah Roe School’s latest newsletter is available to read now. Find out the latest news around the school and upcoming events.

Our students work with the CEO of SWIRE

Lunch Time Concert at Hong Kong City Hall

Principal’s Message

Welcome back to the second half of term one. Where do the weeks go? We are already making plans for our Christmas Show (you can already put Wednesday 12 December in your calendars) and it’s going to be another super showcase of our students’ talents. Just before the mid-term break we planned to have our annual sports day but as you know it has been postponed until later in the year, of course we will keep you up to date.

Also just before the break some classes were fortunate to enjoy the lunchtime concerts in Central. We joined an enthusiastic crowd who, like us, enjoyed some beautiful classical music with our sandwiches. A great experience for us and there are more opportunities later in the year. Thanks to our music therapist Sandra Lee for organising this.

Over the holidays we were very proud to have one of our students Leo Purdie participate in sailing races in Japan. You can read all about it from his mum Sandra later in this newsletter. Congratulations Leo (and his wonderful supporter Joel). As many of you know our students have regular opportunities to learn to sail through the Sailability program at Hebe Haven. This week I had the pleasure of joining a group in the morning and again the students impressed me with their skills and confidence on the water. Thanks Mike and Martin for your great organisation of this weekly activity.

Also during the break Jenny and some students supported the Lohas Market stall in Central. We are fortunate to have a growing partnership with Lohas as many of our students are able to learn vocational skills in the garden, the packaging area and the cafe. Having Lohas a five minute walk from us is also a bonus. Jenny also joined William, Kimika and Liam to show the CEO of Swire how to make Christmas presents. I am sure they will be doing more of this on their regular visits to East Hotel.

One of the things we are really proud of is the way we work together as a professional learning community. Teachers and therapists come together every Friday afternoon for Collaborative Inquiry meetings. Our focus is learning and teaching. We plan the curriculum together, we share ideas (and challenge each other), we look at resources and assessment and we aim for shared understandings and consistency. Recently we had our first Collaborative Inquiry meeting for our Education Assistants. This is the first of a series we will run throughout the year. Kelly and I had the privilege of facilitating the first meeting that focused on Structured Teaching to Promote Independence. What a great amount of knowledge and skill we have in our EA team. Ruby, Maidee and Sidney won the Kahoot quiz but the competition was fierce! The next meeting like this for EAs will be led by Daphne and the focus area will be sensory integration.

Also in this newsletter we are advertising ESF events – The Terry Fox Run and the ESF Hong Kong Run. We would love to have a strong team from JCSRS at these events, please sign up for health, fun and community.

Today and tomorrow we have two facilitators of Team Teach working with us. For many of us this is a refresher course. Our learning aligns with our Positive Behaviour for Learning policy (available on our website). Some staff are learning new IT skills and have an opportunity for some team building.

Warm Regards

Karin

Our Sailing Super Star

Leo and Joel represented Sailability and Hong Kong at the 2018 Hansa Class World and International Championships in Hiroshima, Japan from 12^thto 18^th October.

Leo and Joel raced in the Hansa 303 double handed class and competed in a field of 52 with representatives from countries all over the world, in a particularly inclusive regatta open to all.

There were 8 races in total over the course of 5 days.

Their best result was 7th in the final race of the competition, and they came 31^st overall, and were the highest placed Hong Kong boat.

We are all exceptionally proud of Leo and Joel’s efforts, and thankful to Sailability Hong Kong and their team of volunteers.

Leo has always loved the water, and sailing has allowed him to improve his ability in areas he was less confident in including handling wet rigging and sails..

It has been a huge accomplishment for him. He has been sailing for over 5 years to get to this level of competition, sailing alongside Joel.

The competition featured both able bodied and physically disabled and intellectually disabled sailors, including Olympic representatives.

Sandra

Our students work with the CEO of Swire

On Wednesday 10th October, William, Kimika and Liam went ‘back to work’ at East hotel after their ‘day shift’ to meet Guy Bradley the CEO of SWIRE and show him how to make Christmas decorations.

SWIRE are piloting a new video newsletter and Guy had asked if one of his contributions could be to meet our guys and work with them. William, Kimika and Liam are helping East hotel to make two different types of decoration this year; Christmas trees made of moss and baubles, and Father Christmas’s made from wood salvaged from Kai Tak after the typhoon.

Guy followed the instructions given by our students and soon produced a Father Christmas that was almost as good as the demonstration model !

A great time was had by all

JCSRS and Lohas Market Stall

As many of you are aware, Lohas is one of our vocational placement partners.

On Saturday 20th October Cindy Zhang and her mum Kathy joined Jen (our VP) and her mum to help out at the stall that Lohas ran at the Central pier.

The stall included a range of items made by JCSRS students as well as those made by Lohas clients.

While Cindy helped out with sales, Jen’s mum helped out with purchases!

We look forward to sharing a stall with the Lohas team later in the year when we will sell at the Discovery Bay Christmas markets.

We will update you on dates as soon as we can.

Jenny Lingham

Vice Principal

Lunchtime Concert at Hong Kong City Hall Foyer

Students from Pearl, Silver and Jade classes attended a lunchtime concert at Hong Kong
City Hall Foyer on 9th October. They enjoyed the chamber music by Hong Kong Sinfonietta. It is a good experience for them to listen to the live music of different woodwind and strings instruments. November will be Sapphire and Emerald classes’ turn to enjoy brass and strings music, and December for Gold and Diamond classes.