29 Mar 2019

29 March 2019

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

Flexible Seating – Thank you JCSRS PTA

Hong Kong Outward Bound Adventure Race

Wear Blue For World Autism Awareness Day

Principal’s Message

Last week was all about school camp. Those who had time with Outward Bound had so many opportunities to stretch and challenge themselves – in the water, on the water, above land and on land. Well done to all our students for trying new activities and taking risks with their learning. Also a huge thank you to Mike and all the staff who go over and above what is expected to ensure the students have this special opportunity. We have had some reflection discussions following camp and we seek your feedback to make this an even better event in the future. Please click here to give your feedback and comments. Teachers will also add this link to their weekly class email.

Thank you also to Jackie and the team who supported our students who stayed at school last week and had fun on the outing to Disneyland. They also participated in a drumming workshop among other creative and fun learning opportunities.

On Wednesday a group of students enjoyed the Jockey Club Keys to Music Education Programme at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Who doesn’t enjoy a bit of Beethoven, Prokofiev and Mozart in the middle of the day? Such a treat – thank you to our music therapist Sandra Lee for organising this.

For the past few weeks we have all been wearing our UNICEF Kid Power wrist bands and adding up the number of steps we take. We are happy that so far we have contributed 658 nutrition bars for children in need. Great work team. We can add more steps at the Danceathon event on 10th April.

I had an interesting week in Kuwait visiting a special school with the Council of International Schools (CIS) team. I learned a lot about the accreditation process that will help us as we also prepare for our next accreditation visit in early 2020. On Thursday 4th April all the staff will be participating in a reflection workshop as the start of our CIS self-study process. A friendly reminder that there is no school for students on this day. We will finish the day (2.30 – 3.30pm) with a farewell party for Jenny (VP), Irene (EA) and Rita (support staff). Parents are welcome to join us for this.

Remember to Wear Blue for Wold Autism Awareness Day on Tuesday 2nd April and bring your donation for our PTA fundraising for a school bus.

Warm Regards

Karin

Dates for your Diary

Wear Blue for World Autism Awareness Day – Tuesday 2nd April

CPD day for staff – Thursday 4th April (NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS)

Public holiday – Friday 5th April

Danceathon – Wednesday 10th April

Last day of term 2 – Friday 12th April (11.30am finish)

First day of term 3 – Monday 29th April

Camp week – At School

While the campers were having fun at Outward Bound, Diamond, Pearl and secondary non-campers attended a string of educational and fun activities in school and at Disneyland Adventure Park. We had additional therapy sessions such as yoga and African drumming. The highlight was on Thursday when students went to Disneyland to participate in their Adventure Park Program. Disneyland had generously given us a big discount on entry tickets. Everyone had such fun watching 4D ‘Mickey’s PhilharMagic’ show, taking fun and exciting rides such as ‘Mad Hatter Tea Cups’, ‘Cinderella Carousel’, ‘Orbitron’ and ‘It’s a Small World’. Students loved the visit so much that they wanted the school to visit again next year.

Jackie Newman

Science Coordinator

Camp week – At Outward Bound

Secondary camp with 34 students was by all accounts an overall success.

Students covered a variety of activities including kayaking, coasteering, pier jumping, walking, low/high ropes and group games.

A few highlights for me amongst many included:
– Having an extension group doing their own program of a kayaking journey with an overnight stay in a tent. This we shall look at expanding for next year.

– Seeing Valentino kayaking with his own group.
– Having 3 groups out for a whole day of kayaking off to an island and back.
– Six new students joining camp for the first time.
Many thanks to all those involved especially our staff for staying overnight and making camp possible and to you our students’ parents for again supporting this excellent 3 day trip for our students.

Flexible Seating – Thank you JCSRS PTA

We have now received all of the flexible seating that we ordered, thanks to a generous $20,000 donation from our PTA. These new seating options have already had a significant impact on students’ learning. The feedback from staff has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly around levels of student engagement. Staff have reported there have been noticeably longer periods of on-task behaviour. We feel that the new seating options have made our classrooms and shared areas more student-centred and so many thanks to our PTA for supporting this initiative. Here are some photos of our students using the new flexible seating:

Hong Kong Outward Bound Adventure Race

Congratulations go to Harvey and William who teamed up with Lok and Maxx from KGV and competed in the Hong Kong Outward Bound Adventure race. Having trained hard for the previous 6 weeks they were ready to be tested.

With an overcast start it was straight into a 3km kayak from Stanley to To Tei Wan Tseun just below Shek O Road. This was followed by a hilly 15 km trail run and gorge scramble through the East of Hong Kong. It went up and over Dragons Back before dropping down to Cape Collinson and onto Kornhill, Mount Parker and finishing in Tai Koo Place.

Total stats were 26,000 steps, 110 floors in elevation, 3 hours 58 minutes of effort with an average heart rate of 145bpm.

Danceathon

Wear Blue for World Autism Awareness Day

The Character of Dyslexia

The Character of Dyslexia
A Practical Look and Management of Dyslexia in English and Chinese

Did you know it is possible to have dyslexia in Chinese, or English, or even both?

Join us to explore the unique characteristics of these two languages and to gain practical tips on how to manage dyslexia in Chinese and/or English.

Our guest, Professor Catherine McBride, developmental psychologist at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, will share her latest research and discuss the challenges of learning multiple languages, offer suggestions for facilitating self-esteem and provide recommendations for testing and training cognitive-linguistic skills.

Please join us for an evening filled with exceptional advice, shared tips, and useful strategies. We welcome you to share your experiences and learn from others on the journey to support and encourage your child with Dyslexia, ADHD, and/or other SpLDs.

This will be a highly interactive session appropriate for educators and parents of school aged children and adolescents.