24 August 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.
Principal’s Message
Dates for your Diary
Showcase – Diamond Class
Curriculum
SEN Choir
AIMS Global
Festival of Music
Raising Happy and Resilient Young People
Taekwondo
Saturday Soccer
Principal’s Message
A very warm welcome back to the 2018-19 school year. A special welcome to our new students and their families – Noah, Seana, Seth, Ankit, Castro, Michael, Jadon, Aadi and Jack. It’s been a very smooth start to the year even though we hadn’t counted on the first day being cancelled with a T3.
Congratulations to our three graduates who received ESF Chairman’s Awards at the recent ceremony. Jimi for Embodying the Spirit and Values of the School, Dara for Commitment and Contribution to Service and Sam for creativity. We are always proud of our students and it’s lovely to see them publicly acknowledged with their many talented peers from other ESF Schools.
The first few weeks are for settling in, getting to know each other and assessment. The teachers and therapists have already participated in some professional development. We immersed ourselves in the new ESF Inclusion Principles and discussed how to put these into ‘action’ at JCSRS.
We also had the privilege of working with our Educational Psychologist Jean McPherson to update our Positive Behaviour for Learning strategies. We have yet to have our policy approved by the School Council but we have agreed to add ‘Responsibility’ and ‘Respect’ to our Safe 5 and renamed it the JCSRS High 5. I know your son/daughter’s teacher will have talked to you about this at the Meet the Teacher session on Thursday afternoon.
The teachers will also have talked about how you can keep up to date with class news via the weekly email and on the VLE. Our partnership is very important to us so if you are experiencing issues with logins or navigating the page please contact Carol Li who is very happy to help with technical problems. This is also a good time to remind parents to ensure all information (including medical) is up to date on Gateway. Remember that we share many photos and information in this fortnightly newsletter and in the photo gallery on our website.
This term’s unit of work Express Yourself is full of fun and engaging activities both in the classroom and out in the community. You can see more details below from Karen.
On Thursday evening after the Welcome Presentation we held our PTA AGM. Congratulations Sandra Lee who continues as Chair and Sandra Feran who is Vice Chair. This group of parents are vital to helping our students and our school. They organise transport, uniform and fundraising events. If you were not able to come along but would like to join in please contact us and we can give you more information.
Last week I had an interesting meeting with Karla Pretorius who is Director of AIMS Global. This service provides live-in therapists for families. More details and contact information is available later in this newsletter.
Later this term we look forward to meeting with each of you to discuss the IEP for your child or young person. Please look at Dates for Your Diary in the fortnightly newsletters as well as the website calendar. Of course you are always welcome to contact me at any time if you have questions or you need more information. It’s going to be another year of learning, fun and challenges and we are delighted to share this with you all.
Warm Regards,
Karin
Dates for your Diary
School photos – Thursday 30th August
CPD day for staff (No school for students) – Monday 24th September
Public holiday – Tuesday 25th September
Showcase – Diamond Class
On the first week back at school, Diamond students arrived happy and eager to jump back into class routine and lessons! This year we welcome Lucas Lui and Noah Dolsma to the Diamond family. Students began their first day by familiarizing themselves with the class schedule and areas of school by sharing exciting activities; a treasure hunt in teams and play based stations, including sensory fun, dress –up, lego building and painting.
To break the ice and to refresh student’s memories, we brainstormed classroom expectations and studied the ‘Safe Five’ strategies by creating new posters to decorate our classroom. Our display board was looking empty, so students made portraits using collage and paint. We all had a lot of fun getting messy and creative!
A favourite activity involved each student presenting their holiday photos and sharing their favourite highlights of their trips and activities. Students cut and pasted their holiday photos into their personal journals and reflected further in writing and drawing.
We have also began our current unit of inquiry; ‘Express yourself’ by creating emotion placemats. Together we started identifying and building a vocabulary of words for naming a range of feelings which will be filling up our class word wall.
Each morning, Diamond students are encouraged to independently choose an emotion card as to how they are feeling on arrival to class. These are then placed on our photo board. I’m thrilled to report that all students chose ‘happy’ on the first day back. Phew!
We will continue to explore and express our emotions through all areas of school life; discussion, literacy, drama, dance and art. And we are very much looking forward to starting African drumming sessions in September.
Sally Fryer
Diamond Class Teacher
Curriculum
We are currently in the assessment phase of the year. Teachers and therapists use a range of formal and informal assessments to create baselines for target setting and to inform our teaching. Very soon, we will jump into the first of 3 units for this year:
Term 1: Express Yourself
Term 2: Looking After Myself
Term 3: Working with Systems
These units may sound familiar to families that have been at the school for several years as we are now on the second cycle of our curriculum. Every 3 years, we spend time reviewing our units and re-writing them with a fresh perspective and new students in mind. The idea is that students can re-visit themes to build on their knowledge and skills. For example, our new version of Express Yourself has a stronger focus on social communication skills.
Unit name Express Yourself
Central idea We express our feelings and ideas in different ways
Learning Intentions
Students will:
- Explore ways to express my ideas and feelings
- Make choices about how (and when) to express my feelings and ideas
- Share my feelings and ideas with people
- Notice how other people’s actions make me feel
So far we have African Drumming, Dancing, theatre visits and Poetry in Action planned for this term alongside lots of creative learning engagements. Each class has a chance to interpret and develop the unit in a way that best fits the students of the group to ensure individualised learning.
Alongside this, we have our ASDAN module which allows students to gain an accreditation and enriches our units. We have selected Numeracy which will provide us with a whole-school curriculum focus on this important core subject.
We are excited to get started on another year of learning!
Karen Carmody
Lead Teacher – Curriculum
SEN Choir
AIMS Global
ESF Festival of Music
Raising Happy and Resilient Young People
Michael Carr-Gregg Parent Sessions
This is a fantastic opportunity for parents to hear from one of the world’s experts on adolescent well-being. Suitable for parents of Year 5 and above or those who want to prepare early.
Parents can sign up at the using the following links. Cost is HK$200 per head.
Taekwondo
Saturday Soccer
