LS Newsletter

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Math Curriculum Night

It was fantastic to see so many people engaging with the mathematical content we cover at HIS at last week's math curriculum night. Thank you to all of those who attended the event last Wednesday.

At HIS, Math is considered an essential skill that supports our learners throughout their life. Our approach to math focuses on the students building their Math understanding year by year. As a result, they deepen their knowledge and develop their confidence as mathematicians.

Understanding Math at HIS

Our Math classrooms are places of high engagement and discussion. Students work together to discuss, test and justify their theories. They share strategies and learn from one another. By listening to each other's theories, they learn there is more than one way to solve a problem.

Each student is challenged at the appropriate level and given scaffolds and prompts to help them succeed. When learning new strategies, we often test and apply them with smaller numbers, then gradually build up to more significant numbers as we notice patterns and apply our theories in new contexts.

Our Math program encourages students to manipulate objects to understand how the math concept works. Students at HIS are expected to have a solid foundation of knowledge and skills as they build their understanding of new concepts.

Once they have understood a concept via concrete materials, we move to pictorial or visual representations. At first, this may look like a literal representation of the object, but then we move to more abstract visual representations, such as number bonds and bar models.

Finally, once children can understand and visualize concepts, we progress to abstract representations, such as formal equations and algorithms. At any point, if a teacher notices that a student needs help understanding the concept, they support the child by moving to concrete or visual representations.

Applying our Math skills

It is expected that the students not only know how to apply abstract ideas, such as formal algorithms and equations, but that they are metacognitive and can talk about their thinking. They should use their effective communication skills to speak about their strategies and explain how and why they work. They should be able to identify many ways to solve a problem and discuss which works best for them.

At HIS, we firmly believe in teaching for transfer and helping our children to see connections between what they are learning and other areas of their life. When they take tasks or complete assessments, it might look different from what they have been practicing, as we want them to apply their learning in other contexts.

Supporting our students at home

Fact fluency and automatic recall are essential parts of our Math program. However, before children memorize facts, they understand all they need to know about numbers. They have made them with materials, represented them pictorially and learned the number facts because they realize it will help them to answer questions more quickly and easily. There is a purpose and a need to know them. Learning number facts should not be boring or repetitious drills but can be fun games and a great time to bond with your child.

Please support your child to be mathematicians at home by helping them see the applications of Math in your lives. Notice and highlight how you use Math daily and how you solve problems mathematically. Problem-solve together as you try to cook, measure new furniture or pack a suitcase for a trip.

Play games to develop number sense and fact fluency and, most of all, show them that math is fun! Remember to send your class teacher examples of math and learning at home.

Contacting Teachers

Moments 365 or email

Moments 365 Help

Help with Moments 365 is available from Mr Emlyn Majoos (Mr.M) to ensure we have all parents using this platform. If you need a Chinese or speaker of another language please contact Mr M.and we will arrange support.

emlynmajoos@hisdragons.org.cn

Contacting Teachers

We ask parents to contact teachers via Moments 365 or by email. Teachers are busy working with students, attending meetings, preparing class materials, and ensuring student safety. They infrequently look at their computers or mobile phones and may miss your message. For changes to pick-up arrangements or urgent news, please get in touch with the school secretaries, who are online all day.

ECE lilyfan@hisdragons.org.cn LS main building florali@hisdragons.org.cn

Online teaching and Student/Teacher contact

For online teaching and correspondence between teachers and students we use TEAMS.

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Swimming News

Aquatics

Upcoming Events:

Nov. 12 – Shanghai Swim League (SSL) Round 2 Swim Meet

Nov. 20 – 6th Hangzhou International Youth Swimming Open Championships 2022

Nov. 26 – Dulwich College Suzhou Invitational Swim Meet (TBC)

Dec. 3 – HISAC Round 1 Postponed Meet

Dec. 10-11 – 2022 Swim Cloud Junior International Swimming Championships

Dec. 17 – Santa Splash Swim Meet

SSL Round 2 Swim Meet Schedule: The Wave

Session 1 - Gold/Pre-Gold

8:00 am – Arrival / Warm-up

8:30 am – 1st Event Start

10:00 am – Estimated Finish

Session 2 - Silver/Bronze

10:45 am – Arrival / Warm-up

11:15 am – 1st Event Start

12:15 pm – Estimated Finish

Session 3 - Blue

1:00 pm – Warm-up

1:30 pm – 1st Event Start

3:00 pm – Estimated Finish

SSL Round 1 MEET RESULTS

Congratulations!

Girls 9-10 Age Group – 3rd Place

Boys 9-10 Age Group – 3rd Place

Girls 13-14 Age Group – 5th Place

1st Place – Boys 9-10 200m Freestyle Relay

2nd Place – Girls 13-14 200m Medley Relay

3rd Place – Girls 9-10 200m Freestyle Relay

3rd Place – Boys 9-10 200m Medley Relay

4th Place – Boys 9-10 200m Medley Relay

5th Place – Girls 13-14 200m Freestyle Relay

Individual Awards:

2nd Place – Girls 13-14 50m Breaststroke – Alice Wu

2nd Place – Girls 9-10 50m Backstroke – Shirley Lin

3rd Place – Girls 13-14 50m Butterfly – Tina Liu

3rd Place – Girls 13-14 100m Freestyle – Alice Wu

3rd Place – Girls 13-14 50m Backstroke – Tina Liu

4th Place – Girls 9-10 100m Freestyle – Shirley Lin

4th Place – Girls 13-14 50m Freestyle – Tina Liu

6th Place – Boys 13-14 50m Butterfly – Harry Wang

6th Place – Boys 9-10 50m Backstroke – Jean Mao

6th Place – Girls 9-10 50m Backstroke – Carol Zhong

6th Place – Girls 9-10 50m Freestyle – Shirley Lin

Email swimming@hisdragons.org.cn for inquiries, and visit the Aquatics Swim Meet Calendar webpage for updated events and Results.

Best,

Natalio Liares, IV

Aquatics Coordinator

Hangzhou International School

CCA's

CCA 1 DATES

Monday, October 10 – Friday, December 16

Please visit the Co-Curricular page on the HIS website for more information https://www.his-china.org/extend/co-curricular-activities-clone.

You can also send an email to activities@hisdragons.org.cn if you have any inquiries.

Mrs Majoos CCA had students creating a 'Thankful tree' for students to write the things they are thankful for. There will be lots of space for others to add to it!

WHAT ARE LOOSE PARTS?

We Need Your Help collecting Loose Parts!

PICK UP OF STUDENTS

DELAYS AND IMPORTANT MESSAGES TO TEACHERS

Please assist staff by advising us early (before lunchtime) wherever possible, if you need your child to do something different at their usual pick-up time and location. Teachers focus on working and engaging their class while maintaining a safe environment. They get to their computers sporadically and may miss changes. In addition, some classes are with Specialist staff for the last lesson and bring the students to the pick-up locations. They may be unaware of last-minute changes.

If you need to make a late change to plans, I'd suggest you send a message to our Lower School secretaries, florali@hisdragons.org.cn or in the ECE lilyfan@hisdragons.org.cn, and they can pass on your message.

COVID PROCEDURES AND PROTOCOLS FOR SCHOOL ENTRY

COVID Procedures and Protocols

We have a number of families and staff affected by the current lock down of Powerlong Shopping Centre.

Please pay strict attention to your COVID prevention protocols and monitor your health code status regularly.

Masks must be worn on entry and can be removed when children are inside the school grounds.

As you know, we are back to 72-hour COVID tests in Hangzhou. The school will usually conduct three (3) COVID tests for all staff and students weekly.

Please note that if your child is absent on the testing days, you must ensure they have a valid COVID test to reenter the school. Please forward your child's result to lilyfan@hisdragons.org.cn or florali@hisdragons.org.cn

PAFA NEWS

AFA Autumn Walk/Picnic Lunch

All HIS parents are invited to join us for this nice activity. Let's continue meeting other HIS parents, new and returning!

PHOTOS

How to order.

Individual Studio Photos are available to see and order!

Following Dave's Studio recent visit to take school photographs, you are able to see the photos and if you wish, order online directly with them. Packages ordered before November 10th, 7PM, will receive an early bird discount of 10%.

Instructions in the Ordering Guidelines Poster:

UPPER SCHOOL PRODUCTION
ORPHAN TRAIN

Upper School Dragon Players Present: The Orphan Train

By Aurand Harris

November, Friday 11, and Saturday 12.

This play is recommended for students in Grade 4 or above, and their families.

Only 2 shows available (see posters for details) and limited spaces.

Don't miss out and come and support our young thespians! If you have questions, contact Ms. Andrea.

DragonNews Fall 2022 issue is out online

DragonNews Fall 2022 issue is out online!

Click the link: https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1667202038/hzscishisnet/xgmtq5fd99f9m7ojtxsv/DRAGONNEWSFALL2022_web.pdf

Printed copies will be distributed to the students next week. We hope you enjoy this issue!

for your content.

GIN CLUB ADVENT CALENDAR

PLEASE SUPPORT

GIN Club – Support HIS GIN Club Projects in the community while giving a special gift during the festive period!

You can order your Advent Calendar made with a mix of imported chocolates, by scanning the QR code on the poster. Pre-Sale starts now till November 15th, and orders will be distributed by November 28th.

HOLIDAY GREETING CARD COMPETITION – Grade 1 to Grade 12

Through the last years HIS GIN club has been hosting a project called "Holiday Greeting Card", a drawing competition, that not only encourage our students to express their festive spirit, show their artistic skills, but the competition of the project helps us to fundraise for the many projects with sponsor to support to make this community better.

We would like to invite students from G1 to G12 to enter the Global Issues Network Holiday Greeting Card competition. Please, encourage your children to participate.

GIN club will be delivering copies of the submission form to Grade 1-12 classes this week, but they can also get one form with Ms. Andrea.

Students need to return their forms no later than November 14th. No late submissions, or out of the format and media required, will be accepted.

FOUR SEASONS
TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY

HIS Tree Lighting Choir and Strings Ensemble Performances

It's that time of year again! The HIS Tree Lighting Choir and Strings Ensemble will be performing to celebrate the official lighting of their Christmas tree at the Four Seasons and Intercontinental Hotels. Here are the dates for these evening events:

Four Seasons - Saturday, November 26. This is a traditional Gala Charity Event to fundraise the Carnation School for Children with Special Learning Disabilities, and our HIS Christmas Choir and Orchestra is really proud to participate to give back to the community. Tickets must be purchased in advance by scanning the QR code in the poster, and include a free flow of the drinks and food (Limited Tickets for the event)

InterContinental – Friday, December 02 (Free – no ticket needed)

Lost Property

Please label your child's jackets, coats, umbrellas, waterbottles......everything! It is very worrying to see the number of unclaimed items, some of them brand new, but without a name and the ability to find the owner! We will try and locate the owner if the item has a name on it! Please help us and avoid needing to buy new items that could be located, if only we knew who it belonged to.

LIBRARY NEWS

Dear Families,

There are some fun initiatives and provocations going on in the libraries that are intended to inspire students and help support them on their learning journey.

In the ECE Library the students can use different materials to express their feelings. It is so important throughout life to be able to express and share our feelings. There are some wonderful books in the library that talk about different feelings.

In the Lower School Library students are exposed to older inventions and asked to identify the item's purpose and when they think the item was first made. There have been some very interesting answers given! Can you identify the items in the photo and year of manufacture?

Students are also able to learn a new language each month! Every month we are featuring a new Language in the library. The students can learn the numbers from 1-10 in the language of the month. September was Korean, October was German, and November is Portuguese! When the students can say the numbers, they receive a language bookmark and a stamp for that language. If they can learn five languages by International Day, they will receive an award. If they learn all the languages, they stand to receive an award and a prize.

Lastly, a big congratulations to Amy and Daisy from Grade 4B who have both read 10 books from our Battle of the Books competition!

If you would like to contact the libraries, please use the email addresses listed below:

ECE Library, Ms. Ivy – ecelibrary@hisdragons.org.cn

Lower School Library, Mrs. Majoos and Ms. Amy – lslibrary@hisdragons.org.cn

Upper School Library, Ms. Sara and Ms. Cocoa – uslibrary@hisdragons.org.cn

Happy reading!

Best wishes,

Mrs. Majoos

Lower School Librarian

Battle of the Books

Messages for entering/exiting the school

Parent and Student ID Cards

All students and parents should have an HIS Identification Card. Please review the information on the website to submit your photo to the secretary for ID card generation. HIS ID card information