Glenealy School Newsletter
29th March 2017
Message from Brenda
Dear Parents, Caregivers and Students,
Congratulations to the GS Junior Choir on their wonderful performance held for parents in the Centre last Tuesday morning. The children sang with spirit and enthusiasm and it was a pleasure to listen to their tuneful voices and to see them having so much fun performing to an audience! Thanks to Ms Ede, Mrs Sexton and Mr Yeung for their help in training the students.
The Page ( http://www.esf.edu.hk/esf-50th/ ) is the ESF "information centre" for all things regarding the ESF 50th Anniversary. There are celebration events calendars, photo galleries, and an ESF historical time line. Please take a moment and have a look.
As a reminder the GGT assembly starts at 11.15am on Friday. You will have been notified if your child is performing.
What an amazing Easter bake sale last week, thank you!
Wishing you all a very happy Easter break.
Kind regards
Brenda
Dates for the Diary
Friday March 31st
Leavers assembly and Glenealy's Got Talent @ 11.15am
End of term - school finishes at 12pm and dress casual
April 3rd - April 17th
End of term holidays - school closed
Thursday April 20th
Year 6 Shenzhen parent's meeting @ 6pm
April 20 - 21st
Year 4 Camp
Monday May 1st
Public holiday - school closed
Tuesday May 2nd
Glenealy CPD day - school closed for students
Wednesday May 3rd
Public holiday - school closed
Thursday May 11th
Screenagers screening @ 6pm
Saturday May 13th
PTA Quiz & Curry Night
May 17th - 19th
Year 6 Shenzhen Trip
Friday May 19th
Year 1 fundraiser - after school
Monday May 29th
Glenealy CPD day - school closed for students
Tuesday May 30th
Public holiday - school closed
Friday June 9th
Year 4 fundraiser - after school
Friday June 30th
Last day of school - school finishes at 12pm
Glenealy Top Tech Tip
Disturbing YouTube videos that are tricking children.
Thousands of videos on YouTube look like versions of popular cartoons but contain disturbing and inappropriate content not suitable for children.
If you're not paying much attention, it might look like an ordinary video featuring Peppa Pig and other popular TV characters. Read more from BBC news here.
At Glenealy School, we strongly suggest turning on "restricted mode" for YouTube, which can be found at the bottom of the YouTube page, however YouTube cautions that "no filter is 100% accurate".
As always, we suggest children use the computer/iPad in a public area at home and recommend parental supervision when your child is online.
PTA News
Save the Date - Quiz & Curry Night, Saturday, 13 May 2017
Calling all Glenealy Parents and Caregivers - save the date for the return of Glenealy School's Quiz Night! Get ready to pull together a team of like minds and sharp wits to see who can win the honour of being Glenealy's trivia champions. Delicious Indian starters and curries will be served, and alumni parents are welcome. If you are interested in forming a table of 8 - 10 people, please email Erika at pta@glenealy.net for more information.
PTA Committee welcomes new members
At the most recent meeting of Glenealy School’s PTA Committee, two new members joined the Committee. We are delighted to welcome Sumita Barnes (Mum to Tara in Year 3 and Thomas in Year 5) and Bart Piestrzynski (Dad to Eden in Year 1 and Mia in Year 4) as Parent Representatives.
Year 2 Fundraiser – a sincere thank you!
Congratulations to our Year 2 parents and students on a wonderful fundraiser. Your efforts raised over $9,700! The Easter-themed decorations were beautiful and the games and treats were enjoyed by all. Thank you to everyone who contributed to make this event a success.
Family Bingo Night
Thanks to all the families and volunteers who participated in the last week’s Family Bingo Night. Everyone enjoyed the evening and over $16,500 was raised for future school projects.
Year 6 Exhibition - Taking Action
Dear Parents,
We are the Food Waste Fighters and we have been observing food waste in Glenealy. We observed the food waste in the downstairs playground. We took pictures of the bins before and after snack and lunch. We found lots of food in the bins like apples, bananas, chocolate chip cookies, seaweed, yoghurt drinks and much more.
This is how you can help reduce food waste:
If you know your kids are wasting/ coming back home with food, you can pack them less snack/lunch
Ask your kids to take their time when they eat, ask them to think about the people who made it and ask them to show appreciation by eating it all and not throwing it away
Try to encourage your kids to finish all their food at school but if they don't, ask them to not throw it away but save it for later at home
If you know you are wasting food at home, either because it’s expired or you prepared too much, you could buy less food/prepare less food
Raise awareness within your workplace, community and family
Food Waste is a big global problem that many of us face and we need to do something about it. You can help by joining in and help us reduce food waste.
Next week we will check the bins and we hope to see less food waste.
On Saturday 18th of March we visited a supermarket because we had an interview with the manager there. He gave us lots of info about food waste and he also showed us ways that we could help. We have a lot of facts from the manager’s supermarket and he was happy to share his supermarket’s info with us. He told us that the food waste at his supermarket was extremely low, we were very happy to hear that.
Ian Liu , Lara de Lacy Staunton, and Alana de Blank - 6B
Dear Glenealy parents,
Our global goal is Protect the Planet. We are focusing on plastic pollution within the community. We have realised that many students in Glenealy have plastic in their lunch boxes. We think that we should work to change this due to plastic waste harming our environment.
Here are a few ways that you can help:
When you’re packing your child’s lunchbox, use reusable containers instead of plastic wrap.
Instead of providing your child with a single-use plastic bottle, have them bring in a reusable water bottle.
Inside your child’s lunchbox, please try to pack reusable cutlery instead of plastic utensils.
We hope you will try these ideas to help our community. Please be mindful not just with your child’s lunchbox, but also elsewhere such as at home.
Thank you.
Donnacha Spencer, Anastasia De Boer, Chloe Cheung and Indya Tomes - 6B
We have been taking lots of action this week!
On Wednesday, we began our technology workshops with Samantha leading a Powtoon lesson for a group of Year 4 students. Samantha taught them skills such as selecting layouts, choosing characters and adding text and special effects. Eugene led the lesson on Thursday where he taught Year 3 students how to use Google Draw. The students produced some excellent posters using backgrounds, images and GIFs. On Friday, Aiden taught Year 2 students how to make a Google Slides presentation about their favourite animal. They learnt how to add a theme and to use transitions.
And there’s more… On Friday at 1:20 we went to Siu Sai Wan Elderly Care home. We met 4 very kind elderly people who owned their own devices e.g mobile phones and iPads. First, we showed them how to play a game, but they said they would prefer to learn how to use the internet. We showed them how to watch news and drama shows by searching on YouTube and we also showed them how to search up favourite topics such as horse racing and weather. We found out that elderly people do have access to technology, but they don’t always know how to use it fully. We are proud of ourselves for teaching them some new features and skills and we really enjoyed meeting the residents.
Eugene, Aiden and Samantha - 6B
From the 15th - 29th March, the Responsible Consumption group are doing a Clothes Recycling Program! The donation boxes will be inside 6B classroom. The clothes you donate will go to H&M and Marks and Spencers. H&M will upcycle the garments, giving the garments a new purpose. Then they will put them in their shops to sell. M&S will give the clothes to the Oxfam to be upcycled and sold. This process is called “Shwopping” which means shopping and swapping. Both companies hope to reduce the amount of garments wasted as there is a lot of clothing waste in landfills. H&M has gathered more than 32,000 tonnes of garments. M&S has gathered more than 1 billion garments.
DID YOU KNOW… Fashion Revolution Week is 24th - 30th of April. In 2013, 1,138 people died when five garment factories in Rana Plaza, Bangladesh collapsed. The people who worked at the factory were mostly young women who were manufacturing clothing for the western market. Since then, people from all over the world have come together to use the power of fashion to change the world. We would like to take photos of students’ clothes labels on casual clothes day on 31st March. We will tag @getredressed #whomademyclothes and the brand name to see if they are open about how their clothes are manufactured (no faces due to Digital Citizenship Essential Agreements).
Julian, Ethan and Vincent - 6B
Earth Hour Action
As a part of our exhibition,we took action for Earth Hour on 25 March. We went to all classes to show a Presentation of the importance of saving energy. We encouraged all students to write their pledges on light bulbs with printed light bulb. We collected all the pledges and made a huge light bulb on the playground. We are very proud of what we have achieved.
George, Andre, Leroy - 6S
Action for Peace and Justice and Good Health Groups
For the year 6 exhibition we are looking at Peace and Justice and on Wednesday March 15th we had a calming session of yoga. We invited Little Yogis to come in and teach us. Little Yogis is on a mission to bring yoga, mindfulness and healthy eating to children aged one to twelve years old.
We did all sorts of relaxing movements and not only was it it calming, but it was also good for our mental and physical health.
It was also really fun and some of the yoga poses were hard but when we eventually mastered the pose we were filled with unrelenting jubilation. Overall I think that the yoga session really improved our moods and warmed us up. We recommend all of you to try yoga.
Freya and Hayden - 6S
The Clean Water and Sanitation group took action by setting up a World Water Day on the 22nd and the 23rd of March for the Year 2’s. We organised different activities that helped the Year 2’s understand the importance of water, for example how to wash their hands properly, how to make marbling art, how many water sources they can name and many more. Together we accomplished much more than just taking action, we raised awareness about our exhibition global goal. We managed the Year 2’s with the potential of being leaders and responsible students.
Charlie, Chloe and Dominic - 6S
Glenealy Families in UNICEF Run
Useful School Forms
Medical Authorisation Form - required should your child need to take medication whilst at school, on a school trip or camp
ESF 2016/17 Calendar
Please click here to view the calendar online. We do ask when planning your family holidays that you refer to the holiday periods as indicated on the calendar and try to take your holiday during these times.
Extra Curricular Activities and Camps
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