Glenealy School Newsletter
23rd April 2020
Message from Chris
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
It has been a pleasure to see the children really enjoying being back connecting with our staff team this week. It has been wonderful to see all the learning the children have been doing over the past few days. Yesterday we celebrated Earth Day, with children taking part in a whole host of related activities - some of these were extremely creative!
Reporting Arrangements
Given the uncertain circumstances of the year so far, it has been a challenge to plan ahead for reporting arrangements. I want to confirm for parents that we will be providing end of year reports for all children. In addition to this I am very pleased to announce that we will also be providing an additional Parent - Teacher Conference via Zoom for all our families towards the end of the term. We anticipate the combination of student reports and the parent conference with teachers will provide you with good information as your child moves into the next academic year. Dates will be provided for the reports and the conferences in the very near future.
Zoom Update
As I wrote to you all earlier in the week, we have been working to ensure our Zoom lessons are a completely safe space for children. Nothing is more important to us than ensuring our children are kept safe.
Given that Zoom is such an integral and important part of our teaching offer online, we have been busy putting security arrangements in place, in response to media reports about safety of the application. We are doing this in three key ways:
Waiting rooms will be used for children to attend meetings. Teachers will only allow ‘recognised’ and named users into the meetings.
When the meeting starts, we will ‘lock’ the meeting. This means no one else can enter. It also means that children need to join the meeting on time, so far as possible. If your internet or connection drops out, the teacher can re-admit you through the waiting room.
We are creating Glenealy user Zoom accounts. This process creates a password protection, as it is only Glenealy users who can enter any Glenealy lessons. We are in the process of switching children over to Glenealy user accounts this week. Once all the students from a year group are using their Glenealy accounts teachers will not be required to lock the meeting (this will make access less of a problem for students with intermittent internet connections).
These three elements, will ensure that Zoom sessions cannot be attended by anyone outside of Glenealy and are secure. I want to thank parents for their support in ‘switching’ to Glenealy accounts. I also want to thank our technology team for their hard work on getting this right for our children.
Family Wellbeing Videos
Before the Easter break we shared two wellbeing videos. These videos provide parents with tools and ideas for managing their own and their children’s wellbeing. These videos are very useful and short 7-10 minutes to watch. Tracy Chitty, the counsellor at ESF Discovery College has worked with Jennine Harding to create this useful resource. Today we present our third video in this series - focusing on developing family habits and goals to support wellbeing.
The wellbeing videos from previous weeks can be found here:
Family Wellbeing Video 1 - Challenges families are facing and pathways to support
Family Wellbeing Video 2 - Strategies for Coping
And our new video for this week:
Family Wellbeing Video 3 - Developing new family habits and goals to support wellbeing.
Tetra Paks
Our fabulously environmentally conscious children have been collecting tetrapaks at home. Some have asked where they can send them to donate. The good news is that they can be mailed directly, should you wish, to:
SSID,
82 Fuk Hi Street Yuen Long Industrial Estate.
Please make sure the tetra paks are cut open and washed thoroughly.
Reminder - Public Holiday - Thursday 30th April and Friday 1st May next week
A quick reminder for parents that there will be Hong Kong public holidays on Thursday and Friday of next week; schools therefore will not be in session. We hope you are all able to enjoy the long weekend.
Once again, I want to thank you all for your support within and across our community over the past term. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact us.
I hope you all have a good week to come.
Chris