CWBS Newsletter – Friday 13 March
Principal’s News Diary Dates Adverts Disclaimer
Principal’s News
Dear parents
Feedback from distance learning survey
We have had over 270 responses to the recent parent survey which provides us with a wealth of feedback and suggestions as to how to refine and further improve the distance learning being provided to students over the coming weeks. Overall, the responses have been very positive and shows that parents appreciate the work of teachers during the class suspension, and are largely supportive of the distance learning approach at CWBS.
This question highlights that parents expectations vary and that what seems like too much for one family may be too little for another. Our approach continues to be to try and strike a balance, informed by parent feedback and teachers professional judgment.
The responses to this question indicate that the design and differentiation of learning engagements meet the needs of most learners. The Individual Needs team are actively working with identified students to provide additional support and intervention wherever possible. The school counselling service also continues to be available online to those students needing support.
The responses to this question indicate that we have achieved a reasonable balance between online and offline learning. It does, however, demonstrate the difference in parental expectations for how much online learning is appropriate.
The bulk (80%) of parents are happy with the communication with their child’s teacher, though some would still like more.
Responses to this question show that whilst many parents are satisfied with the online connection between their child and the teacher, some parents do want additional online ‘virtual classes’. Many teachers are already working towards this, both through more learning-focused check-ins/check-outs and additional classes or face to face time in the morning.
School calendar
Obviously with the suspension of classes for 9 weeks between Chinese New Year and the Easter holiday break it has been necessary to reschedule and cancel some activities and events.
The Year 4 camp for 4E & 4H was postponed from November until mid February due to the major disruption to transportation caused by the protests. We have been able to reschedule this camp to 11-13 May and do still hope to go so that all of our Year 4 students have the opportunity to experience camp this year. Remember that the other two Year 4 classes were able to go to camp in November!
Our two sports carnivals that were postponed from late November to early March due to the social unrest have now been cancelled. Access to HKUST sports facilities continues to be extremely difficult and unworkable for these two events with the new HKUST security arrangements in place. The weather in Term 3 is also generally unsuitable for these two events.
The reciprocal visits with our sister school the Panda Road School in Chengdu have also both been cancelled due to the travel restrictions and quarantine arrangements in place between Hong Kong and mainland China. Panda Road School will not be visiting us in early April and we will not visit them in May. Hopefully, we can resume visits again next year.
Teachers have carefully examined all the Units of Inquiry and decided which Units are better suited to distance learning and which are better for when students return to school. As a result, the Year 6 Exhibition Unit of Inquiry has been rescheduled to Term 3 so that exhibition will now be in June rather than originally scheduled in March. Some of the other year level events and trips have also been rescheduled with some Units of Inquiry swapped around between Term 2 and Term 3.
We will continue to update you on any other changes to the calendar and events as needed due to the current suspension of classes.
PTA Calendar and events
The PTA has also looked at its calendar of events through to the end of the year and rescheduled some events. The student socials have been adjusted so that students in all year levels will get the opportunity to participate in at least one social this year. Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 students have already had a social this year. Years 5 & 6 in November and Years 3 & 4 in January. The Year 1 social is set for Friday 15th May whilst the Year 2 social in February has been rescheduled to Friday 29th May (This date was originally planned as a second Year 3 & 4 social but has now changed to Year 2 so that they will also have a social.) The family Bingo night in February has also been rescheduled to Friday 8th May.
New ESF directive on accessing library books
With ESF approval we have been allowing parents to collect library books for students to read at home when they came into school to collect other resources such as workbooks and the like. New advice this week from ESF is that accessing library books during the current suspension of classes is now not deemed ‘business critical’ and should be stopped. Rather, it is suggested that Schools make online book resources available for students to use.
As a result of this ESF directive, library resources will not be available during the resource collection times on Fridays. Parents are still able to come and collect other resources on Fridays between 8.00 am-10.00 am and 2.00 pm-3.00 pm.
Please note that we already provide access to online book resources through EPIC (English) and Mandarin Matrix and Dudu Town (Chinese)
Chris Hamilton
Principal
Diary Dates
Fridays in March Resource collection 8.00am – 10.00am & 2.00-3.00pm
Monday, April 20 Scheduled date for classes to resume in schools.
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Disclaimer
Clearwater Bay School (CWBS) reserves the right to accept or reject any advertisement submitted for CWBS publications and on its websites. However, CWBS does not attempt to investigate or verify advertisements appearing in CWBS´s publications and on its websites. The appearance of advertising in CWBS´s publications and on its websites in no way implies endorsement or approval by CWBS of any advertising claims or of the advertiser, its product, or services. CWBS disclaims any liability whatsoever in connection with advertising appearing in CWBS´s publications and on its websites.