From The Head Teacher

Visual Arts Exhibition

This week we have enjoyed a fabulous opening night for our Visual Arts Exhibition.  If you get a chance to visit, the exhibition is now open to the public.  Details are on our Facebook page and have been highlighted in AsiaLife in print and on their website here:

http://www.asialifemagazine.com/vietnam/bis-art-exhibition-at-cargo-bar/

and

http://www.asialifemagazine.com/vietnam/british-international-school-exhibition-at-cargo/

 

KS3 Showcase

This week we also enjoyed an evening of KS3 drama at our annual KS3 Showcase.  This is an event where we gain an inside view on the work that our students undertake in drama lessons in years 7, 8 and 9.  My thanks go to our drama teachers, Mr. Sargent, Mrs. Astley and Ms. Sinker for putting on such a wonderful opportunity for students and parents.

 

Graduation 2013

Last Saturday our graduating year 13 students were honoured at a daytime ceremony at the Park  Hyatt Hotel, followed by an evening dinner.  The formal part of the day included a poignant speech from Mr. Maurice Nguyen on the founding of BIS and the importance of the day for his daughter,  Jenny, for whom the school was originally conceived and founded.  The Head Students presented  mementoes to our outgoing Head Students and our outgoing Head Girl, Annette Wu, and Head Boy, Nicholas Yap spoke fondly of their time at BIS.  Nick and Annette received a standing ovation from their peers, who were clearly touched, judging by the tears in many eyes. Extracts from their   speeches will be in this year’s Yearbook, alongside photographs of the event.

 

Richard Dyer

Head Teacher

Secondary

 

Sport News

BIS was very proud to welcome the famous Scottish football manager, Alex McLeish into school this week.

On Wednesday this week, BIS was very proud to welcome the famous Scottish football manager, Alex McLeish into school. Alex has managed several high profile UK football clubs including Rangers (Scotland), Birmingham City and Aston Villa. He also managed the Scottish national team.

 

On his visit to BIS, Alex took some very successful coaching sessions with groups of male and female squad players from across the three BIS campuses.

We would like to personally thank Alex for giving up his time and coming to work with our up and coming football players of the future. I am sure that they all learned a great deal from his experience in coaching at the very highest level.

Congratulation to all the AP2 BIS BLUES Swimmers!

BIS HCMC came 1^st overall in the ISHCMC Invitational Swimming Gala last Saturday. Well done to all swimmers who have trained throughout the year and achieved much success.

 

From The Head Teacher

Not winding down

With our Year 13 students celebrating the end of their IB Diploma Programme examinations and looking forward to their graduation celebrations tomorrow, we may be forgiven for thinking that the school year is drawing to a close. Nothing could be further from the truth (as the Year 11 IGCSE candidates know full well!).

With five weeks left of term, we can look forward to the opening of our IB Visual Arts Exhibition next Tuesday, the KS3 Drama Showcase on Wednesday, closely followed in subsequent weeks by the Aquathlon, Y6 Parents Transition Day and the Year 11 Prom.  Internal examinations feature for all year groups and students should already be working towards these.  Innovation Day and the end of year Prize Giving round off the last week.

CIE Inspection

This week we were visited by an inspector from Cambridge International Education.  The unannounced inspection, which lasted through to the end of the day’s examination session, checked that we were running IGCSE examinations in accordance with regulations.  Needless to say, we met all criteria and the inspector commented that this was one of the best run examination centres she had seen.  Many thanks to Mr. Ian Wilson, Examinations Officer, for making this happen.

Learning Technologies Presentation

On Thursday evening, Mr. Ben Turner gave a presentation to parents on the developments in learning technologies at AP2 and answered questions about the “Bring Your Own Device” laptop programme that extends to all secondary year groups from August.  If you missed the presentation, a summary of the key points was included in the Learning Technologies letter last week.  If you have any questions about the Bring Your Own Device” laptop programme , do not hesitate to call or write in to:

benjaminturner@bisvietnam.com

Website of the Week

A fascinating collection of articles on the science of memory. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/series/maximising-your-memory

 

 

Richard Dyer

Head Teacher

Secondary

 

Junior Saigon Mathematics Competition

On Saturday morning, nine students (Seo Rin Kang, Natania Peh, Emily Widjaja, Carl Chua, Seo Young Jung, Ji Soo Chung, Daniel Kim, Jun Won Hwang and Than Tran) were very excited about the morning’s competition. Things were very tense between the teams because everyone knew it was going to be a very tough competition. Competition began with an individual round, where challenging questions were thrown at us in an exam style written round. We then progressed through a Pass-it-Back round, where we relied on each other’s answers to answer our questions. After that we had a nice 20 minute break where we compared answers. The competition ended when the team round and the relay rounds finished.

The relay rounds were probably the most exciting of all the rounds. This was because all of the BIS teams held good positions up to that point and the championship depended on the final rounds.  BIS 1 were 1^st, BIS 2 were 3^rd, and BIS 3 were 5^th.  We were all nervous as we started the round-we had a very good chance to have all teams place 1^st 2^nd or 3^rd overall. The announcer explained us the rules and 3…2…1… we began. As we started, Team 2 decided to skip the first few questions. We were now even more scared, how much harder would the next questions be?

In the end, all teams waited anxiously for the results, and we were not disappointed. Team 1 came first overall and were placed 1^st , 2^nd or 3^rd in all the events. Team 2 came 1^st , 2^nd or 3^rd in all events except the individual rounds, and 3^rd overall. In the end, we did well and BIS won the overall competition. Special commendation goes to Thanh Tran and Seo Rin Kang who won 3^rd and 1^st respectively.

 

By Thanh Tran, Jun Won Hwang and Carl Chua

 

Dance Display

On Wednesday 15^th May BIS hosted the HCMC Dance Show. Many schools across the city took part including: RISS, CIS, ISHCMC, SSIS, TX, AP1 and AP2. The standard of performance was really high, showing great choreography and creativity. The range of styles included hip hop, street dance, jazz, ballet contemporary, cultural and others. The students had obviously been working extremely hard on their performance pieces in preparation for this display. Well done to all those who took part! Keep dancing and come back next year!

 

Phil Drake

Director of Sports/Head of Physical Education

 

U14 Volleyball Championships 14th May

Congratualtions to the boys who finished 2^nd in their end of season volleyball Championship. The girls team finished 3^rd.

 

Helmets for Kids – Whole School Community Service Project

On Wednesday the 15^th, projects involving students of Year 2 TX, Year 6 AP1, Year 9 AP2 and Parent Teacher Groups of the British International School, Year 1 of Tran Khanh Du School, District 1, and My Thuy School, Cat Lai were represented in the much anticipated Helmet Handover Ceremony. The issue of road safety, especially involving motorbike accidents, was confronted. BIS parents and students from Year  2, 6 and 9 have led numerous awareness campaigns within our local and school community with subsequent funding operations to promote the use of helmets at My Thuy School and to purchase helmets for the entire Year 1 students of Tran Khanh Du, School.

Not only was this an enjoyable experience for all involved but it greatly inspired us to toil further to put an end to meaningless deaths caused by a lack of sufficient road education.

Deeva Gupta 9V

 

Go Vap Pagoda Visit last Saturday

When I first entered the pagoda, my emotions were mixed. I didn't know whether to feel happy, angry or sad. The pagoda was beautiful and colourful. As we walked towards the rooms, I was nervous. I didn't know what to expect. We passed various rooms, including infant rooms. I started to feel sorry for the less privileged children. As we entered the main room, my worries disappeared. All these children were just like us. I made a move towards the painting table. I sat down next to a little girl who was painting. I decided to help her, so I took some paint and joined in. The result was great, and we both had created a unique painting. I felt so happy with myself, so I decided to help others. After the session, all of us were covered in paint. We then made a move towards the parachute games. I could tell the children were having fun because they were laughing and playing. I was so pleased to have signed up to play with the children. They were having so much fun. Afterwards, we went into the dining area to feed the children. We had a lot of fun together. Lastly, I wandered off to the infant room. There was a baby lying on a bean bag, so I decided to pick him up. I overcame my nervousness. Visiting the pagoda made me feel grateful for all the things I had and that I could help others. We had to leave then, I felt proud of us all. Thank you to all the teachers who made this day possible. I will always have good memories of Go Vap orphanage and hope to visit again.

 

Nadya Qamar Year 8

 

Battery recycling

Batteries that are thrown into the bin end up in land fill. They can end up polluting water streams, lakes, and soil since over a period of time they start to leak heavy metals (such as lead or mercury) and corrosive acids.

 

The recycling of materials contained in old batteries also creates valuable resources that are re-used in various industries.

 

So do not bin your old battery, recycle it at your friendly local Greenr battery recycling point!

 

From The Head Teacher

Learning Technologies—Laptops for Learning at AP2

This week you will have received a letter and a newsletter outlining the next phase of developments in Learning Technologies.  Do take time to read this carefully as it outlines some requirements for students to bring their own laptop computer or netbook to lessons from the start of term in August 2013.  We are fortunate to have the network and Wi-Fi infrastructure to support all students using their own device at AP2.  This is no small achievement as few commercial companies provide the capacity for that number of simultaneous Wi-Fi users.  Alongside the developments in hardware come further developments in educating the students to be effective, responsible and safe users of technology, in school and at home.  We very much hope to get parents more closely involved in the coming academic year, with workshops planned where you can interact with teachers and our prefects.

 

UK University Fees Evening

On Wednesday this week, AP2 ran an evening of information on university fees in England.  With guest speaker, John Broadbent, Regional Director for the Independent Schools Careers Organisation, parents and students were guided through the differences in fees for British nationals, international students and those with and without home status.  Other facts were clarified.  For example, although universities have some freedom to grant or refuse British nationals living overseas home status for fees according to guidelines, true international students cannot gain any advantage in fees or admission though attending boarding schools in England.  For further information please contact Mr. Aidan Crowley, our Careers and University Guidance Counsellor: aidancrowley@bisvietnam.com

 

Guidance for international students considering applying to UK universities is very well set out on the UKCISA website here:  http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/

 

 

Examinations

Websites on revision and examinations

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/teacher-blog/2013/may/07/how-to-teach-revision

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22311466#

http://www.mumsnet.com/education/exam-survival-tips

 

Richard Dyer

Head Teacher

Secondary