Xin Nian Kuai Le

Chinese Market
On Tuesday, during Chinese classes,Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 attended a traditional Chinese New Year Market, which was held in the atrium. There were opportunities to win prizes, practise calligraphy and very importantly, sample some delicious food. Mr Millward and I very much enjoyed our  ice-cream spring rolls. 

Rolling the dice and adding the totals - trying to beat Sung Laoshi

Calligraphy with Liu Laoshi

Head and deputy hard at work...
enjoying ice-cream spring rolls

Thank you to Kao Laoshi and her team for organising this event and also the Chinese New Year Lion dance and performance by students. There will be a link to a video of the children performance in my next post.

Happy New Year of the Horse

Table Tennis/Whiff Whaff/Ping Pong Final

The lightning backhand drive, blocking, light topspin strokes, the forehand smash and lobs with sidespin were all in evidence in the amphitheater on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. 

Yes - I am talking about the nail-biting table tennis finals between Helena and Emily, and Joel and Chris.

The final was a result of the table tennis competition which has taken place at break times since the beginning of this term. 

88 children took part in the competition from all three school sections compared to 55 who played last year. Many thanks to Mr Harding who organised the competition and to the umpires namely, Mr Robinson, Mr Millward, Mr Fagg and Mr Stebbing and Mr Milner.

Congratulations to Helena (B6.1) who is the TES Girls’ Table Tennis Champion. She beat Emily (B6.2) 11-5, 11-7, 6-11, 7-11, 11-9 in a very tense and entertaining final in which both girls played tremendously well.  

 Congratulations to Chris (B5.3) who is the TES Boys’ Table Tennis Champion. He beat Joel (B6.1) 9-11, 12-10, 8-11, 11-7, 11-7 in a great final full of attacking play and resolute defense from both boys.

Reminders

Please note:

1. No ECAS this week or next week
2. Children will need to bring in money to spend at the Chinese New Year market tomorrow (Tuesday 28th January). If they would like to buy something from Da Ai Technology (not-for-profit company who make products from recycled plastic bottles) they will need to bring in an extra NT$ 250. For the games and food at the market we suggest $NT 100 -150 - coins only please.
3. We will be having a Chinese New Year dress-up day on Wednesday 29th January.    On this day the Junior School Tribe Council will be collecting money to support the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF).                                                         Students are invited to wear the colour red or traditional Chinese clothing and to give     $NT 50 or more towards TFCF. Thank you for your support. 
4. There will be no school from Thursday 30th January - Thursday 6th February
5. Thursday 6th February at 1:50pm in the amphitheatre - parent workshop to find out about our assessment procedures in BJ.

Chess

On Sunday, 12^th January, two children from TES took part in a Blitz chess competition at the Vida Chess Centre in Xindian.  Brendon from Year 3 played very well against some much older and more experienced opponents to finish 13^th out of the 21 participants.  Aidan from Year 6, the TES school chess champion for the last two years, also performed fantastically in his first ever Blitz competition and finished second overall.  I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Brendon and Aidan for representing TES so well and making the effort to participate in the competition.

If you would like your child to take part in a chess competition, there are regular events around Taipei. 

On Sunday 12^th January, a group of children from TES took part in a tag team chess competition at the Vida Chess Centre in Xindian.  In this chess format, children play with a partner and take alternate moves against another team.  An added difficulty is that children are not allowed to communicate with each other.  Altogether 16 teams took part, and despite the fact that the TES children were unused to this particular chess format, I am pleased to say that Aidan and David from Year 6 won the competition.  I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the following children for taking part and representing TES so well:

Year 3 – Jiri , Mick , Juan

Year 4 – Lawrence

Year 5 – Jose

Year 6 – Scott, Baltazar

Further details  with the dates of other chess activities taking place throughout the year, can be found here:

http://taipeichess.com/2014/01/21/we-will-hold-the-2014-first-monthly-chess-tournament-on-126-%e6%9c%88%e8%b3%bd%e5%a0%b1%e5%90%8d%e4%b8%ad/

Dear Parents,

I hope you found the report on your child's National Curriculum levels given to you during the parent/teacher meetings last week useful in helping you find out how well he/she is achieving and what the targets are for the rest of this academic year.

I will providing information about how we assess the students using the National Curriculum levels

at a parent workshop on Thursday 6th February at 1:50pm in the amphitheatre.

Further information about this will be available in a flyer being sent home next week.

School Photos Please note that if your child was absent for their individual photos there are some time slots available tomorrow afternoon. The class teachers have been informed so please write a note in your child's diary to ask the teacher if he/she can be sent to the amphitheatre. 

Typhoon Haiyan

TES is a wonderful community of people as seen in the amount of money raised for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. Last Friday we invited people from the Tzu Chi Foundation to accept a cheque totalling NT$486,872.

The Da Ai Technology Company (a not-for-profit arm of Tzu Chi) brought along some of their products which are made from recycled plastic bottles. Thank you to our Student Councillors who modelled the items for us. However despite the equally beautiful Miss Dalmanego and Miss Winfieldale, who modelled lovely coats, the show was stolen by TES' top models (as seen in the photos below). 

The term modelling is often used in educational circles in relation to teachers providing excellent examples to colleagues. Although these two members of the primary senior management team think they know how to strut their stuff on the catwalk their colleagues' advice is 

'Don't give up your day job!'

Ethan, Euan and Amber keeping out the cold.












Who thought clothes made from recycled plastic bottles could look this good!
(Miss Dalmanego and Miss Winfieldale)

Natalie,Jessica and Simran modelling hats and a scarf and perhaps thinking...

 'What do Mr Gamble and Mr Millward think they look like?'


Below; Modelling is a serious business! Clare, Christy, Bill and Druv

















Tomorrow I will be posting information about some of our talented chess players and there will also be some reminders about forthcoming events.

Curriculum Information for Years 3 - 6

What will my Child be learning this term?

Over the past weeks a lot of work has been put into updating the school website to provide information on the British Infant and British Junior Sections. The curriculum information has been updated to provide parents and visitors with information on subject areas, including topic areas being studied in each year group.

Information is regularly updated on the website with resources from parent workshops and events within the sections.

Please click the link to go to the website: Curriculum Units (click here for topic information) and Literacy and Maths (click here for the termly overviews)

Happy New Year 2014

Dear parents,
I do hope you had an enjoyable festive season and that the new year brings everything you wish for.

Parent/Teacher meetings

Next week we are holding our Parent/Teacher meetings so you will have an opportunity to discuss your child's latest academic report. At the meeting the teacher will be reporting your child's English National Curriculum levels of attainment in reading, writing and mathematics. Today your child took home a guide to what the levels mean so when you meet the teacher you will have a better understanding. The  teacher will let you know your child's current level of attainment and also their end of year target level.

I will be holding an information afternoon to explain more about the levels of attainment in the National Curriculum and how we assess children. It will be held on Thursday 6th February at 1:45pm in the amphitheatre.

Curriculum Information

The class blogs are a window into your child's learning on a weekly basis. Further information about the curriculum each class will be covering this term will soon be available on the website (on Thursday 16th January). The link will be shared with you on your child's class blog.

Maths Workshop

On Friday 14th February Mr Fagg will be leading a workshop for parents demonstrating the strategies we use to teach calculation. This workshop will be particularly useful to parents who are unfamiliar with the methods we teach children to use for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We will be covering the basic skills so if your child is already highly competent at calculation it may be more useful for you to come to another workshop  on maths investigations we are running later in the year. 

Events

School Photos: Please see the letter that was sent home on Wednesday 8th January. Family photos (brothers and sisters who attend the EPC) will be taken at your request and older siblings can collect younger siblings from the Infant section. Please note if you have a child in Nursery then we are asking parents to collect him/her. 

Chinese New Year Market: To celebrate this important festival we hold a market place for all children in the junior section. Children will have an opportunity to play traditional games and be able to buy some traditional foods eaten at this time of the year. Children will need to bring in some money on this day. There will be further information from the CLC team closer to the date. They will also be treated to a traditional lion dance on Wednesday 29th January. On this day we ask all the children to wear either red or a Chinese costume. 

Chinese New Year holiday: There will be no school from Thursday 30th January to Wednesday 5th February.

Academic Calendar 2014 -15: Quite a few parents have asked about  term dates for next year. if you click on the following link it will take you to the TES academic calendar.   http://www.taipeieuropeanschool.com/calendarY.php

Have a nice weekend.

Kind regards

Adele Corry