10 Feb: Last school day before CNY

11-19 Feb: Chinese New Year Break

16-17 Mar: School Photo (TBC)

28 May: ESF Wide Transition Day

Dear Parents

Thank you for the feedback in the most recent parent survey. Please refer to the summary graph below for the results. We noticed a few common themes from the survey feedback require some clarification.

My child has received useful feedback. My child has made progress in their learning and has found the learning appropriately challenging.

The survey results were very close, with 57% Agree/ Strong Agree, and 43% Disagree or Disagree. We all agree that online learning is not the same as face to face learning, especially in early years education. Teachers are regularly assessing learning and actively differentiate the children's learning. To ensure we maximise the distance learning opportunities, we ask parents to reach out to your child's teacher if you feel your child is not sufficiently challenged or struggling with the learning. There is no need to wait for an official parent-teacher conference or parent surveys to seek or provide feedback. It is crucial to build home-school partnerships to support your child and make adjustments to the learning, where appropriate.

The balance of online live zooms and offline asynchronous learning.

Your feedback highlights the complexity of the current situation for families. Previously a high number of parents (particularly K1s) requested more live zooms; however, in this recent survey, many parents have expressed concerns around the long zoom sessions and asked to limit the sessions to 30 minutes. We will be mindful of the length of our zoom sessions and ensure to include plenty of brain breaks, but please note that some the sessions are also optional if you feel that your child would benefit from a more extended screen break.

ESF and EDB liaison

ESF directors have been continuously engaging with the Education Bureau (EDB) officials to establish how we might respond to increasing needs across our community for family and parental support. The ongoing negotiation has finally come to fruition. I am pleased to inform you that we are now able to offer optional child care support for families and students in need. For clarity, our optional child care offer is not to provide learning on campus and is not a resumption of classes at our school. Please refer to the App message sent on Saturday afternoon for full details and or complete THIS SURVEY if you have not already done so.

K2 Transition to Y1

All families who have applied to an ESF primary school should have received your Y1 offer letters. We are now at the beginning stages of planning for the transition. We appreciate that transition, especially from K2 to Y1, is a big concern for many families. We have been thinking about transition into the next year level and how we might need to support the families differently compared to previous years.

We have been collaborating with our feeder schools and working with our primary colleagues. For example, we are looking at virtual school tours, round-robin collaboration meetings between year group teachers to plan together, parent orientation, children orientation… etc. Most of these events will take place in Term 3, after Easter.

As a foundation offering a through-train experience, all ESF teachers use the same Scope and Sequence as guiding documents to plan not only age-appropriate but level-appropriate learning for children. All teachers between different year groups are very sensitive to the current situation and will be meeting each child's needs as to where they are developmentally instead of blindly teaching the curriculum. On this note, please pencil in Friday, 28 May, as the ESF-wide Transition Day.

Thank you for your continued support and ongoing feedback. The senior leadership have been getting into virtual classrooms. We continue to be impressed with the staff's energy and professionalism as they commit to making the most of the distance learning and ensuring, with your support, that this remains a success.

Kind regards

Audrey
Head of School