Click to download the 2021-22 Hillside Calendar. You can also access the school calendar via the ESF App.

23 August: ESF Kindergarten Parent Webinar - Transfer Application for K2 to Y1

25 August: ESF Kindergarten Parent Webinar - Transfer Application for K2 to Y1

22 September: Public Holiday (Mid-Autumn Festival)

1 October: Public Holiday (National Day)

11 – 15 October:  Mid Term Break

Dear Parents

It was wonderful to welcome the K2 children back today, and also greet some of the K1 children for the first time. This is our first issue of our weekly newsletter; we will release it every Monday afternoon from next week onwards, so please take some time to read through the information.

Our staff have been busy last week and completed a number of professional development over the week, so there won't be any further impact on the children's school days for the remainder of the school year. 

I know the K2 children had an opportunity to contribute to designing their classrooms during their welcome Zooms, and the K1 children were able to see and meet everyone online (without face masks) before coming to school in person.

We hope the initial 1:1 parent-teacher meetings and parent welcome zooms were beneficial and clarified some of your questions. We decided to incorporate these positive elements into our new start of year schedule based on the feedback from last year, but will also reflect on the arrangements from this year.

We hope to work in partnership with our parent community in supporting our children's learning. It is now, more than ever, that we need to come together and build strong home-school partnerships. As the saying goes "it takes a village to raise a child”!

Kind regards
Audrey and the Hillside Team

We are grateful to be able to resume school in person, but we must stay vigilant to ensure the health and safety of our community, and we will continue our efforts to adapt to the rigorous procedures required of everyone to stay safe, and in good health. Over 80% of Hillside staff are vaccinated and unvaccinated staff will be tested regularly until they are vaccinated as mandated by the EDB. 

To safeguard everyone, parents are kindly reminded of the following measures:

• As recommended by the Centre of Health Protection (CHP), surgical face masks are required on school premises. Please prepare spare masks as children might easily misplace them. 

• Restricted parent/ visitor access into the main building and classrooms (with the exception of new families during the induction period)

• Do not send children to school if they have a fever and/or respiratory illness symptoms. (For the normal body temperature range, please refer to the guidelines pertaining to the means for measuring body temperature HERE.)

• Keep sick children at home until symptoms have improved and the fever has subsided. Then, take rest for at least 2 more days before returning to school.

• Cooperate with schools by picking up children not feeling well from school and consulting the doctor immediately. Please refer to our medical guidelines on our website for more details.

Reminders:

• Health & Safety 1, 2, 3s: 1) Face masks on at all times; 2) Handwashing between class transitions; 3) Avoid overcrowding at learning stations.

• Please ensure your child has a proper breakfast or lunch before coming to school to minimise the need for a snack. Hence, snack time will be optional, mainly for those children who travel long distances to and from kindergarten. This will take place in one designated area, with dividers set up, on each floor, under the supervision and assistance of school staff. 

• Similarly, water breaks throughout will be under the supervision and assistance of school staff.

• Please ensure to inform us as soon as possible of any absences*. This can be done via the ESF app, please see below.

• If you drive your children to school, please be reminded not to park in front of the Hillside or Bradbury exit gates. Please keep in mind of parking etiquette and that we are in a school zone. Be swift and no unnecessary honking. Parking is always going to be problematic given our location and limitations on Stubbs Road, and we thank you in advance for your cooperation with this request.

Continuous Disinfection Provision

Hillside Kindergarten and Bradbury School are committed to the health and safety of our students and staff members.  While we strictly adhere to the CHP’s ‘Guidelines on Prevention of Communicable Diseases in Schools’, we are collaborating our efforts together to proactively further enhance hygiene standards. We have installed machines to perform a disinfection cycle before and after every session. We hope this will reassure our community that our campuses provide a sanitised environment to better protect everyone amidst the pandemic. 

To further explain, this system contains activating agents which can safely kill 99.99% of pathogenic sources by atomization. This includes coronaviruses, as well as the bacteria and viruses in the air and on the surface of all objects. In essence, this will disinfect all toys, objects, books and surfaces in the space for up to 8 hours, but we will be conducting this deep clean and disinfection before and after every session.