Click to download the 2022-23 Hillside Calendar. You can also access the school calendar via the ESF App.

23 August: First Day of School (All K2s)

23 August - 2 September: K1 Induction Period

Dear Parents 

It was wonderful to welcome the K2 children back today and greet some K1 children for the first time. This is the first issue of our weekly newsletter; please take some time to read through the information.

Firstly, apologies for the tech glitch with the ESF App today. It is back online and fully operational now. It is our main channel of communication. We would generally send the newsletter and other school-wide messages via the ESF App. Please continue to check it daily.

Our staff were busy last week and completed several professional development sessions 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 "Meet the Teacher" and "Principal's Welcome" zooms were beneficial and clarified some of your questions. 

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

We hope to work in partnership with our parent community to support 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"!

Warm regards
Audrey
 

Hong Kong expects typhoon "Ma-on" to reach the city by Thursday. Therefore, we want to direct our parents to the Hillside Parent Handbook (pg. 22-23) for weather and distance learning arrangements. In case of class suspension due to inclement weather, we will inform parents via the ESF App messaging system as soon as we have confirmation from the Education Bureau. 

We will do our best to offer distance learning on any occasion in which face-to-face learning is disrupted. However, in the case of an unforeseen situation or short notice, please allow our teachers some preparation time to settle their own families and to convert their face-to-face lesson plans into distance learning format. Teachers will communicate directly and inform you of the distance learning plans. Please note that this might not be within a regular timetable structure and can be synchronous or asynchronous. It is also important to note that this is optional, depending on your home situation.

Due to the knock-on effect of the K1 orientation groups, we will not be changing the original schedule. However, please note that there is flexibility with the arrangements, as I've mentioned in the Parent Webinar. It all depends on how the child settles as some children will need more support and request their parents to attend another day, while others will happily settle independently after the first day. This is something to observe and discuss with the class teacher after today or tomorrow's first session. 

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. 

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

• For each school day, we ask all families to confirm their child's negative RAT results (or exemption) and their child's temperature via the ESF App an hour before each session starts, as we must submit the RAT figures to the Centre of Health Protection each day. 

• ESF will provide Centre for Health Protection (CHP) approved RAT kits to children via the children's school bags each week.

• If your child is unwell or if any member of your household has Covid-19 symptoms, we ask that you keep them home. 

• The CHP recommended that surgical face masks are required on school premises. Please prepare spare masks as children might easily misplace them. 

• Snacktime: Snacks will be optional. If you feel snacking is unnecessary for your child, there is no need to pack a snack. Baby yoghurt drinks might be an alternative option instead of a full snack. There is a designated snack area for those needed, with dividers set up, under the supervision and assistance of school staff. 

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

• All parents (and visitors) are required to use the LeaveHomeSafe app when entering the school premises. Only parents and careers (with a blue code) are permitted onto campus for drop off or pick up. Please note we're not yet ready to permit general parent/ careers access inside the classrooms. (Exemption for K1 small group orientation).

• Unwell Children: Please cooperate with the school by picking up children who are not feeling well from school and consulting the doctor immediately. Please refer to our medical guidelines on our website for more details.

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, 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.

ESF Sports & Language offers a variety of language and sports programmes for your children to get involved in after-school enrichment activities. Children can either dive deeper into a particular topic with our specialised courses or dip their toes into something new. 

For little linguaphiles, apart from the English programme, courses such as Phonics and Drama are provided for specific skills development. 

Up to 14 kinds of sports are available for your budding athletes to choose from; children will be able to learn fundamental sports skills and get physically fit through our well-structured and fun-based classes. All programmes are taught in English with a low student-teacher ratio, your children will learn valuable life skills while having fun.

Website: [Web Link]
Hotline: 2711 1280
Email: info@esf.org.hk

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