Click to download the 2023-24 Hillside Calendar. You can also access the school calendar via the ESF App.

27 September: Parent Participation at Hillside

29 September: Mid-Autumn's Festival Dress Casual Day

9-13 October: K1 Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTCs)

16-20 October: K2 Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTCs)

23-27 October: Mid-term Break (No School)

30 October: ESF-wide CPD (No School)

Dear Hillside Families

As you may already know, the ESF shared vision strives for "every child to be the best that they can be," fostering a nurturing environment where children are safe, kind, happy, engaged, and eager to learn.

As we embark on a new school year, it is essential for us, as a staff, to reflect on our school priorities and take into account the valuable input received from stakeholders during the previous year. With this in mind, I would like to share our priorities for this academic year:

1. Learning & Teaching: Emphasizing the enhancement of play and inquiry facilitation, learner agency, and PYP advancements.
2. Community Building: Strengthening our ties with home-school partnerships, fostering staff development, and establishing connections with feeder schools.
3. Wellbeing: Placing a significant focus on promoting diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI). This overarching theme of wellbeing will guide our efforts throughout the year.

Many of these themes are carried over from the previous year as we work to rebuild our learning community following the challenges posed by the pandemic. It is worth noting that we all had to undergo daily COVID tests this time last year! We are very excited to anticipate more opportunities to engage with our families and enrich our children's learning experiences.

Thank you for your ongoing support, and we look forward to a successful and fulfilling school year ahead.

Warm regards
Audrey

At Hillside, we have a commitment to partnership with our parents. Building a strong home-school partnership is always one of our school priorities.

As mentioned in the recent parent session, we would like to call out for two class parent volunteers to assist in building a family-school partnership. The Hillside Senior Leadership Team will support the Class Parents to coordinate and facilitate various activities.

The Class Parent's Role:

• They enhance communication between the class teacher and parents. 
• They actively promote a sense of community amongst parents. 
• They provide an important link for new parents with the school community.

If you are interested in becoming a Class Parent, please read this Hillside Class Parent Guideline and complete this Google form to express your interest.

Thank you to parents and carers who joined us earlier today to learn more about how you can get involved in your child's learning in-person at school. Here are the slides and webinar recording. 

The following events are now available for sign-up:

• K2 Storyteller 
• K1 Term 1 Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTCs)
• K2 Term 1 PTCs

Please look out for a separate app message with further information specific to your class and to sign up. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us on 2540-0066.

K1 parents, we want to give the children a bit more time to settle before inviting in parent volunteers after the October term break. Thank you for your understanding!

Recording: Intro to PYP

Thank you to parents and carers who joined us for the webinar last week to further understand learning within the PYP framework in the early years. We hope it was a helpful introduction to the Primary Years Programme (PYP). Here are the slides and webinar recording. We value your thoughts and feedback, and would greatly appreciate you giving some time to fill out this survey. Your input will help us to plan future parent sessions. Many thanks! 

This week and continuing into next week, your child will be learning all about the Mid-Autumn's Festival during their Chinese day through stories and various learning engagements. To share the festivities and fun with the whole school community, we have planned a Dress Casual Day on Friday, 29 September. 

Instead of their regular school uniform, we invite children to wear bright and colourful clothes, as well as the option to bring their own lanterns to school. Some children might have made their own paper lanterns at school earlier in the week, and they're most welcome to showcase these! If your child brings a store-bought lantern, please ensure it is child-friendly, safe, and easy to handle. We kindly request parents and carers to label their child's lantern with their name and class to avoid any confusion. We look forward to our first Dress Casual day of the year!

As parents, we love to hear what our children are doing in school. However, when adults ask children, "What did you do today at school?" it can be a surprisingly overwhelming question, as they do so much at school. They learn all sorts of things and play in so many different areas of the school. Your child might end up saying "Nothing" - though, of course, we know that is not true at all! To encourage your child to share their school life with you, parents can model what a sharing conversation sounds like. For example, "When mommy went to work today, I had a meeting. Lots of adults and I sat around this huge table, and we shared our ideas. Afterwards, it was lunch! What about you?" Another strategy is asking more specific questions to prompt the child's remembering of experiences. 

Below are some suggestions! You might need to tweak some of the vocabulary to suit younger children, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Parent Handbook
Inclement Weather Arrangements
School Uniform