H ead of Primary Message

Head of Primary Message

Having completed my first full year, I really do feel connected to this special community. AISHK is a wonderful place for students and their families and I feel absolutely privileged to be a part of this school. What I have loved most about AISHK is our focus on student wellbeing as this continues to be a strength of the School. The employment of a Director of Wellbeing, Kiely Murphy, for the first time has helped our strategic approach to student wellbeing and ensuring continuity of this from Primary into Secondary. This year, we have introduced many new initiatives including joining schools across Australia in recognising the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence (NDA) – Bullying. No Way! 2019 saw the introduction of STAR Cards to staff and students from Reception to Year 12. The purpose of STAR Cards is to encourage all members of the AISHK community to openly express gratitude toward each other through our school values, by exchanging cards. Mental Health Awareness month took place in October and the school re-established the much-loved Jump Jam and Peer Support from Prep to Year 6. The most important benefit of our focus on wellbeing is ensuring that we do all we can to help students feel connected, safe and comfortable at AISHK. Research shows that this sense of belonging improves academic learning. This year, we have also continued to strengthen our alignment to the Australian Curriculum. We introduced Health lessons which are co-taught by the classroom and the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) teacher. We have aligned Library lessons to the class programme around Geography and Information Literacy, providing students with enhanced connections across subjects. Mr Brendan Kean

Head of Primary Sequence documents beginning with History and Geography in the second half of this year. This work ensures that students are receiving similar learning experiences to students in Australia. We have also focussed on the how we teach with Professional Learning sessions dedicated to inquiry learning.

One of the many benefits of an education in Hong Kong is the focus on Chinese language learning. To enhance the programme this year, we invited a group of volunteer parents to meet early in the year to discuss and welcome their perspectives on ways to enrich our Chinese programme.

As a result, this group of parents have helped purchase new books for the Library and have been reading Chinese books to students during Chinese Story Time on Friday afternoons. The new books and Story Time have been a great success for students and we are aiming to continue these initiatives in 2020.

2019 was a year of great professional growth. Primary staff worked closely with Philippa Miller from AISNSW exploring problem solving within Mathematics. We also spent time unpacking our History, Geography and Science curriculum with Sue Pike from The Association of Independent Schools of NSW (AISNSW).

We focused on ensuring that students were exploring real life scenarios aligned with these three curriculum areas whilst maintaining the integrity of each specific discipline. Brian Parker, one of the creators of SHARP reading spent three days with Primary staff, refining our practices and ensuring that our students are taught the most effective strategies for both decoding and comprehending when reading.

Our Middle Leaders and School Executive were involved in several days of professional learning with a focus on coaching. This was invaluable in continuing to create an environment where incremental growth occurs.

Another area of focus for 2019 was the Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Our PLCs involved staff groupings across the entire school focusing on areas highlighted in the OECD guidelines for effective schools. This led to greater levels of collaboration, higher levels of lateral thinking as well as significant exploration of current practices with a focus of adding value for the future.

As educators, we are truly fortunate to have a school environment which encourages and supports collective growth.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our departing teachers, which include Carl Ohlson who has worked with AISHK for 20 years, Matthew Price who has worked with us for four years, Sue Blumenthal who has been with us for two years, and Rachel Austin and Rose Millington who have worked with us for two terms and one term respectively. These teachers have provided wonderful, dedicated service to the students and families of AISHK and we wish them all the very best in the future. They will be missed by the whole school community.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the dynamic learning environment of Primary at AISHK in 2019.

We look forward to building on this success for another great year in 2020.