Panaga School Biweekly
156 6th September 2024
Dear Parents,
It has been a wonderfully positive and busy start to the new school year. I hope you enjoy reading the first edition of the school's Bi-Weekly; you may be able to recognise a few familiar faces of some of our youngest students!
Thank you for attending the variety of meetings over the past couple of weeks including: the New Parents Meeting, the Parent Information Meeting on ASAs (these will begin next week) and of course, the Meet the Teacher Meetings this past week. I hope you have found them useful; we certainly have, especially with the valuable feedback you have been providing.
Wellbeing will be our focus for next week, with a variety of exciting activities planned throughout the week; Mindful Monday; Chooseday; Work it Out Wednesday; Thoughtful Thursday and Friyay Feelings. As part of the week, we will be running a Parent Information Meeting nextThursday 12th September at 10:00 am. Please do let us know if you will be joining us, by emailing Ms. Yin on: meeyinkoo@panagaschool.net by next Monday 9th September. If you would like any questions/areas addressed during the presentation, please also let Ms. Yin know. Once we have details of numbers next week, we will inform you of the precise location.
Following our Fire Drill in Week 1, next Wednesday 11th September, we will be conducting a Lockdown Drill. The purpose of this drill is to keep the students safe from any danger outside or inside the school campus. Lockdown drills can be a little worrying, especially for younger students. Before the drill, teachers will talk to their classes. When speaking to the children about lockdown drills, teachers will talk in general terms, stating that "just like we practice fire drills and have to leave the building, we also need to practice for emergencies that will keep us in the building". Talking about the drill with your children at home may also help alleviate unnecessary anxiety. We ask that you maintain our approach to avoid creating more anxiety among the children. Please remember that these emergency and lockdown practice drills are undertaken to help maintain our school as a safe place to learn and work. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.
Unfortunately we have seen a number of cases of gastroenteritis illnesses (stomach bugs) and chickenpox in our student population. Be assured we are taking proactive measures at school. Please support us in limiting the spread of these illnesses by keeping your child at home if they are showing any signs of illness. Our Head Nurse, Ms. Marie will be in touch with more detailed information and advice.
Thank you so much to all of our parents that have volunteered to be Class Reps for the new school year. We will be in touch next week to confirm the date where we will meet with the rest of the SLT to go over our collective roles and responsibilities. Our PTA AGM will take place on Thursday 3rd October and we are looking for new committee members. Please have a look at our PTA pages on the website to find out about the amazing job our PTAdoes for the school. If you are interested in contributing, please do drop me a line on: brianplatts@panagaschool.net.
As I communicated earlier in the week, we are now an associate member of FOBISIA (Federation of British International Schools inAsia). Students are already getting involved in FOBISIAevents such as codebreaking, short stories and art, while staff are also signing up for professional development courses. I am sure that during the course of the year, you will see how transformational this membership will be for our community.
Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing many of you next week.
Best Regards, Brian, SLTand all of our staff
