tintuc@unishanoi.org UNIS Hanoi’s Weekly Community Newsletter
Volume 20, Edition 37, Thursday 12June
NEXT WEEK…
COMING SOON
SUMMER HOLIDAY: 13 JUNE - 12 AUGUST
TUESDAY, 12 AUGUST NEW FAMILY ORIENTATION DAY WEDNESDAY, 13 AUGUST FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
House Points 2013 - 2014 Eagles
Buffaloes
Lions
Tigers
650
515
640
635
CONGRATULATIONS to all the students for their sportsmanship, participation and effort in this year's House Competition. You're ALL winners!
IN THIS WEEK’S TIN TUC - The Highlights... Notes from the Head of School (p.2) Notes from the Board of Directors (p.4) Calendar Announcement (p.4)
Update on Mandarin at UNIS Hanoi (p.7) Notes from the School Health Centre (p.7) Volunteer for Orientation Day! (p.8)
Notes from the ES Principal (p.5) K1-K2 Home Language Celebration (p.5) Yearbook Cover Design Contest (p.6)
House Animal Designs (p.8) MS Awards Ceremony (p.9) Grade 8 Promotion (p.9)
As the 2013-2014 school year comes to a close, I wanted to send a final message out to all parents. This has been another outstanding year filled with numerous learning experiences for all of us in the UNIS Hanoi community. I would like to take this opportunity to extend to everyone my sincere appreciation for all of your help and support on behalf of our students. To the families who are leaving our school, I send to you my best wishes for a successful transition to the new school and location. Change is never easy or straightforward but we hope we have prepared you well so that you will land safely in your next location and have a successful transition to the new school and community. And remember that you will always be considered a part of UNIS Hanoi and are welcome to come back and visit anytime. All of you including students and parents are now officially alumni and will be included in future communication from our Advancement Office. For those returning for next year, I hope you have a wonderful vacation and I look forward to seeing you on the first day of school on Wednesday, 13 August 2014. Here are a few projects that will be completed upon your return: Acoustic Treatment in Sports Centre. We hope to make
significant improvements to the sound quality not only for our major functions held there such as UN Day and Grade 12 Graduation but also to enhance the learning environment for our PE classes Improved drainage on the large oval sports field. A
pumping system will be installed to remove standing water more rapidly and efficiently in order to avoid damage to the field and have the fields ready for use more quickly. Canteen – In addition to replacement of the kitchen floor
in order to enhance function and hygiene, we are working closely with our contractor to provide a healthier and more varied menu of choices. I would like to thank Mr. Hubbard and the Health, Nutrition and Wellness Advisory Task Force for their efforts in helping us to provide more nutritious options for our students. We remain committed to this goal and look forward to seeing results in this area next year. Replace furniture in some classrooms as we continue our
efforts to upgrade and standardize our learning spaces throughout the school. Some of the rooms in the MS/ HS will be “acousticized” for better sound quality by
reducing the noise traveling between classrooms. Reorganization in Centre for the Arts with classrooms
and offices being relocated to make room for new programs such as film in the High School, provide more efficient use of rooms, add more music practice space, and install high quality shelving for more efficient storage. Swimming Pool area – New starting blocks will be
installed and touch pads on order thanks to a generous donation from our SCO. Depending on the importation of materials and structural that may present some challenges to overcome, our hope is to have this completed in order to begin classes early in the new school year. ECC courtyard – There will be repair, service, cleaning,
repainting in this area. Additionally we hope to fit out an additional play area behind the Discovery classrooms for our youngest students. Basketball surfaces refurbished: Small court in front of the Operation building to be
cleaned and touched up. Covered Court will be repaired, touched up, and restriped to meet APAC and MRISA standards. Uncovered Court will be repaired, touched up, and re-striped to meet APAC and MRISA standards. The long awaited enhancements to the ES playground will commence which will include not only the existing playground area but will incorporate the ES basketball court. Because of design and materials importation issues, we will begin this work over the summer but we do NOT anticipate that this will be completed until January 2015 at the latest. There will also be the usual “clean and polish” activities so that we can begin next year with the buildings and grounds looking and feeling fresh. As for programme enhancements, as promised we have described our plans for next year regarding the implementation of a Mandarin programme. This is described in another part of this Tin Tuc (see page 7). Finally, I want to once again thank our faculty and staff for a job well done this year. Our facilities are wonderful and our school is well-resourced, but at the end of the day, it is our personnel who work so hard to deliver the programme. My heartfelt appreciation goes out to them on a job well-done. Respectfully, Dr. Chip Barder, hos@unishanoi.org
Best wishes to our students who are leaving UNIS Hanoi
ᝇt! i b Tấm Kindergarten 1
Grade 3
Grade 6
Grade 9
Hugh Cassell (Murphy) Emma Diep Aubrey Slaughter Zhao Yu Tan
Kian Brummitt Jeong Hyun Moon (John) Moe Kojima Anna Savila Mavis Johnston Katherine Chin Sonny Smith Xin Hao Tan Tony Borchert Santiago Asturizaga Frida Solmer Min-Kyung Cho (Sally)
Gulliver Edgecombe-Walker (Gully) Andreas Jorgensen Peter Haug Liam Hollis Inuri Nanayakkara Ju Yeon Kim Sparsh Goyal Jacquelyn Miller (Coco) Dat Anh Doan
Tasha Lucas Kipling Edgecombe-Walker (Kip) Sang Mok Lee Laura Jorgensen Alifia Sziraczki Seung Ju Sohn (Justin) Trine Marielle Wik (Marielle) Elizabeth Phan (Lulu)
Kindergarten 2 Suriya Forster Yi Ryung Kwon Fadela Selmi Miya Nock Elizabeth Nguyen Sean Choi Arnau Rivas-Lorente Elin Oosterom Luna Solmer Evelyn Diep Evie Andrin Barandun Seher Goyal (Saru) Sam Wilson Alex Tasovac
Grade 1 Phuong Anh Do Gisela Rivas-Lorente Yorio Forster Mayu Takizawa (Mayuchan) Anissha Ladda Bhawna Sinha Carl Rosenholm Hugo Johnston Matthew Banner Victor Borchert
Grade 2 Caitriona Kevlihan Anika Brummitt Taishi Watanabe Ivy-Jean Kutcher Hung Nguyen (Tucti) Fiona Hirvonen Sanuli Nanayakkara Noa Oosterom Nicolas Tasovac
Grade 4 Woo Sung Kim Aregash Kevlihan (Rosie) Jessica Dziedzic Sophia Banner Anna Haug Elvis Kutcher Pryor Hollis Alissa Wilson Teresa Hess Niamh Driscoll Joo Hyuk Lee Hayley Cheung Tomas Tasovac
Grade 5 Tsugunobu Miyake Thys Moreau Maiju-Lotta Savila (Maiju)
Grade 7 Hazel Kevlihan Jung Hwan Lee Hana Hayashi Royce Jose Alicia Dziedzic Dylan Chin Farhah Hisamuddin Mateo Asturizaga Ananya Kapila
Grade 8 Carolina Maffei Manu Moreau Erik Selin Hjalmar Selin Axel Selin Christine Dziedzic Natalia Espuelas Fernandez Santtu Savila Quang Anh Le (Alex) Ye Jin Moon Na Yeon Kim Chiara Prytz Hosana Tagomori Amina Taieb Maria Rosenholm Leonardo Cazanas Royo Daniella Miller Sorcha Hamer
Grade 10 Ethan Landon Suung Jeon (Raphael) Na Yeon Lee YeonBin Kim Samuel Choi Leo Jose James Carpy Andrea Espuelas Fernandez Trieu Le Farah Hisamuddin Aiden McGibbon Louisa Hess Freya Norton Anne Tran
Grade 11 Fabiana Alcala Pertegaz Renato Restelli
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to say thank you and farewell to departing faculty, administrators, staff and their families. To everyone that is leaving UNIS Hanoi this summer, we wish you good luck and happiness in your future endeavors. Please do keep in touch with us wherever you maybe in the world by joining our Alumni network . I hope that everyone has an enjoyable and refreshing holiday and I look forward to seeing you back for the start of the new school year in August. Please click here to see the Board of Directors for 2014-2015 Best regards, Sarah Garner, Board Chair
Next year we are introducing a new calendar for UNIS Hanoi. It has been created after listening to feedback from our community and we hope the updates will improve our communications with our community. The Calendar for 2014-2015 will go live online on the UNIS Hanoi website on June 19. The dates for some events may be subject to change over the summer but all will be confirmed by the end of July and all members of the community will receive one of the popular UNIS Hanoi printed calendars. Four major improvements we know you will appreciate: 1. The calendar is available on the main website with no login required: http://www.unishanoi.org/page.cfm?p=810
Last Day of School
2. The calendar is colour coded to allow for quick and easy reference: D-12 events ES only events MSHS only events Co-curricular events Board of Directors’ events Alumni events 3. Events can be easily synched to home and handheld devices, selecting only the events that you require 4. By the start of the new school year, every event will have information about the event and contact information entered, making the calendar the first stop for school information.
Dear ES Families, The final day of the year 2013-14 has arrived. It has been such a busy time for everyone with farewells and appreciation parties. The ES Graduation Ceremony for Grade 5 students and their families was a lovely event where we had the opportunity to recognise their achievements and acknowledge their contributions to the Elementary School. They have been true ambassadors and great role models for our younger students and we wish them the very best as they move on to Middle School. The Grade 5 Student Councillors led the ES Leavers Assembly yesterday as we bade farewell to the 65 students and 18 teachers who are moving on. This year we decided to have the leavers themselves share their thoughts and feelings which they did via pre-recorded videos. Sometimes it can be too emotional for them to say things on the day itself in front of such a large audience. They then came upon to the stage in their leavers T shirts and had their cheer and round of applause as we wished them well. The
Last week K1 and K2 celebrated the cultural and linguistic diversity they are fortunate enough to have during a special Home Language Time session. Language groups were invited to sing, dance, play a game or tell a story in their home language. And what fun we all had! We listened to Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, German, Hebrew and Azerbaijani performers. Thank you to all the brave performers and a special thank you to our parent volunteers who supported our Home Language Programme by giving up their time to strengthen our young students' language development. We hope to have you back next year. Ilse van Heerden, ivanheerden@unishanoi.org ECC Home Language Time coordinator The video and photos can be viewed by going to EAL ECC blogs
teachers were all presented with a T shirt and a lotus flower as we thanked them for all their contributions and heard about their next destination in life. We kept the emphasis on how to deal with any worries or concerns, being courageous and looking forward to new adventures which has been the focus of the transition sessions for the children with the counselors in the last few weeks. However, it is always hard to say goodbye and, in an international and transient community such as this, it is inevitable that we have to face this on a relatively frequent basis. I thank the counselors for all their vital work in this area. So I send my very best wishes to all those families who are moving on. I hope you will take with you many fond memories of UNIS Hanoi and Hanoi. Safe travels to all and I wish you all a safe and happy summer break. Carole Denny esprincipal@unishanoi.org
The Yearbook Team is pleased to present the WINNING DESIGN for the UNIS Hanoi Yearbook 2013-2014 cover by Patrick Healy (11RW) and Nils
Jaranovs (9AM). The Yearbook was distributed to all students this morning and the winners were announced and received their prize at the All School Assembly. This is the first time UNIS Hanoi held a student competition for the Yearbook's cover! All students from Grades 4-12 were invited to create a cover with this year's Yearbook theme of Social Media and it was a hard decision to pick the winner. Follow UNIS Hanoi on Facebook to see all the designs submitted in the competition. This Yearbook was created by our community, for our community - We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did creating it, and that it brings back wonderful memories from 2013-2014! UNIS Hanoi Yearbook Team
Patrick Healy and Nils Jaranovs received the award as Samsung Galaxy Tab 3
As promised, we would like to share with you our plans for the inclusion of Mandarin as a World Language in our program for the future.
curriculum for school credit with pass/fail grading protocol on school reports and permanent records (transcripts). This is offered at additional expense for parents.
2014-2015 School Year Our plan is to locate a qualified and experienced Mandarin Teacher to offer a range of ASA classes during each session targeting Grades 1-5. The number of offerings each session will depend on demand. These will be offered as part of the regular ASA program and thus there will be no additional charge for parents.
Grades 11-12 – We plan to offer IB Diploma Ab Initio
2015-2016 School Year Our intention is to begin to spend the beginning of the
14-15 school year developing an implementation plan based on results from a survey we plan to conduct next autumn when we will also consider the effects of an increase in our language offerings to our master schedule and overall program. 2014-2015 School Year
(Beginning) level in Grade 11 via the Pamoja online program. This is offered at additional expense for parents. 2015-2016 School Year Grades 6-10 – Depending on the implementation plan in
the ES and the demand in grades 6-10, decisions will be made before the end of the 14-15 school year regarding future plans for Mandarin in these grade levels. Grades 11-12 – We will continue to offer Ab Initio
Mandarin as an independent study through Pomoja. If demand is sufficient, then we could include Mandarin into the regular curricular offerings for the IB Diploma program and then there would be no additional cost for parents. Please contact the principals if you have any questions.
Grades 6-10 – We plan to continue to offer Independent
Study Mandarin during the school. This is an approved
Please find the information in detail here and should you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact the School Health Centre. UNIS Hanoi has been a “Nut Free School” for many years. While the implementation of this risk minimization strategy was considered necessary during that time, lack of evidence as to the effectiveness of this strategy in the school setting has come into question by allergy consumer organizations as well as the Centre for Disease Control and protection, (CDC). There appears to be a swing towards moving away from, Nut Free Zone, to Nut and Allergy Aware in many schools across the US, Australia and the UK. This idea has been raised previously and at the Health and Wellness Taskforce meeting on Tuesday 6th May, 2014, it was suggested that we visit the idea of changing UNIS Hanoi from a Nut Free School to a Nut and Allergy Aware School. After much research of the presenting evidence and discussion with the Taskforce and Head of School, Dr Barder, the decision has been made to move from a Nut Free School, to a Nut and Allergy Aware School.
School Health Centre, nurse@unishanoi.org
ORIENTATION DAY for our new families is just around the corner and YOU can make all the difference to their welcome! Please consider taking part as a welcome programme volunteer on Orientation Day – TUESDAY AUGUST 12 at 13.15 – the day before school starts. (We know this is ages from now, but our organisational efforts have already begun for this massive event!) We need scores of parent volunteers to help us on the day with everything from handing out information, answering questions, selling PE kits and helping people find their way around our school campus.
community, we look forward to hearing from you and hope that you will join our ‘Orientation Team’! If you are interested in helping out on this important day, simply CLICK HERE! We wish you and your family a wonderful summer break and we look forward to hearing about all your adventures upon your return in August! Advancement Office
The more smiling faces we have the better ! You know yourself what a difference a welcoming person made to you on your Orientation Day. This is a very easy way to make a very big difference to our
You’ve asked for new designs… We collected your ideas… And we are NOW in the process of creating the new house animal logos and shirts! READY FOR PURCHASE NEXT SCHOOL YEAR! Here is a bit of a House Shirt teaser… Fierce, Lively, Proud and Strong Animal designs in
ACTION ! Due to popular demand the fabric of the House Shirts
will be in a new breathable and quick to dry sports material – with over 90% of the community surveyed are asking for this! Matching House Animal Shorts option will also be
available Be ready to ‘bring on’ your HOUSE ANIMAL SPIRIT next year! Nathalie Grun, Community Liaison Officer clo@unishanoi.org
These are the current official house animals: