Year 6 Newsletter

Dear Year 6 Parents,

Thank you all for the great turnout for Pyjama & Bedtime Story Day today! We raised $12,400 which will go towards in-class enrichment activities.

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Year 6 newsletter for 2022/23.

Just a reminder that this newsletter will be published every 2 weeks on a Friday and sent through the ESF app and stored under the "News" button for future reference.

Please take some time to share it with your child.

The Year 6 Team

It has been a very busy 2 weeks of learning...

Our Year 6 ambassadors have now been elected and were delighted to receive their badges. They will make such a difference in the areas they are supporting and they will be great role models for others. A big congratulations to all of our Year 6 student leaders. Please click the image on the right to see the elected leaders.

Central Idea: Leadership influences the members of a community.

Lines of Inquiry:

• Responsibilities of leaders and the communities (authority/responsibility)

• Representation of opinions within a community (representation/fairness/perspective)

• How decision-making has an impact on communities (decision-making/causation)

The students are continuing their micro-community sessions with their Year 3 Buddies and have been responsible and organised throughout the process. They have planned engaging, well-resourced sessions which are fun and challenging. The Year 3s have enjoyed the sessions immensely. Thank you for your support in arranging these activities.

Number

We continue to focus on our core number skills, with a specific focus on Addition and Subtraction, looking through a lens of problem-solving. The learning objectives for this unit are:

• Four Operations: Use efficient mental and written strategies to add integers and decimals.

In Language, the children are continuing to read 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell and are inquiring into narrative writing. Our budding authors are being exposed to high-level vocabulary and are building up to writing their own stories.

Homework will be set on a Friday each week and is expected to be returned on a Wednesday. The homework is set on Google Classroom. Your child will show you how to access this.

Please discuss the homework tasks with your child and ensure that they fully understand what is expected of them each week. Please support your child with their learning at home as needed and check that the task has been completed suitably for your child's ability.

In Year 6, we have the following weekly expectations (in addition to the homework set):

• Daily reading (20 minutes with a discussion around the text with an adult).

• Spelling practice each week

• Regular use of Mathletics

The Chinese Department shares the learning conducted on a weekly basis. Please click on the link below for this week's learning for Year 6.

Year 6 Chinese Learning

After half term, Year 3 to 6 students will have one set lunchtime a week when they will be expected to go to HKU. The only exception will be if the children do not meet the vaccine pass requirements of HKU.

At HKU, students can do sports and games or bring games and cards to play, books to read and a towel to sit on if they would like to. This is also a great opportunity for the Year 6 classes to connect with their Year 3 buddies. Please check the schedule below for timings.

You will be glad to hear that several sporting tournaments and matches between schools in Hong Kong are finally resuming. After more than three years without school competitions, we are extremely pleased indeed.

In light of this, it is crucial that the PE Department at Kennedy School has a deeper grasp of what our kids are up to in terms of their extracurricular sporting activities. This information is crucial and will allow us to provide our students with opportunities to represent Kennedy School in their preferred/strongest sport.

To assist us in making more informed decisions on the selection of sports teams, especially so early in the school year, we would appreciate it if you could offer a brief description of any current sporting activities your child participates in outside of Kennedy School.

If you have more than one child at Kennedy School please fill in the form separately for each of your children.

Extra Curricular Sports Form

Our Games programme will begin after the half term holiday starting the week beginning Monday 24th October. Your child should wear PE kit on their PE and Games days unless it is a special school event.

Year 6 Games will take place every Wednesday.

Parent volunteers for snack time supervision at Stanley Ho Sports Centre

Children from Year 3 and Year 6 have the opportunity to go across to Stanley Ho Sports Centre during their first snack time from Monday 24 October 2022. This has proved to be hugely popular with the children. To enable us to supervise the children we need some parent volunteers who are willing to come across with us one or more days a week. The time commitment is 10.40 am to 11.20 am each day. If we get 4 or 5 mums/dads who can commit to a day or a few days each week that would be fabulous. For the safety of the children, we will request that parent helpers must be fully vaccinated and complete a Rapid Antigent Test with a negative test result on the morning before coming to school. We request that parent helpers scan their vaccine pass, take their temperature in the office and complete the health declaration form. All parent volunteers would need to complete the Child Protection declaration in the Gateway in advance. Kindly note that parents with an Amber Code in the Leave Home Safe App will not be able to enter the school and volunteer to help till the code switches to Blue.

Please fill in the Google Form here if you are able to help and your help is much appreciated. Thank you!

Wednesday 2nd of November at 6.00pm to 7.00pm

This webinar is designed for parents to find out more about the IB PYP, which is the curriculum framework we use at Kennedy School and across ESF. This webinar will focus on the IB Mission, the Learner Profile, key features of the PYP, and how our curriculum is embedded into the PYP framework through our Programme of Inquiry.

This webinar will be interactive and you will be discussing and working with other parents. It is a great opportunity for us to share, learn and grow together.

Please fill out the survey here and we look forward to seeing you virtually on Wednesday 2nd of November. We will share the link and additional information about the webinar closer to the date.

Please refer to The Hong Kong Young Writers Awards website for information about this competition. If your child is interested in entering this competition, please contact Yoon-Ah Lee our PYP Coordinator at ylee@kennedy.edu.hk by Monday the 24th of October.

The submission deadline to school for entries is Thursday 15th of December 2022.

• 17- 21 Oct - ESF HALF TERM
  
• 24 Oct - Deadline for Christmas Card competition (details HERE)
• 26 Oct - Diwali performance and dress up
• 28 Oct - Fun-o-ween dress up
• 31 Oct - 4 Nov - School photos
• 2 Nov - PYP Webinar
• 18 Nov - PTA Quiz night at El Charro (7-10 pm. Register HERE)
  
• 22-25 Nov - Year 6 camp

The full listing of PTA events is also available at the school website at https://www.kennedy.edu.hk/pta/