Weekly e-updates 6 May 2022

From our Head of College Dear Parents and Guardians, I hope you all had a wonderful Children’s Day and enjoyed this perfect weather for the outdoors with your family.

I would first like to congratulate our Girls Varsity Football and Boys Varsity Football Teams for their exceptional performance at the end of season KAIAC HS Football Tournament. They swept up first place across the board!

The Girls team had dominated all the previous games and went into the final against Korea Kent Foreign School as favourites. With goals from Libby L-C, Emma H and Izzy S, the team won the tournament with an impressive 50 score. The Boys team had a tougher path to the final against Cheongna Dalton School but played hard. Eric K and Aaron Y each scored a goal, culminating in a victory for the team with a 2-1 score. We’re so proud of our Leopards!

Our campus was positively bustling with activity this week, starting with a visit from our incoming Head of Senior School, Suzy Pugh. She had the opportunity to meet with Parent Reps, students and staff across two days. We look forward to welcoming Suzy back when she starts her role in August.

We were also thrilled to host our inaugural Donuts with Dads for Year 6. As a Year 6 parent myself, I attended this event and had a wonderful time with my daughter and fellow Year 6 parents.

Other events hosting parents included the Primary School Parent Rep Meeting, New Parent coffee morning and DUCKS1 Sports Day. I believe it was the largest number of parents we’ve had on campus at any one time since the pandemic and the buzz was palpable!

We invite you to attend a host of exciting events coming up next week. They include our May Dulwich Talk featuring former CNN correspondent Jie-ae Sohn who will talk about harnessing the power of storytelling to address global challenges. Our Friends of Dulwich parent group are organising various events, such as the monthly coffee morning and various classes. Please see the Whole School and Friends of Dulwich sections of this e-update for details.

Our College will be closed on Monday for Buddha’s Birthday. We wish those celebrating this holiday a happy Buddha’s Birthday.

I hope you have a restful long weekend.

With my best wishes, Mr Gudmundur Hegner Jonsson Head of College

Whole School

We are excited to announce that the second session of the EiM Community University Talks Series will be with New York University. The session will be held on 11 May from 7.30pm - 8.30pm (GMT +8). The University Series will feature the following format and is open to all students and parents as an exclusive online event for EiM schools: 20min general presentation from the guest university 20min guided discussion that will explore key information about the university and the application process between the university and one of our counsellors 20min of Q&A

Here are the upcoming EiM Community University Talk seres:

COVID-19 Update: Change in RAT Kit Distribution and Testing This is to notify you of our revised COVID-19 guidelines in line with recent government announcements, effective immediately.

1. The College will no longer be distributing Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) Kits to students, due to a change in policy where the government has discontinued sending RAT kits to schools.

2. Your child no longer needs to take a RAT once a week every Sunday.

3. We ask that only students with COVID-19 symptoms stay home and take a RAT before returning to school.

It is important to continue practising social distancing, masking and frequent handwashing to stay safe and healthy.

If you or any other family members test positive for COVID-19, please inform our nurse at nurse@dulwichseoul.kr. All information will be kept confidential.

We look forward to having more parents and our Dulwich community on campus for various events to connect with each other once again.

Please be assured that our top priority is to ensure the safety of our staff and students. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

We thank you for your support.

We are pleased to invite you to our next Dulwich Talk entitled 'Harnessing the Power of Storytelling to Adress Global Challenges’, at 8.30am on Wednesday 11 May. Our guest speaker is Jie-ae Sohn, an invited professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Ewha Womans University and a senior communications consultant

for the World Bank. She will be discussing what makes a powerful story and how to frame global challenges in way that will propel people into action.

Please RSVP for the event by filling out the form by clicking this link. Seats will be allocated on a first-come-firstserved basis. Light refreshments will be served beginning at 8am in front of the 4th Floor Auditorium and the event will begin at 8.30am. Please do not bring any food or drinks into the auditorium.

We ask that all participants be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (two shots + booster), take a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) before coming to campus and stay home if they have any COVID symptoms. Thank you for helping to keep our community safe. We look forward to seeing you there!

Primary School Dear Primary parents,

There have been many highlights this week which have caught our community’s attention. Tuesday saw dozens of ‘special adults’ joining our Year 6 students for Donuts with Dads. Some children brought dad, and others brought Mum or Grandma. Wednesday’s Family Games Night was great fun and despite fierce competition in some year groups, everyone left the event having had a good time. Year 2 have been active this week on their Adventure Days and we are advertising two new whole school events which we hope your family can join us for or help us with, namely the Family Hike on 28 May and Founder’s Day on 3 June.

Parent Reps Meeting on Wednesday: The Reps and I met on campus/online with Mr Jonsson to get feedback and questions about Primary. Please see below the summary of the discussion.

Sun Safe: Hats and Water Bottles All students must be wearing a hat to be able to play on the astroturf at breaks and lunchtimes. Students without a sun hat will be reminded to stay in the shade.

Water bottles: all students need a reusable bottle filled with water for school each day (no tea, milk or juices please).

All belongings must be clearly named.

Drop Off Time For School: 8am - 8.15am Student safety - Students may only be dropped off at the campus from 8am each school day. Staff duties for student supervision begin at 8am; no supervision of children is in place before 8am (with the exception of our school buses if they arrive earlier than expected). Parents/drivers who drop off children before 8am will be contacted by the school to arrange a later drop off. Many thanks for your understanding.

Year 2 Adventure Days:

One day, the children enjoyed Eco-teering and Bushcraft in the beautiful setting of Dongsu-dong Park. They were challenged to complete fourteen different activities, using a map and a compass to direct them to the task. They successfully negotiated their way around the park, demonstrating their spatial awareness skills and knowledge of directions. The children liked all the activities and approached each one with energy and enthusiasm, determined to master the challenges, work as a team, and support their community. Even when tasks were demanding, resilience and perseverance were the order of the day until success was finally achieved. The highlight for many children was pond dipping. Beneath the water's surface, an unseen world of fantastic wildlife was ready to be

discovered. Children carefully put the contents of their nets into a bowl of water to closely examine and identify tadpoles, pond skaters, water spiders, and much more. Our Bushcraft session provided the children with opportunities to learn to tie simple knots, filtrate natural water and build shelters.

Another day, the children enjoyed hiking at Gwanaksan. For some, parts of the hike were arduous, and they slid along on their bottoms and used all fours to balance and steady themselves. Others relished the challenge and fearlessly stepped light-footed like little mountain goats within a rocky terrain, sloping downwards towards a trickling stream. After lunch, some children entertained themselves by creating habitats for minibeasts, making pieces of nature art or engaging in missions created by team leaders. One leader snapped bits of wood into smaller lengths and challenged the children to use thinking skills to solve exciting puzzles. Initially, they found this challenging, but after moving the lengths of wood into different positions, they were successful.

The DUCKS 2 Adventure Days were a huge success, and at the end of each day the children went home dusty and covered in bits of broken twigs and dry leaves. Clearly, they enjoyed two wonderful days outdoors in the sunshine, interacting with nature. Thanks to all adults who assisted and led aspects of these glorious days.

DUCKS 1 Healthy Fun Morning: Friday 6 May Many thanks to the many DUCKS 1 parents who joined their children on Friday for a morning of healthy eating and activity. It was lovely to welcome you all in and see the children so enjoying your company and extra support.

We hope to have another event in the coming weeks for parents, plus Dads (or special adults) be sure to come along to our “Donuts with Dads” breakfast events - 7th June for Year 1 classes, and 14th June for Reception and Nursery.

New Parents Coffee Morning on Friday Many thanks to our new parents who were able to join us today for our coffee meet up. Thanks to the FoD for their support of this event and our new families.

NEW: Online Child Protection Training for Parent Volunteers Child Protection workshop for parents at 10:30 on Tuesday 10 May. https://dulwichseoul.zoom.us/j/82465350006 Passcode for this Zoom call is: 2022

Parent volunteers in school and online are required to have this training, but parents may also find this safeguarding awareness training helpful.

Student Charity Committee - Family Games Night - Wednesday 4 May.

Our Spring Games Night was all we had hoped for - fun with families and some gentle competition across the city from the comfort of sofas. Many thanks to our staff who stayed late at school to run the event and to all the parents who supplied delicious snacks for their offspring and the chance to share some fun with others in the DCSL community.

Upcoming - Student Council Discos Primary School will get their dancing shoes on soon for these 1980s-inspired dance fests. Sparkly and neon outfits and accessories will be needed, as well as some smooth dance moves. Snacks are provided - please refer to our recent letters to sign up your child.

Year 2 and Year 3 Disco - Friday 20 May 4pm-6pm Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 Disco - Friday 27 May 4pm-6pm

Pets for the Summer Holidays If you are staying in Korea for the summer holidays and would like to host one of our lovely school pets, please email Ms Wildman at natasha.wildman@dulwich-seoul.kr We have some animals that require pick up in a larger car: two guinea pigs (who must go together) and a hedgehog. We also have some smaller pets like our lovely hamsters or some interesting giant land snails!! Please let us know if you are interested as they would love the company for the holiday. Vet details(just in case) and supplies will be provided and reimbursement possible for anything bought over the holiday, plus a contact just in case there are any queries during the vacation.

COVID - Masks

From Monday 2 May, the rules for wearing masks will change. While at school, students and staff may pull down their masks when they go outside for any reason (inc.playtimes, on the Year 3 Terrace, in the DUCKS playground, or for outdoor PE, ECAs and trips). When inside a building or on a school bus the masks must be on fully.

Students and staff who wish to continue to wear their masks outdoors may, of course, do so.

Assembly this week Monday’s assembly was led by Mr Harvey Year 5 and Year 6 met with Mrs Smith to talk through the Donuts With Dads event in which they have an active role. .

Friday’s assembly was led by Mrs Smith and, with Year 6 students’ help, younger students learned more about how to make their special adult feel welcome and comfortable at the upcoming Donuts with Dads.

NEW: Parent Handbook link

NEW: Click on this link for the full Values: Dulwich College Seoul Community Values

Upcoming Primary Parent Workshops: Term 3 Primary Parent Workshops will be held on Campus (2F Primary Inquiry Hub) from 2pm to 3pm. The B1 coffee shop will be open for parents from 1.40pm.

The slides from Tuesday’s Gender Bias session with Mrs Smith are below. Many thanks to those parents who came along and contributed to the conversation.

Gender Bias workshop for parents

Stars of the Week (DUCKS to Year 4) and Learning Warriors (Year 5 / Year 6) Each week, our staff spot a child in each class who has been doing especially well with the IB Learner Profile dispositions and that child becomes SoW or the LW for the class. Click here to see who was spotted this week and click here for the Week's Ahead.

Quadra Instagram page link - see daily posts by our caterer, Quadra, showing the lunch served to students that day.

Contact details of Primary Leadership staff: Jane Smith, Head of Primary - jane.smith@dulwich-seoul.kr Jim Harvey, Deputy Head of Primary (Academic - online learning, curriculum and reporting) james.harvey@dulwich-seoul.kr Maggie Goddard, Deputy Head of Primary (Pastoral - student wellbeing and support) maggie.goddard@dulwich-seoul.kr Esther Yang (Primary Admin) - esther.yang@dulwich-seoul.kr

Have a fun and safe weekend with your family.

Kind regards Mrs Jane Smith Head of Primary School

Thank you from Open Arms Korea

For the past five Christmases, our school community has generously supported Open Arms Korea by purchasing and donating Christmas presents for babies, children and young people living in Dream Tree, Cheongwon and Myeongjin orphanages. Last year, our families, students and staff signed up to donate an incredible 171 presents!

All of which were lovingly received. Recently, the primary school charity committee has also raised some money (from the Book Week dress-up day) to fund their English programmes.

As a gesture of gratitude for our kindness and support over the past five years through the Christmas Gift Drive and fundraising events, Open Arms Korea has sent us a little gift which the charity committee wanted to share with our families and friends at Dulwich.

Thank you very much to everyone in our school community for consistently showing that we are the kindest school in the universe.

The Primary School Charity Committee

International Vaccine Institute talk - Year 4

Year 4 had an expert speaker, Marianne Holm, come in to talk to them about her work with the International Vaccine Institute. The presentation was full of interesting facts about germs and how we can keep ourselves safe, but the main focus was on the process of designing new vaccines as well as their history. Students were able to make links to their IC topic where they have been learning about the concept innovation. Marianna also focused on how vaccines link to different UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as SDG 3 (Good Health) and SDG 4 (Quality Education). This was an excellent and informative talk and gave Year 4 lots of food for thought for their upcoming projects.

DUCKS1 Sports Day

We wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all of our parents for coming in to support our DUCKS 1 Sports Day morning- it was so incredibly fun to have you all in school again and seeing how happy it makes our children. It was a lovely morning of snacks, games, obstacle courses. Our PE team put on an awesome event later in the morning with so many different fun activities like basketball shoot, relays, obstacle runs and ball pick ups, and the children were beaming ear to ear all day!

Senior School IB Diploma and IGCSE Examinations The 2022 exam season has begun and students have made a very positive start. Whilst some of Year 11 and Year 13 have opted to revise at home, others are making the most of facilities in school. It has been great to see them working so productively in the Senior School Library. Good luck to all who are taking exams. I look forward to hearing about your successes!

Year 10 and Year 12 Parent Teacher Student Conference We look forward to meeting with Year 10 and Year 12 parents on Wednesday 11 May for our final PTSC of this academic year. This is an excellent opportunity to discuss academic progress with subject teachers. With end of year examinations for Year 10 and Year 12 approaching, this is a great time to meet. Sign-up information has been shared via email.

Public Holiday Don’t forget that Monday is a public holiday in honour of Buddha’s birthday. I hope you are able to make the most of the long weekend.

Students with exams on Monday are required to attend. We politely ask that students revise from home when school is closed as we do not have supervision for students who are not sitting exams.

Best wishes for a relaxing weekend.

Ms Sarah Harrison Head of Senior School

Mandarin pen pal activity

As part of the International Chinese Language Day activities, Ms Li and Ms Song’s classes in Year 9 participated in a pen-pal activity with Dulwich College Singapore and KIS (Korea International School). Each student had to write a letter to recommend a restaurant. We wrote the letter to describe the restaurant’s menu, the location, how to get there, and the ambience. Meanwhile, we received letters from KIS students. They mostly introduced themselves and wrote about what they are up to in their lives, among other things. It was my first time being a pen-pal to someone, and I learned many things about other students in different age groups. Our class combined with Ms Li’s class and read over some of the letters together. This writing activity was an exciting, challenging activity to test our Mandarin communication skills with others in real life.

-by Ina K (9LG)

Varsity Football Finals

The end of season tournament took place last weekend for both the Girl’s and Boy’s teams who had worked their way through to the final.

The Girl’s team had dominated all the games they had played and went into the final as favourites, but with this title comes the pressure of having to perform. And perform they did! With a controlled performance for the whole 80 minutes, they dominated the game. Libby L-C opened the scoring, and from there the team never looked back. Emma H and Izzy S added to the tally, running out comprehensive 5-0 winners.

The Boy’s, starting at No. 4 seed had a harder route to the final with a huge performance in the semi’s with a 3-1 victory. In the final there was one team trying to win the game, and one team hoping for a penalty shoot-out.

DCSL dominated possession and just before halftime, Eric K smashed in a freekick to change the whole dynamic.

The other team never really threatened and with Aaron Y doubling the lead just before the end, victory was assured. The 2-1 scoreline didn’t really reflect this one-sided affair.

What a fantastic season for both teams, who, after a two-year hiatus, seamlessly settled back into playing 11-aside football. Unbreakable bonds have been formed, and memories cemented. These alone are worth more than any trophy or cup!

Leopards on 3…

House Photography Contest

Over the past two weeks, Senior students have been submitting photographs in the House Photography Contest.

Tying in with Earth Day, the theme was ‘Invest in Our Planet’ and there were over 50 fantastic entries. The judges considered the quality of the photograph as well as how creatively the theme had been explored. In the end, Chan Hyung K (Sejong House) received the Bronze Award for his photo of a beetle, Kartik P (Seacole House) received the Silver Award for his photo of a student using a reusable water bottle, and Audrey L (Shackleton House) received the Gold Award for her photo of a plant growing in the cracks of the pavement. Congratulations to the winners and well done to all those who entered; we had so many superb photographs submitted!

Science in action

How can we tell if a liquid is acidic or alkaline? What can the juice from cabbage leaves tell us about acidity?

Those were the underlying questions Year 7 students tried to find out in their red cabbage indicator investigation, as part of the ‘Acids and Alkalis’ topic. Working in groups, students took turns to extract cabbage juice before using it to test a variety of solutions, from hand wash to shampoo. In addition to demonstrating an example of a natural indicator for testing the acidity of substances, it was another opportunity for students to develop their practical as well as group work skills. It was great to see students working collaboratively throughout the activity, and their thoughtful engagement with the investigation questions.

Year 11 GCSE Art Exhibition

The Year 11 GCSE art exhibition is on display in our Main Foyer. Please come and enjoy a range of exceptional artworks from a very talented and committed group of students. The artworks reflect their perseverance, individuality and artistic skills. I am especially proud of the diverse range of outcomes our students have created.

There are examples of photography, printmaking, oil painting, watercolour, acrylic painting, drawing, collage, graphic communication, ceramics and sculpture on display. Further to a wide range of materials, students have explored themes such as culture, identity, race, mythology and body image. Our young GCSE artists should be very proud of their achievements and I hope you all enjoy the exhibition which will be open for viewing until early June.

Yours sincerely, Mr Daniel Hickey Head of Art

Friends of Dulwich Flower arranging class

Meet our members

Hello, I am Kavittha, mother of Kavya K studying in Year 7. We lived in Hong Kong for many years and have recently moved to Seoul. As a family, we love hiking, reading, camping, and travelling. Professionally, I was in the Investment Banking Industry and then my passion for child development led me to change my career to work with children with special needs in International schools for the last six years. This is our first year with Dulwich and I am excited about the opportunity to be more involved in school decisions that impact our children. I’m looking forward to supporting and meeting parents and making school a more enjoyable journey.