BRITISH PRIMARY PARENT COUNCIL HEAD’S REPORT: MARCH 2019 18:30, 14 March 2019 | Location: Large Conference Room
Enrolment Status Current enrolment - currently at:
Nursery Reception Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 TOTAL
Current Enrolment 62 79 81 94 94 81 91 94 676
Class capacity 64 80 96 96 96 96 96 96 720
Budget Figure 60 77 93 93 93 93 94 94 697
Please note that as per previous meetings, the admissions policy and procedures have changed this year to create a lower enrolled number at EPC. Therefore although budget numbers have not been met, the current numbers have been approved by Mr David Gatley.
Staffing The structure of the British Primary Section as at 08 March 2019 have remained constant since the previous meeting. Staffing for 2019-2020:
● A thorough report will be shared with the council in regards to staffing for 2019 2019-2020 ● New Head of the British Primary Section, Mr Luke Chaeter will be visiting the school and Taipei with his family over the Easter break. He will spend time meeting with Mr Gatley during this visit between Sunday 14th - Thursday 18th April. April ry School Action Plan Plan. The British Primary Curriculum and Assessment
● Katrina Millward, in conjunction with Eamonn O’Callaghan and Colin Dawes have completed the Art and Design Technology reviews. The recommendations that have been created are currently with the Senior Leadership Team, and this will then be shared with staff. staff. At a later meeting a summary will be shared with the council. The curriculum review process that we currently use has been a successful model now implemented across several learning areas. ● On 26th and 27th March the CLC teaching team will receive professional professional development from members of the ISF Hong Kong Chinese language team. The days will be focussed on the following areas: Effective Assessment and Evaluation, Intensive Character Learning, Learning Chinese Through Drama, Growth Mindset and Reflection. ISF Hong Kong visited our school earlier in the school year and met with Mr Gatley and the CLC Leadership Team..
Pupil Support
● Mr Gatley has advertised an Educational Psychologist position for 2019-2020. This position will be across both the EPC and ESC campuses and will support the respective Learning Support departments. This role is long overdue for our school and will provide many benefits to our teaching team. ● Education Outside of the Classroom: 6.1 and 6.4 were the first two classes to venture on the Year 6 Camp to Southern Taiwan. The trip was a huge success, visiting Tainan and Kenting. This feeds into the topic of Adventurous Mind and Spirit, linking the history of Taiwan, adventurers and explorers, as well as providing opportunities for the children to show independence, risk-taking and many of the learner profile characteristics. 6.2 and 6.3 will be heading off this coming week. Year 5 will be heading to Camp Taiwan this week also. Two classes at a time will spend two nights and three days doing a variety of activities. This builds on the overnight camp in Year 4, and again is focussed on developing the BPS Learner Profile characteristics. Quality and Accountability
● Dr Stephen Holmes is planning the second of his visits towards the end of April (time to be confirmed). He will be sharing results and analysis of the surveys conducted with students, staff, parents and alumni. ● Staff have been working through the next assessment and moderation point for reports, and in preparation for parent teacher interviews on Tuesday 2nd April. Use of the new assessment tracking system, Powertracker, has provided a better tool to provide up to date information that can track and clearly show progress of students, individually and as a class or cohort. This combined with team pupil progress meetings with Curriculum Leaders and Aidan Stallwood as assessment coordinator has driven the moderation process this year. ● Parent Teacher Interviews on Tuesday 2nd April will provide the second opportunity for parents to meet with class teachers, specialist teachers, maths teacher (years 5 and 6) and EAL staff. At this meeting, Alysha Adams has planned a Learner Profile activity. There will be three items of work that will be displayed around the campus for the children to share with parents. ● A recruitment presentation for the 2018-2019 year will be shared at the meeting. Resources and Facilities
● An EPC campus walkaround occurred on Wednesday 27th February with David Gatley, Head of Sections, Aidan Stallwood, Silvia Lu (Director of Facilities) and Baker Chiu (Head of Maintenance) to identify short term and medium term items that need to be approached from a Health and Safety and Child Protection perspective. These will be presented to the Facilities Committee on Thursday 21st March. ● Latest orders have been submitted for the overseas curriculum resources order. This has to be submitted in March so that materials are received before the beginning of the next academic year. This covers all curriculum areas and allows specific materials to be purchased from the UK in a more cost effective manner. ● Key Stage 1 teachers are working on a plan for furniture for their classrooms. This is part of a long term plan to ensure all classrooms have purposeful and practical learning environments with furnishings that suit a modern learning environment. ● Last Thursday Microsoft shared some new devices in our quest to provide laptops for teachers, and to provide an up to date modern learning environment for teaching and learning. The set-up in classrooms is outdated and needs to be upgraded. Lenovo and HP are two other companies that have been asked to propose solutions for us. ● A summary of the budget for 2018-2019 and for the upcoming 2019-2020 will also be shared at the meeting.
Community and Governance
● Mr Gatley will be absent from the meeting as he will be attending a FOBISIA Head’s meeting in Manilla. This is a requirement each year to form part of the FOBISIA network. Duncan Millward will update the council on the roles and responsibilities for council members, including the procedures for future councils. ● An article was written in last week’s newsletter to promote the work that the PTA are doing - there are many events both as a section and TES as a whole that need as many parent volunteers as we can get. ● A traffic guard has been introduced onto the crossing at Wenchang Bridge, after parents and staff had commented on the danger posed when crossing. This has helped the situation although it has been noted that caution needs to be heeded at any of the crossings around the school. Mr Gatley has contacted the local government authorities to look at more signage and what changes could be implemented as per local elementary schools. ● There are two upcoming events in the library. Yara Kono, illustrator, will be working with students from Nursery to Year 5 on Tuesday 26th March. On Monday 1st April, Matt Phelan, author, will be in the library to launch “Drop Everything and Read” month. A big thank you to Angela Chang (Head Librarian, ESC/ EPC) and Emma Crofts (EPC Librarian) and their team for organising so many opportunities this year. Yara Kono has been funded through a parent donation from BPS, and Matt has been sponsored by PSC.