ITEMS: Notes from the Director-General; Yoko Ono’s My Mommy is Beautiful; COVID Update; International Day activities; PTA News.
Principal’s Message
Dear HIS Community
We had a busy week with lots of different activities which you can see on the Crane Video. Thank you to the parents who came to read for our students. Everyone loves a story.
Also, well done to Erin (Gr12) and her Gr12 classmates who ran an international day activity. Many parents helped with posted so thank you for supporting. One of the purposes was to get students to think about the multifaceted nature of their identity. Nationality is an important part, of course, but just one of many facets of their identity. We also looked at the idea that people from many different nationalities may live in a country (as we all know so well) and also that people from many different cultural groups will be living together just like we do at HIS.
Thank you for being so supportive during our short COVID-related school closure. We wish all the best to those affected and are wishing you a speedy recovery. Since the closure, all is going well and as we had no positive PCR results come back, we are hoping that the situation will stabilize. We have changed a few of our procedures and made adjustments to certain activities and details are provided in a post below.
For this week’s TED Talk, Luma Mufleh delivers a powerful and important message about challenging our perceptions of refugees which I thought you may enjoy. Have a nice weekend.
Kind regards
Damian Rentoule
Crane Video
Notes from the Director General
Welcome back to a new school year! Although we still face major challenges, I hope we will see better times to come, and look forward to a great year here at Hiroshima International School. This note is to let you know about some of the more important things the Boards have been dealing with.
First, as most of you know, our Principal, Dr Damian Rentoule, has decided to move on after completion of his contract, leaving at the end of the current school year, at the end of July 2022. As a result, we began a search for a new Principal in May of this year. We formed two search committees, one for the first round of interviews, and another for a second round, made up of many members of the HIS community, including students, parents, teachers, board members and so forth. After long and careful considerations of many excellent candidates, we finally agreed on James Steward.
James is Canadian, married to a Japanese-Canadian wife, Alana, and has three children, two of which are adults (both professional skaters in the Disney On Ice show) and a son, Kiyo, 13, who will be accompanying his parents and will be attending HIS (the position will begin on August 1, 2022). James has taught and/or directed international education programs in several locations, including Canada, Macao, Singapore, Austria and Japan. Most notably, for us, is that he was the Head of School for Tohoku International School (Sendai, Japan), for 11 years, from 2008 to 2019. As a result, James was present and directing the school during the March 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown. He impressed the committees and the boards with his detailed, specific responses to a number of challenging questions, and appears to have not only excellent experience, but a great deal of innovative ideas, and seems a perfect fit for our community. I hope you will assist us in welcoming James and his family to HIS when they arrive next year.
Finally, I would like to put a call out to parents—we need your support on the Boards, and in particular, on the Board of Trustees. Our Board of Trustees meetings are held three to four times a year, and currently, our membership is good in all categories except for one—and it is perhaps the most important one—the parents and guardians of the students! So, I would like to invite one or two (or three or four…) of you to join us on the Board of Trustees, and thereby make a useful contribution in helping the school operate correctly and effectively—and it can also be fun as well! For those of you worried about the language used at the meeting, while of course English is used since that is the focus of the school, we also use Japanese and have several members that can act as translators during our discussions, so please do not let lack of “sufficient” English skills hold you back—please consider joining us.
Best wishes and good health to all, Peter Skaer, Director-General
My Mommy is Beautiful
COVID Update
As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce the risk of COVID transmission within the school, we have made a few adjustments which are listed below. Our goal is to keep our school environment as safe as possible while ensuring that we can continue with face-to-face learning. Apart from our regular health regulations, here are a few recent adjustments:
Lunch & Recess
- The Gr4/5 class will now be split during recess and lunch between between their classroom and the next-door classroom across from the Music Room. This will provide more distance between students as this class is the largest in the Primary.
- To make this new lunch arrangement possible, Gr 11 Homeroom has moved to the Pink Room. (Thank you Gr11s)
- All Secondary Homeroom classes now have assigned seating for students during eating times. Each student has been assigned specific seats for lunch and recess and are only permitted to eat while in these specified seats/spaces. Previously students were required to social-distance but seats were not specified. This will help us monitor social distancing better.
- This is not a change but across the school, we have been reinforcing that eating times are quiet times: Mask off to eat/Mask on to talk.
Activities
- The After School Club program has been cancelled for Semester 1 and we hope to resume in Semester 2. This is to limit the mixing of different grade levels in relatively unstructured activities, even though we, of course, would normally encourage this.
- Festive Eve will be done in a different format this year still to be determined. There will be no live audience and small parts involving limited numbers of students will be pre-recorded. Takako sensei will work with the Festive Eve team so see what the performance can look like under these conditions.
- Primary and Secondary camps sceduled for September and October have been postponed until the Spring when we are hoping that the situation has improved.
International Day Activities
Dear HIS community,
Thank you for your enthusiastic participation in the International day!
It was great to see everyone in beautiful traditional clothes at the event and was an educational day to learn about other cultures through clothes. Thank you for preparing your children’s outfits.
I would also like to thank parents and students who created educational culture posters for the event. I hope you were able to learn a lot of things from them. Although parents were unable to join the event this year due to the COVID-19 precautions, I hope it was a great activity to get to know about other cultures and to think about identity. If you did not have a chance to take a look at them, please take a look at the picture in the picture folder.
In the afternoon, the primary participated in cultural activities led by G12s. Looking at the reflection they wrote, it seems like they learned a lot through exciting activities. Please check the video for detail.
Although it is a difficult time to host events, I’m really glad that I was able to make it happen and I’m grateful for HIS community being very supportive of this event. Thank you again for your cooperation.
インターナショナルデーへの参加ありがとうございました。素敵な伝統衣装を見て、服から文化を知ることのできた学びの多い1日になったと思います。お子さんの衣装を用意してくださり、ありがとうございました。また、ポスターを製作していただいた、生徒さんや保護者の皆様に感謝を申し上げます。残念ながら今年は新型コロナウイルス感染症対策のため、保護者の皆様はイベントに参加していただけませんでしたが、ポスター製作を通して他の文化や自分の文化について学んだり、アイデンティティとは何かを考える機械になっていれば嬉しいです。期間中に見れなかった方は写真フォルダーからご覧ください。
午後にはプライマリーの生徒さんたちは12年生主導のアクティビティーに参加しました。生徒さんたちが書いてくれたリフレクションを読んでいると、クイズなどを通してたくさんのことを学んだのが目に見えました。アクティビティーの様子はビデオをご覧ください。
なかなかイベントを主催するのが難しい時期ですが、皆様の暖かい支援のおかげで無事にインターナショナルデーを開催することができて嬉しく思っています。このイベントが皆さんにとって楽しい思い出となったら幸いです。ご協力ありがとうございました。
PTA News
PTA NEWS PTAニュース
Main Points
- Catcher Protector for the Baseball Club 野球部キャッチャー用の防具
- Scholastic Book Order Information スコラスティック注文 – 予告
- HIS Hoodies Information HIS パーカー注文 – 予告
This is the first announcement from the PTA in two weeks. We hope you are all doing well.
We would like to express our sympathies to all those affected last week, their families, and all concerned, and hope for their earliest possible recovery.
The current situation is a daily inconvenience for children all over Japan and indeed, the world, in their school life, but we all share a sincere hope that it will be resolved as soon as possible and that normal days will return.
２週間ぶりのPTAからのお知らせとなりますが、いかがお過ごしでしょうか。
この度の状況につきましては、罹患された皆さま・ご家族、関係者の皆さまに心よりお見舞い申し上げますとともに、一日も早い回復をお祈りしております。
子供たちの学校生活においても何かと不便の続く毎日ですが、この状況が一日も早く解消され、平穏な日々が戻りますよう心より願っております。
Catcher Protector for the baseball club 野球部キャッチャー用の防具
A set of protectors that was approved by a PTA meeting last school year has finally arrived. (Bought by the PTA fund.)
We got a message from Taishi (G10) who leads the baseball club to say, Thank you to everyone at the PTA for purchasing a set of protectors for the club’s catcher. We will use it with care.
少し時間がかかってしまいましたが、昨年度の間にPTAミーティングで承認された野球クラブ用の防具が届きました。(PTA資金からの購入です)
野球クラブを率いる10年生のTaishiくんより、お礼のメッセージです。
「PTAの皆さんありがとうございました。大切に使わせていただきます。」
Scholastic Book Club Order Information スコラスティック注文のご案内・ご説明
We would like to let you know that we are preparing for the first order of the year from Scholastic/Baker Books. Scholastic Book Clubs can be run by any school for children to purchase carefully chosen quality, popular books at discounted prices. It operates as a group online bookshop.
To fill up your bookshelf with your children’s favourite books or even if you are not sure which books to introduce to them, we recommend you to pick a book from the Book Club selection.
For every $1 you spend on Book Club, our school will earn 20¢ in Scholastic Rewards, which can then be used to buy books for the library. If the coronavirus situation allows, we expect the books to arrive before Halloween.
The opening and closing dates for the online order will be announced shortly!
スコラスティック注文のご案内・ご説明
今年度初めてのScholastic/Baker Booksの注文をしていただけるよう準備を進めています。Scholastic Book Clubは学校単位で書店へオーダーする機能で、丁寧にセレクトされた質の良い人気の本を、ディスカウントプライスで購入することができます。
お子さんの大好きな本で書棚を充実させたい時はもちろん、どんな本を揃えたらいいのか分からない場合でも、Book Clubのセレクションから1冊、選んでみることをお勧めいたします。
またBook Clubで本の購入をされますと、Book Club 内で使えるポイントとしてご購入1ドルにつき20¢がHISに入ります。このポイントは図書室の本を充実させる為に使用されます。
ハロウィンまでには本が到着する予定です。(コロナ事情による遅延の可能性あり)
オンライン注文の開始と締め切り日は追ってご案内いたします。
Hoodie Order Information -coming soon HIS パーカー注文のご案内 (近日中に受付開始)
We will shortly be accepting orders for HIS Hoodies. This is a great chance for new HIS students, their families, and those who are thinking of buying new ones as their children grow up. Ordering details will follow in the near future.
There are three styles.
* Hoodie (without zipper)
* Hoodie (with front zipper)
* Sweatshirt (without hood)
There are two types of fabric, lightweight and thick (fleece).
Adult sizes (XS.S.M.L.XL.XXL) are available in both light and thick.
Kids sizes (110-150) are only sold in light.
Prices:
For adults
Hoodie (without zipper / light) ¥ 3000.-
Hoodie (without zipper / thick) ¥ 3500.-
Hoodie (with front zipper / light) ¥ 3000.-
Hoodie (with front zipper / thick) ¥ 3800.-
Sweatshirt (without hood / light) ¥ 2500.-
Sweatshirt (without hood / thick) ¥ 3000.-
For children (110cm-150cm)
Hoodie (without zipper / light) ¥ 2800.-
Hoodie (with zipper / light) ¥ 3000.-
Sweatshirt (without hood / light) ¥ 2300.-
There may be differences in fit per size in the different fabrics, so please check the samples in the school office if you prefer.
HISパーカー注文のご案内 (近日中に受付開始)
新しくHISへ入られた生徒さん、ご家族の皆様、また、お子様のご成長に伴うサイズアウトで新たに買い足しをお考えのご家族の皆様に、新学期最初のHISパーカーのご購入受け付け予定のご案内です。
スタイルは３種類あります。
＊パーカー（ファスナーなし）
＊パーカー（前ファスナー有り）
＊トレーナ（フードなし）
生地は薄手と厚手(フリース生地)の２種類あります。
大人サイズ（XS.S.M.L.XL.XXL）は薄手と厚手の両方ありますが、
キッズサイズ（110〜150）は薄手のみの販売となります。
価格
大人用（XS.S.M.L.XL.XXL）
パーカー(ファスナーなし/薄手) ¥3000.-
パーカー(ファスナーなし/厚手) ¥3500.-
パーカー(前ファスナーあり/薄手) ¥3000.-
パーカー(前ファスナーあり/厚手) ¥3800.-
トレーナー(フードなし/薄手) ¥2500.-
トレーナー(フードなし/厚手) ¥3000.-
子供用(110cm〜150cm)
パーカー(ファスナーなし/薄手) ¥2800.-
パーカー(ファスナーあり/薄手) ¥3000.-
トレーナー(フードなし/薄手) ¥2300.-
生地の違いによるフィット感やサイズ感の違いもあるかもしれませんので、学校のオフィスにあるサンプルでご確認ください。
That’s all from us. Stay safe, everyone.
PTAからのお知らせは以上です。
From the PTA