Author: Damian Rentoule

ITEMS: Students-led workshop for teachers; Guardian vacancies for BOT; Kanji testing questionaire; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community As we move into the one-week Autumn break, I would like to remind families about the importance of reading. Parents can help children develop reading routines. You can read to them and younger learners love this. If you have older children, try reading some things that they are reading. It is great for the conversations. However, whatever you do, above all, carve out time to read in your child's daily routine. Also, remember that scrolling through social media is not what we are talking about when we look at developing reading skills. The language needs to be complex enough (relative to their reading level) to challenge them. Social media will not…

ITEMS: Interim reports; Thank you to our interns; Student/Parent/Teacher Conferences; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you all had a good week. We are please to be able to run two important events this year, just with some adjustments due to COVID. The first is our Bonfire Night which is always fun. The PTA News has important information about the Bonfire Night (Friday, 5 November). Two big differences are that we will all eat on our own family picnic mats with families rather than at tables together, and all food will be ordered-in rather than prepared at school. The fire however, will be as we remember! Many thanks to the PTA for all the work problem solving in order to make this possible. Festive Eve is the…

ITEMS: Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences; PYP Information Session; PTA News Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you all had a great week. We are looking forward to seeing everyone at our Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences on 11th October and some information for that event is below. It is being held virtually this year due to COVID and we hope that the virtual format will make it a bit easier to attend. I would also like to thank the PTA who have been working on some Halloween festivities, which will be in-school and modified to be COVID friendly. The PTA is also planning a modified version of our Bonfire Evening which has always been a fun event. We did not run this last year due to COVID but we have some ideas for a…

ITEMS: My Mommy is Beautiful; The Momiji Tree; Crane Club; TED Ed Student Talks; HIS Tutor List; Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Below, we have the recording of our second Alumni Panel. Three of our recent graduates kindly gave up their time to talk to HIS parents about their experiences at HIS and their transition to higher education. If you are wondering about the future of your child, which we all do, of course, this is a discussion you do not want to miss. We often say that our program at HIS prepares students for the world, full of change and uncertainty, that they are about to enter. When we hear our graduates speak, we are reassured that we are, in fact, doing that well. We…

ITEMS: Alumni Panel; COVID-related information; Festive Eve update; My Mommy is Beautiful; Parent Information Evening videos; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope that you have all had an enjoyable week as we move into this long weekend. In today's message, I would like to draw your attention to our graduates. On Thursday, we had three absolutely wonderful young adults talk to us about their experiences at HIS and the impact of these experiences on their post-school life. I think that this is a must-watch for all of our HIS parents, especially as you consider the outcome of the educational journey your child is on: Who they ultimately become through this journey. They get great IB scores and enter university, which we celebrate, but the qualities they develop…

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. Thank you to our PYP parents who read some great stories for our students this week! 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…

Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Thank you to everyone for being so supportive during our COVID-related school closure today and on Monday. I would like to wish a speedy recovery to all of the members of the school community affected. For students in areas of the school who have been asked to take a PCR test (specific classes and bus group) when you send in the email confirmation of result to your child's homeroom teacher, please: Include (CC) Makkie in the office on that email. makkie@hiroshima-is.ac.jp Attach a screenshot of the electroninc notification of results to that email. (You do not need a separate certificate.) Also, please let us know as soon as possible so that we do not have too much of a rush on Monday evening and Tuesday…

ITEMS: Class of 2021 results update; COVID-related health procedures; Event status changes; Student organized International Day; Primary math text order; Crane Club newsletter; Bento order; HIS gardeners; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Welcome back to a new school year. We were very glad to see our students back after a safe and happy summer. It has been a busy week as you can imagine. We welcomed many new families this year and the new students have all settled in very well which we were very glad to see. As we know, one of our greatest strengths is that our HIS community is very inclusive and we look after each other. This has been, once again, very clear in the way that our returning students welcomed and looked after…

ITEMS: Action Week Photos; BOT Guardian Election; Math Text Order Forms; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Welcome to the Summer Break. We hope you all have a safe and relaxing summer and get time to have great conversations with your children. Wishing you a great holiday from all the teachers and staff at HIS! We look forward to seeing you all back in August. We have some members of our Board of Trustees and Board of Directors moving away so we are looking for members of the community to take up positions. Some of these are the Guardian (parent) positions in the Board of Trustees. If you would be interested in this, please nominate yourself on this form. We need your support! Have a great holiday! Kind regards…

ITEMS: Momiji Fundraising Project, Artwork Donations & Copper Cranes; Student Social Event; Congratulations to Lisa for a great presentation; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community We are drawing closer to the end of the year and for this last week, I would like to thank you all for being so great about following our COVID-related health guidelines during the year. I would also like to remind everyone to remain focused on those guidelines until the end of the year and also into the summer holiday, of course. In August, we will be evaluating the situation and it is likely that we will continue with a very similar set of guidelines into the new academic year as we start 2021/2022. It looks like there is some light at the end…