Author: Damian Rentoule

Items: New HIS Website; Groundbreaking Ceremony; Photography Contest; HIS PTA Treasurer's report 2019-20; Winter Program 2020/2021. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you are all enjoying the summer and stayed dry during our rather lengthy rainy season. Our three new teachers who are coming in from overseas are all arriving in Japan within the next few days and will have their PCR tests before being released from the airport and will stay in a quarantine-hotel for 2 weeks in Narita before travelling to join us here in Hiroshima before school starts so we are very happy about that. We are keeping an eye on the COVID situation of course, but are expecting to open as normal on Monday, 24 August with all of our health procedures in place. Fortunately,…

Items: MYP Musical Performance; Jump Rope Challenge video; A note about my book. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Thank you very much for a great year which presented many challenges to us as a school as well as to you all as families. I would like to express my appreciation for your resilience and positive mindsets during the uncertainty that we faced. Please take care and stay safe over the summer holidays and I look forward to seeing you all back after the break. There are a few more messages that I will be sending out next week so you haven't heard the last of me. I hope you are all enjoying this lovely weather. Regards Damian Rentoule Crane Video The Crane video comes from Gr8 this week with an…

Items: HIS Self Study - Support from the Community; Hiroshima Sailing School - June 2020; Withdrawal Form & Financial Regulations Form. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Congratulations to our Grade 5 class, the Class of 2027, who graduated from our Primary School's IB Primary Years Program and will now move into our Secondary School's  IB Middle Year Program and five years later, our IB Diploma Program. We wish you all the best in your Secondary years. You can see some images of our Class of 2027 in the Crane Video. We are entering our final week of school and I would like to thank all of the students, families and teachers who have been so flexible and adaptive over these past months. Have a nice weekend and stay dry. Kind regards…

Items: University Acceptances for Class of 2020; New Building Project tour; Grade 5 to Grade 6 Transition Meeting; HIS 2029/2020 Yearbook orders; Parent volunteers for self-study; Graduation live-stream link. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Although this may feel like a long way away for you if you have younger children, university and other interesting option await our HIS graduates and we are very proud of our Class of 2020 who graduated last weekend. Students in the Class of 2020 have received offers from a range of leading universities so congratulation to you all.  Your hard work and perseverance over the years have opened up many exciting doors for you. It is an impressive list and those universities would all be fortunate to be able to count you as part of…

Items: Annex; Yearbook; Graduation orders (link to live stream); Buses; Opening guidelines; Gr4/5 Video. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Congratulations to our HIS teachers, Nina and Robert, on the arrival of their new daughter, Anaya, who was born late Sunday night and we are looking forward to meeting Anaya in the near future, the newest member of our HIS community. That was great news to start the week with. Also, congratulations to our Grade 12 class who graduate on Sunday and we will be live streaming the event which starts at 4:30 pm. I will send a link via email to everyone at 4:20 pm so you can join us in the celebration. We have a special wildlife video below introducing two of our new friends, Deer & Crow, below.…

Items: 2020/2021 tuition; June on-campus classes; Jump Rope Challenge. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community On Monday evening this week, the HIS Board of Directors and the HIS Board of Trustees met to discuss the budget for 2020/2021 and decided on a 0% tuition increase. Although an increase in tuition is required to cover projected operating expenses for 2020/2021, the Board of Directors and Board of Trustees feel that in the current uncertain economic environment that the COVID situation has created, a delay on a tuition increase is appropriate. HIS reserves are healthy enough to support a short-term deficit. It is important to remember, however, that there will need to be a tuition increase in our near future to achieve long-term financial sustainability. It is an exciting time at HIS as…

Items: Student messages to teachers; Sayonara to the Annex and the Foundation Stone Project; Diploma Program Exams; Li's Service Project; Jump Rope Challenge; Library Access. Principal's Message [caption id="attachment_4225" align="alignnone" width="300"] One of our HIS flowers - do you know where it can be found?[/caption] Dear HIS Community I hope you all enjoyed Golden Week, staying pretty close to home this year, I imagine. Our distance learning has resumed smoothly as we head into this last part of the year. Early next week, we will assess the public health situation and make a decision regarding the last four weeks of school. I will send a message out to families regarding this on Wednesday, next week. Thank you for your patience and all the work you are doing at home to…

Items Teacher introduction; Rainbow window project; Ideas for maintaining balance on Golden Week. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Due to continued uncertainty related to the Coronavirus situation, HIS will continue distance learning after Golden Week through to Friday 22 May. We will monitor the situation and make a decision regarding the last four weeks of school closer to this date. We would like to thank you all for your support and congratulate you all on supporting your children's learning so well in what is a very new situation for us all. We would also like to continue to gather feedback from students and parents so here is a short survey for you on your experience so far. Thank you. In this image, you can see the flowers on the wisteria…

Items: Teacher Introductions; Mask Donations; College Information; Congratulations to Miina; Graduation Update. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you have had a successful week of distance learning. We had our Primary and Secondary Team meetings via Zoom today and all the teachers are reflecting on their experiences and making adjustments. We have appreciated the feedback from families that we have been receiving as we move forward. With the State of Emergency being declared across Japan, we will keep looking at the situation and at the end of next week provide an update on the distance learning timeline for HIS. Please take care and stay safe. This is a great TED Talk about curiosity and may provide some ideas of some off-track inquiries in the home. I really liked the…