Setting+the+2011-12+Calendar


 * __ School Calendar – Major Events in Primary __**

This is a list of the major events for the calendar year. Last year we listened to advice that the early part of Semester 2 was overly busy with Interviews, SLCs and Open Day all close together. In bringing Charity Week and Open Day into Semester 1, we may have made Semester 1 too busy and stressful.

Please make suggestions on how we may re-schedule events to even them out. If you make suggestions, please consider other events around the time you are suggesting it. SMT will meet in a couple months to plan the calendar and would appreciate your input. We would like to release to parents a school wide calendar of major events next year.

// Please note – Interviews and Reports are fixed and not negotiable //

// Also, significant events which involve a lot of preparation and multiple people / year levels are in bold. //

** Semester 1 **

Late August / Early September - Parent Information Evenings Y2 - As soon as possible is best. Otherwise you always get many questions repeated by different parents. Year 5 agrees with Y2, and think it would beneficial to have this immediately after school opens, so parents know expectations.

September 13-17 - **Charity Week** ﻿(Year 3: move to October as it gives more time for year levels to prepare) Year 1- Move to later in semester 1 (replace Open Day) as it will give more time for classes to prepare. Year 1's rely on parent help but this was difficult as we did not know our reps for the year and were still getting to know our parent community. (Y6 - a little later wouldn't hurt, but it needs to either be a week or two before Camp or a week or two afterwards. Preferably before because we have to put on an assembly a week or two after to show what we learned.) ﻿ Y2 - Agree a little later in Semester 1. New staff found it busy since joinign the school. ﻿ Year 5- It would benefit to move this later so team-building and routines are developed enough in classes, to have them adequately work together to prepare for this event, perhaps later October. We would also like to consider alternating big events every other year, to help decrease the crowdness of the schedule, and keep events fresh.

September 28 – Yr 6 camp ﻿(Y6 - loved the timing- working really hard and being totally exhausted, then going off on holiday to relax. When we used to have it earlier in September, we would still need to teach the last two days of the week, which was impossible because everyone was tired.) - Ok, will try to keep it. That reminds me Sheila, please see if you can ask Alice to help you book it for next year (Damien).

Year 4 :Charity Week was good at the beginning of the year. Classes bond. Late September, just before the break.

Thanks all, the general consensus seems to be keep Charity Week in Semester 1 but a little later (Damien)

   ﻿ ﻿ ﻿ ﻿ ﻿ October 15 – Student Progress Report

October 20 – 21 – **Open Days** ﻿ ﻿(Year 3: have "Open afternoons" for year levels at different times, e.g. Year 3 has Egypt Open Afternoon in February) Year 1-Remove Open Day and allow year levels to choose an event to invite the parents to attend for example Chinese New Year activities in January.

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(Y6- I think we need to reexamine the rationale behind this. It was started as a way to market us to parents, then was changed to a way to bring existing parents into the school. If it's about marketing to outsiders, then a whole day, but then we also need to establish success criteria for determining the extent to which previous events have been successful as a marketing strategy. If it's about bringing parents into the school, then that could be done ANYTIME. So it depends on the philosophy of the event more than anything.) ===== Year 4 We agree with Year 3. Link it to a special event the class is covering.

Y2 - Happy to have the events throughtout the Year which are 'open' to parents to attend then.

Year 5- While respectfully recognizing the goal of Open Day, this event compromises too much quality academic time compared to its stated objectives. Ther perecentage of new visiting parents does not seem to warrant this event. If we keep Open Day, could it be a day where parents get to come in to see quality hands on teaching; to better understand a day in the life of their child. We understand a concern with this idea has been the idea that parents will only see the teacher teaching, yet most of our lessons are actually very heavily hands on or student centered. The expecation that Year levels need to present a themed presentation adds alot of pressure onto the children and teachers. We think it would be great to allow parents to see high quality teaching in action --when learning is in progress rather than just the end product.

Ok we will put that idea forward at SMT - ie to have open times for each year level - at times which suit them (Damien).

October 28-29 – **Parent Teacher Interviews**

November 1 – EOTC Week, Chinese Reading Month Chinese department: we will still hold Chinese Reading Month in November next year. Year 4: We linked the Chinese reading month to our literacy lesson and had a Reading Bingo.

Last 2 weeks of Semester 1 – **Christmas Concerts and Rehearsals** Year 4: the Christmas concert is too long (parent feed back) Lots of parents that do not have students in the orchestra left after the class performance. Perhaps the orchestra performance should have their own musical event or music teachers should coordinate musical items into each class performance.

Y2 - Late timing for the Y1-2 concert in terms of finishing around 8pm. The final week of school is good for the date. Rehearsals are always difficult but ran smoothly this year.

Year 5- To help reduce loss of crucial teaching time, this event needs more coordination between acts and "scheduled - rehearsals" to not waste class time. On several occassions we lost a lot of class time due to lack of coordination.

Chinese department- The Chinese final examination in Semester 1 next year would like to be held on Dec 7-8. If it effects the rehearsals for Chrismas concert, the dates can be rescheduled.

** Semester 2a **

January 14 – Mid Year Report (busy time in **December**) - **CNY Celebration (evening)** Chinese department: CNY Celebration evening will be held on Jan 13. January 14-21 – SEN Review Days - Year 5- Could we move the SEN review a little later by a few weeks? January 25-26 – **Parent Teacher Interviews** - ﻿Year 5- Can SLCs replace this January PT interviews? Then teachers can independently schedule appointments with parents who are concerned about the report card or regarding students requiring significant intervention. Throughout January – Overseas Orders

February 14 – Free Dress Day (Valentines Day / Chinese dress) Year 4: The students didn't really understand why they had to wear Chinese dresses on Valentine's Day. The Chinese Dress Day should be linked to the Chinese New Year, or Chinese Reading Month.

I agree with this point. By the time the free dress came, CNY celebrations had finished. We could maybe change to a theme day or go with the same theme as CP - red for Valentine's Day. As long as we raise 20RMB per child and can put some money to our chosen charities, the actual theme does not matter. Maybe the could be a RP student council task for 2011-12 (Damien)

February 24 – March 3 – **Student Led Conferences** Difficult to prepare for as students still returning from CNY holidays. Could we have it in April? The students can then show a more detailed portfolio containing a progression of work from the start of the year. This would be good - although we would need to re-look at the Portfolio guidelines in terms of what is to be included in the portfolio to reflect the later time frame (Rob) Yes, we can look at this (Damien)

Y2 - Worthwhile event but agree the timing makes it difficult to collate the necessary pieces of work when many students return from CNY at different times.

Year 5- We think this event is very effective and the timing worked well this year. If we have the SLCs during this time, does it make sense to do another progress report in April?

March 21-24 – Yr 6-7 transition Y6- Move it up. If it's about student retention, then we've already missed the boat. Applications to Dulwich and Concordia are due March 1. So the parents have already made up their minds by the third week of March AND the first round of withdrawl forms for YCIS have already been received. It's going to be hard on Secondary, but if the purpose is student retention, this needs to happen in January or February. If it's not about student retention, then it can take place anytime. But it goes back to setting goals: Is our primary goal to transition students OR is it to convince their parents not to transfer them to another school? Deciding on this will determine the timing. And whether we mean to or not, the timing will affect the message. Our main goal is to provide a smooth transition for our Yr 6 students. We do want to do it before mid April to give our parents a chance to know our plans as well, to be fair to them. I think it serves both purposes. In my opinion January / February is too early. We haven't made plans for the following year at that point and can't tell our parents information with any certainty. By the end of March we already have a good idea. The transition has been moved up this year already from last year - let's see how it goes. (Damien)

March 31 – RP Art Show

April 1 – Charity Free Dress - ﻿Year 5- We have an idea for this free dress, it could be Dress Blue Day in honor of the Blue Planet for World Water Day. The date is technically March 22nd for next year. The money could be donated to an environmental organization like Roots and Shoots. Year 4: Students really like the Free Dress Days

Y2 - Enjoyable for the students

Just have to be careful we don't have too many free dress days...We have three in the space of 10 weeks and they can lose their appeal (Rob)

** Semester 2b **

April 7-8 – **Violin Concerts**

April 8 – Progress Reports Year 1- We would like to suggest that instead of Progress reports we use the portfolios and SLC's for reporting. By April, students will have a selection of work collected from the beginning of the year which displays the progression of learning students have made. Sorry, can't do anything about this request. Progress Reports are set by the foundation - we have asked this before and it remains on the calendar. (Damien) April 22 – Earth Day ﻿-Year 5- Would it be possible to add a free dress day for Earth day? Maybe dress in Green? We are having one on 21st April (22nd is a holiday this year) - Rob

April 25-29 – **Chinese Week (includes 2 Performance Evenings)** Chinese department- April 23-27: Chinese week; April 26: RP Chinese Performance Evening; April 27: CP Chinese Performance Evening. The venue will be CP Gym. May 4-6 – **Campus Sports Days**

May 7 – Global Child Day (Saturday this year) Y6- Everyone loves GCD, but everyone loves having a break from work on the weekend. Teachers are excited and enthusiastic about it when it's on a Friday afternoon when school gets out- do we think the same will hold true this year? We shall see - we can give feedback after the event. Not sure why it was changed, will try to find out. (Damien) Year 5- We agree with Year 6, that having the event on Friday increases staff enthusiasm for the event. We think Friday afternoons could lead to higher parent turn out, because parents are coming anyway to pick up their child, instead of imposing on their precious weekend time.

Y2 - Teachers would prefer this after school. It is a fun activity but it is nicer built into the end of the day.

May 30 – June 3 – **Bookweek** Y6- This needs to be moved to the start of March to coincide with the Literary Festival. It could be the week after SLCs and would give teachers a nice break because some lessons would be planned/taken care of for them (through guest speakers, special games and activities, etc). Would be a really nice post-SLC program. June is also VERY full for the Year Sixes because of graduation. Year 4 Agree with Year 6. Year 5 agrees with Year 6 as well. As we said this year, the best we can get out of literacy festival is a visitor here or there, but not someone we can build a whole week around (e.g. Roger Jenkins). These guys are in high demand when they come here. I think we are open to having bookweek earlier, but it all depends on the availibilty of authors (Damien)

Y2 - Fine, the worth of the authors adds a lot to the event. If it is timed around the Literacy Festival or the British Book Week we are able to take advantage of increased online resources.

June 1-2 – Chinese Exams Chinese department- June 6-7: Chinese Final examination for 2011-2012 semester year. June 17 – Summer Music Concert

June 23 – **End of Year Reports** 