An Interactive workshop for Nursery and Reception Parents

Please see the flyer below that is advertising a workshop for Foundation Stage parents about how to get the most from the Interactive Learning Diaries. These diaries are a bit like individual blogs - one for each child. They act as a wonderful window  in to your child's daily life and learning.

Thank you to David Treston and Karen Rowe for leading the session. We hope to see many of you there.

Chess Competition

I am please to announce that on Sunday 2nd November, the EPC will once again be hosting the 

National Team and Club Chess Championships.  This is the third time that we have hosted this prestigious event and over 250 of the best chess players from around Taiwan will be participating.  The competition will start at 9:30am and will finish around 4pm.  There should be three players in a team and each team will play seven games during the day.  The cost of entering a team in the event is NT$1,200, which includes lunch for each participant.  There are six different age ranges in the competition, ranging from kindergarten for children who are five or under to the open competition, which is for players of any age.

If you would like your child to participate in the event, please contact Mr Fagg at the following address - matthew.fagg@tes.tp.edu.tw

Parents are also welcome to participate in the open event.  If you would like to play but do not know any other chess players, let Matthew know and he can put you in a team.  

Announcing Summer Scrapbook Winners

We had an incredible response to the 2014 Summer Scrapbook Competition with over 50 entries. This is the highest number we have ever had, and I have to say that the quality of ALL the scrapbooks was fantastic. All the scrapbooks were winners in my eyes, but we had to select 2 winners in each year group,and here they are:
Year 1 Queenie and Kyle
Year 2 Divyash and Molly
Year 3 Leona and Ethan
Year 4 Sofea and Kush

Well done children!
Thank you to the members of the Tribe Council and Mr Coetzee who helped me in choosing the overall winners, you too did a fantastic job.

Lovely art work

Miss Tarpy in Year 1 has been given the task of coordinating displays around the school. You might have seen this one already.

As part of her work with displays around the school, she has also started to take some children's art work and put it in frames. Here are some examples of the framed art she has already done.

Aren't they fantastic! In fact they are so special, I have hung the paintings of Duncan and me just outside our 2 offices, and the cherry blossom painting will go in the staff room. Thank you children.

2 quick posts!

Just 2 quick posts from me this week.

Firstly, can I remind parents that there are 3 people on duty from 7:30:-

• A Learning Assistant from Nursery to meet and greet the children as the parents drop the children off
• A member of staff in the Infant playground
• A member of staff in the Junior playground

There are also many members of staff on the campus who are officially not on duty, but can certainly look out for your children.

I urge you to use the fact that there are staff members on duty from 7:30 and get to school before the traffic becomes crazy. The traffic becomes extremely heavy between 7:45 and 8:00 and many children are getting to lessons VERY late, so please consider getting to school just that little bit earlier to ease the congestion.

Secondly, the staff and I are doing a real push on the children bringing in healthy food options for snack time. Fruit and vegetables are a great option plus sandwiches, bread rolls or buns, dumplings, bread sticks, rice parcels or crackers. And please remember, there should be absolutely no sweets/candies/lollies in school and no chocolate. We would also like to restrict the sending in of chips or what westerners call crisps!

The morning is a long one, and the children need decent snacks that will sustain them until lunch time.

With thanks

Ruth Martin

How to wear our new skort

Dear Parents
The uniform committee have asked me to post this photo of our new skort to inform you that the girls who are wearing them need to wear the label to the front with the elastic at the back. Many of the girls are wearing them with the labels at the back and elastic at the front and are finding the skort very itchy.

The photo tries to show the correct wearing position - zip on the left, labels at the front, elastic at the back. I hope this helps.

The importance of good behaviour

Dear Parents
I have been made aware of some behaviour issues that are happening after school, so I would like to use this blog posting to mention a few things.
Teachers officially become 'off duty' once they have dismissed their class - either to ECAs, or to go home on the bus or to parents. The parents who collect their children from school often chose to stay at school a little longer so the children can enjoy the play facilities. While we are happy to let this happen, there has to be some rules:

• The children MUST be supervised by their parents or helpers at all times.
• The children should continue to adhere to the school's behaviour policy (I attach it for your information).
• The children MUST remain in the central area - the Infant section playground is out of bounds due to teachers needing to be able to work in their classrooms in peace and quiet, and the Junior playground is out of bounds due to ECAs.
• The children are not allowed to enter the Junior building other than to visit the nurse.
• The children must not run when inside the parent cafe or just outside in the corridor.
• The children can go to the library, but their parent or helper must be with them.
• The EPC site must be vacated by 4:30 unless the children have a peripatetic music lesson or are part of the FOBISIA Under 11 sports team.

We take the children's behaviour very seriously, and we spend a great deal of time encouraging good behaviour. Below I have put a link so you can see our behaviour policy, and if any children are behaving in breach of this policy, I would really appreciate you finding out their names and then informing me so I can have a quiet word with them.

Please click here for the behaviour policy.

Many thanks for your support in this sensitive but very important issue.