Dear parents,
I hope that all of you had a pleasant holiday and have brought a lot of warm memories back with you. It is a new year, a new semester and from the bottom of my heart I welcome all the new families and friends to our campus. I hope that all of you have settled in nicely over the past few weeks and have gotten to know your teachers and the campus management. For both new and familiar faces, I would like you to know that you can find me at the gate on Tuesdays or in my office (# 105) during drop-off and pick-up hours. Please do not hesitate to have a talk with me, call or write on # 13771904459, anders@internewton.com if I can be of assistance.
This semester we have the fortune of welcoming a new wonderful English teacher from Britain, Ms. Alexandra and a new Chinese assistant Ms. Abby, to the Hui Xin family. I hope that they will have a great stay here and I look forward to getting to know them better.
In Suzhou, it's been a rainy couple of weeks since we returned. Though not common for rainy days, we have observed close to 200 on the Air Quality Index with high levels of PM2.5 particles and we have taken precautions.
As you are probably aware, each class-room has air-purifiers that provide our students and teachers with clean air. On mornings with high air pollution, we have begun turning the class air-purifiers on at 7:00, 1 hour before school starts, to ensure a room of clean air awaits the first students and teachers. However, from our own measurements we know that the purifiers' efficiency is limited to the discipline of our teachers, students and parents. On a typical day, during arrivals, morning exercise and breakfast service hours from 8:30 - 9:30 the class-room doors tend to be left open for longer than necessary, which not only makes it harder to cool/heat our classes, but also lets the clean air out and the bad air in. I am pushing all my staff to be mindful about this problem, to teach students the importance of energy efficiency by closing outside doors and kindly ask for your help as well, not to linger in an open door.
One of my favorite school events is coming up and it is the "Festival of Colors", which begins middle of March. Teachers will be sending out invitations for the "Festival of Colors" 2 week theme period, where parents are encouraged to join and be guest teachers, teaching the class about your unique country, culture or places that you have visited in the past. Baking, cooking, paper-folding, playing games, coloring, costumes, national clothes, stories and music are all elements typically used for the activities. If you wish to join, your teachers will assist you in planning. * Due to the risk of unknown allergic ingredients, all baking/cooking activities must be limited to small sample sizes only and include a detailed ingredient list, to be pre-approved by your class teachers in advance to avoid any risks.
At beginning of this week, nurse Anna printed a new "health check from home" calendar that should be placed on the first page of your child's communication book. I hope that all of you will sign the acknowledgement and help to prevent any outbreak at school by doing a daily quick check from home. Thank you.
IMPORTANT REMINDERS FOR THE COMING MONTH(S):
- March 6th: Birthday parties in classes.
- March 11th - 22nd: Festival of Colors theme period (invitations will be sent out this week)
- April 5th-7th (from/to & including): The school will close for Tomb Sweeping holiday.
- April 15th-26th: Open Classes (notice follows)
- April 19th: Earth Day! (actually on 20th, but we celebrate 1 day early). Students can wear blue/green clothes.
I wish all of you a fantastic upcoming month of March!
Anders S Christensen, principal
