Parents

I hope that you all had a great mid-term break and enjoyed the many wonderful activities that take place around Mid-Autumn Festival. It is such a magical time of year. As someone who has adopted Hong Kong as their home for more than a decade, it is a time of year that I look forward to immensely.

I wrote to you last after Super Typhon Ragasa had finally dissipated and moved on from us. It was an incredible few days, amongst a few months that have reminded us of the power and influence of Mother Nature.

I wanted to provide you with an update on what we have been doing since then. 

You will recall that I said that, in the face of what appears to be weather that is changing with each passing year, we were going to review areas such as how we deliver on-line learning. That work is progressing well and I hope to be in a position to let you know about the outcome in the coming weeks.

We have also taken this opportunity to broaden this work out. 

Our young people, your children, spend 500 weeks at school. This may sound like a lot but, as you know all too well, that time passes by at an incredibly fast pace. 

The key thing about those 500 weeks is, of course, that time only moves in one direction. We do not get the chance to go back and do things again. Every student has that set period of time in school - and it is our responsibility as teachers and leaders to make sure that we squeeze every bit of value out of every moment for every student.

While we have developed strong protocols for online learning - and these will be further strengthened by the work of our review - we all know that the optimal situation, for a whole host of reasons, is to have the students in school with their teachers and classmates.

So, we have decided that we need to look at ways in which we can both maximise the time our students have in school - and provide a consistent approach to areas that directly impact you, our families. So, we are going to be carrying out a review into the way in which we carry out activities such as the K2-Y1 transition and parent/teacher and three way conferences. 

Where we can streamline processes to get more time for our students to be in school, then that is what we will do.

We have also made a decision about the ESF-wide CPD day that is scheduled to take place towards the end of February. As you know, we place an incredible amount of importance in making sure that our staff have every opportunity to develop and enhance their skills. This is something that makes ESF stand out not just here in Hong Kong, but globally as well.

However, we recognise that this year has been truly exceptional in terms of the disruption we have faced due to the weather. In the past few months alone, there have been a total of eight days where our ability to conduct face-to-face learning has been disrupted for all or some of our schools. This is double what we saw last year.

So, in order to counter this exceptional situation, we are taking exceptional measures. The CPD day in February will revert back to being a teaching day - and our schools will be open to students. Your Principal will be in touch with you shortly to talk about the specifics of how that is going to happen. 

As always, I want to thank you for all of the support that you give to your school and to ESF. We are an exceptional organisation - and all of us know just how important the role that you play in helping us to do what we do: helping every student be the best that they can be.

Belinda Greer

Chief Executive Officer
English Schools Foundation