nanohana

FORTNIGHTLY NEWSLETTER
Edition 545April 27th 2012
Welcome to the Fifty Fifth Edition .

Recently Grade 2 children visited the Flower Museum in Chiba. They investigated about different kids of flowers including drawing them. Message from the School Nurse. We are sorry for K1 and K2 children and parents. We mentioned to you about your childs health checkups though the Health News Letter last time. It was planned that K1 and K2 would have their hearing and eyesight checked. However we decided to cancel them. Because it is too difficult for the children to answer questions properly and therefore the results might be inaccurate. Apologies for this. Staffing At present we are looking for an additional K2 teacher as well as an ESL teacherboth from the end of August 2012. With that in mind, I shall be travelling to London at the end of May to interview prospective applicants. As always I will do my best to hire the very best educators that can be found. Whilst I am away, Mr. Gunn can be contacted in regard to any educational matters.

Last week we held our first Fire Drill Practice of the academic year. Children followed the procedures very well and left the school sensibly, quietly and were led to the school field very sensibly and carefully. This week we planned to hold our first Earthquake Drill of the year. However, we decided to cancel as it was raining a lot at the chosen time. Naturally we try and improve our practices each time we do a drill. We evaluate children carefully and afterwards (as a staff team) we make suggestions on how to improve for next time. During the earthquake drill we will ensure that children (and staff) wear their protective head gear, and are led to the adjacent JETRO building where children will evacuate to if a tsunami were to approach the school. We will proceed with the earthquake practice after the Golden Week holiday.
Bicycles Can I ask parents to remind children not to chase each other when cycling home after school. Recently a member of the public complained when hit by an MIS child who was not looking where he was going, whilst chasing another child Please take extra care on the way home.

Fire and Earthquake Drills

COOL BIZ Chiba Prefecture officially suggests companies begin Cool Biz from May 1st. This is one month earlier than normal, in order to try and save money on electricity. At MIS we will follow the same advice and therefore teachers will be in Cool Biz from May 7th after the holidays. Please do not therefore be surprised if you see staff not wearing ties at this time. We will still be smart, but we also take very seriously the need to save electricity in Japan at this time.

Happy Holidays! Wishing everyone a wonderful Golden Week holiday and we will see children back at school on May 7th.

On June 14th we will be opening up the school for parents to come and visit. Apologies as this was originally planned for May 17th. However, due to having to have certain medical health checks on certain days we had to change the date of the Open Day. As last year, we will open at specific times in the morning and afternoon and I will send a letter home about this soon. If there are any parents who specifically planned to come on May 17th and made special arranges because of this, please inform the school and we will try and accommodate you at this time.
UK Order Arrived! On Friday April 20th our yearly UK order arrived. This is full of extra furniture and a large number of books for class library areas. These are being sorted at this time and should help MIS expand its choice of reading for children in the near future. Office Reminders Please be reminded that the initial Welcome Letter for new parents contains school web site password information and much more besides. Please can we also ask parents picking up children at 1.30pm to leave the car park soon afterwards and not stay till 2.00pm. This could be dangerous if we have many visitors. Alsoif parents children are absent or late can they fill in the appropriate form and send to the office or phone the office before 9.00am The school office will be open on May 1st and 2nd.

OPEN DAY

Tree Donations From Wednesday of this week a friend of the schoolTamura-san donated several trees for the school. We were lucky that another friend of the schoolOnari-san, was able to plant them. Unfortunately one of these had to be used to replace the dying tree in the kindergarten field. Photos on Facebook and Twitter. Summer Uniforms! This is to remind parents that it is our intention to have children wearing their summer uniforms from May 7th. I cannot predict the weather and so therefore IF unseasonably cold, and parents are therefore worried about their children being too coldwe will be flexible for a while after May 7th. Further updates will be sent home from that time.

Ms. Belsher Leaving Ms. Belsher will be leaving Makuhari International School at the end of this term, to return to her home country. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Belsher for all her hard work and commitment to MIS and not only as our ESL Co-ordinator. Ms Belsher was one of our Founding Teachers and we will always be grateful for her contributions to help MIS become the successful school it is today. Good luck to Ms Belsher in her future career and life.