From the Head of Primary 16.09.2023

Here at KIS, we advocate for healthy eating! Good nutrition and a balanced diet help children grow up healthy. Following a healthy diet and living an active lifestyle will help your children in plenty of areas. From brain development, general wellbeing, sleeping patterns and physical strength, the benefits are vast and fruitful (excuse the pun).

As well, eating a healthy, balanced diet will:

• maintain heart health;
• help strengthen bones and teeth;
• improve moods;
• provide energy;
• maintain brain health and improve our memory.

One item we have begun to notice around school is energy drinks. These are not nutritionally beneficial and in some cases contain incredibly high amounts of caffeine. Most of these drinks are labelled as only being available for young people 15 years and older. These drinks go completely against our school’s healthy eating policy and so are not allowed. We request that you do not provide children with these drinks in their snacks or lunches.

Alongside this, we also want to ensure we are not wasting food. Last year, Fion Ho, who is now in Y8, wrote this article to remind us all about the importance of not wasting food.

Food waste is a global concern that has been happening over this past decade. It is about the waste that is leftover after consumption. Over one-third of the food in the world is wasted either because people are too full or they don’t like it. 

As an eco-school, we are trying to reduce the amount of food waste each day so we can reduce our school’s environmental impact. Here are some useful tips that you could consider:

• Get involved when your parents are ordering your food from the canteen so that you can decide what you want to have.

• Help prepare your snacks or lunches if you are bringing them from home and make sure you bring the right amount. 

• Make sure that you don’t rush to eat so that you finish your food before going to play. Enjoy sharing the day’s happenings with friends.

• You are encouraged to drink plain water rather than sweet or soft drinks while having your meal. 

• If you are planning to buy some food from the canteen, you should finish your food before buying. 

• Take the right amount of food during snack time so that your stomach is not full when it’s lunchtime. 

To support this, the eco warriors have set up a lunch waste station outside – manned by our wonderful Year 5 prefects. We are using this to measure the amount of food waste being produced and hopefully, encourage everyone to be more aware of the impact food waste has.

Please refer to our Healthy Eating Policy for more guidance. 

However, healthy eating only focussed on our physical health. More and more, the importance of mental health is also becoming apparent and something which we are beginning to instil in the children. This week we had an assembly on physical and mental health, to talk about the importance of looking after both. This was then discussed in classes afterwards.

We are lucky to have members of the school’s safeguarding team coming in next week to talk to the children about who they can go to in school, if they need support.

ECAs began on Monday. They are always a wonderful addition to the school day; I know how much the children enjoy them. Please make sure your child knows what ECA they are doing on which day and that they have the relevant equipment/clothing for the ECA. 

On Monday, you will receive a letter about the upcoming Primary Learning Conferences (25th-29th September) after which an appointment sign-up sheet will be available on the year group pages of Class Dojo. As mentioned previously, students from Y1-Y6 will be invited to attend the meetings. In order to support them in their learning, they will share with you work they are proud of and discuss things they feel they need to improve on. Please look out for this information and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the class teacher or myself. 

We celebrated some more amazing stars of the week in our celebration assembly. Congratulations to them on their hard work and great attitudes to learning.

We have a lovely piece from one of our Year 6 students on the joys of learning in such a culturally diverse school as KIS.

We have a lovely piece from one of our Year 6 students – Nicole Hu Yike – on the joys of learning in such a culturally diverse school as KIS.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to meet people from other countries everyday? It is a unique experience for everyone my age. Sometimes thinking outside the box, letting you know that everyone is special in their own way whether it’s their culture or personality. Firstly, our parents send us to this school to be Global Citizens, so in what ways can we be a Global Citizen? Respect all religions and cultures, we should tolerate every background and look at issues from a global perspective, rather than just looking at issues from a certain country, gender, race, or beliefs. Everyday just seems like a new start, learning new things. It’s really fascinating having friends that come from different backgrounds. I have started at KIS in Foundation 1 and I am now in Y6 already! Every year we would change classrooms and teachers, have new friends from different classes – even sometimes new students completely. My friends all come from different countries like Australia, France, China, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, England and Italy, even the teachers come from different regions! My current teachers come from England, The Netherlands and Malaysia. In conclusion, I am very lucky to be in this school because I have gentle and responsible teachers, smart classmates and an inclusive culture that makes me eager to come to school every day. Although English is the language I am best at, I plan to learn more languages in the future. I am currently learning French (which is quite easy) and I am still learning Chinese too. I love learning at KIS, a truly international school.

Finally, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to two new students and their family who joined us this week:

Aaron in Y2S and Elsa in Y6K

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend and happy Malaysia Day. 

Take care.

Mr Mark Beresford
Head of Primary