Associated items between A and E inclusive are shown below:
If a teacher is sick and unable to teach, please contact the designated person, in our case the Deputy Head of Campus (DHOC), or if not available, the Assistant Head (AH) before 6.30am so that cover may be sought as early as possible. It is the absent teacher’s responsibility to contact the designated person to indicate their return to work or their continued absence by the end of the day on which they have taken absence. If absence is caused by sickness, please provide a medical certificate to cover any period in excess of three days. For periods longer than this, please refer to the contractual terms.
In most cases, the school nurse on each campus will be the first point of reference.
The member of staff on duty is the initial judge of the severity of the accident. Initial First Aid is applied at school by the nurse or other trained First Aiders.
If there is any doubt and ALWAYS in the case of ANY suspected head injury, parents should be contacted.
A note from the nurse must be completed in all cases when a child is required to have medical treatment and if the parents need to be contacted by the teacher on duty and the school nurse. The note is given to the child or class teacher and the medical incident is added to SIMS by the School nurse.
In the event of a child requiring hospital treatment, the parents or other designated adults are contacted by the nurse / office staff and asked to collect the child from school. If the parents / named contact person are unable to be contacted, then the school nurse and / or a member of staff will accompany the child to the designated hospital or clinic.
Obviously, in cases of extreme urgency, the child is taken directly to the designated hospital. The parents are then contacted and requested to go directly to the hospital.
First Aid boxes are available in all campuses.
Staff should familiarise themselves with the personal details of their class / classes, particularly noting any reported allergy or potential problem. A list of the medical information about each class is provided by the nurse at both Early Years and Infant and Junior Campuses. Any new information should be passed onto the school nurse, who will update the medical register which is stored on the campus specific shared drive and then Rivo.
An online database called RIVO is always used by the nurse, DHOC and campus facility manager to record all accidents and incidents. An Accident Book is kept in each campus office and used when the RIVO system cannot be accessed. The RIVO database or accident book needs to be filled in by the adult who has dealt with the accident. If you are unsure whether to complete an entry in the book, please seek the option of a senior member of staff or the campus Health and Safety representative.
No alcohol should be consumed at school other than at functions, organised at school outside school hours, where permission for alcohol consumption has been approved by the Principal.
Under no circumstances is the smoking of tobacco, or any other substances, permissable in possible view of students or parents during school hours. This includes any on or off campus activities, including on-line.
Assemblies are an opportunity for Year Groups and the whole school to come together to celebrate learning and special events. The expectation is that all pupils and adults should be quiet and respectful to those leading the assembly. In return, the assembly should be well organised, stimulating and age appropriate. Children should enter an assembly by taking off their school hats if they have come directly from the playground and placing them on the floor in front of them. The teacher taking the assembly should be there to receive the pupils and help guide them to their appropriate places. Points to note:
EY and I & Juniors have weekly Year Group assemblies. (See your timetable for when your assembly is.)
The Junior Campus whole school assembly is held each Friday at 13:45 in the Gym.
The EY and I Campus weekly whole school assembly is held on Friday morning at 08.30 in the Gym.
An assembly rota is agreed at the start of each term. Specialist leaders/teachers are also expected to lead assemblies.
All staff should attend the weekly Friday assembly, unless permission has been sought for an alternate activity.
All staff are expected to sit with their class to encourage positive behaviour during pupil led, Friday assemblies or whole school assemblies. When all staff are in the assembly, everyone is responsible for the childrens' behaviour.
Time should be made available in class to remind children about school expectations of behaviour during assemblies.
All assemblies usually begin and end with music organised by the teacher running the assembly or the Music Department.
Over the previous few years, the air quality in HCMC has deteriated to the point it is now being spoken about openly. Reasons for this are probably many, but we are more concerned about ensuring that when outside, our students are protected as much as possible and the procedures we have in place are intended to limit time spent outside by our community as the AQI measure increase.
BIS HCMC Air Quality References:
To reduce confusion, at BIS HCMC we use only 3 colours to indicate AQI - Green, Yellow and Red. This poster explains how the six colours used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and our school based AirVisual Device are represented here at BIS HCMC. Our visual traffic light system is visible in a number of locations around each campus and details can be seen here:
The centrally located AirVisual Device on the Junior Campus means that we have access to live readings of the AQI US PM2.5 in the general vicinity of BIS HCMC and is the central recording station for all three campuses.
To gain access, on your device of choice download the AirVisual App from the Play Store or App Store (see logo to the right).
Go to the 3 dots (menu) at the top right hand side of the app on an Android phone, and the 3 parallel lines at the top right hand corner of an IOS device, and then click on Follow Monitor. Input the following code.
Code: 4v8i9w0x
To use the desktop version, go to https://www.airvisual.com/dashboard/devices and then add the above code into find a device.
Bus times will be provided by the Campus Deputy Head Teachers. Only staff in Imperia can use the school bus. Children will not be able to use staff buses, so alternative arrangements must be sought.
There are 180 contact days and 188 contractual workdays divided over three terms: August to December; January to March and April to June.
New teachers are expected to participate fully in the orientation programme before the beginning of the new academic year.
CCAs are provided for all pupils who wish to participate on both our EY & I and Juniors Campuses. The CCA clubs can take the form of sporting, musical, artistic, cooking, community and external providers. The following are guidelines for club provision:
EYFS and Years 1 and 2 - 1 free sign-up club per week, with the addition of the following free clubs if they wish - Choir, orchestra, community.
Years 3 - 6 - 3 free sign-up clubs per week, with the addition of the following free clubs if they wish - Choir, orchestra, community.
Student Council representatives on the Juniors Campus will meet as an extra club at lunchtime.
In addition to free clubs, children are encouraged to participate in the school choirs, orchestra, community clubs and representative squads which tend to run throughout the term rather than for a specified block of time. These clubs are free choices and not part of a child’s free club allocation.
Children should be collected by their parents or a responsible adult from the basketball court if an after-school CCA. No children should leave the school unless accompanied by a recognised guardian who has the child’s swipe card, unless the school office has been informed in writing in advance and evidence has been produced. No children should be left unattended on the basketball court.
Any children who have not been collected by 16:10 at the EY&I and 15.50 at the Junior campus should be taken to the office by the club or specialist group teacher. The pupils’ names must be recorded in the late book. A letter will be sent home to habitual offenders.
Children who attend sporting clubs must be supervised when they get changed by the teacher of the club/group. Some younger pupils may get changed in their classrooms or nearest toilets.
Online registers (and paper registers at EY&I) must be completed through SchoolsBuddy (the electronic club management system at school) by all club teachers so that attendance of all children can be monitored throughout each term.
Teachers are expected to run at least one club per week each term of the yearly CCA programme for existing staff and in Terms 2/3 for new staff to BIS.
Our activities programmes run before lessons (7:00 - 7:45am), during lunchtime (2 x 30 minute slots) and after lessons (JC - 2:40 – 3:40 and EYIC 2:50 - 3:50). Some programmes run beyond these times and are stated in the relevant CCA booklet.
For staff, this will require a single session if held
Activities typically run from the third to fourth week of term through to the penultimate week. Occasional use of facilities for examinations may mean that some activities are suspended for certain periods.
As a child safe school, we at BIS HCMC are fully committed to the protection and safeguarding of all members of our school community and have Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) on each campus. These are Sarah Curran (EYIC), Chris McKelvie (JC) and Gareth Wills (SC). Full details of our policy can be found in the school policies, here.
At BIS, we take the recording of concerns seriously. We use the education standard, CPOMS (Child Protection Online Monitoring System) as our data collection/management platform. Before adding any CP&S Concern, please see the relevant DSL on your Campus (Sarah EYIC and Chris EYIC).
Access details for CPOMS will be provided during Insets and refreshers during the year, but can also be found here:
Please do not assign staff as the staff member may not have permission to read the file.
Please click on Alert Staff Member.
More guidance here.
BIS HCMC has a core commitment to the all-round (holistic) development of each child. Through a range of planned community service and fund raising activities the school will provide appropriate opportunities for the students to develop a respectful and caring sense of social responsibility towards other people and the environment on both a local and global scale.
A community service activity is an opportunity for our students to help others who may be less fortunate than themselves. Community service activities can be grouped into three tiers:
Service within the School – Students take active leadership roles within the school itself. This could include older students helping in classrooms or coaching younger sports teams as two examples.
Service within Vietnam - Given its location the school believes it has a particular responsibility to the local Vietnamese community and feels that this is where most effort should be directed through:
1. Fund raising
2. Direct interaction with the community eg visits to children’s homes
3. Local community use of school facilities
4. Involvement in specific and targeted long term, larger scale projects
5. Raising awareness of environmental and safety concerns
Service within the Region - the school would also wish the students to be involved with and support regional community service projects organised by other FOBISIA schools.
The Principal has administrative responsibility for all campuses. The Primary Heads of Campus at Early Years & Infants and Juniors are responsible for the day to day management of the Primary and EYFS Departments. The Principal is to be consulted on all contractual and financial matters.
Any member of staff wishing to be considered for an overseas CPD opportunity should complete a ‘CPD Opportunity Request Form’ which can be found on the BIS HCMC Policies site. For further details please refer to the Professional Learning Policy here: CPL
The Campuses here at Primary cater for the following Year Groups:
EYFS including Fundino
Pupil Age 2 - 5 Years
Classes Fundino, F1, F2 and F3
Years 1 and 2
Pupil Age 5-7 Years
Classes Years 1 and 2
Years 3 to 6
Pupil Age 8 - 11 Years
Classes Years 3, 4, 5 and 6
Our aim is to provide the best possible British style education, based on a modified form of:
The Primary National Strategy and certain areas of the English National Curriculum
The International Primary Curriculum (IPC)
Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
In addition, the curriculum is supplemented with:
Vietnamese Culture and Language
Extra-Curricular Clubs (some running for a term with others that run over the year)
For all disciplinary procedures, please refer to guidance contained in the NAE policy below.
We take online safety very seriously here at BIS HCMC Primary, and our goal is to develop 21st century citizens who are respectful, caring and consider integrity a priority. The following is our definition of digital citizenship taken from our Technology Mission Statement:
Digital Citizenship
Through integrity, caring and respect, moral characteristics will be developed both within the physical and digital environments, enabling all of our students to become true digital citizens within a global context. Individual research and collaboration will be developed both inside and outside of the school community. Each student will be encouraged to create digital content within a safe learning environment.
For the latest of our parent coffee morning workshops presentations, please refer to the following slide, along with two articles from our news and updates weekly blog.
BIS HCMC approves the use of digital assets to enhance communication, collaboration, information exchange and the positive promotion of the schools. If used thoughtfully, social media is a powerful tool to engage our students, parents and communities. BIS HCMC encourages our community to actively use social media channels to raise awareness, share information and celebrate their activities and successes. However, staff at schools such as BIS HCMC have a role to play in ensuring their digital footprint is carefully considered, and understand the potential implications when this form of communication is misused.
The linked policy provides an important understanding of what that means for a teacher at our school. Further details can be found on the Digital Communications page of our BIS HCMC Policy here.
There is an agreed appearance and dress code for all BIS staff (see policy and procedures section).