Author: Damian Rentoule

ITEMS: Introduction from James Steward (incoming Principal); HIS Alumni Presentations; HIS News. Message from James Steward (HIS Principal from August 2022) Dear Hiroshima International School Community I wanted to take this time to wish you a Happy New Year! I am presently still at Ridley College in Ontario, Canada where we are in the midst of a significant winter cold spell. Temperatures have dipped to -20’C recently. There are many people skating on the local frozen lakes and ponds in the region. I suspect that it is much warmer in Hiroshima! I have been meeting with Damian Rentoule regularly over the past couple of months. He has been keeping me up to speed with developments on the HIS front. I am truly looking forward to coming to Hiroshima next school…

ITEMS: A Special Visitor; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community As we move into the winter break, I would like to thank the school community for being so supportive of all of our health regulations this semester. The COVID situation in Hiroshima continues to be very stable so we are hoping this continues through winter but will continue with the same health procedures into next semester. It has been a great start to the year and it is hard to believe that we are nearly in 2022 already. One of the challenges that we face in today's very connected society is that when provided with a choice between going to sleep and connecting with the world on their device, children may not select sleeping. We all know the importance…

ITEMS: PTA Message; Lots of Festive Eve videos; HIS Baseball Video; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community We have just seen a wonderful Festive Eve performance including the Primary dance, Secondary Orchestra, and the Annie performance, of which you can see some footage below. You will also be able to see a professional recording of Annie thanks to the kind generosity of the Sonoda Family. The live stream cut off at two hours so my apologies for those at home who did not see the end of the show. We will send the link to the recording as soon as it is available. I would like to say three things about the performance. Firstly, congratulation to all of our students involved for being risk-takers not only for putting in…

ITEMS: Volleyball; Festive Eve Information; Appropriate Viewing for Children; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community We are all getting ready for Festive Eve next Friday evening. It will be live-streamed for the whole school community with a professional recording generously provided by the Sonoda family once again for which we are very grateful. We will also have a very, limited audience of cast and crew families for Annie. It is an amazing performance every year so it is definitely a show not to be missed. Thank you to the PTA team who added some wonderfully festive decorations to our genkan which is looking very bright and cheerful to warm us all up on these cool winter mornings. It looks great. Thank you! This week's TED Talk by entrepreneur, James…

ITEMS: Festive Eve Update; My Mommy is Beautiful; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I hope you have all been enjoying the week. There is a message about the 'My Mommy is Beautiful' art installation in the body of this message below. I would like to invite you all to come in and see the second part of the installation, which is a series of messages from the Student Art Project team (Erin, Fidel, Hinano, Itsuki, & SuA) describing the process which is always an important part of any artistic endeavour. In the Crane video today, you can also see a few of our visual arts students talking about the process that they are going through on a project related to a self-portrait, but not one necessarily restricted to…

ITEMS: Principal's Message Dear HIS Community On Wednesday this week, we had the Gr 12 student presentations for their Extended Essay which is a 4000-word research paper based on a topic that they have selected from amongst their various subjects. It is quite amazing, the depth that these students have been able to pursue their academic interests while completing their Extended Essays. Congratulations to all of our Gr12 students who are now nearing the end of their IB journey. Although the COVID numbers are thankfully very low at the moment in Hiroshima and across Japan, as we approach winter we still need to be mindful of our COVID-related health guidelines which are in place. I would like to remind everyone that if your child has a high temperature of 37.5…

ITEMS: Baseball experience for Secondary students; Peace Event; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community I would like to thank everyone involved in the organization of Bonfire Night last week. It was a wonderful event and great to get the school community together after such a long time. We had a spectacular fire as you can see below and we also had some very delicious bentos. It was great to be able to sit on our picnic mats and eat this delicious food watching the fire. There are also some fireworks to finish off the night. As a special treat, Eriko organised a Zoom call with Jackie and Mairi, all the way from Scotland. Jackie, of course, has always played a central role in Bonfire Night. Many thanks to the…

ITEMS: Jodo demonstration. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community We are looking forward to our Bonfire Night, our first event involving a large number of our families for quite some time. The fire has been built, the bentos ordered, the picnic blankets packed, so we are now all ready to go. Thank you very much to the PTA for all the work and flexibility in organizing this great event. For our TED Talk this week, after being immersed in the Halloween festivities I thought this one may be interesting in terms of what some of those stories of ghosts and ghouls can perhaps teach us if we know what questions to ask. We hope you all enjoy the weekend. Kind regards Damian Rentoule https://www.ted.com/talks/coya_paz_brownrigg_the_haunting_truth_of_ghost_stories?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare The Crane https://youtu.be/XxpcO-hYhW4 Jodo Demonstration There will…

ITEMS: Board of Trustees Guardian Representative; Halloween Festivities; MYP/DP Open Day; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community Today's message is a video: https://youtu.be/dAXdIITXnKw Crane Video https://youtu.be/tpzrXFejCTA Board of Trustees Guardian Representatives Welcome to Jin Xuchu, Peter Thippawan, Charles Nappier, and Maria Grajdian who have just joined the Board of Directors in the Guardian category. We also thank, Barry Ngo, who is starting his second term. We appreciate the generous contribution of your time to help in the governance of HIS. Halloween Festivities Thank you to the PTA for all the work in making decorations and organizing the trick-or-treat for the students. It was a fun day and you can see all the wonderful costumes in the Crane video above. MYP/DP Open Day Date: November 8, 2021, MondayTime: 8:50-12:30 This…

ITEMS: Students-led workshop for teachers; Guardian vacancies for BOT; Kanji testing questionaire; PTA News. Principal's Message Dear HIS Community As we move into the one-week Autumn break, I would like to remind families about the importance of reading. Parents can help children develop reading routines. You can read to them and younger learners love this. If you have older children, try reading some things that they are reading. It is great for the conversations. However, whatever you do, above all, carve out time to read in your child's daily routine. Also, remember that scrolling through social media is not what we are talking about when we look at developing reading skills. The language needs to be complex enough (relative to their reading level) to challenge them. Social media will not…