Happy Halloween and Happy Holidays!

We all had a great day here celebrating Halloween, thanks again to the PTA for doing such a great job putting it together!

Please have a restful vacation and we look forward to seeing you all back here on the 2nd November.

Japanese TV

1st November 

9.00pm

We are happy to let you know that our school will be on Japanese TV on a feature about international schools in Japan. They will show some pictures and talk about our programme, you can see us on BS channel 7 at 9.00pm. 

 
Coronavirus and Communication to the Community
We would like to thank all our community members for their patience and support this week due to our coronavirus experience. We have learnt a lot and updated our policy which we will publish again this week.

One of the biggest points from parents feeding back to us was about information. We held back due to our concerns about personal privacy, however we see that people need to know more details and it is our responsibility to communicate this. In future we will send out more details to the community.

And please remember, we only want essential visitors onto the campus. Lets not get too relaxed.

Parent Teacher Conferences

12th - 23rd October

We hope all your conferences are going fine. Click here for more information about the conferences you will be invited to this year.

Grade 4 Assembly
21st October
Online
Next week will be our first assembly of the year. To avoid visitors on campus, we will pre-record the assembly and next week we will upload it to our  YouTube channel.

Halloween
23rd October
We will have our Halloween next week as the real halloween is actually in the school vacation. Once again our PTA have done a great job!

Just a reminder dont forget costumes!

Parent Teacher Conferences

19th - 23rd October

Online

You will receive invitations for our PTCs shortly, when you will be able to meet with your homeroom teacher and see how your child has settled into the new school year. 

Please note - we will hold all meetings online. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Glücklicher Oktoberfesttag!

We had a lot of fun today with our traditional Oktoberfest/typhoon combination! The students were all able to enjoy activities and our special lunch time choir video and pretzels.

A big thankyou to our PTA for organizing the event, getting the pretzels and decorating our school so the students could enjoy the day. 

And please enjoy watching our school choir - click here!

 Getting ready for Oktoberfest!

 

Oktoberfest
9th October
Our PTA is busy preparing for Oktoberfest next week. Music from our choir, pretzels and activities in class.

Please dont forget -

• To dress your child in the Oktoberfest colours of blue and white!
• For meals from home families, please send in a German food theme lunch box (sausage, potato, salad). School bento familes, the restaurant will take care.

The school choir - we will send out viewing information in next weeks blog.

Schools to Schools
We had fun this week in Grade 3 and 4 with a video converence to a school in Jakarta exchanging unit of inquiry information.
See our Primary Years Programme Information page for more details!

Flu Vaccines

20th or 22nd October

2.30pm - 4.30pm

Our school doctor, Dr. Adachi will offer to administer flu vaccines here in school. 

If you are interested please could you register here.

Please note the fee is 4,000 yen per child.

Deadline for registration is 16th October

Scholastic Book Club

Deadline 2nd October - Order Now!

Our new Scholastic Book Club is up and running! 

Click here to browse the latest books and order online.

For every $1 you spend on this month’s Book Club, our school will earn 20¢ in Scholastic Rewards.

Please place your order online by Friday, October 2, 2020.

Oktoberfest

9th October 

Our plans are continuing for Oktoberfest, it wont be a big outdoor festival this year but we do plan to mark the event as a day for the students in school.

We are very happy that the PTA will take charge. They will provide a pretzel for each child (please let us know if your child has any allergy) and decorate the school for the day! We will also have activities for the students in class during the day and the school choir will perform online.

Students clothing

Please send your child to school in either traditional Oktoberfest costume

or

Oktoberfest colours - clothes of blue and white, or German flag colours - black, red, gold.

Lunches

For home prepared lunches, if possible please send in a bento box of Oktoberfest themed food for your child. Potato, sausage, salad theme food.

We will take lots of photos, so you can see what happened.

School Choir Uniform

We are very happy to announce that this week we received a very generous sponsorship for our new school choir uniforms from Yamaoka Memorial Foundation, supported by Yanmar. We think they look great and you will be able to see the students wearing them at our online Oktoberfest concert!

The New School Board

Thankyou to all those who attended our Annual General Meeting, we are very happy to announce the new school board for school year 2020-2021.

Chair: Ms Steiners

Vice-Chair: MsPalmer

Treasurer: Ms Tabuchi Gardiner-Elko

Vice-treasurer: Mr de Montfort

Secretary: Ms Medina

Vice-secretary/HR: Ms Kruegel

Bus and Building: Mr Morineau

Marketing: Ms Phan Tran

Parent Teacher Association
We have had our first PTA meetings, you can follow the meetings by reading the minutes on our PTA page of our blog.

School Days 

21st 22nd September

Just to confirm we will be open next week on the public holidays, school as normal.

Annual General Meeting

23rd September 7.00pm

Online

You will have received a pdf invitation from the school board to join the school association Annual General Meeting on the 23rd of September at 7.00pm.

When you join the school your family becomes part of the association and we would be very happy to see you all at the online meeting!

If you havent received the invitation, please let us know.

Scholastic Book Club

Deadline 2nd October

Our new Scholastic Book Club is up and running! 

Click here to browse the latest books and order online.

For every $1 you spend on this month’s Book Club, our school will earn 20¢ in Scholastic Rewards.

Please place your order online by Friday, October 2, 2020.

Oktoberfest
Friday 9th October

We had our first PTA meeting this week and we discussed our Oktoberfest. We cant run it as normal, but also we dont want to cancel it. 

So we are planning to run a Oktoberfest theme day in school on Friday 9th (So no Saturday event). Students can come in dressed up, we will have some activities, our school choir will perform live via zoom to the school community and we will have some Oktoberfest theme bread for each child at lunchtime!

More information closer to the date. 

Spring Carnival

10th April

This will be our big event of the year taking over from the reduced Oktoberfest, we will hopefully be clear of the current situation and can celebrate in style!

School Events

We have published our events for the school year, you can see them on the Important Dates page of this blog.

Sports Day

Please note the change of date for Sports Day, it will be 29th April so we dont have problems with typhoons and high temperatures.

Assemblies

We have listed all the assemblies for the year on the School Events page, so you can book your time off work if needed.

Tracker Days

Well spotted some parents and thanks for asking! You will see on our events calendar Tracker Days. This is a staff event, but you can read about it on the Primary Years Programme Information page of this blog.

 

 

Earthquake Practise Drils

Yesterday we had our first earthquake drill and tsunami evacuation practise. We are happy to report that everything went smoothly and from start of drill to end of evacuation. We will continue to hold practise sessions through the year to make sure that we are fully prepared to act immediately if anything should every happen.

Annual General Meeting

23rd September, 7.00pm 

Online

You will soon receive a letter from the board inviting you to register for the online AGM. We will be using Zoom for the meeting, so we hope all parents are comfortable with that.

Rental Accomodation (Flyer attached to weekly email)

Looking for a great place to live in Kobe? I have several houses, apartments and rooms available to rent, on a short-, mid-, and long-term basis. Many of our properties are in the Hankyu Mikage area and ideal to commute to DSKI. Have a look at the PDF with our properties! For more information, contact Anna at akschrade@gmail.com 

International Scarecrow Designing Competition

Join Peace and Nature scarecrow designing competition!

Japanese application page

https://peace-and-nature.com/2020/08/11/scarecrow-competition-2020/

English application page

https://peace-and-nature.com/2020/08/11/scarecrow-competition-2020/?lang=en

Girl Scouts 

Entente

5 - 17years old

We are happy to promote the Girl Scouts which is starting soon at the Entente building on Rokko Island Please see the flyer attached to the weekly email. First meeting will be Staurday the 26th September.

School Hat Sale

If you are interested in our school hat sale, please click here to buy for your child!

Annual General Meeting
23rd September 7.00pm
Online
We are please to announce the date of our next AGM, you will receive a letter of invitation from our chair of the board so we look forward to seeing you there.

It is also a time to elect new board members, if you are interested in standing for the school board, just let us know!

Parent Handbook
We have recently updated our parent handbook, it is linked to the blog under Our Links and you can also access it here

If you would prefer a pdf please just ask the office.

Car Parking and our Neighbours

Just a reminder to please drop and go outside our school. For longer term stays, please use the car parks.

School Cap Sale

We are happy to announce a special discount on the school caps, due to the ongoing hot weather. Please contact the office for details or see the flyer attached to todays email.

Early Arrival and After School Care

We understand that some families rely on care until 4.30pm, so we are happy to say that we
have early arrival supervision

7.50am - 8.45am and after school supervision from 3.30pm until 4.30pm.

Please note that the numbers are very limited to avoid running a big group with a higher risk
of cross infection.

Applications will be assessed on a need basis. There will also be a small charge for the
service which would need to be

booked for the semester  -

Morning supervision 2,000 yen per family per session

After school supervision 2,000 yen per family per session

Both morning and afternoon supervision 3, 000 yen per family per day

Please note only full weeks can be requested, not individual days or dates. This is so we

can properly secure a supervisor.

Please click here to register

Our New Programme of Inquiry for 2020-21
We are happy to publish our new programme of inquiry, if you goto the School Programme and Information tab at the top of the blog you can access it there.

At our parent meetings tonight your homeroom teacher will go through the units and we will also give you information before each unit starts.

Clubs

We are really sorry to say that we will be stepping back from our intention to run clubs for semester 1, 

based on the recent experiences you may have seen in the local news about clubs being an easy way

to transmit CV19. We want to make sure our students are as safe as possible, so we apologize for the inconvenience.

We are still hoping to run clubs later in the school year.

Early Arrival and After School Care

We understand that some families rely on care until 4.30pm, so we are happy to say that we have early arrival supervision

7.50am - 8.45am and after school supervision from 3.30pm until 4.30pm.

Please note that the numbers are very limited to avoid running a big group with a higher risk of cross infection.

Applications will be assessed on a need basis. There will also be a small charge for the service which would need to be

booked for the semester  -

Morning supervision 2,000 yen per family per session

After school supervision 2,000 yen per family per session

Both morning and afternoon supervision 3, 000 yen per family per day

Please note only full weeks can be requested, not individual days or dates. This is so we can properly secure a
supervisor.

Please click here to register

Mr Kanase

We are very sorry to say that our new Japanese teacher Mr Kanase will be leaving us from today. Due to sudden personal reasons he wont be able to continue. We are happpy to announce that Mr Furuta will rejoin us until a permanent replacement is hired. 

Enrolment Party for Pre-School
24th August
11.00am
We are looking forward to our new preschool class joining us Monday for their first day at school! A big day, we wish them good luck and a happy time at DSKI!
Please remember, only two adults maximum per family so we can distance.

Parent Teacher Meetings 
28th August
6.00pm
Please join our online meetings to meet your new teacher and hear about the plans for the year ahead. You can also decide who will be your class parent representative!

Nobi - Nobi Passport
G 1~6 children have received a Nobi-Nobi passport from Kobe city and Kokoron card from Hyogo prefecture today. They let the children visit certain institutions for free of charge (from April 8th, 2020 to April 7th, 2021). Please see email attachment or contact the school office for details.

Welcome back!

Our staff have been in this week getting everything ready for the students to arrive next week. Planning, resources and of course our heath and safety procedures. And we are happy to confirm that we are going above and beyond the local authority requirements in all areas.

(You will see in our office, we have a protective screen at the counter. Please dont pass and go to the secretaries desk!)

You will be receiving an email from your homeroom teacher this afternoon welcoming you to the start of the new year. All staff will be at the arrival gates on the 20th to meet and greet you and the students and show them into school and upto class for the first day back.

And we are especially looking forward to the 24th when our new preschool class will join. Its always great to see this age group nervous with their cones, and then the confident and literate children they become by June!

Class Meeting

28th August, 6.00pm

Online

We will hold our start of year class meetings this year via online platforms, so no need to come into school. Your teachers will send you invitations shortly, but for our new families, its a chance for parents to meet each other, hear from the teacher plans for the year and also to elect the class representative. This role is the link between parents and teacher and also the person who will attend our Parent Teacher Association to reperesent the class community.

School Reopening Information
Dear parents of DSKI,

I would just like to wish you a happy and relaxing holiday now that our summer camp is coming to a close. It's been a very enjoyable four weeks, and I would really like to thank Ms Faye for a fantastic job coordinating and making it go so well and to all of the teachers for running great daily activities. It's been a real pleasure seeing the students come in and have fun here on site!

I would also like to take this opportunity to let you know what will happen next. We will continue to follow the recommendations of the local education authorities, which is that currently all schools in Hyogo are expected to be open full time for normal operations. 

So I am happy to say we will be back and open full time from the 20th of August. 

Pre-school families, please remember it will be the 24th August, starting with our welcome ceremony. You'll receive a letter from the team shortly giving you more details - and please don't forget your school cones!

We will of course continue taking full precautions to ensure the school is a safe and healthy environment with correct sanitation and distancing. 

We will also adapt our opening or operating procedures if there is any change in the Covid 19 situation. Closer to the open date I will send out our revised and updated health and safety policy giving you full details about how school will work. 

So please have a great holiday, safe travels and we will see you in a few weeks.

Yours sincerely and on behalf of the staff and school board, 

Alex Inman

Principal

School Office Opening Times

Our office will be open July 20 and August 12, between 10:00am~12:00pm

Message from Kidzania!
Please contact the office for the good quality pdf

Have a Great Holiday!
To all our families, we woudl like to say have a great summer vacation. We do hope you will find a way to relax and enjoy summer season.

Our summer camp will begin on Monday, and our teachers are preparing everything right now.
We will have a special camp blog - click here, which will be updated daily with what has been going on!

Next Years School Dates and Oktoberfest

The Oktoberfest will be a much lower key event, with the emphasis changing to a bigger event in April, when we are hopefully clear of CV19 and winter weather.

More information closer to the time!

Due to the change of emphasis, we have made a holiday date swap.

Date Change

October

12th - changed to a school day, due to no large Oktoberfest on the weekend

April

12th - School holiday as the Saturday event will need teachers to be present and help.

Yearbooks 2020
Our newly designed yearbooks will arrive on Monday (15th) morning. We will pass them out to the students who have ordered them on Monday and then to the rest of the school Tuesday when students are on site. 

We are really very happy with them, they look really nice and a very big thankyou to Ms Brabeck and Br Huber for stepping in and taking over when our interns left, who would have normally made them. Ms Natalia, a new designer who did all the setting out, will continue working with us and also produce next year's yearbooks.


Wake up Shake Up
We are very happy to announce the return of Wake Up Shake Up next week. Thankyou Gemma and Henri for the good idea!
As usual, main gate Grade 2, 4 and 5/6, yard gate Pre-School, Grade 1 and 3. 
Students will go directly onto the yard with their teacher, keeping social distancing and then Mr Waite will lead the students on the yard before they go upto class for their last day.


Library Books and Computers
Please return all library books and computers which were borrowed whilst the school was closed. We still have a lot of outstanding books, if you could please give them to your homeroom teacher on your childs last day.


Bus Lunch and Club return of Fees Final Call
The June 4th deadline has passed now for a discount on next years tuition fee option, so if you could please let us know where to send a money transfer here.


Summer Camp
Many thanks for the tremendous response for summer camp! We have now closed registration and schedules and timetables will be sent out next week by Ms Faye.


Oktoberfest
Yes, its that time of year again!
We will soon start making plans to have our Oktoberfest, any parents who are interested in helping out, please contact the PTA chairperson.

Summer Camp is Here!

Click here to register - Deadline June 12th

All ages welcome, no cost for DSKI Students!
For questions please contact Ms. Faye at  faye.nepomuceno@dskobe.org

Peace and Nature
A message for our parents!

NPO Peace and Nature produces rice without using pesticides in OZO, Kita-ku, Kobe.  This year, to prevent the spread of coronavirus, we postponed the rice planting workshop, but considering the recent situation, we would like to schedule it in June. Food shortages are of particular concern this year, and we want to keep growing rice, the staple food of Japan, and provide harvested rice to children and their families who are having trouble eating due to the effects of the new coronavirus. We would like to invite all of you who support us on a regular basis to participate in the hands-on workshop. In addition, depending on the situation, it will be implemented under infection control measures. Please note that the content may be changed depending on the extension of the policy of the government or local government.

[Date]
14 days from June 1st (Mon) to June 14th (Sun)

Please contact us in advance by email or by email 3 days prior to the desired date.

English information & application. 

https://peace-and-nature.com/2020/05/13/taue-workshop-june-1st-14th/?lang=en

Japanese information & application.

https://peace-and-nature.com/2020/05/13/taue-workshop-june-1st-14th/

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Shinobu

★Acting together to sustain the earth for the next generation!
次世代のために、持続可能な地球環境を共に作ろう！
NPO法人Peace & Nature 　                    
P&F: 078-779-7474 
Email: info@peace-and-nature.com
www.peace-and-nature.com

Back on the 1st of June
Our teachers have been hard at work this week preparing the campus for reopening again next week.
We are all looking forward to seeing all your children in again!

Return of Bus, Lunch, Club Fees
We are happpy to follow up with the board decision to offer return of fees for bus, lunch and clubs whilst these were not running due to school campus closure.

We would like to offer you a choice of how you would like the money returned.

You can choose either a direct return of fees or next tuition fee invoice discounted by the return amout.

Please click here to tell us your choice.

Please let us know before June 4th so we can get the payements out quickly.


Summer Camp!
We are looking at the governmant guidines and how the school days in June work out and then we will make a final decision about summer camp - dates, hours, numbers of students we can have on campus.
But first - we want to ask who would be interested and when?
(The concept will be a mix of fun, games and some academics for all ages Kindergarten - Grade 6).

Dear parents of DSKI,

I want to give you some more information on what next week will look like and the procedures
for our reopening. We are currently getting everything set up and ready for next week when
we can once again welcome students through the doors of DSKI! I hope you will find this
helpful, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have.

Schedule

8.55am 

School bus arrives, students can start lining up

9.00am

To reduce congestion we will use 3 different arrival/departure gates.

Arrival gates open and students enter school. Gates will be closed when the last student enters.

Late students will need to buzz at the main entrance and report to the school office.

Arrival Gates (Students only please on campus)

Early Years (Pre-kindergarten, Kindergarten)

Will use the Early Years gate.

Students need to line up outside with parents or the bus supervisor if they arrive by bus.
They will then enter in small groups to go in, change shoes and meet their teacher.

Pre-School, Grade 1 and Grade 3 

Will use the Yard Gate. Students line up on the spacing marks and will be met by their homeroom teacher.

Grade 2, Grade 4, Grade 5/6

Will use the Main Gate. Students line up on the spacing marks and will be met by their
homeroom teacher.

9.00am - 12.00pm

Lessons and recess. We want the main focus to be on students having a great but safe time back
in school!

• All students will have class and outdoor play time. 
• Classes will be live streamed, so families at home or still out of Japan can join.
• Please note there will be no snack in primary school, only recess. Early Years will have a snack time. 
• Please send enough water for your students, as we will not be using out water taps for refill.
• All students need to have a face mask
• Classrooms, recess and routines will be arranged for social distancing and healthy working
• Online learning will continue for the days off site

12.00pm

School Ends

Homeroom teachers will take their students down to their arrival/departure gate to go home,
meet parents or join the school bus.

Student Attendance Schedules

Week 1		Monday 1st	Tuesday 2nd	Wednesday 3rd	Thursday 4th	Friday 5th
Primary Grades to attend	9am - 12pm	Pre-school G5/6	G1 G2	G3 G4	Pre-school G5/6	G1 G2
Early Years Week 2 (1-5.June) Names of students to attend will be sent out by teachers	9am - 12pm	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum

Week 2		Monday 9th	Tuesday 9th	Wednesday 10th	Thursday 11th	Friday 12th
Primary Grades to attend	9am - 12pm	G3 G4	Pre-school G5/6	G1 G2	G3 G4	Pre-school G5/6
Early Years Week 2 (1-5.June) Names of students to attend will be sent out by teachers	9am - 12pm	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum	Unicorn room 6 students maximum Butterfly room 6 students maximum Rainbow room 6 students maximum

Staying Safe

All rooms will be arranged so students have 1.5 metre separation and at recess time they
will be in small play buddy groups. The teachers will be talking to the students about the
way school will work, the reasons why and helping them adjust. We will be monitoring
health at all times, including temperature checks on entry.

We will send out our full and detailed health and safety policy Thursday the 28th May in
a separate email. 

But please talk with your child about the situation and please see the accompanying
letter from our Special Education Needs Coordinator Faye Nepomuceno.

We are all looking forward to having the school open again and we very much hope
your students will be as happy as us to be back.

With many thanks,

Alex Inman

School Principal