Haagsche Schoolvereeniging

Newsletter November 2014

Message from Lorraine Janet Dean Director HSV International Department and Frans de Jong Director of the
Dutch Department
Welcome to our November newsletter. We hope that you had an enjoyable October break. Autumn is really in
the air. The weather is starting to get colder please ensure that your children come to school well wrapped up
and that all their clothing has their name in it.

Staffing
We said goodbye to Ms. Dieuwke Bart our music teacher at NSL. She is being replaced by Emma van Dobben.
Aouk Vlinders our music teacher at KSS is leaving at the end of the month. We are currently in the process of
recruiting a new music teacher. Ms. Bregje Gerits will be going on maternity leave at the beginning of
December. We are very pleased to inform you that Ms. Linnea Masson who currently teaches the class one day
a week will teach the class full time until Bregje returns.

From Admissions:
We are already busy with the offer of places for the 2014-15 reception class. If you have a younger sibling at
home that is not yet registered with our admissions office, we would ask that you do this as soon as possible.
Siblings are always given priority; however it is essential that an application form has been completed for them.
Application forms can be downloaded from our website and e-mailed to the admissions office.

Secondary School Transfer for ID6 Pupils in The Hague

If you have a child in Year and are intending for them to apply for a secondary school in The Hague now is the
time for you to make your application. Forms can be found on the schools website. If you do not apply in good
time you might find there is no place available for your child.

Forthcoming Holiday Dates and Study Days

Holiday:
Sinterklaas
Christmas Break

First day:
Last day:
Friday 5th December
Children free from 12:30
Monday 22nd December Friday 3rd January

Study Days
Wednesday November 19th No school for all children

Early Closures
Sinterklaas Thursday December 5th school closes at 12:30
Day before Christmas break Friday December 20th school closes at 12:30
Acttax
Some parents have been asking if there is a school transportation service. If there is sufficient interest the
company Achttax would be willing to run a service for HSV parents. The service is not inexpensive but may be
of use to some parents. We will place the details on the school website and you will be able to get an
information pack if you email your schools Location Leader. Please note that this is a separate company and
the HSV receive no income from this service.

Charity
You recently received a letter about the Action Schoenmaatjes (a shoebox collection). Please ensure
that your shoe box is returned to school by Friday November 21st. Our nominated charity last year
was Afrokids and we raised 6962.49. This year we are planning to raise money to help with our

playground improvement projects. All money raised will be kept within the location in which it was
raised. During the year our charity committee will research a charity to nominate for the 2015-16
school year.

2HSV Hoodies and t-shirts

2HSV has designed some very cool hoodies and t-shirts for parents to buy. You will be receiving a
letter about this shortly with details of price etc. Any money raised will be used for projects in our
school. Recently 2HSV donated 350 to our school library. We very much hope that samples of the
hoodies and t-shirts will be in the entrance hall at VNS from Monday 17th November and forms will
need to be returned by Monday 24th November.

A message about Movember

Dear parents (especially dads)
Some of the teachers at the Nassaulaan location are taking part in Movember. We would love it if some of the
dads would join us. If you have not heard of Movember it is a campaign to raise awareness of prostate cancer,
testicular cancer and mental health in men. Basically the idea is that men grow a moustache in the month of
November as a starting point for discussion about the state of men's health, we also raise a bit of cash along
the way.
www.Movember.com
http://www.movember.com
Thanks for your support
The Snor Drukkers

From the VNS Location

A warm welcome back after the half term holiday. As the weather does now turn colder, please make sure the
children have a warm coat and a pair of gloves. Hats and scarves will soon come in handy too!

Official Opening VNS 26th November

We are delighted to announce that on the 26th November, the alderman, Ingrid van Engelshoven will come to
VNS to officially open the school after all the renovation work. She will officially hand over the keys of the
building to the HSV. We will have a short assembly with her and others who were involved in the renovation of
the school. The children will sing for them with Miss Merit. We will be inviting many people for this occasion
and further details will follow.

Playground its just so exciting!

There is just so much good news about the playground theres a lot happening in the next week weeks!
We are delighted to announce that Eneco have donated 4,667 to our playground!
So... its finally happening its almost there!

Proludic came today and painted our bike track and zebra
crossings! They have ALSO painted our football pitch! Yippee!
On 14th November, Proludic are scheduled to install 3 new
pieces of play equipment in the Adventure Forest
On week beginning 17th November, our gardener is going to
carry out all the plating work complete with new plants, flowers
and trees, planters for use by the children, large log to climb on and wood
chipping. Its going to be amazing!

We are ALSO going to put a large shed in the playground to keep all our lovely bikes, trikes and playground
equipment. When we know more about this, we will of course let you know.
We raised just over 400 from the VNS cinema afternoon, so thank you for your support. We have more plans
for the back playground which includes a mosaic project and a very special contribution to the playground from
our ID6 class. More will be revealed during the school year!
Once the main work is completed in a few weeks, we will look into the purchasing of more bikes and trikes and
playground games from the money we have raised from our fundraising. We will then turn our attention to the
front playground, where we are thinking about large games we can paint on the ground. We would like to
thank you for all your patience and fundraising efforts it IS happening and its going to be great!

***Security important information for all families - please read!***

The security of everyone in the building is a priority for us at the HSV. We have listened to your concerns and as
a result of some concerns raised, we have taken the following actions:

Back door
We have already taken steps to ensure that the back door is more secure.
We ask that you do not exit the building by this nor, nor let anyone in, even if they are known to you.
The door is used as an emergency exit and by the upper school on an afternoon when they leave the
building. Please support us in keeping everyone secure, even if it takes a few more minutes of your
day.

New security lock on the door to the playground

A new security lock has also now been fitted to the door into the playground. This means that the
door can only be opened from the inside of the building the same as the front door. The back door
to the playground will be open on a morning or families to come to school, however, it will be closed
at 0845.
From this time on, you will need to use the front door to gain admittance into the school building.

Wet weather arrangements

o Before school
If it is raining before school, children may enter the building at 0815 when there will be a
teacher on duty. The ID3 -6 children will wait in the foyer by the gym. IDR- ID2 children will
wait in the front foyer.
We ask that all parents and guardians then leave the children with us. There is not enough
space for all the children, buggies, prams etc and adults. It becomes too congested and our
priority is the children

After school
There will no longer be any admittance to the school building while you wait to collect the
children at the end of the day if it is cold or raining.
This is normal policy at the NSL and KSS locations and is now true of VNS.
We are now 224 children and the priority to get the children out of the building to whoever is
collecting them safely. The teachers will bring the children out for collection, regardless of the
weather. We dont like the rain either, but this is the only way to keep the children safe. It
was getting far too crowded and confused having families come into the building. Its time for
us all to buy a big umbrella and a warm coat!

Safety Traffic
This week, Andrea has a meeting with the Gemente Den Haag, the police, Woulters and Montessori schools
about the traffic situation around our school area. We ask again that no one stop on the road to let children
out of the car in order to drop them off at school. This is both dangerous and illegal. Any driver from VNS seen
doing this, will have their licence plate recorded and sent to the police. All drivers have a responsibility to our
and other children who need to get to school safely. Even if you have an embassy car, the Dutch traffic rules
apply to you as well and you can also be fined for breaking the law.

Diwali
We kicked off the school year of international celebrations last week in style! Our Indian community shared a
wonderful celebration of Diwali the festival of light. The children performed a wonderful play telling us all
about this special story. They whole community have spent months preparing and all their hard work really
paid off. Thank you to Vijay and all the community for sharing your celebration with us!
All of the staff were treated to a delicious home cooked Indian mean for our lunch! Thank you so much to all
involved.
It is wonderful to share our cultural diversity; if you would like to share your celebration with the school, please
do speak to Miss Veronique who works in ID1H. She can also be contacted via email vnougues@vnsdenhaag.nl

Financial Information and Questions

If you have a query about the school fees, invoices or need to change your payment details in fact any query
regarding financial matters, please refer them to Mrs Els Boer Flinterman. She works at the Nassaulaan location
and is responsible for all financial matters. She can be contacted on 070 318 4950 and she works Monday,
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Alternatively, you can contact her via email on
eboer_flinterman@hsvdenhaag.nl

Charity
Last week we launched our annual charity appeal.
It would be ideal if every family in the school could fill up at least one shoe box with gifts and bring it back to
school between 3rd November until 21st November.
The idea is that you get a shoe box (maximum size: 36 x 24 x 15 cm) and fill it with small gifts. You then wrap
the full shoebox with paper so it looks like a gift. Please avoid Sinterklaas or Christmas wrapping paper.
The boxes are gifts for children who really look forward to this as a genuine highlight of the year. As such we do
politely ask that you take a little time and care with the contexts of
your box and do not send back any wrapped boxes
which are empty! Please do not write messages to
children as part of the contents of the box.
Preferably every box will have a basic content of:

pens (coloured)
pencils
exercise books
a soft toy
Toothpaste
Toothbrush
soap

Staffing
We are pleased to announce that Rowan Fraser has been employed on a one month trial basis as our part time
concierge. Already this week he has fitted the new security lock on the back door, cleaned the back playground
several times, swept the front playground and kitted out VNS with a proper set of tools and equipment we
need to get the big tasks completed. He has had the idea to hang our beautiful permanent displays like an art
gallery and has lots of things on his list.

Ipad Apps
Please find below the apps we have on our school upads you may like to investigate them at home.
Phonic stories
ABC alphabet very basic alphabet game
Phonics Genius
Spelling 1 basic alphabet, spelling and phonics
Google Earth
Garage Band Great music making app
iMotion very easy to use stop motion animation app
iMovie
Matletics
Virtual Manipulatives fractions, decimals and percentages
Fresh Pick Math based puzzles
MeteorMath add, take away, times and divide game
British Council Grammar
Puppet Pals 2 Story making software
Dragon Dictation
Collins Big Cat Interactive stories and story maker
Super Duper story maker Story making app
CDC Solve Outbreak Children must read and answer question to help stop or contain a contagious
outbreak

Students at VNS
We are happy that we have several students working with us at the moment. We have 3 Stendon students who
are training to be teachers. They are working in IDRC, ID3f and ID6 and will be here throughout the year on
their placement. We also have Stephanie, a teacher training graduate from the University of Wolverhampton is
working with us in ID2AJ until the penultimate week of this term.
We welcome Shayna, Miss Jinnyehs daughter, who is with us for 2 weeks, helping out around
the school. We also welcome back into the building Shaun, from the Tobias School, who will be
doing volunteer work for three weeks, starting next week.

Nature& Technology Afternoon

If your child likes nature and technology you may be interested in a free workshop
afternoon organised by the Nature Explorers and the Gemeente. This will take place in
the Atrium of the Haagse Hogeschool, Johanna Westerdijkplein 75 Den Haag.
More information is available at the website: www.denhaag.nl/natuurverkenners