We had our very successful Harvest Festival Celebration Assembly on Friday, 18^th September 2009 in the Main Site hall. It was our first celebration assembly of the term and was led by Year 3 children. Everyone was so confident and enthusiastic. A record number of parents were present in the hall to see their children performing for the assembly and were amazed by their excellent Chandi Dance (Harvest festival Dance of Kirati people, Nepal) moves.

The stage was nicely decorated with the food donated by parents. These food, blessed by Father Paul, will be donated to the needy through St John’s Church in KB and Penan Tribe of Sarawak through Mrs Violette Tan.

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We had a very exciting and successful Registration and Induction Day for our new children and parents on Wednesday. The day went exceptionally well despite a continuous downpour. All the children and parents were very busy in walking around the school and meeting their new teachers and friends. They also completed an induction quiz. They were helped by a group of expert children who were with us last year. Thank you to all children and parents who came to school on that day.

This week we have enjoyed our special visits from Lynda Fisher, Chief Executive Officer, SCE and Director for Children Services MOD. She was very pleased to see how well our children have settled  and how much fun they are having here at Hornbill. She met various key members of the British Forces Brunei during her visit. She was even interviewed by our two children Sam and Anima, both from Year 6 and was very impressed with their interview skills and the confidence they were showing during the interview. The interview has already been published on our website and also in radiowaves.co.uk website.

Another key visitor to Hornbill School this week was Major General Kirkland. During his brief tour of the classrooms,  General Kirkland was asked by one of our children(6yrs)  “Are you in Army?” The General also toured our eco-garden area and planted some melon seeds. The children have promised him  that they  will keep him posted on how well they are growing in our garden!

Year 1 children led this year’s wonderful Tihar (Deepawali) assembly. They were quite successful in delivering the meaning of different days of Tihar with an excellent performance on the stage. All the children were dressed up in Nepali attires and looked beautiful. They even shot a movie on Ramayana to tell the story of Tihar and the children looked brilliant while acting on the movie. The assembly concluded with a Nepali traditional Tihar dance at the end. Thank you to Year 1 team for such a brilliant assembly.

Two family learning programmes were held this month. The first one was on e-Safety and ICT/VLE and was led by Mr John Redman and Mr Govinda Gurung. More than 40 parents attended this programme. Mr Gurung and Mr Redman together with other Nepali Specialist Teachers helped parents showing them various ICT resources that their children use at school. The other family learning programme was on Nepali reading and writing for Nepali children at Hornbill. Parents gave very positive feedbacks to us for both FLPs.

Hornbill School has become the first in SCE to achieve a nationally recognised ICT Excellence Award. The Excellence Awards recognise schools that promote and deliver the highest standards of ICT. Hornbill School has won a Best Whole School Award. They had to provide rigorous and comprehensive evidence that ICT permeates the life of the school and that it underpins the tireless efforts of the staff, who work to ensure that the entire community has every opportunity to exploit the benefits of ICT to be able

Another Award for Hornbill School! Yes it is. Hornbill School is a Healthy School now. Mr Mike Crichton and Miss Gill Cunningham had been working very hard to put all the evidences together and apply for this award for more than a year. Our link Inspector Mr Graham Marshal who is the  assessor for 11 schools including Hornbill, for Healthy School Awards, was here in Brunei this week with us to see if we deserve to be a Healthy School. During his assessment, he interviewed students and teachers, and he was particularly impressed with what our children know about being healthy and what that means to them. He said that he had been to many schools as the assessor for Healthy School Awards, and he had no hesitation to declare Hornbill as the best of them. Mr Marshal presented a mock certificate of the award to Mr Crichton and Miss Cunningham in the assembly. Photos

Year 4 for leading our Remembrance Week Celebration Assembly today. Year 4’s display of confidence was very impressive. Well done to Year 4 for your wonderful presentation. Thank you to all those parents who came to watch and support our children at the assembly.  A special thanks go to Pipes and Drums 2 RGR for sending  a bugler to support this very special assembly. Photos