Message from the principal - February 2023

 

Dear parents of APSW,

　　May the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you always!

After Lunar New Year, the impact of the epidemic on the society and schools has gradually diminished, with the cancellation of various epidemic prevention measures, life has gradually returned to normal. Full time face-to-face classes has also begun from 15^th February, allow children to have more time to participate in various activities to achieve life-wide learning.

Besides, many of the inter-school competitions and activities have also been launched progressively, parents and teachers are permitted to enter the stadium to watch and cheer for their children in the competitions. I also went to some of these events to applaud for our students, witnessed they’ve tried their best at all times in these competitions. I am grateful for our students to have achieved great results in the past few months but the most important thing is that they have learnt to be humble, the magnanimity of not to feel conceited when winning and not to be discouraged when being defeated by other opponents in these competitions.

 Moreover, regarding the resumption of full-day school, the major concerns that parents have must be related to school lunch, this is also our major concerns especially for students who are from grade 1 to 3. Since they have never had the experience of having lunch at school due to the epidemic. Therefore, we will teach them essential skills and techniques progressively, such as how to open their lunch box and some self-care techniques, in order to enhance their self-care abilities. In addition to that, we would like to thank the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) for their assistance and organization during the process, as well as our parent volunteers for their selfless dedication. We are grateful that more than 100 parents have signed up for acting as parent volunteers (at lunchtime). Currently, there are approximately 70 parent volunteers who help provide various types of assistance and support during school lunch-hour, help monitor the lunch supplier in various aspects of lunch, such as whether there is any abnormality in the temperature and ingredients of the meals provided so that the school can be notified and handle with it immediately when necessary. Also assist in various emergencies related to the provision of school lunch, for instance, the provision of lunch had to be suspended for two days due to quality check, our parents helped assist in distributing rice balls and taking care of individual children in need when serving lunch every day. We would like to thank our parent volunteers once again for their support and assistance.

We certainly understand the different concerns parents have regarding the current school lunch supplier, therefore, we have established a communication platform between the school and the parent committee members of the PTA for assisting and handling the matters of school lunch. At present, about one-third of our teaching team and I have ordered the meals provided by our lunch supplier, which is more convenient and allow us to have a better understanding of the taste of the meals and our children’s needs, enable us to report our feedbacks and organize any follow-up arrangements immediately when necessary. And Thanks to our Heavenly Father for his conservativeness, there had not been any large-scale discomfort after consuming the school lunch provided by the lunch supplier in our school since the resumption of full day school.

Furthermore, I would like to thank all parents for their understanding and tolerance towards the school, especially during the two days’ suspension of school lunch by our lunch supplier. Due to the short notice of the two days’ suspension of school lunch announced by our lunch supplier, we had to arrange a substitute plan for those parents who are unable to deliver meals to their children immediately. Because the substitute lunch supplier would need to prepare the ingredients in advance, parents had to reply the school notice urgently within half a day, we would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused. 

In the meantime, we have already begun our preparation for the school lunch in March, starting from March, all school lunch would be prepared, cooked and packaged in our school kitchen by the professionals assigned by our lunch supplier. We have already conducted several pest exterminations and deep sanitizing work in the school kitchen to ensure our kitchen hygiene have met the standard. On the other hand, we have also started to draw up a new tender for the lunch supply in the new academic year. We look forward to inviting various stakeholders to participate and the tendering procedures would be launched efficiently.

During this time, we have made numerous of decisions. Upon every decision-making, we have been asking ourselves: "Should we or should we not? Why should we or why shouldn't we do it? These "whys" are very important to our policy-making. These decisions may not fulfill everyone’s need but surely it will be the best arrangement for our students. We are truly thankful to the members of the IMC, chairperson of the PTA, parent committee members, parent volunteers and all parents for their support, assistance and raise up any concerns that parents have related to the provision of school lunch (e.g. monitoring kitchen hygiene, the quality of school lunch, operation arrangement and arranging follow up procedures), as well as giving us valuable encouragements and suggestions, which allows us to understand our students’ needs.

    May I wish everyone good health, not just the body but your mind, spirit and for families to be filled with joy and happiness. I sincerely hope our children will enjoy full day school and have a pleasant learning experience.

Mr. Lee Tak Hang

School Principal