Kennedy School - A Communications Guide for Parents A. The Gateway The Gateway system is the pathway to information and communication for all ESF staff, students and parents. You will be emailed your login details when your child joins Kennedy School. a. To login to the Gateway, go to the login page (https://ks.tg.esf.edu.hk) and enter the login ID and password you were provided with by the school. b. If you have never logged in before, please follow instructions B and C, otherwise please jump to step D. B. Account Confirmation a. You will be asked to confirm the birth dates of your child(ren): b. Enter the birth dates of your child(ren) and then tick the confirmation box. C. Changing Your Password a. You then need to change your password. b. Enter your current password (which was provided to you by the school) followed by a new password. You will need to use the new password whenever you login to the Gateway in future. Please enter the new password twice and then click on Submit:
D. Demographics Data Please check the demographics data captured in the Gateway. If any data is missing or incorrect, please use the Change Request function to correct it (see instruction 5): Medical Information, assessment results (if applicable) and attendance reports can also be found on the right-hand-side of the demographics page. E. Change Requests If your child(ren) s information changes, please submit a Change Request: a. Select the type of information to update and then click Go b. Fill in the updated information c. Click Submit Request d. A summary page will display. Click Confirm to submit e. Your child s information will be updated within a few days F. Assessment Documents Periodically, ESF-wide assessment results for your child(ren) will be published on the Gateway. These include results for the years 3, 5 & 6 InCAS tests and the years 4 & 6 ISA tests. They can be viewed by clicking on the Standardised Assessments link on the Student Demographics page. You will generally be notified by email whenever a new assessment result has been published. G. ARR (Assessment Recording and Reporting) System At the end of each term, a report will be published detailing your child s progress within Units of Inquiry in that term. An annual report will also be published at the end of each year. For those children who leave Kennedy School or join after Easter a Short report will be published. You will be notified when a new report is available by email. ARR reports can be viewed as follows: a) Click on ARR then ARR Report :
A screen similar to the one below will appear. However, the subjects listed here are not all reports that can be viewed by parents some are markbooks kept by the teachers. To see those reports relevant to parents please click on the Printing tab: b) Then select the correct school year, your child s name, the report you wish to view and click on the Print button: c) A PDF report will be generated which you can either save or print:
H. epayment The Kennedy School epayment system is used to pay for miscellaneous charges at the school. These miscellaneous charges cover a wide range of incidental expenses and activities such as stationery, books, swimming, extra-curricular activities, field trips, camps, sporting trips, etc.. Each student is assigned a personalised epayment account in the Gateway which the school will debit whenever a charge needs to be made. You can check the account details, balance and transaction records online via the epayment system. To access the epayment system, please select epayment from the Admin menu: Payment Top-Up Please credit your child s epayment account with a minimum default amount of $1000. If at any time there are insufficient funds to cover your child s termly costs you will be notified by email. Any unused credit balance can be carried forward to the following term or, in the case of Year 6 children, the balance can be transferred to the account of a younger sibling in school or you can choose to be refunded. Methods of Payment: Internet banking bill payment (similar to utilities bill payments): Using HSBC as an example, go to bill payment add new merchant category education institution merchant Kennedy School Misc Fee type in your bill payee account no (this can be found in Gateway under Admin > epayment, next to your child s name; it is an 8 digit number starting with 66). PPS by phone (18031) or PPS by Internet (please visit www.ppshk.com to login or to open an account): You will need to know Kennedy School s PPS Merchant Code: 6067 and your child s miscellaneous fees reference number (this can be found in Gateway under Admin > epayment, next to your child s name; it is an 8 digit number starting with 66). For more information, including how to open a PPS account, please see http://www.kennedy.edu.hk/parent-information/epayment. If you have any enquiries, please email epay@kennedy.edu.hk I. Activities Staff-run activities are run on a by-term basis and can be booked towards the start of each term by clicking on Activities in the Gateway. Details will be published in the school s weekly newsletter. Activities generally incur a small fee which will be charged to your child s epayment account.
Activities and camps are also run by Outside Agencies who hire the school s facilities. Please visit http://www.kennedy.edu.hk/life-ks/extra-curricular-activities for more information. Please note that Kennedy School or English Schools Foundation do not recommend or endorse any external provider renting the school premises. There is no contractual arrangement between KS/ESF and the club providers; any contractual arrangement that exists is between the parent and the club provider. In addition, ESF Educational Services Ltd. offer a broad and diverse range of out of school sports and language programmes for children, making use of the facilities at ESF schools. Please see http://www.esf.org.hk for further information. For any enquiries, please contact office@kennedy.edu.hk J. Help & Support If you need any help using the Gateway system please don t hesitate to contact the school s IT team at itsupport@kennedy.edu.hk K. The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) The VLE plays a valuable role in developing a sense of community within the school and children will be given their login details when they join the school. This information will also be recorded in their diary. The VLE is used for the following purposes: a communication tool between students, teachers & parents a way to provide a wide range of resources for students to support their learning and to promote enjoyment of learning a source of information with selected websites a way for students to collaborate and question their peers on knowledge building forums a way for students to share their learning with a wider audience For VLE enquiries please email pcrompton@kennedy.edu.hk L. School Nurse Important information about health matters and protocol(such as medical authorization forms) can be found under: http://www.kennedy.edu.hk/life-ks/nurse-/-health-matters If you wish to contact the nurse, please email nurse@kennedy.edu.hk