From the Principal: Start of Year Messages- updated Mon 12 Aug
Dear South Island Community,
We hope you have all had a very restful and positive summer break, and that everyone is refreshed and ready for the start of the new term! This will be a very exciting year for South Island School, when we have a real opportunity to build further on our legacy and be part of so many exciting projects and developments at SIS. We look forward to working closely with all of you in the days, weeks and months to come.
START OF TERM
Some key reminders of start dates:
Tuesday 13 August: Only for Year 7, Year 12 and new students in Years 8-11.
Returning students in Years 8-11 should not attend. Year 13 should only attend if they are kindly helping out with the induction programmes. There are no school buses on this day.
NB: We are receiving reports of possible disruption on the MTR on Tuesday. Please see below for a reminder of our Urgent Communications procedures, which we will use if we receive any further information.
Wednesday 14 August: All students should attend on this day as normal.
School buses are scheduled as normal.
Here is a reminder of our General Start of School Year Information.
ESF CEO’s MESSAGE
Our CEO, Belinda Greer, has sent a start of year message to all members of the community. Please be sure to look out for her separate email.
URGENT COMMUNICATIONS
A reminder that if an urgent communication with our parents and students is ever necessary, we will quickly place a banner at the top of our website to direct you to other relevant sources of information. If you become aware of a possible complication involving for example the weather or travel, please always check for information at the top of our website https://www.sis.edu.hk/
If you or your children are intending to use the MTR for travel to SIS, the MTR website and, particularly, the MTR App, are useful resources in monitoring disruption in real-time. Details on how to access these services can be found here: http://www.mtr.com.hk/en/customer/services/mtr_mobile.html
If you are travelling by school bus from Wednesday onwards, our bus company Kwoon Chung will always contact you themselves if there are any changes to bus routes or timings.
If a situation changes in any way we will post an update. The safety of our students and our staff is always our first priority.
NEW TEACHING STAFF
We are very pleased to welcome seven new teachers to SIS this term, as follows:
Ms Lucie Purves Vice Principal, Guidance and Well-Being
Ms Kymaree Sheather Head of Creative Arts Faculty, Head of Art Department
Ms Elizabeth O’Sullivan Head of English as an Additional Language (EAL)
Mr Dennis Allen Teacher of Mathematics
Mr Ian Brown Teacher of Science (Chemistry)
Ms Simon Jolly Teacher of Creative Arts (Drama and Music)
Ms Nidhi Maskara Teacher of Mathematics
In addition, we are delighted to welcome Ms Enrica Chan back from her maternity leave, to rejoin the Mathematics Department as Lead Teacher of Mathematics.
NEW SUPPORT STAFF
This term, we are doubling our counselling provision at SIS. We are pleased to confirm that our counsellor, Ms Sarah Shepherd, will now be full time. Additionally, we welcome Ms Stephanie Wan as a further Social Worker, who will be working in collaboration with our regular Social Worker, Ms Kamy Yeung.
In addition, we have recently welcomed the following new support staff colleagues:
Ms Cecilia Lo Principal’s PA
Ms Angel Fung Admissions Officer
Ms Mandy Chan Post-16 Administrator
Ms Saman Ashfaq Post-11 Administrator
Mr Wan Chi Chung Life Guard
Ms Muriel Kyu Administrative Assistant
Mr Kelvin Chan Food and Textiles Technician
Mr Kenny Sandom Design Workshop Instructor
The French Department also welcome two new Educational Assistants, Ms Angelique D’Autier de la Rochebriant, and Ms Stephanie Desrousseaux.
We know that all of our new teachers and support staff colleagues are very much looking forward to working with our students, and getting to know everyone as quickly as possible. I am sure you will meet them soon!
CELEBRATING THE CLASS OF 2019
We knew that our Class of 2019 were talented and dedicated – and as expected, they have certainly done us proud with their academic outcomes! You can read about their world-class IBDP and ground-break IBCP outcomes here:
https://www.sis.edu.hk/sis-class-of-2019-world-class-ibdp-scores-ground-breaking-ibcp-outcomes/
ESF CHAIRMAN’S AWARD
On Wednesday 7 August, we celebrated the achievements of students across ESF with the ESF Chairman’s Award.
The event was hosted right here at SIS. I would like to take this opportunity to thank not only the many members of staff who made this evening so successful – but also to thank the large numbers of our student prefects who helped to run the event, doing so with such poise and skill that many of our guests assumed they were also members of staff. We are sure many of our prefects will be back on stage in another capacity for the ESF Chairman’s Award in 2020!
As we start the new academic year, we hope that all of our students will be inspired by the achievements of their predecessors. At last year’s Commencement Ceremony, I spoke about ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. There are some giants indeed within the South Island, local and international community – yet, by standing on their shoulders, we all have the capacity to become taller still.
Have a great year, everyone – and I look forward to catching up with you all very soon!
With best wishes,
Tom Vignoles
Principal
