28 Apr 2023

Monthly Newsletter (April 2023)

> Upcoming Events & Information

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Another month has come to an end and once again we get to celebrate the wonderful events and achievements that have taken place at our school over the past month. Firstly, I am thrilled to announce that tonight we will be holding our International Evening. This event is a celebration of our diverse school community. In anticipation of the event, we encouraged everyone to come dressed in their cultural attire to showcase the rich and varied cultures that our students and staff come from (check out the photos below). The evening promises to be fantastic with incredible performances by our talented students, so make sure to come along and show your support.

Speaking of student talents, I am also incredibly proud of our Year 9 students who have been leading community projects. Their hard work and dedication to making a positive impact on our local community is truly inspiring, and I have no doubt that they will continue to achieve great things in the future.

It is also worth mentioning the academic and sporting achievements of our students. It is always fantastic to see our students pushing themselves to achieve their goals, and I am thrilled to see so many of them excelling in their studies and on the sporting field. It is a testament to their hard work and determination.

Last night we held our Curriculum Evening where parents were given an opportunity to learn more about our school’s Individuals and Socities curriculum (InSOC) through an engaging escape room experience. It was a great night, and I hope that everyone who attended found it informative and enjoyable.

Finally, I would like to wish our Year 11 and 13 students the very best of luck as they begin their exams. We know that they have been working hard to prepare, and we have every confidence in their abilities.

Thank you all for your ongoing support of our school. It is a privilege to work in such a support community.

Carolyn Andrews

Interim Principal

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Upcoming Events & Information

(1) MAD WEEK PRICING AND FEEDBACK

We are in the process of building the MaD Week Programme for next year. This is quite exciting for us, as MaD Week is an important part of South Island School culture and values programme. After 3 years of a modified MaD Week for the students, we are thrilled to be able to offer a regular MaD programme similar to what we provided prior to Covid. The MaD Week programme is as follows:

Year 7: Onsite at school and at Camp
Year 8-10: Local or Overseas experience
Year 11: Work Experience. (However, we will be offering an Overseas Trip Experience with the year 12s since the year 11 students have missed the ability to travel overseas due to Covid)
Year 12: Local or Overseas experience
Year 13: Study Leave

In the last few months, our planning and preparation for the overseas trips have indicated that travel expenses (particularly flights) are much more costly now than they were 4 years ago. The average cost that we offered in 2019 was around HK$13,500. In 2023, the trips that we historically offered are now approximately HK$19,500, with an average increase of 44%.

We, of course, will offer local trips for those students and parents opting to stay in Hong Kong. However, for parents planning to enrol their child on an overseas trip, we would like to know parents’ views on their comfort level regarding the cost of overseas trips. Please complete the very quick survey below before May 2, 2023.

MaD Week 2023 Overseas Trips Costs

(2) COFFEE MORNING – YEAR 10-12 PARENTS

We look forward to meeting Year 10-12 parents at our next coffee morning event on Tuesday, 2 May. We hope this upcoming event will provide a casual opportunity for parents to talk with other families about any topics or questions regarding their child(ren)’s learning at SIS.

(3) DRESS CULTURAL DAY

To celebrate cultural diversity within our community, students and staff shared their culture by dressing in colours or costumes that celebrated their culture! This event was in support of International Evening being held later today. We will share highlights of the evening in next week’s newsletter.

Making A Difference

(1) APPROPRIATE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

Staff may have noticed that a new A4 laminated poster has gone into tutor bases. The talented Sophia Yim (10M2) designed the poster and supports the Digital Leadership Council (DLC)- led push to remind students and staff about classroom technology use expectations.

The DLC is working on a new system for technological infringements, which will act much like the Uniform Tracker on the VLE. This will start in August 2023 with a focus on Year 7 students. Each student will be asked to qualify with a ‘driving license’ for their laptops in school. Like a driving license, this will come with points. Student infringements reported via a Google Form will result in a loss of points. If the student loses all of their points, it will trigger a re-induction process involving the student’s parents, conducted by a DLC representative. This re-induction process will lead to a contractual agreement between the student and parents, which will hopefully offer support to both stakeholders and avoid continuing the same problems at home and in school. I’ll explain this process in more detail closer to the beginning of this pilot initiative.

As always, you can continue supporting the DLC by asking students to put mobile phones in their bags at the start of lessons while closing tabs on their laptops, which is likely to cause distractions.

(2) COMMUNITY PROJECTS

The Year 9 students have been busy with their Community Projects over the past few weeks. They’ve worked hard to make a difference and have taken some fantastic action in our community!

Here are some highlights of the students’ projects.

Ayati Vineeth and Sabrina Zhang – Developed teamwork with Year 7 students by teaching them a Spark game.
Adrian Ng, Dylan Macrobert and Jake Mann – Completed beach cleanups and created guides for people to follow.
Marcus Tiu, Jayden Chan, and Jennifer Fung – Completed bread runs and created posters to raise awareness about food waste.
Christopher Lo, Zac Leung, Marcus Lo – Taught students in Year 2 and Year 3 at Peak School about the importance of exercise. Developed and taught a program that included warm-ups, showed them some exercises to do at home and played some organised games.

Jeff Yeung, Maxi Hurle, Ethan Lui – Provide entertainment for the elderly people at elderly homes, such as playing board games, doing art or working on puzzles.
Charlize Lau and Sophie Lau – Made cookies and donated the money raised to Impact HK.
Will Ip, Christian Li, and Daniel Li – Picked up rubbish and taught as many people as possible about keeping the beach clean. Provided access to rubbish bins to many locals around the Shek O area and provided information about how they can take action.
Audrey Leung, Victoria Archibald and Averie Chan – Taught an after-school program at the Peak School for Year 5 and 6 students to improve their organisational skills and to make their transition to secondary school easier.

Brandon Wong, Rose Steicke and Jae Won Shin – Created a board game called ClineNopoly, like Monopoly, which uses areas of South Island School to teach sustainable solutions to SIS students.
Ronith Borthakur and Yuna Sato – Presented to a Primary 4 class on disabilities and athletes with disabilities. Taught activities to help the students empathize with people who have disabilities.
Ian Ho, Adrian Cheung, and Lucas Hung – Participated in bread runs for Breadline by collecting leftover bread in stores like 7-11, and Maxim’s Cakes. They packed 300-400 goody bags at a local centre for the organisation to distribute.
Josephine Lau, Milla Froidevaux and Daniella Wu – Held a bake sale and raised $100 for a dog shelter and volunteered at the shelter to look after abandoned dogs.
Anabelle Tam, Emma Sien and Vedika Sreejesh – Organised healthy eating week at SIS by creating different games for Years 7-9s in the Space at breaktimes.

You can follow us on our SIS Community Project Instagram here instagram.com/sis_communityprojects to support the Year 9 students and their goals.

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Phase Year 7-9

Message from Head of Phase Year 7-9:

CURRICULUM

Year 8 SLC – students and parents had the chance to connect with teachers and discuss the year 8 curriculum. This was a great way to discuss the progress of year 8 students and set targets for the upcoming term.

Year 7 InSoc. – students have been investigating the ‘state of our school’ as part of an environmental study in the InSoc lessons. As such, they have been collecting and recording information around the school site and tackling students and staff about their rubbish collection and disposal approach. It’s great to see the level of interest and responsibility. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by AJ] (7M2) and Kyle Lee ( 7N2) about rubbish and recycling issues at SIS. I look forward to seeing some of their recommendations once they have completed their assignment.

Y9 PLC has been focusing on preparing students for GCSE, focusing on Organisation and Building good well-being habits.

VALUES IN ACTION

As part of their action for the Yr. 9 Community Project, Vedika, Anabelle and Emma have been promoting healthy eating with games and activities in the Space with the Yr 7/8’s. Seeing many Year 9’s busy around school with their projects has been wonderful.

We also saw a group of students ( Christopher Lo, Zac Leung, Marcus Lo) continue their partnership with Peak School this month, running games and exercises for 30 Year 3 students.

Year 8 Interhouse – The year 8 students demonstrated excellent enthusiasm, skill and sportsmanship in the frisbee and benchball interhouse. There were some nail-biting games, and all the tutor groups performed brilliantly to represent their house!

DEI Student Council met earlier this month to review the outcome of the student survey sent out in Term 2, which highlighted what the student community felt SIS was doing well to address DEI concerns and issues and what we could do to improve. More than 230 students completed the survey, and the feedback was very positive about how inclusive they thought the school was. Still, the consistent message regarding improvement was around us, increasing how we celebrate diversity further at SIS. This will be the main focus for the DEI Council this term as they collect student voices from their tutor groups about what aspects of Diversity the community would like us to celebrate more and how we should do it.

Congratulations to Jay Park 8C1 who recently competed in the JSSL Singapore football 7’s. This is one of the biggest youth football tournaments in Asia, with over 450 teams from 17 different countries participating. Jay’s team finished 2nd in the U13 competition. Jay’s team also competed in the Nike Cup in March and again finished 2nd place. Well done Ja

WELL-BEING

Year 8 PLC – In the PLC this week, students discussed the use of technology and the pros and cons of gaming. They explored how gaming can be positive for social interactions; however, striking a balance between virtual and real-life interactions is essential. Other ways to form connections in person are joining extra-curricular activities, sports and board games in the Space during break times.

To help provide respite from the high energy and noise that can occur in the Space during breaks and lunchtime, we have created an area where Family Bauhinia students can enjoy a bit of calm and quiet while still being supervised by staff on duty.

Syrita Nicholas

Head of Phase (Year 7-9)

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