Island School E-Newsletter Friday 3rd April 2009

Message from the Deputy Principle

CIS: WASC Accreditation

On Monday 25th May visitors from the Council of International Schools will be visiting Island school. The purpose of this visit is to ascertain whether we are ready as a school to go through the 18 month process of CIS: WASC accreditation. This is a standards-based process for school improvement which involves a self-study and monitoring visit by a team of educators to look at all aspects of the school’s work. The various strands of this self evaluation procedure ultimately aim to support ongoing school improvement and high quality student learning.

During this process the school evaluates its work against its own, expressed philosophy and objectives and a set of 60 externally set standards.

There are multiple benefits in pursuing this accreditation. The award sends out positive messages to the wider community, teachers, universities, governments etc. who can be assured of the quality of the education offered by the accredited school. In this way it is like a ‘kite mark’ of quality. The rigorous self-assessment itself stimulates improvement to strengthen high quality student learning for all, and evidence would suggest that it leads to improved collaboration and coherence across the school.

In May the two visiting educators will meet with council, parents, students and teachers in order to get a flavour of how we do things here and will subsequently make a set of recommendations that will underpin all the work of the self study period.

http://www.cois.org/page.cfm?p=3

Teacher Laptops

On Wednesday 25th March all teachers at Island School were involved in professional development to do with the use of their new Tablet Laptop computers. The desktop computers in all the classrooms here have seen better days and we are now setting out to replace them with tablet laptops. We see the tablet facility as being essential to support teaching and learning when used in conjunction with a data projector and useful for providing written feedback on electronic versions of students’ work. These machines mean that teachers can now access their files through the school wireless environment, from any place on the school site and can use the new “Teachers Gateway” portal and online reporting system at anytime.

At a time when we are rolling out a one to one laptop programme for students, it is vital that teachers can learn alongside them with their own tablet notebook.

Goodbye to Year 13 Students

Gareth Stevens
Deputy Principal

Message from the IB Coordinator

I would like to heartily congratulate our first cohort of IB Diploma students who are leaving today. As pioneers they have faced unique challenges, blazed a path for those who follow them, and enjoyed a unique status within the history of the school. We have all been incredibly impressed by the ways in which they have engaged with the philosophy, components and qualities of the IB Diploma Programme.

To be an IB Diploma graduate is a mark of the quality of your education, and your ability to match that challenge, which will be with you for ever. Underpinning your education is a clear set of values which foster the qualities of the IB Learner Profile. Implicit within these values is a responsibility to be a compassionate, internationally minded, life long learner. I have no doubt that many of you will have a great, positive, impact on the world that you encounter.

Well done, thanks for all that you have given Island School, and best wishes for the future !,

Daniel Trump
Assistant Principal, IB Coordinator

Margaret Attwood

On the 16th of March, around 30 of Island School’s GCSE and IB English students had the privilege of attending a talk at HKCU that featured the globally renowned author, Margaret Atwood. Filled with her usual clever comments, insightful responses and humour, Atwood proved to be a sensational conversationalist and would often leave her interviewer quite baffled.

Margaret Atwood is the author of one of our IB English texts The Handmaid's Tale which all GCSE students will study in Year 12 and IB students have studied. As expected, it was an extremely educational and unforgettable experience to be able to see such an influential author live and our knowledge was greatly enriched.

"Margaret Atwood in Conversation with Professor David Parker" was programmed to contain three segments. Firstly, the talk focused mainly on Atwood's most recent poem 'The Door'. While Atwood is better known for her novels, she is also a notable poet and her poems are often inspired by her childhood interests in myths and fairy tales. 'The Door' was an entrancing poem that explored many themes such as the passing of time, opportunities, aging and death. To be able to hear an author personally describe and explain their poem was a rare event that many of us would not have the privilege of experiencing otherwise. Although 'The Door' is not related to anything on our syllabus, her responses gave us many valuable literary and philosophical insights.

The following segments were planned to be question and answer sessions. Initially, the second section was supposed to be for questions about 'The Door' only. However, Atwood insisted that all questions should be welcomed and gave the audience the chance to ask about The Handmaid's Tale and other of her most famous works and her life as an author. We heard many interesting responses from Atwood, and witnessed Atwood's well known witty sarcastic comments to questions that did not present much thought. Questions directed to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ were especially exciting for the Year 12 students who attended.

Unfortunately, the talk was limited to a time of one hour or so and many questions amongst the eager audience were left unanswered. Following the talk, a stall selling Atwood's books and a stall where Atwood would be book signing were open to the audience, along with some refreshments.

Overall, we think that all would agree that in the one hour spent listening to Atwood, she undoubtedly delivered a memorable and extremely valuable educational experience for everyone. Thank you to the English department for presenting the students with this valuable opportunity to learn from one of the most important authors of the 20th century!

Jocelyn Chan 12 E and Karen Chui 12 D

IS Tennis Team 08/09

Congratulations to the boys' tennis team finishing in second place in the HKSSF Div 2 competition and being promoted back to Div 1 at the first attempt.

The team was: back row of photo Ajit Gidwani, Antonin Jouve, Angus Reid Kay

Front row: Hubert Leung, Nathan Wong, Adrian Leung and Ian Chin

Not pictured: DeepVaze, Jeremy Kwan and Alistair Brook

Played 6 Won 5 Lost 1 plus 2 walkovers. Well done!

J C Shaw
Head of History

Launch of Chinese Web Site

A Chinese website has been created by a group of Island School students. Its main function is to allow Chinese speaking parents of Island School students to understand their children’s environment better and also allow the school to be more widely known amongst the Chinese speaking population in Hong Kong.

Another key function of this website will be to provide a forum for students of Chinese to publish their work. The context of the site will provide both purpose and audience and will help students to develop functional communication skills in the target language.

The website was launched and went public on Thursday 26th March 2009 at 1:00pm at the Island School.

All credit must go to Michelle Yim 13W and Derek Leung 13N who were the brains behind the website and have put in considerable effort to make it a reality. At the launch both students spoke eloquently about the purpose and aims of the website and the technical aspects of its design.

See Chinese Website here

A screen shot of the newly-launched Island School Chinese Website

(Left to right): Michelle Yim 13W, Derek Leung 13N, Yamin Ma (head of Chinese), Xinying Li (Chinese teacher) and Bibi Lee (ESF Chinese Advisor)

US Senior and Intermediate Maths Contests

Many congratulations to brilliant brother and sister Mathematicians Christina Yu (12F) and Jeffrey Yu (11F) who came joint top of the US Senior maths contest, and their excellent scores qualified them for a 3 hour treat after school on 1 April: The American Invitational Maths Exam - they will be joined in the exam by 2 other qualifiers - teachers Paul Jackson and Katherine Chiu. The Intermediate Maths contest was won by Eric Kim (10R). There were many other excellent results - congratulations to all who took part.

Next contest: UK Junior Maths Contest, Thursday 30 April, open to years 7 and 8.

Paul Jackson
Head of Mathematics

Stars in their Eyes

On 19th March we were treated to another fantastic performance of ‘Stars in their Eyes’ – in which 10 final acts get to dress up as the stars they are pretending to be and perform in front of an audience of over 400 parents, friends and teachers. Over 180 students auditioned in December – the results were announced in the Christmas assembly – and the final has become one of the highlights of the Island School Calendar.

This year the standard was exceptionally high (even though I do say so myself). There had to be only one winner though, and this was decided by the audience – this year is was Isla Petersen (11E) whose performance of “Mercy” by Duffy was truly outstanding!

This year we were introduced to the new hosts of the events – P.E. teachers and entertainers extraordinaire - Mr. John Pennell and Ms. Sarah Leung. They really brought the evening together and made the event such fun.

The other acts included Robert Reid-Kay as the ‘Sex Bomb’ Tom Jones, Gal Nagar and Royi Horowits as Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson, Mark Jackson and myself as ‘Wham’, Alex Lim as Jack Johnson, Morgan Kwok as Katy Perry, Daniel McAtamney, Alistair Brooks, Grant Yim, Hamzah Ahmed and Ohad Ashkenazi as ‘Jackson 5’, Stewart Standaloft, Callum Kelly, Nick Yeun, Kevin Yeung and Thomas Ting as ‘Plain White T’s’, DaKyong Park, Jeffrey Tam, Yongki Hong, Nick Adamson and Sean Cassidy as ‘Guns ‘n’ Roses’ and Sophie Walker, Jane Wright, May Yuen, Jessica Tham, Nicola Carder and Leila Reibe as ‘Girls Aloud’.

Another notable performance of the evening was the opening number ‘Tragedy’ , sung with choreography by Ms. Trevenna, Mr. Tudor, Mr. Reed, Mr. Pennel and Ms. Leung. The choir wowed the audience with two memorable ABBA numbers – “Mamma Mia” and “Dancing Queen”.

As this is the seventh year of “Stars in their Eyes”, all the leavers, including the Year 13s, Mrs. Britton, Mrs. Pescod and Mrs. Hughes (staff leavers) sung the opening verse of “Amarillo”. Thank you to our special teachers for making this magical night possible.

Micah Sandt 13N

Please follow this link to see photos from the night: http://picasaweb.google.com/islandschoolmusic

Winner! Isla Petersen (11E) shone as "Duffy"

Finalists

Dai Evans' Curry & Quiz Night

We are hoping that many of you would like to get a table together and join us for a night of great fun, food and competetive spirit at the Dai Chem Curry and Quiz Night on Friday April 24th. On this night we raise funds to support the future higher education plans of Sian and Deri Evans. Sian and Deri are the children of Dai Evans, a past Head of Chemistry at Island School who died in June 2006 following a courageous battle against cancer. Dai was a truly wonderful teacher and a man of high integrity and we are delighted to remember him this way once a year in a night out that we know he would have loved. If you cannot come but would like to make a donation please send cheques to 'Island School' and we will include them on our final deposit to Sian and Deri's Trust Fund.

If you would like to donate a raffle prize or enter a team for the quiz, please contact Kay Church at kxc@mail.island.edu.hk

Sian and Deri Evans

Careers Experience

The Higher Education Team is seeking assistance from parents or alumni in providing career experience opportunities to current students. Please read this letter for details. The students would greatly appreciate your support which aims to give students an edge in university preparation and application.

Key Dates