Photographer visits Island Time students

Carsten Schael is an award winning German photographer and is president of Hong Kong’s photographic society . He came to Island School to talk to the year 7 Island Time photography group, as well as some year 10 students who are studying lens-based media GCSE. He talked to us about his inspirations, while showing us a slide show of his photography work. He explained the meaning behind each picture and gave us some helpful advice and useful tips.

Carsten told us a bit about his work and how important it is to make a picture send a message across to people. He works with many people but mostly takes pictures for magazines, journals and other articles. After taking a photo he edits it to make the photo look better and give it more feel. Sometimes, he merges the photos together so that he can capture a lot of activity.

In Island Time we have been taking pictures that reflect our cultural identity. We have been studying the viewpoint and composition of our photos and the ones we will be taking. The Island Time photography group have been using Carsten’s ideas and tips to make our photos look good. The photos that we have been taking over holidays are going to be displayed in our Island Time exhibition.

Please see more details...here

Kaela-Mei Townson and Disha Shetty 7W

Island Time

Many of the Island Time teachers arrived at school feeling a little bit anxious on Tuesday of this week. We knew that all the display boards were up and ready and that we had the all clear to take over the school hall for the day. What troubled us was the unusual sensation of not really knowing what we had to display. You see the unit on Cultural Identity was new to Island School. For the first time we had asked students to reflect on the following questions..... ‘What is it that forms my identity?’, ‘How can I express ideas to do with cultural identity through a range of media?’ and ‘What does it mean to be a Third Culture Kid?’

Within the unit we also asked whether there is such a thing as a National Identity. We questioned whether it is ever right to stereotype people and reflected on how historical events and geographical background form who we are.

The students rose to the challenge admirably and produced some incredible work. As usually happens, the unforeseen was the most valuable part of the final exhibition. That is the way in which teachers, students and parents came together to celebrate all the achievements of year 7 in the final exhibition.

Those that were there were treated to drama performances, poetry readings, examples of film making, photographs and some in depth social science research. Not only did the students demonstrate advanced abilities in literacy, confidence using new media technology and creativity in the visual and performing arts, but they also had the chance to develop a range of generic skills. Well done year 7!!!

All our year 7 students had been involved in a new project to do with Cultural Identity in Island Time. They had opted to express their ideas in the medium of either poetry, photography, drama, film, fiction writing or through human science research methods.

Of course we needn’t have worried at all. By the time the first parents arrived at around 10.30am the hall had been transformed and our year 7 students had shown themselves to be the highly motivated, independent and creative learners they are.

If you are a year 7 parent please look out for an e-newsletter that will be exclusively about Island Time and will feature some of the best work from our year 7 students. This will be distributed in the near future. Also we intend to provide a short briefing on the aims and objectives of the course at 4.00pm on the afternoon of the Year 7 parents’ consultation afternoon on 28th February.

Please see some photographs of the exhibition event...here

Gareth Stevens - Vice Principal

Matilda Charities: Chairman's Trophy

"Our sedan chair charity committee work to support the Matilda Sedan Chair event and race team by raising funds for charity. We are pleased to see Island School has once again won the Chairman’s Trophy as the Best Fund Raising School. In just 6 weeks they were able to raise a total of over $40,000, for the sedan chair charities fund. This fund aims to help many different charities within Hong Kong. The group pictured improved on our previous best of $36,000. Sara KELLY (12F) led a very enthusiastic team that included Ryosuke HOSHIYAMA (12N), Mia LAU (12N), Zoe LAU (12F), Beverley CHU (12R), Janis LEE (12R), Audrey CHAYTOR (12F), Judy TAM (12F), Arnold YUNG (12W), Divya SHETH (12E), Karen TSANG (12E), Heinok FAN (12W), Tina CHIN (12F), Mike CHAN (12F). They were able to raise this year’s total money through numerous pizza and cup noodle sales, a dress casual day, Year 8 sponsored silence, and outside donations over the 1st term. Thank you to students, parents, teachers who helped out or gave donations."

Derek Irwin - Leading Teacher of Mathematics

School redevelopment

It is a great feeling now that the school redevelopment process has actually become a reality. Whilst there is still a great deal of uncertainty about timeline and on what site we will eventually redevelop Island School - the process is definitely underway. We know that by the end of August 2012 we will have a detailed concept brief for the next design stage and we will have a full technical feasibility study for both the existing and the alternative site at North Point.

Whilst we may have our own personal views on which route would best benefit the community, it is essential that we explore both as ultimately the decision as to which one we take will not be in our hands.

It is such an exciting time as we are now developing a clearer idea of how our curriculum will develop over the next 2-3 years; the timing of the redevelopment process has helped us here. Imagining what bricks and mortar need to exist in order to support our vision for teaching and learning has literally helped to make our thinking more ‘concrete’!

We are asking ourselves fundamental questions about how the new campus can best reflect our core educational aims. We are agreed that we need to identify what it is about our existing building that we might need to ‘take with us’ and what essential elements of the Island School spirit need to be embodied and made explicit in the new design. Clearly we need to ensure that all that is great about Island School is held onto and cherished by the new design, but at the same time we need to ensure we are more outward looking and take the best features from cutting edge designs from around the world.

A conversation about school design does not get very far without focusing on the need for flexible and agile learning spaces. Future buildings need to be able to adapt to accommodate changing educational trends and the emergence of new technologies. They need to be able to support different modes of learning and yet still allow for specialism by subject. Of course it is very difficult to have a dependable ‘crystal ball’ with regard to these issues, but we do know that standard classrooms with one teaching focus area are just not good enough for our students anymore.

We are fortunate enough to be working alongside the architects Ronald Lu & Partners who really value stakeholder input and want to ensure that whatever design we develop reflects the real needs of all groups within our school community. To that end there will be opportunities to be involved in developing the vision for the new school. To kick this process off we will be holding an Information Event for Parents at 7.00pm in the School Hall on Wednesday 18th January. Please join us to hear about the project in more detail and to find out how you can contribute your ideas and views.

Gareth Stevens - Vice Principal

Odetta wins prize for an essay

Congratulations to Odetta Li of 9R, who received the Gold Award in the age 12-14 category of the Royal Commonwealth Society 2011 Essay Competition. The theme of the competition was "women as agents of change". Odetta wrote a short story about a boy, his sister and a "mermaid".

Odetta is one of 3 major winners from HK this year. Deep Vase, Head Boy in Island School, won the grand prize - the Senior Prize (age 14 - 18 category). Another girl from HK won a Gold Award in the age 14-16 category. The Awards were given out by Mr. Andrew Seaton, British Consul-General, at the British Consulate General, HK, on 7 Dec 2011.

Well done Odetta!

Please see Odetta’s essay …here

Teri Eves - Leading Teacher of English