IS C grade boys win the plate in ESF Soccer Tournament
On Saturday 9th October, Island School entered 2 teams in the ESF C grade soccer tournament. The A 1st team was composed of mainly year nine and a 2nd team was a mixture of year eight and nine.
Players of the 2nd team were: Lucius Hatherley, Ben Sargant, Matthew Mortimer, James Chalkley, Kenji Ichikawa, Samir Mangharam, Kristian Dodds, Kristian Glemao, Henry Lee, Lewis Arboit, Aakarsh Bhatnagar, Rohit Daswani.
I was very impressed with efforts made by both teams. They played well in their opening games but didn't quite make the cup semi finals (on goal difference). It came down to Island School 1 v Island School 2 in the plate semi finals which went to penalties. Island School 1 missed but Kenji put his away and so Island School 2 were in the final where they met RCHK.
Again it went to penalties. Level pegging to the 4th. But they showed great determination. Rohit saved the RCHK shot and Ben put his away. It was a big achievement for the year eight boys. IS D grade Boys win ESF Soccer Tournament
The following boys were part of the squad that won the Cup in the ESF soccer tournament at KGV on Saturday 9th October: Owen Turner, Chirag Bellani, Patrick McGillvray, Aaron Stanyard, Bill Beaves, Mark Swainston, Robbie Stamp, Rory Lonergan, Connor O'Hanlon, George Wyatt, Kurt Leimer.
In the group stages they beat South Island School 5-0 and then West Island School 3-0. They then lost their way against Shatin College losing 1-0. However they bounced back against KGV 2, winning 2-0. They came 2nd in the group and faced the pre-tournament favourites KGV1 in the semi finals. However the Island School team were not phased and trounced them 5-0.
The final against HKIS got off to bad start, and the IS team went a goal down, but the lads rallied, equalised and got a late winner. Victory was ours. The boys played magnificently but also in good spirit and we have the makings of a great team. Robbie, Rory and Aaron were outstanding. Owen was also very solid in goal. I would like to congratulate the boys!
Viveca Chow 12N and Hannah Chan 12N were selected from all the winners at the 2009 Speech and Drama Festival for their performance of Alice in Wonderland at the TVB Pearl's ETV presentation earlier this year.
On and off, Island School has taken part in the Hong Kong Schools' Speech, Drama and Music Festivals for almost twenty years. We now enter students for both the Chinese and English competitions within the Speech and Drama festival and we have had some great successes.
This last year 19 students participated in the English section and all achieved merits, with some students also achieving placings. Viveca Chow achieved first place in both the Solo-verse: non-open section for secondary 5 students and with Hannah Chan in the Dramatic Duologue section. Further members of last year's 9W also achieved first place in their competition for Thematic speaking.
The applications for this year's competition is taking place this week. Please hurry if you would like your son/daughter to take part. Please contact mlv@mail.island.edu.hk.
Welcome to a new school year at Island School. I extend a particular welcome to all those families who are joining the Island School Community for the first time. I hope that the settling-in process for you and your children goes as smoothly as possible. Please make sure you contact us quickly if there are any problems.
In this newsletter I will be looking back on the events that have happened during the summer. This will include the exam results and University destinations of our graduates as well as the renovations.
IB Results and HE destinations
I sent out a summary of our IB results as soon as they came out in the summer, which is also included as an attachment to this newsletter. As you can see, we are very pleased with these results as they are significantly better than the world averages and also a measurable improvement on last year.
The following summary of the data shows that the United Kingdom and the United States are the most popular destinations this year. Our most popular three colleges are spread between US, UK and Canada.
There are still one or two students for whom we do not have data, but this is certainly more accurate feedback from the students than we have had in the past. I am very grateful to Simone Salier, Roger Wilkinson and the HE team for gathering and putting together this data.
GCSE Results
As I write this the GCSE results are coming in. We use different examining boards for different subjects and these boards report their results at different times, and there is still one subject to come in. While we have not had time to analyse the results fully the first glance indicates that the results are at least as good as last year, when we had an outstanding set. About 60% of all the grades achieved by Island School students are either A or A*, and 93% at are grade C or above. We have three students who have achieved A* grades in all their subjects and a further 25 who have achieved A or A* in all subjects.
Summer Renovations
As soon as the students left school on the final day of term in June, the team of workmen came into the school to start the renovation of the main group of general classrooms. As you will know the Science labs have been renovated over recent years and other specialist rooms like the Music rooms, and the TV studio were done last year. This year it has been the turn of the general classrooms where the work was certainly necessary. I am pleased to say that 33 classrooms and 6 house offices, as well as the staffroom were completed on time for the start of the new term.
The work in the classrooms has included repainting the walls, re-carpeting the floors and completely refitting the furniture, storage and whiteboards. We are particularly pleased with the innovative storage solution behind the whiteboards that gives us much more teaching and learning space in the rooms. There are now plug sockets all round the rooms to enable laptops to be charged. The rather ragged looking curtains have been replaced by easy to use blinds to keep the bright sunlight out when showing video or using the interactive whiteboards. All in all the rooms are many times better than they were and are an attractive learning space that we must all maintain in their present state.
If you have visited the school you will have noticed that we now have a large banner and a series of large scale displays with the Island School Values on view to all. There is also a large metal plaque in the entrance with the values on. You may remember that last year we worked with a group of students, parents, staff and friends of the school to come up with value statements that could express what we are about and that we could use for framing future policy. These are now loudly proclaimed on the campus. In the first assembly of term the four senior prefects presented what each of the statements meant to them to the whole school. They did an excellent job in using their own experience to exemplify the values, which I hope will help to provide inspiration to the younger students.
The whole feel of the school has created a very positive atmosphere at the start of the new year and one which bodes well for a successful term for all our community. I wish you all a happy and exciting school year when we can all Pursue Excellence, Embrace Responsibility and Celebrate Individuality.
When Island School student Claudia Lo Wai-yu entered a competition to created a marketing plan for a charity organisation, she knew she was in for a one-of-a-kind experience.
For the past month students from all Houses have been battling with words in the junior inter-house debate competition. Discussing such motions as; the computerisation of education has gone too far, sporting heroes/heroines make poor role models and TV has a malign influence on society all Houses performed very well and the Final between Rutherford and Einstein was a closely fought debate.
The final standings were 1st Rutherford,2nd Einstein,3rd Nansen,4th Wilberforce,5th Fleming, 6th DaVinci. Congratulations to Louise Hannaford ( Captain ), Daniel Lancaster and Sophia Rommel the Rutherford winners and thanks to Alex Li, Eric Vestervall, Ernest Leung and Mr Faulkner for officiating.
Congratulations must go to 8W who were the undisputed winners of both of the Year 8 Technology Challenge Days on June 3rd and 4th this year. This was a new event for Island School aimed at giving year 8 students a unique experience combining all subjects in the Technology Curriculum Area (Design & Technology, Food Technology, Textiles Technology supported by ICT) in an extended learning opportunity. Students were unaware of the challenge that they were to undertake and in the space of about 4 hours had to produce a food product, a packaging concept for their food with a striking logo, uniforms and a point of sale display.
The contest was judged by external judges who are all working professionals in either branding, catering or the food and beverage industries, and the prizes were sponsored by Noon Copenhagen. We would like to extend our thanks to Ken Wathall, Liz Seaton and Lone Hesselbjerg Morup for their expertise and time on these days.
On 30th May, Island School entered two teams into the 6th HKFA annual tournament, a seven a side soccer competition. Our teams were composed of year seven and eight players taking part in a competition that featured mostly club teams and which went up to year nine age. The two teams each played 6 games in their group, some of these consecutively.
Island School 1 came second in their group having not conceded a goal. Indeed the only goal conceded came in their semifinal match when the opposition King's Park scored in the very last minute of the game.
Island School 2 consisted mostly of year 7 players and the size difference between them and other teams proved difficult to overcome. But they showed great determination and really held their own, the most memorable game being their 2-0 win over HKFC in their last game.
The players were: Alfred Poon, Jeff Chan, Colin Ross, Adrian Leung, Erik Vestervall, Matthew Mortimer, James Chan, Tony Cho, Rohit Daswani, Jonathon Turnbull, Adam Chillingworth, Joseph Stuart, Ben Sargant, Louis Reed, Michael Slavin, Lucius Hatherly, Thomas Cooper, Lucas Socha,Kenji Ichikawa and Daniel Cavalante-Chung. Daniel and Erik were awarded the player of the tournament for their respective teams.
