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

Chinese Website

Welcome to Island School’s Chinese Website. This website is made for each and everyone of us in the Island School Community to share our achievements in the Chinese language field.

The purpose of making this website is to create an alternative environment for Island School students to learn Chinese in a more engaging and interesting way. Instead of having lectures in classroom only, here in Island School we use an interactive way to help students to learn efficiently, which is to introduce another online platform for them to access anytime, anywhere.

Throughout this school year, we have three main themes, which are CAS week, Chinese New Year and Chinese food. The current one is CAS week and essays about it are currently being uploaded onto the website. Moreover, there is an ‘Excellent creative writing section’ to display the outstanding essays written by our students to encourage creativity.

On the other hand, a ‘Reading Section’ is coming up soon which provides students with a large variety of Chinese literature such as fiction books, articles and reading materials selected by Chinese teachers to our students.

In our Chinese Website Team, we have three groups, namely Translation, Chinese Website and Tuition, which consist of around twenty members from Year 9 to 12. We are responsible for different parts of it, for example, in the translation team; we help the school office to do some translation work each week such as the newsletter and school website. We also made a video about the school and translated most of the content on the school website into Chinese last school year. Furthermore, for the Chinese tuition part, we have some volunteers from Year 12 to tutor Year 7-9 students that may have difficulties on learning Chinese. We try to use an approach that is easier for them to learn on a one-to-one basis either during lunchtime or afterschool. As students, we understand the difficulties that one may encounter when they are learning and we are here to break through these obstacles with them in order to enhance our Chinese level as a whole.

Last but not least, we would like to express our utmost gratitude to our teacher advisors Mr. Stevens and Ms Cheng for their continuous support and guidance. Without them, this website can never be launched.

Please follow the link to the Chinese website...here

Chinese website team

The War on Drugs: How Parents can Survive – How Kids Can Win

On the 3rd November Island School hosted a drug information evening, with excellent presentations given by guest speakers Dr Mark Gandolfi (Clinical Psychologist and Director of St John’s Counselling Services) and Senior Inspector Paul Lewis (Narcotics Bureau).

The presentation used by Dr Gandolfi can be found here.

Given its success, and at the request of many parents, we hope to re-run the evening later this academic year.

Jenny Hodson – Vice Principal

Formative Assessment

Improving Learning in Island School Classrooms

Are pupils learning enough, and learning it well in our classrooms – and how can we tell? Can our teachers not only measure the progress made by students, but also identify their learning needs and respond to them? How are we trying to address these questions?

Tests and examinations are a classic way of measuring student progress. These highly visible forms of tracking progress, known as “summative assessment” are also used by you the parents as a measure of how well your child is doing.

But this is only part of the story. To be truly effective, assessment should also be “formative” – in other words, identifying and responding to the students’ learning needs. In classrooms featuring formative assessment, teachers make frequent, interactive assessments of student understanding. This enables them to adjust their teaching to meet individual student needs, and to better help all students to reach high standards. Teachers also actively involve students in the process, helping them to develop skills that enable them to learn better.

Many of our teachers incorporate aspects of formative assessment into their teaching. Formative assessment is used as a framework for teaching, teachers set up learning situations and guide students toward learning goals, we are changing the way we define student success.

Formative assessment builds students’ “learning to learn” skills by emphasising the process of teaching and learning, and involving students as partners in that process. It also builds students’ skills at peer-assessment and self-assessment, and helps them develop a range of effective learning strategies.
Students who are actively building their understanding of new concepts (rather than merely absorbing information) and who are learning to judge the quality of their own and their peers’ work against well-defined criteria are developing invaluable skills for lifelong learning.

Look at the ARR system on the Gateway, we are actively trying to get our students to self assess their progress, to work to criteria upon which their skills are assessed, to look at progress, not just judged to a grade or a level but to look at the reflective feedback. Different types of assessment are set across the curriculum to provide students with challenge and the opportunity to show their skills.

It is about the learning journey that the students are on not just about the grade outcomes. If we all focus on the grade and miss the process of the skill development, we will limit the learning that is happening.

Remember discuss with your child the information that is on the ARR, get them to explain to you the process they have been through on each of the different types of assessment. We need you to become part of the formative assessment. The more opportunities your child has to discuss their learning the greater their understanding and the more progress they will make.

If we took all the grades / levels away would you still be aware of how your child is doing?

If the answer is no, then you have not had a learning conversation with your child. Use the grades as a guide to the progress but the conversation as the opportunity to allow your child to show you their strengths and some areas of challenge. That way you will have a better understanding of the way you can help your child further develop.

Join in, go to the ARR, set a date with your child, let them take you on a learning journey!

Trudy Lant - Vice Principal

Between the Wars

On 6th and 7th October, Island School Drama and Music students collaborated on this extraordinary multi-media, multi-genre show which showcased stories from around the globe in the time period between WWI and WWII. More than 80 students were invovled in bringing to life stories from the Last Emperor of China, to the struggle of the Wiemar Republic to the brutal reality of the American depression. Congratulations to the performers, musicians and technicians involved in a truly collaborative effort.

Mary, Lowanna and Gilbert – Drama Department