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- Principal's Column
- Managing Director's Update
- Schoolwide News
- German International Stream
- English International Stream
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Our Y13 leavers took to the roof for a friendly, yet competitive, football match ⚽ against a team of cross-stream faculty. There were goals and tackles, but most importantly, laughter and handshakes all around. Best of luck to our Y13 final-year students as their journey in Secondary soon comes to an end.
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GSIS Gazette – Issue #31
6th November 2020
When was the last time you were really amazed about something? You may feel the same as me – that you have to wait a long time for the really big and amazing causes. After all, we have seen so much and learned so much: thundering waterfalls, deep canyons, vast savannahs, fantastic cities, gorgeous architecture and impressive works of art.
Something very small recently amazed me: physicists from the University of Frankfurt have detected the shortest time span in the world, the unimaginably short time of only a few trillionths of a billionth of a second that it takes for light particles to pass through a hydrogen molecule with two atoms. The researchers have irradiated hydrogen molecules with X-ray light for this purpose. They measured when a photon reached the first hydrogen atom and when the second atom was hit. Between them, there was a maximum of 247 zeptoseconds (a zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second), depending on how far apart the two atoms in the molecule were from each other at the time.
If I cannot imagine a billionth of a second, then it seems impossible to get my head around the concept of a trillionth of this billionth of a second.
Unimaginable, and yet true. This message struck me like lightning, because this idea of time throws light on our existence, as it is defined by time. How incredibly long my life seems in relation to this “shortest” time span and yet so unbelievably short in relation to the existence of the earth.
For Plato and Aristotle, as you can read in common philosophy history, amazement is the beginning or origin of philosophy. As School Principal I would like to add that amazement is also the beginning of all learning. Amazement does not only mean wondering, confusion or curiosity, but also a beginning of a special kind. This “amazed” beginning starts with a kind of astonishment due to an impulse which unexpectedly affects you and opens up your learning capability to something new.
In this way amazement becomes the engine of education. I wish that the amazement does not get lost in the routine observations of the world and that we are ready to be amazed by the very small as well as the very great things.
Have a nice weekend
Ulrich Weghoff
Principal
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Schoolwide News
German International Stream
Kindergarten Corner
Dear Parents
As you know we are unable to celebrate our traditional St. Martin’s Lantern Festival this year. To keep up with tradition, we would like the children to celebrate the Lantern Fest in school and we plan to have a "Cosy Lantern Morning" on November 11 at our Pok Fu Lam Campus.
To create the correct atmosphere, we will transform our gym into a cosy and conducive environment to accommodate for the use of our lanterns which the children made with you. Each class will spend sufficient time in the gym singing lantern songs, listening to a story, and parading their beautiful lanterns.
We encourage all the families to take a walk in the evening together with the lanterns, with the intention of sharing a short 30 seconds video with your child's class teacher(s).
THE LANTERN FESTIVAL
This festival is held in Germany to celebrate Saint Martin’s life. Martin was a soldier who arrived in a town on a cold November night. At the town gate his horse refused to continue on and Martin saw a beggar cowering in a corner. Martin took his cape off and cut it in half to share it with the beggar. That night Martin dreamt the beggar was Jesus Christ and he decided not to be a soldier anymore. He wanted to help people instead. One day he was offered the position as a bishop. Rather than accepting this honour he left town and hid himself in a goose shed. People started searching for him, and when it got dark they used lanterns. They eventually found him with the geese and persuaded him to return and be their bishop.
This is why roast goose is eaten to celebrate Saint Martin’s Day, and the children carry lanterns to help find Saint Martin. In churches Saint Martin is often shown with a goose.
Primary Corner
Dear Parents
This week you have received information about the online Parent Information Days.
Registration is possible next week up to 48 hours before your desired appointment. Please note that on 13 November there will be no classes for the children of K01–K04 and on 20 November no classes for the DVOR children.
We also had our first ICT workshops for the 'Adventskalender' this week and I look forward to seeing our final Adventskalender.
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Priska Erni |
Inga Riedel-Narayan |
Updates and Announcements
Secondary Corner
Updates and Announcements
English International Stream
From Head of English International Stream
Dear Parents & Students
A warm welcome back to school!
We continue to function under our physical distancing measures and everyone is doing a great job so that we can remain operational. In order to maintain a safe environment please do remind your children to observe the essential rules as exuberance and familiarity can have an effect on doing the right thing:
- Wear a mask at all times.
- Maintain distance inside & outside the classroom.
- Avoid physical contact and the sharing equipment e.g. pens & balls.
- Avoid talking directly to someone’s face from a close distance.
- Gatherings of students should be no more than four people.
- Observe the one-way system and entry systems as indicated by the signage.
- Only eat in the designated areas and do not share food.
- Wash and disinfect hands often – there are dispensers in every classroom and shared area.
Do review the need for these restrictions and ask your children how this has been for them; please do encourage them to share any suggestions they may have for improvements.
KPR Meetings
The Principal, Managing Director and Deputy Principals met with the KPR Secretaries before the break to discuss a range of topics that were raised through the KPR meetings. You should receive Minutes of this meeting through your KPR in due course.
EPD and Kindergarten KPR meetings will be held next week with ESD KPR meeting later this month. Thank you for using this system to provide feedback to the school as it helps us to stay responsive rather than reactive. If you have a particular concern to raise about your own child, please do contact the relevant Head of Department rather than pass on to your KPR as we will be able to deal with the matter much more swiftly.
Continuous Professional Development Day
On Monday, GSIS staff held the first of two Continuous Professional Development Days we provide each year. The morning started with Safeguarding & Child Protection training for all faculty, administrative and support staff on three campuses. The aim of these sessions was to remind staff of how to respond to and report a disclosure as well as to review key protocols that keep all our children safe.
This was followed up in the English International Stream with primary and secondary staff meeting in groups led by subject & curriculum leaders to discuss the qualities of outstanding and inspirational teaching. This was linked with a key feature from our Vision Statement. Feedback from these discussions will form the basis of a framework that we will share with all staff that expresses the expectations we have of ourselves as well as each other.
As part of this year’s initiative to launch a positive education approach at the school, we invited three visiting workshop leaders to provide some insight into personal wellbeing, coaching and mental health first aid. Chris Garvey (https://habitual.club/), Louise Penrice (https://www.openminds.ch/about-me/) and Shirralee Sisson (positivewellbeing) are all well-known practitioners in Hong Kong. The 90-minute sessions were introductory in nature with the intention for individuals to attend further sessions to suit their own professional development.
The afternoon was finished off with primary staff meeting to discuss reading strategies whilst secondary staff worked on developing curriculum content.
Recruitment
The ESD will be saying a sad goodbye to some staff at the end of this term, Hedda Schuurman will be returning to Canada, Brad Munt will be returning to New Zealand and Kerry Haines will be relocating to Japan. I would like to say a brief but heartfelt ‘thank you’ to these teachers on your behalf as they have made such a tremendous and sustained contribution to school life. Happily, we have now completed all the interviews for their replacements and will announce them once all the paperwork is complete.
After many years’ service to the school, Mini Franks, our Head of PE & Sports ECAs will be retiring at the end of this term. Mini has made a sensational contribution to the lives of so many GSIS students over her time here and we wish her well for the future. I know there will be a number of celebrations over the coming weeks to recognise Mini’s contributions to the school so please share your gratitude at one of these occasions.
We are pleased to announce that Andrew Champion will be taking over from Mini from January 2021. As Andrew has been with the school in a part-time role we will be interviewing for a suitable replacement in the coming weeks. Also in a new role, Nathalie Comty has been made the new Head of Student Support. Nathalie has been with us since last year and brings with her extensive experience from the UK and Australia. We will be interviewing for a main scale Student Support position in the coming weeks.
Secondary School Life website
Our current Head Students for ESD & GSD have launched a Student Life website that contains all the relevant information and key dates for our students to help organise their week plus additional tabs that link to an overview of examination courses, Academic Society websites, Music events and Merch. As this is an internal site please ask your daughter or son to show you . . . if you have any suggestions for improvement please pass them on through your child (but let them write the email!)
Another tremendous initiative from our senior students, under the guise of Project Privates HK, are the Movember Masks. Your child can purchase one or more for you in school ($30 for 1, $50 for 2) so you can wear it around Hong Kong to raise awareness of men’s health issues.
Also in the news this week is the wonderful children’s book Lily and Bodhi’s Sharktastic Adventure written by three of our Year 13 students to raise awareness of shark fin harvesting in Hong Kong. You can buy one or more copies here.
Have a great week ahead!
Kind regards
Simon Misso-Veness
Deputy Principal / Head of English International Stream
Email
Kindergarten Corner
Dear Parents
As you know we are unable to celebrate our traditional St. Martin’s Lantern Festival this year. To keep up with tradition, we would like the children to celebrate the Lantern Fest in school and we plan to have a "Cosy Lantern Morning" on November 11 at our Pok Fu Lam Campus.
To create the correct atmosphere, we will transform our gym into a cosy and conducive environment to accommodate for the use of our lanterns which the children made with you. Each class will spend sufficient time in the gym singing lantern songs, listening to a story, and parading their beautiful lanterns.
We encourage all the families to take a walk in the evening together with the lanterns, with the intention of sharing a short 30 seconds video with your child's class teacher(s).
THE LANTERN FESTIVAL
This festival is held in Germany to celebrate Saint Martin’s life. Martin was a soldier who arrived in a town on a cold November night. At the town gate his horse refused to continue on and Martin saw a beggar cowering in a corner. Martin took his cape off and cut it in half to share it with the beggar. That night Martin dreamt the beggar was Jesus Christ and he decided not to be a soldier anymore. He wanted to help people instead. One day he was offered the position as a bishop. Rather than accepting this honour he left town and hid himself in a goose shed. People started searching for him, and when it got dark they used lanterns. They eventually found him with the geese and persuaded him to return and be their bishop.
This is why roast goose is eaten to celebrate Saint Martin’s Day, and the children carry lanterns to help find Saint Martin. In churches Saint Martin is often shown with a goose.
Primary Corner
Dear Parents,
PIDs
This week you received information regarding the online Parent Information Days (PIDs). Enclosed in the email was a document with the links to each classroom teacher’s Calendly to register for the PID. You may register up to 48 hours before the desired date.
Please note that there will be no classes on November 13th for Years 2-6 and on November 20th for Year 1.
Communication
Beginning today we are rolling out our Class Google Sites for Years 3-6. You will find the links within the Gazette. Parents will need to use their child’s GSIS gmail account to login to the class Sites, With this layer of protection, we will be able to provide photos of class activities.
We plan to roll out Google Sites for Years 1 and Specialist teachers next Friday, 13 November and year 2 on 20 November.
Staffing
We are pleased to welcome Petra Glover, a GPD parent, in Year 1 for a few weeks as an intern observing and developing an understanding of learners.
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Andrew Champion as the new Head of PE and Sports ECAs in the EPD. Andrew has worked with us for several years as a part-time PE and ECA teacher and will be joining us full-time in January. We are happy to welcome him on a full-time basis!
Best wishes.
Updates and Announcements
Looking for what's been going on in class this week?
Secondary Corner
