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.
#GSIS #GermanSwissInternationalSchool #InternationalSchool #HongKong #EducationalExcellence
Tomorrow would have been the School's annual Christmas Bazaar, but instead we are practicing social distancing, walking around with masks on, avoiding any visits and feeling that any contact we do not make resembles a good deed – this pretty much shows what this pandemic is doing to us:
We have to take a step back and reduce our needs.
We are experiencing how time virtually stands still; time that is normally filled with events, celebrations and encounters, but now no longer moves and has changed into a silent monotony of uneventfulness.
We have to accept that we often have to do without variety and distraction.
The above may be a reason why I have the impression that lately so many people react explosively to small things and a feeling of edginess seems to be spreading. This is all the more reason to pay special attention to the students entrusted to us, who also have to cope with the "new reality".
I therefore ask you as parents to pay special attention to your children, who may be struggling in silence. We also dedicated sessions on our recent CPD Day to the topic 'Health and Wellbeing'. Our teachers as well as our school counsellors are very aware of the issue and are always attentive and willing to assist our students.
For the coming weekend I wish you a nice first day of Advent, even without the Christmas Bazaar, but hopefully in a good mood.
Kind regards
| Ulrich Weghoff Principal |
Dear Parents
Sunday is the first day of Advent, for us the traditional beginning of the pre-Christmas time, when we get in the mood for the holidays. Stollen, gingerbread, cookies, Advent wreaths with fragrant candles, Christmas markets with roasted almonds and mulled wine – we associate many wonderful smells and beautiful traditions with this time. Soon we will open the first window in our Advent calendars, with an increasing anticipation of Christmas.
For many of us, Christmas is the time we want to celebrate together with our families, travelling thousands of kilometres to visit our parents, siblings, relatives and friends. But this year, Christmas will be different – it must be. Constantly changing circumstances around the world and the resulting restrictions to fight the coronavirus have made many travel plans impossible. Many families will only be able to celebrate a virtual Christmas with their loved ones. Christmas online – another new experience that 2020 has in store for us. As expected, the Internet has quickly adapted to this scenario and offers numerous tips and ideas on how we can have a wonderful Christmas despite corona and social distancing, e.g. with video Secret Santa, sofa concerts, chocolate, beer or wine tastings, online cooking events, online murder-mystery dinners and much more. Those of you who are still sticking to your travel plans may also find some suggestions for entertaining activities during the two-week hotel quarantine upon your return.
Despite the current travel restrictions, I hope that travel will soon be part of our everyday life again, because both privately and professionally we are increasingly dependent on unlimited mobility. In order to make the flow of information between you and the School even more transparent and easy, we have designed a form for appointing a temporary guardian in case both parents are absent from Hong Kong at the same time. I would like to ask you to send the attached form, which is also available on the Veracross portal, to the respective Department Secretary as usual in good time before your departure. Thank you for your cooperation.
Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.Edna Ferber
In this spirit I wish you a festive pre-Christmas time as well as a pleasant Advent weekend with candlelight, stollen, cookies and mulled wine.
| Grit Cichon Deputy Principal / Head of German International Stream |
Dear Parents
With the increasing number of Coronavirus cases in Hong Kong, this has sparked an uncertainty of Kindergarten being able to reopen on December 7th. As we have not had any official information from the Hong Kong Education Bureau regarding any extensions during the time we had to submit our Gazette contribution, we are only able to share with you the possibilities of our plans. Therefore, here are our Online Advent Season plans for Kindergarten.
Starting Tuesday, 1 - 18 December, at 11:30 am
Live Advent Calendar Stories (only on school days)
Please click on this link to enjoy the live stories presented by the staff at PFL
https://peopleofpfl.weebly.com/advent-calendar-stories.html
On Monday, 7 December Individual Class with St. Nikolaus
All the live readings are also recorded and later uploaded on YouTube in order that your child/children may choose to revisit the stories later in the day/week.
We are also planning the visit of St. Nicholas. If it is online, he will speak to the children within their class and read from his “Golden Book”. You will receive a little gift from St. Nikolaus for your children via mail. However, please follow the instructions of the class teacher when handing over the gift :). If the children are back, St.Nick will be here in person to speak with the children.
Even if the Kindergarten should reopen on December 7th, it would be unlikely that we will have a Kindergarten Christmas event with children and parents. Rest assured, we will find an online alternative for this too. Do keep an eye out for our Advent surprise!
Wishing you and your families a wonderful and peaceful 1st Sunday of Advent.
With kind regards
 Head of Kindergarten |  Deputy Head of Kindergarten |
No updates / announcements this week.
Dear Parents
Many thanks to all who have contributed a video, a picture or a riddle to our online Advent calendar. It will certainly be a joy for the children.
It is now also the time of Advent and despite the circumstances we will try and celebrate this atmospheric time together as much as possible. Of course, we have already told the Nikolaus that he must not forget the children of the German Primary Department at GSIS. But he might have to contact the children at home online. Some of the children have already started singing and writing poems about Nikolaus.
Thank you for taking the time to go through the information about online learning. This week we had a successful start of the online learning in preschool/DVOR and classes K01 and K02. Should we have to go online with K03 and K04 I am sure this will go smoothly as well.
And because I have not written it for a long time.
 Head of German Primary |  Deputy Head of German Primary |
No updates / announcements this week.
No updates / announcements this week.
Dear Parents
With the increasing number of Coronavirus cases in Hong Kong, this has sparked an uncertainty of Kindergarten being able to reopen on December 7th. As we have not had any official information from the Hong Kong Education Bureau regarding any extensions during the time we had to submit our Gazette contribution, we are only able to share with you the possibilities of our plans. Therefore, here are our Online Advent Season plans for Kindergarten.
Starting Tuesday, 1 - 18 December, at 11:30 am
Live Advent Calendar Stories (only on school days)
Please click on this link to enjoy the live stories presented by the staff at PFL
https://peopleofpfl.weebly.com/advent-calendar-stories.html
On Monday, 7 December Individual Class with St. Nikolaus
All the live readings are also recorded and later uploaded on YouTube in order that your child/children may choose to revisit the stories later in the day/week.
We are also planning the visit of St. Nicholas. If it is online, he will speak to the children within their class and read from his “Golden Book”. You will receive a little gift from St. Nikolaus for your children via mail. However, please follow the instructions of the class teacher when handing over the gift :). If the children are back, St.Nick will be here in person to speak with the children.
Even if the Kindergarten should reopen on December 7th, it would be unlikely that we will have a Kindergarten Christmas event with children and parents. Rest assured, we will find an online alternative for this too. Do keep an eye out for our Advent surprise!
Wishing you and your families a wonderful and peaceful 1st Sunday of Advent.
With kind regards
Head of Kindergarten | Deputy Head of Kindergarten |
No updates / announcements this week.
Dear Parents,
The past week has been challenging, as we moved to home learning for half of our students and watch the news each day to determine what will happen with the other year levels. As communicated previously, our plans are in place should we need to make a shift to online learning for Years 4-6. While we are disappointed our Year 1-3 students are not in the building, we will try our best to help them celebrate some of our traditional events of the Christmas season, such as Nikolaus. The children have been quite resilient and are demonstrating their flexibility in their ability to learn in a variety of environments! Please do not hesitate to reach out to Class Teachers, Specialist teachers, or one of us should you have any questions.
Happy Thanksgiving!
 Head of English Primary |  Deputy Head of English Primary |
Thank you, as always, to the KPR reps for meeting with us this week and sharing a great deal of valuable feedback on various matters.
As the Christmas break draws nigh, unfortunately without the usual festivities such as the Christmas Bazaar, we nonetheless hope to mark the end of term with such celebrations as can currently take place. Chief amongst these will be the Christmas concert, which will be presented in an online format, and the recordings for which will be made on the 10th December. Thank you to Mr Goldring, Ms Haines and all the performers for your efforts in bringing some well needed Christmas cheer.
Sadly, as previously noted, we say goodbye to two long-serving and well-respected teachers at the end of term. Both Mr Munt and Ms Schuurman will be leaving Hong Kong to return to their home countries. They take with them all our very best wishes for a successful and happy future with their families.
Two new teachers will join the ESD team in January. Ms Katherine Etchells-Bailey will be teaching Physical Education, and will take over Mr Munt’s PE classes, whilst Mr Jonathan Chan-Combrink will be teaching Social and Cultural Anthropology to our Y12 & 13 classes in place of Ms Schuurman.
Ms Etchells-Bailey has taught PE at a number of international schools in Hong Kong and brings with her a great deal of experience and expertise, particularly in coaching Hockey, but also a number of other sports.
Mr Chan-Combrink is a Canadian-qualified humanities specialist with a background in anthropology. He is currently studying for his doctorate in education and will be joining GSIS on a part time basis. Since it is not ideal for IB Diploma students to change teachers at this juncture in the course, Ms Schuurman has kindly agreed to continue to be available online to teach the Y12 & 13 classes, in partnership with Mr Chan-Combrink, for the coming months. The time difference between Hong Kong and Canada, where Ms Schuurman will be based, is quite challenging, but we are working to ensure that Ms Schuurman can team teach the classes for at least some of the lessons, as well as offering her expert guidance outside of the school day to individual students. The exact details of the arrangements for the SCA classes will be communicated to the students and parents concerned as soon as possible.
Mr Munt’s Economics classes will be taught by Ms Majithia from January onwards and Ms Schuurman’s History classes will be taught by one of Ms McCarrick, Mr Santella or Ms Surman and, again, the precise details will be sent to the parents and students concerned soon.
 Head of English Secondary |
No updates / announcements this week.
