Primary Corner

Dear Parents

I wish you a Happy New Year. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas season and were able to enjoy your time with your children.

As you can imagine, we are closely monitoring the situation here in HK and trying to plan ahead as much as possible. But we have not yet received any official word from the EDB regarding school closure. Nevertheless, as a first step, we will again give home all the teaching materials with the students on Fridays. Of course, we hope that those materials can stay in the students' school bags and be brought back to school on Monday.

Of course, we are staying positive and hope we will be able to teach at the school in the next few weeks and also celebrate Chinese New Year in an appropriate way.

Priska Erni Head of German Primary Department Email

Beate Weinhardt Deputy Head of German Primary Department Email

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Departmental News and Announcements

From Head of Stream

Dear Parents

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you enjoyed some festive family time over the recent break and that 2022 has started positively, despite the recent renewal of restrictions. We very much hope to avoid any further school closures but we are ready to shift to online learning if necessary . . .

I took some time over the break to reflect on what was a very busy term throughout the English International Stream; I was particularly pleased by the sustained efforts of faculty, administrative and operational staff, with additional support from the Community Committee, to ensure a return to a more familiar calendar of events. Our aim was to try to revive familiar activities as much as we could within the additional restrictions. And without listing the myriad events in all three Departments, I think we succeeded. Rest assured that we will be doing everything we can to ensure a similar experience for students this year, despite the recent news.

During the end of year assemblies in the Secondary Department we heard from a number of students who had led service projects to raise funds for a number of NGOs. I wanted to share some of these with you to highlight the commitment and community mindedness of our students as well as their leadership and resilience.

In March 2021, Jack Ryan, Gabriel Löwy, Jaden Cheng and Martin Lau raised more than $200,000 for the Child Development Centre by walking the demanding 100km MacLehose Trail over three days. Over the second part of last year, Jack Yang, Veer Gokhale, Dorothy & Maximilian Bergmair established an organisation called H.E.A.T. in order to raise money to purchase fans for Hong Kong residents living in cage homes. Through crowdfunding, in-school events and online donations they raised over $150,000 which far exceeded their initial targets. A group of students, Vincent Capol, Brigit Lee, Ashley Tam and Jaime Chan, designed and produced a range of beautiful cards and candles to raise funds for Operation Smile, an organisation that supports children with cleft lips and cleft palates by providing life-changing surgery, dentistry and psychosocial care. The merchandise was sold in school during break times and also the successful Christmas Markets organised by Mrs Surman during the final week.

The Pink Campaign, initiated by Victoria Chong, Kohana Wong, Victor Kampman and Philip Huang partnered with the Hong Kong Breast Cancer Foundation in October raising awareness and funds throughout the Secondary Department. They also introduced Pink Wednesdays when students and staff were encouraged to wear at least one pink article of clothing each Wednesday through the month of October. The following month was, of course, Movember and the Project Privates team promoted awareness of testicular and prostate cancer through the sale of specially designed masks, t-shirts and badges; we enjoyed watching the weekly growth of mustachioed members of staff and even had some international entries. Thanks to Nigel Ma, Jaden Cheng, Ken Liang and Justin Cheung for continuing this excellent project.

Other projects have involved students establishing links with Mothers Choice, Kids4Kids, Refugee Union, Suits for Success, HK Redress and the HK Shark Foundation. Many of these connections evolve from the Creativity, Activity & Service (CAS) component of the IB Diploma with which our Diploma students embrace. But social responsibility is not just the preserve of Year 12 and 13 students, we have active student groups throughout the school as part of our Global Initiatives group and the Environmental Protection Committee as well as involvement with groups such as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. One of our Y11 students, David Won, is an active member and will be leading school-based projects focused on the UN Sustainability Goals.

Our Academic Societies were also very active last term; we enjoyed an array of visiting speakers, competitions, debates and seminars from the Geography, Economics, Film Societies, Law, Mathematics and ChromoX, the Feminist Society. These Societies are established to give students the opportunity to explore their particular subject passion beyond the curriculum through arranging activities and discussions to inspire and engage peers and younger students. This term the Year 12 students will be given the opportunity to take on the running of these groups and explore their intellectual curiosity. Look out for the upcoming TEDxGSIS event in March that has been initiated by Nicole Huang and Nehal Lodha.

Social responsibility, leadership and a passion for learning is flourishing at GSIS. My thanks to all the students, teachers, parents, visiting speakers and donors who continue to make this happen. And if you would like to get involved, get in touch!

Best wishes for an optimistic and productive 2022!

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Primary Corner

Dear Parents,

Welcome to 2022!

Transportation

Transportation changes need to be communicated to the teacher, primary_secretary@gsis.edu.hk,  busccordinator@gsis.edu.hk, and the bus company with the full name of the child and the teacher.Please communicate these changes prior to 7:00am, as teachers do not always have time to check their emails during the school day. 

Materials coming home

Teachers will be sending home select learning materials each Friday. Although we have not received any government updates, we want to be prepared should a school closure be announced. Please have your child return to school with these materials on Monday morning.

Counsellor coffee morning

Ms Marquard will be holding a coffee morning on 25 January for all parents at 8:00am. She will send  out information regarding this next week.

CAT4 update

Year Three and Year Six parents have recently received the GL Education CAT4 testing results by post, and we have had some questions about the interpretation of the scores. As can be seen in the bar graph below, the ‘shaded’ area represents the ‘Average range’ of scores. For more information about your child’s performance and the CAT4 tests in general, please see the GL Education link noted in the results’ cover letter, as well as the report summary section. Finally, should you have any questions about the CAT4 results or the GL achievement tests (conducted each May), please contact Mr. Davidson (rdavidson@gsis.edu.hk).

Have a great weekend,

Kim Cunningham Head of English Primary Department Email

Donna Morley Deputy Head of English Primary Department Email

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Departmental News and Announcements