From Head of Stream

Dear Parents

Welcome to the school year 2022/23. What a stormy start! Yesterday's Typhoon T8 shook things up quite a bit. I hope you and your children had a restful summer and saw family, friends, and the world outside Hong Kong after a long time. For many of you, the quarantine reduction on re-entry was perhaps the unexpected bonus at the end of a lovely summer. Now we can face the challenges of the new school year together.

I would especially like to welcome the new faces in the German International Stream: 65 students, nine colleagues and two youth volunteers. I am pleased that again 14 children have successfully passed the entrance exams for our lateral entry programmes CLIPPY and Fasttrack and have now joined the German education pathway with the goal of the Abitur (DIA). Mr Udo Krebs will strengthen our school management team as Head of German Secondary. I wish them all a good start in Hong Kong and at our school.

It is great that we have been able to start the school year with face-to-face lessons, albeit the continued restrictions in various areas of our school life. Once again, our colleagues have done their utmost to make the first day of school a special one for our students. Classrooms have been lovingly prepared and extensive arrangements have been made to host some of our traditional welcome events and the K01 enrolment ceremony. I am sure your children will remember these first impressions with pleasure. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all staff members for their special commitment to making this possible.

We, the staff of the German International Stream, look forward to working with you to further develop our stream and the existing concepts together and to create moments that we can look back on with pride in the coming year.

Here is to good cooperation and a successful school year.

Yours

[TOP]

Primary Corner

Dear Parents,

I was so happy to welcome the students back to school at the Peak and Pok Fu Lam Campus on Wednesday. Everyone seemed refreshed after the Summer break and happy to have had more opportunities to travel. The children were all very excited to be back, to see their friends again and to meet their new teachers. 

I was also delighted to be able to hold the DVOR welcome celebration at the Pok Fu Lam campus and the Einschulungsfeier of K01 at the Peak Campus. As always, the children were thrilled with their Schultüten and they had fun exploring a range of activities in the classroom.

A special welcome goes to all our brand-new families. It was a pleasure to get to know you on Tuesday, and we look forward to getting to know you better next year.

I am happy to introduce to you our new teachers, who were very excited to get to know all our students. 

NADINE GREUTER - K04B

I am Nadine Greuter, and the school year 2022/23 is my first at GSIS. Before moving to Hong Kong in early 2021, I lived in the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland and worked as a substitute teacher at various schools.
Initially, before becoming a teacher, I studied Criminal Justice and learned helpful strategies that are also useful in my daily life as a teacher. I worked at a local public school in Hong Kong until joining GSIS.
My biggest passion is food. I love to cook and enjoy the many great and diverse restaurants. I love to read and go for long walks when I'm not eating.

JULIA WAHLMÜLLER - Clippy

Servus! My name is Julia Wahlmüller, and I am from Austria. I am the teacher of the Clippy class and I teach German as a foreign language at GSIS starting this school year. During my studies to become a primary school teacher, I discovered my passion for teaching German as a foreign language and decided to pursue a degree in this field as well.
After teaching at an international school in Vienna for the last 4 years, I am looking forward to this new adventure here in Hong Kong. I love to teach children a new language and help them make it their own. I am especially motivated by the children's smiles when they can communicate in German for the first time.

PETRA FROMMANN - K02 Maths

Hi, my name is Petra Frommann. I have become a teacher because I have always been fascinated by kids. I just like to be with them and watch them. I enjoy getting to know them and finding access to their hearts. Usually, that happens quite fast. Once I know their souls, I feel what I can do to support them to feel comfortable and to grow.
This school year 2022/23 is my first at GSIS. I am looking forward to my very first experience in a school abroad, to new colleagues, to my team partner Gabi and to her second grade, of course.
I come from Wuerzburg, a northern Bavarian town where you can find delicious wines. Before coming to HK in 2018, I lived a few years a little further south, in Nuremberg.

Next Friday, September 2nd,  links will be shared, and we will resume communication through the class Google Sites. You will find more information about your child's teachers, the timetable and the first photos. After that, you will find an update at the beginning of every month.
Due to security reasons, the Google Sites - class homepage can only be accessed by the respective Google password of your child. I suggest you save your child's Google Account information on your phone and computer for easy access.

We continue to adapt our plans based on the latest guidelines from the EDB and CHP. According to the latest updates, we will be able to hold our parent's evenings in person. If any of you are keen to put yourselves forward as KPR for your child’s class, share it with your class parents group - it makes the whole event much smoother if we have volunteers in advance.

I look forward to meeting many of you at the upcoming events, and I wish you a wonderful year of learning ahead.

Priska Erni Head of German Primary Department Email

Beate Weinhardt Deputy Head of German Primary Department Email

[TOP]

Departmental News and Announcements

From Head of Stream

Dear Parents

Welcome Back to school! It was wonderful to see all the students return this morning following a day of home preparation due to Storm Ma-on. Our community is certainly feeling optimistic and hoping for a more familiar year ahead; we look forward to working with you to sustain this positive attitude both at home and school.

New Staff Induction

Last week we ran a three-day induction programme for all our new staff. They proved themselves to be a friendly, dynamic and committed group of professionals who will be a real asset to our school. Please make them feel welcome.

Tremendous Results

The summer break was a time when students in Year 13 and Year 11 received their IB Diploma and I/GCSE results. I am sure that you have already seen the high achievement of all our Year 13 graduates on our website; this has now been matched by the achievements of our Year 11 students whose Cambridge IGCSE & Edexcel GCSE were published over the past week. A quick snapshot for those of you who may have missed this:

IB Diploma             APS 41 points  100% pass rate

65.5% achieved 40+ points     Four bilingual Diplomas

IAS                               7 As                 100% pass rate

IGCSE [CIE]            95% A* to A    100% pass rate

GCSE [Edexcel]      95% 9 to 7       100% pass rate

These superb results need to be considered within the context of examination boards’ readjustment of grade boundaries this sitting to ease grade inflation over recent years, particularly in the UK. It is clear that GSIS has maintained exceptionally high standards in all final examinations with our I/GCSE results representing the best in the school’s history. Given the protracted periods of online learning, general uncertainty of recent years and sitting public examinations during ongoing restrictions, these results should engender tremendous pride in our school. A huge thank you to all our staff who supported and guided students throughout these challenging times, often within unfamiliar conditions for learning.

New Parents Event

It was a joy to meet all students and parents new to the school in person earlier this week. Whilst the young people were receiving a bespoke tour of the Middle and Lower Building by our prefects, parents were addressed by our Community Committee and KPR Secretaries; thanks to Miriam Reichmuth, Koko Mueller & Jasmin Blunck for taking the time to connect with our community

One point that was highlighted during this event was our collective aim to build student agency over their time with us. We believe that students need to be increasingly responsible for their own learning by building an understanding of the strategies for success. This can prove difficult to attain if large sections of their lives are organised for them, particularly at secondary school, as they never make or learn from mistakes or misjudgements. The young people who attend GSIS are remarkable individuals, and we believe that we provide a dynamic and challenging environment for them to grow cognitively as well as socially and emotionally. We look forward to building trustful relationships with parents within a supportive community that are focused on the best interests of the individual children so that they genuinely flourish.

Please do take a look at this 10-minute TED Talk from Julie Lythcott Haims (NYC November 2015) who articulates this philosophy very well:  https://www.ted.com/talks/julie_lythcott_haims_how_to_raise_successful_kids_without_over_parenting?language=en

Discovery Week 2022

This year’s Secondary School Discovery Week will follow a similar structure to last year and will be focused on the three days just before the mid-term break in October. As the quarantine restrictions continue to be in place, albeit reduced, and international travel is less than predictable, we are still not able to arrange overseas trips although we remain hopeful that we can relaunch this feature of the programme in 2023. Further details about the activities and trips will be shared via a website in mid-September for students to sign up.

We’re very much looking forward to another great year of learning and growth as well as building back a range of events that will build school spirit and community.

I look forward to meeting with many of you over the coming weeks and months.

Best wishes

[TOP]

Primary Corner

Dear Parents,

I was so happy to welcome the students back to school at the Peak Campus on Wednesday. Everyone seemed refreshed after the Summer break and happy to have had more opportunity to travel. The children were all very excited to be back, to see their friends again and to meet their new teachers. Going around the school there was a definite buzz from every classroom and I was treated to many wonderful stories of their holiday adventures!

I was also delighted to be able to hold the Year 1 welcome celebration at the Pok Fu Lam campus. As always, the children were thrilled with their 'Schultüten' and they had fun exploring a range of activities in the classroom and playground. I greatly enjoyed meeting the year 1 parents at our information session and look forward to a fantastic year ahead.

Although we were all disappointed that the T8 prevented us from being at school yesterday, the teachers did an excellent job of preparing the children and I hope your extra day at home went as smoothly as our first day at school.

Google Sites

Next Friday, September 2nd,  links will be shared and we will resume communication through the class and subject Google Sites. This year, information about learning will be shared and updated in units, rather than weekly. Teachers will contact individual classes when the information has been updated. Although updates will be less frequent, there will be more useful information about how you can support your children with their learning and you will have a better overview of the learning taking place over several weeks. Photographs will continue to be uploaded regularly. 

KPR Elections

We continue to adapt our plans based on the latest guidelines from the EDB and CHP. According to the latest updates, we will be able to hold our ‘Meet the Teacher and KPR election’ sessions in person, although we will only be able to accommodate 1 parent per child due to social distancing requirements. 

If any of you are keen to put yourselves forward as KPR for your child’s class, please email the class teacher to let them know you are interested - it makes the whole event much smoother if we have volunteers in advance. 

Important dates

I look forward to meeting many of you at the upcoming Meet the Teacher / KPR election events and I wish you a wonderful year of learning ahead.

Donna Morley Head of English Primary Department Email

Eleanor Cowling Deputy Head of English Primary Department Email

[TOP]

Departmental News and Announcements