CONTENTS
- Principal's Column
- Community Committee
- Schoolwide News
- German International Stream
- English International Stream
- Student Achievements & Initiatives
- Highlights of the Week
Connect with GSIS
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
GSIS Gazette – Issue #87
21st October 2022Principal's Column
With the start of mid-term break, the first stage of the school year is completed for students and teachers. In the final year of the German International Stream, the preliminary examinations for the Abitur have been written, and decisive learning activities also have taken place in all year groups. So now we will all use the short break to start the next stage with new strength.
CPD and self-study day after the holidays
On the Monday following mid-term break, the entire teaching staff will meet in their respective departments to discuss a wide variety of further development opportunities within the school’s curriculum or to concretize their implementation. For the students, this means that school will not begin until Tuesday after the holidays. Teachers will send assignments to all classes for self-study and debrief the students in class. By completing these in a self-responsible manner, it will be a part of the students personal development.
Thanks to the school community - Christmas bazaar
After a three-year break, the Christmas Bazaar which will take place on Saturday, 26 November 2022 as an internal school event for the school community, requires extensive pre-organization. This organizational work is mainly done by a group of dedicated parents. The administration of GSIS supports this to the best of its ability, and ultimately the teachers, together with the student body, ensure the life of the Christmas Bazaar. I thank all the members of the school community for their commitment and hope for a great event.
KPR meeting on 16 November
In my opinion, listening and communication are the foundation for the development of a community. The GSIS Board of Directors has revived an old tradition and will, along with the Senior Leadership, be available for an exchange to all KPRs on Wednesday, 16 November in the IB Hall. I am looking forward to constructive contributions and a trustful exchange.
I wish you all a wonderful mid-term break.
| Dr Dirk Bennhardt Principal |
Parents' Committee
The GSIS Hiking Club had its first hike since the summer break!
We did the Dragon’s Back and went for lunch to Shek O afterward. From now on we will meet monthly. The next hike will be on Friday, 11th November! For more details please email nstaack@learning.gsis.edu.hk.
| Parents' Committee |
Schoolwide News
Virtual Townhall & KPR Meetings
Virtual Townhall
As the school year returns to some normalcy, we aim to continue excellence in both academics and experiences for the students, teaching staff and faculty. The Senior Leadership Team and the Board will share a few words through a virtual townhall in November, delivering a school update and outlook for the future of GSIS.
Meeting with KPR Secretaries and School Leadership (8 November)
We look forward to the first meeting in the current school year on Tuesday, 8 November. We will share all details with you after the meeting via the meeting minutes and also our KPR system.
KPR Meeting (For all KPRs, 16 November)
The Senior Leadership Team and the Board will be hosting a KPR meeting on Wednesday, 16 November 2022 from 4:30 - 6:30 pm at the Peak Campus in the IB Hall. They will collectively address the questions raised from the recent Board newsletter.
|
Stefan Tueger Deputy Director of Advancement |
University Guidance: Upcoming Events (External)
ENRICHMENT & ADVANCEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
INVESTIN CAREER PROGRAMS
Investin provides a range of career programs for ages 12-18. These programs enable teenagers to gain industry experience with 40 hours / week of real-life work with real-life professionals across various industries such as Law, Finance, Medicine, Business, Psychology, Art etc. They provide Weekend Programs and Summer internships and places are highly limited so students should register as soon as possible.
For more information and registration please click here.
ADMISSION INFORMATION SESSIONS
NETHERLANDS: 29 DUTCH HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS - Virtually Orange 2022
Date: Sunday, 30 October
Time: 8:00 pm - 12:00 am HKT (1:00 pm - 5:00 pm CEST)
Save the date for the best and most comprehensive virtual event of the year for students considering studying in the Netherlands. This year 29 Dutch higher education institutions will be in attendance - ready to chat with students in an online fair platform. There will be a general 'Study in the Netherlands' session by our friends at Nuffic, and lots of booths to visit to have live discussions, download brochures, watch videos and more.
Please register here.
 Claire Wilkins |
 Beatrice Ugolini |
Taking time to recharge is productive too!
As the autumn break begins, you will have some time to rest and recharge before the next term. There are a number of reasons why resting is good for you. Let’s have a look at some of them.
Resting can help you to:
- Reduce stress
- Improve mood
- Boost creativity
- Increase productivity
- Strengthen relationships
- Improve mental and physical health
Rest looks different for everyone. Some people enjoy spending time on the sofa while others recharge after a 5-hours-hike. Well, you know what is best for you. Do whatever gives you joy and enjoy the autumn break to the fullest.
Sources:
www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2021/01/15/the-benefits-of-resting-and-how-to-unplug-in-a-busy-world
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-color-wellness/202209/rest-replenish
www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-downtime
Take care and be kind to yourself,
Your School Counsellors
| Karina Elwert |
German International Stream
From Head of Stream
The longed-for autumn break is just around the corner. The past weeks already held some highlights and experiences in all the departments. These were, among others:
- Assembly on the Day of German Unity on 3 October and Discovery Week in the Secondary Department
- Activity Days in the Primary Department
- Wellbeing activities in Kindergarten
- Excursions and exhibition visits
My sincere thanks to all colleagues for their excellent dedication and guidance in the wide-ranging and diverse programs. Mr. Misso-Veness deserves my special thanks for the overall coordination of Discovery Week, which required several months of intensive planning.
We can look forward to a wonderful pre-Christmas season. In addition to many small projects and events, the highlights in the departments will be the Christmas Bazaar, which will take place again for the first time since 2018, and the traditional Christmas concerts.
Two dates that will be imminently coming up after the mid-term break (marked in the school calendar):
- CPD Day
31 October - Primary and secondary students will be given assignments for home-study.
- Parent-teacher conferences (all departments)
14-25 November - Kindergarten
14-25 November - GPD (Peak/Pok Fu Lam)
2-3 November - GSD
Wishing you and your children a wonderful fall break. Enjoy the week in Hong Kong or a trip abroad and return healthy and refreshed.
| Grit Cichon Deputy Principal / Head of German International Stream |
Kindergarten Corner
Our heartfelt thanks to Ms. Patricia Crockett for her generous donation of four sets of "Stapelstein". As a mother of two children at our Pok Fu Lam campus and owner of the company "Kinderspiel", she understands the necessity of a wide range of movement and creativity in a limited space with the whole body. This timely gift has given playtime a new meaning with its versatile material and open-ended play without boundaries.
Recap of the past two weeks' events:
12 October - Visit by the HK Fire Department, Presentation on "Fire Safety Education"
17 October - Outing to the HK Science Museum, "The Big 8, Dinosaur Revelation" (EKG)
19 October - Flu vaccination
20 October - Kindergarten KPR Meeting
Upcoming events for November:
24-28 October - Mid-Term holidays (no school)
31 October - Continuing Professional Development Day (no school for students)
7-14 November - Box of Hope (charitable event)
3 November (GKG), 4 November (EKG2), 7 November (EKG1) - Parent-Child German Lantern-Making (for St. Martin's Festival)
11 November - St. Martin's Day Lantern Festival (student event)
14-25 November - Parents’ Information Days (online, PM only)
17 November - Drum Jam Workshop (student event)
26 November - Christmas Bazaar (Peak Campus, only for GSIS families)
We will email further information regarding "Box of Hope", the Lantern Festival and our Parents' Information Days closer to the event. We would like to wish you and your family a great Mid-Term Break!
 Sophie Burdel |
 Eileen Mah |
Departmental News and Announcements
No updates / announcements this week
Primary Corner
This week we celebrated our wellbeing, not only did I see many fun costumes, but I could experience in person what it means to look after my wellbeing.
Parents events - Safe the dates
Helping children to establish good habits and routines
- 8 November - 7:45 am, Parents Information by our counsellor Alexandra Neumann-Hillebrand
PID - Meet the class teacher
Please note that we will have our Parents Information Days on the following dates. This time you will have the chance to choose if you would like to meet online or in person within a time window of two weeks. We will send you detailed information in the first week after the autumn break.
14-18 November / 22-25 November - Peak and Pok Fu Lam
CPD Day (Monday, 31 October)
Please note that all teachers will have a Professional Development on Monday after school. Teachers will share tasks with students on their normal platforms.
Box of Hope
We will support the Box of Hope again this year. Please help your child to prepare a gift box by following the instructions on the BoH website carefully. Children should bring their Boxes into their classes from 7-11 November for collection on Monday, 14 November. Labels and more instructions will be shared in the week after half term. Thank you for your support!
School newspaper
We are pleased to present the next issue of "Wir Schlaumeier". Here you can learn a lot about Hong Kong and what students and teachers like the most about it. Many thanks to all the students who wrote the report.
| School newspaper |
Have a wonderful half-term holiday - we look forward to seeing you refreshed after the break.
 Priska Erni |
 Beate Weinhardt |
Departmental News and Announcements
No updates / announcements this week
Looking for what's been going on in class this month?
Secondary Corner
The 3 October was marked by our celebrations of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The celebration thanks to the excellent cooperation of all the students, teachers and members of the school community involved, went very well and will certainly remain in our memories for a while. I would like to express my sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of this event with their great efforts! Many thanks to Ofelia, William and Silas (K07B) for their report about the event on 3 October.
Students in grades K05 through K09 and K11 are enjoying their Discovery Days this week, while K10 is gaining their first work experiences outside of the classroom in their Career Internship. Our future DIA graduates are writing their mock exams under DIA conditions.
I wish all students, all colleagues, all parents and all members of the school community a relaxing and healthy mid-term.
 Udo Krebs |
 Arnold Leitner |
Attachments
https://www.gsis.edu.hk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Bericht-Report.pdf
Departmental News and Announcements
No updates / announcements this week
English International Stream
Kindergarten Corner
Our heartfelt thanks to Ms. Patricia Crockett for her generous donation of four sets of "Stapelstein". As a mother of two children at our Pok Fu Lam campus and owner of the company "Kinderspiel", she understands the necessity of a wide range of movement and creativity in a limited space with the whole body. This timely gift has given playtime a new meaning with its versatile material and open-ended play without boundaries.
Recap of the past two weeks' events:
12 October - Visit by the HK Fire Department, Presentation on "Fire Safety Education"
17 October - Outing to the HK Science Museum, "The Big 8, Dinosaur Revelation" (EKG)
19 October - Flu vaccination
20 October - Kindergarten KPR Meeting
Upcoming events for November:
24-28 October - Mid-Term holidays (no school)
31 October - Continuing Professional Development Day (no school for students)
7-14 November - Box of Hope (charitable event)
3 November (GKG), 4 November (EKG2), 7 November (EKG1) - Parent-Child German Lantern-Making (for St. Martin's Festival)
11 November - St. Martin's Day Lantern Festival (student event)
14-25 November - Parents’ Information Days (online, PM only)
17 November - Drum Jam Workshop (student event)
26 November - Christmas Bazaar (Peak Campus, only for GSIS families)
We will email further information regarding "Box of Hope", the Lantern Festival and our Parents' Information Days closer to the event. We would like to wish you and your family a great Mid-Term Break!
|
Sophie Burdel |
Eileen Mah |
Departmental News and Announcements
No updates / announcements this week
Primary Corner
The Wellbeing Week at the Peak Campus which was planned by the Y05 students was a huge success. Children took part in a range of activities to promote their health and wellbeing and finished the week with our ‘Active Days’. View the class and subject Google Sites to see the photographs.
Important Staffing Announcement - Maternity leave
As shared at the KPR meeting on Wednesday, Julia Kroeger will take maternity leave from 14 November until the end of March. Julia’s classes will be covered as follows:
| Year 2 | Eva Hoffmann Eva has covered previous maternity leave for the DaF team and is a regular supply teacher at GSIS. |
| Year 3B | Gudrun Van Rissenbeck Gudrun is one of our DaF team. She will take over the 3B lessons in addition to the 3C lessons she currently teaches. |
| Year 4 and 5 | Petra Frommann Petra currently works part time in GPD and has experience of teaching German as a foreign language in Germany. |
Temporary counsellor
We are pleased to announce that we have appointed a temporary counsellor to cover this position during Ms Marquard’s leave. Virginia Tsang will join our team after the half term break and will be with us until the end of January. Virginia is well qualified as a counsellor and has experience of working in local and international schools. She will be meeting all of the classes in the first weeks of November.
Coming Up after Half Term:
CPD Day - 31 October
This will be a ‘Home Study Day’ for students. Teachers will assign some asynchronous learning via Google Classroom or Seesaw.
Parent information Days - 14 to 25 November
PIDs will take place flexibly over the 2 week period and can be booked as online or in person meetings. You will receive detailed information about how to book in the first week after the half term break.
Box of Hope
We will support the Box of Hope again this year. Please help your child to prepare a gift box following the instructions on the BoH website carefully. Children should bring their Boxes in to their classes from 7th - 11th November for collection on Monday 14th November Labels and more instructions will be shared in the week after half term. Thank you for your support!
Christmas Concert Dates and Times
This year the EPD Christmas Concerts will be performed by individual classes in the Upper Building Atrium. Miss McLachlan will email more details shortly, but for now mark your diaries for some great festive performances.
| Class | Date | Time |
| YO2B | Friday, 9 December | 10:05 am |
| YO2C | Friday, 9 December | 9:25 am |
| YO3B | Monday, 5 December | 11:15 am |
| YO3C | Monday, 5 December | 10:05 am |
| YO4B | Monday, 5 December | 8:15 am |
| YO4C | Monday, 5 December | 11:55 am |
| YO5B | Friday, 9 December | 11:15 am |
| YO5C | Friday, 9 December | 7:35 am |
| YO6B | Tuesday, 29 November | 8:15 am |
| YO6C | Tuesday, 29 November | 9:25 am |
Have a wonderful half term holiday - we look forward to seeing you refreshed after the break.
 Donna Morley |
 Eleanor Cowling |
Departmental News and Announcements
No updates / announcements this week
Looking for what's been going on in class this week?
Secondary Corner
Departmental News and Announcements
No updates / announcements this week
Student Achievements & Initiatives
HKDSC 2022 Tournament
Krystyna Butchart (Debate Coordinator)
GSIS WINS THE 2022 HKDSC SENIOR DEBATE TOURNAMENT & UPHOLDS OUR REPUTATION AS ONE OF THE BEST DEBATING SCHOOLS IN HONG KONG!
Our senior inter-school debaters build on the successes of past GSIS teams to win yet another HK World Schools inter-school debate tournament held on the weekend of 8 and 9 October. The senior team comprising of Zachary Too, Rachel Lang, Edgar Cheng, Nadia Venetz and Joseph Ang performed superbly throughout the tournament winning every single round. Their crowning achievement was beating DGS in the impromptu Grand Final where they debated the motion “This house would leave Sotorija”.
Other motions debated were:
- This House, as India, would openly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and participate in the international community’s sanctions on Russia.
- This House Regrets the decline of labour union power in the West.
- This House Believes That large cities should adopt the Vienna model of social housing
- This House Opposes the centrality of sport to national identity
Each year the competition becomes more challenging as the quality of school debating in HK improves and the motions become more sophisticated, demanding hours of commitment and team preparation. These students now share their experience and expertise in running the GSIS Junior Debate ECA on Friday afternoons and cultivating the next generation of aspiring debaters.
Congratulations also to Alexandra Uy-Tioco (Year 13), our student school debate leader, who represented GSIS on the Hong Kong World Schools Team over the summer. It was the first time Hong Kong has won this international tournament, despite having come close a number of times.
'Book Bentos' Exhibition (presented by RPP)
Jai Mutreja & Ethan Holland (Y09B) (Students)
Do you not know what to read? If so then read on. Year 7-9 Reading Promotion Project (RPP) has organised a book bento project this half-term. We have, in pairs or by ourselves, each chosen a novel. We collected items based on the books to tell you the story. Finally, we created a presentation where the various items are arranged around the publication.
The book bento aims to give you an idea of what you will find in that specific novel. So that you can find a reader of your liking. We have chosen books to suit different reading interests and the book bentos are now on display in the Senior Library. We invite you all to see them and hopefully something will catch your eye.
For future reference, we at the Reading Promotion Project have some exciting new ideas to promote reading and convince you to let books tell you their story.
https://www.gsis.edu.hk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/RPP.jpg
(Click thumbnail/s to enlarge image)
'Box of Hope' Initiative
Shuhan Cao (Y12 Student)
We hope you all have a wonderful mid-term break! We are Cheryl, Grace, Shuhan, Tiana and Venus from Y12, and currently, we are collaborating with Box of Hope. Box of Hope is an HK-based organisation that aims to bring a little joy to underprivileged children while simultaneously raising awareness about poverty and the benefits of gift-giving to the community. Every year, people come together to create and donate boxes filled with essential, active and fun items. These boxes are then collected by Box of Hope and given to a child who would not normally receive a gift over the festive period.
As part of this initiative, we aim to collect at least 75 boxes from GSIS and would like to encourage GSIS secondary students to make boxes during the mid-term break. The boxes can be brought to the LL floor when school starts. Making a Box of Hope is a simple, but fun and rewarding experience. Detailed steps to making a box can be found here (the stickers will be available to fill in when students bring in the boxes).
The boxes should contain:
1. Toothbrush and tube of toothpaste
2. Bar of soap
3. Notebook
4. (Colour) pencils
5. Sharpener
6. Game
7. Something to love
Thank you so much for your support!
Sincerely,
Cheryl, Grace, Shuhan, Tiana and Venus
Tennis Novice Competition
Joanna Chiu (Teacher)
Rayan Al-Ali (Y05B) won a champion of Girls' U9 in Nissin Demae Iccho Hong Kong Junior Tennis Novice Competition 1 (HK District) 2022 organised by the Hong Kong Tennis Association. Rayan donated her prize to Feeding Hong Kong, a charity food bank in Hong Kong to help redistributing food to people in need. Well done, Rayan!
