Principal’s Message
Dear Parents, Staff, Students and Friends of WIS,
This has been a stand out week for success.
On Monday, it was a pleasure to applaud our students for their prizes awarded by Hong Kong University Academy for the Talented, first established in 2010 to serve as a platform for students to pursue intellectual challenge.
Selection is based on academic background and there are a number of members of the HKU Academy of Talented in our school that have been successfully nominated.
Membership means the fees for their summer institute courses across a wide range of disciplines are waived. Year 12 students presented with awards include Tiffany Cheung and Sean Lam for Academic Scholarships and Nitish Aswani received an Outstanding Performance Award.
Two Year 13 students also received awards including an academic scholarship for Archita Maheshwari and Outstanding Performance Award for Aarushi Jain.
On Tuesday, Cambridge Board wrote to inform us that five students have achieved outstanding performance awards from the summer iGCSE examinations
. Patsy Ng and Tai Williams awarded high achievement for their AS Thinking Skills. Tanushree Banerjee achieved top in Hong Kong for Additional Mathematics and Thompson Lee top in Hong Kong for iGCSE Music.
An even bigger well done to Garris Choi who achieved two awards – top in Hong Kong for Computer Science and Top in World for iGCSE Mathematics. This is a superb performance and real privilege for WIS to have students top in world maths for two years running.
Delighted for all of them and their teachers to be recognised in this way.
We received news last week that our Geography Team, led by Mr Alex Murchie has been awarded the Secondary Quality Geography Mark. In addition the department has been recognised as a Centre of Excellence for Geographical education.
The award has been given in recognition of the comprehensive geography programme and its quality at West Island School. Assessors have recognised that learners demonstrate engagement and enthusiasm in classroom environments that support a contemporary, innovative and technology-driven geography education. It is important to recognise that students attain good examination results.
There are many highlights for assessors in making their award to the geography department. There is comprehensive evidence of high quality student work, effective teacher-produced resources and the inquiry process used for learning is a particular strength. Assessments are also designed to allow students opportunities to reflect on their geographical learning.
The department is alive with examples of creative geography teaching to engage students and support their academic progress. Resources and approaches are high quality, and the use of ArcGIS story maps, our map floor and whiteboard tables point to innovative use of contemporary educational infrastructure and technology.
The level of fieldwork integration in the curriculum is impressive, and the diverse fieldwork opportunities given to students is exemplary. A further highlight is the use of Sustainable Development Goals to help structure the curriculum and address our whole-school focus on responsible global citizenship.
This award reflects an ambitious, insightful and aspirational team. As well as achieving the Secondary Geography Quality Mark, the team are awarded and recognised as a Centre of Excellence. In the world, there were only 10 Geography departments who have achieved this level of recognition this year. In Asia there are seven schools overall who have been awarded the quality mark and only West Island has achieved Centre of Excellence.
On behalf of the community, well done Geography team, you deserve this recognition.
Enjoy a great weekend and I look forward to celebrating student’s engagement and awards at the Swim Gala next Friday.
Yours,
Mr Christopher Sammons
(Principal)
COMING UP:
WIS Open Day: Tuesday 18 September
British Council Roadshow: Tuesday 18 September
ESF Music of Festival: Secondary Showcase: Tuesday 18 September – Thursday 20 September
Swim Gala & Sports Festival: Friday 21 September
