4 Mar 2016

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents, Staff, Students and Friends of WIS,

This week, I was very privileged to witness the final contestants for the bi-annual Star Search competition hosted by the Circle in the Water team at WIS. The finalists were superb in every category and were presented with trophies for their talent in a variety of musical and dance categories. On Wednesday, the finalists performed for one last time to an audience. It was good to see Erica Stanley, an upper school student, take charge of organising this event so student voice was at the forefront of the thinking. The Creative Arts team, especially Mr Jolly, worked alongside to ensure a great end to the two-week long event where students were able to showcase their talents.

On Thursday this week, I fulfilled a long held wish to participate in AYP. I have always thought it is important to lead by example as much as possible, and I finally managed to rejoin the AYP experience as the last time was during my time at Island School! The Thursday expedition was up Cloudy Hill in the New Territories and on to the Pat Sin Leng range on Friday. Luckily, the Thursday trek was a mere 12km compared to Friday’s 25km, so I managed. The students were great company along the trails and most encouraging especially when I needed to stop for a breath along challenging parts of the route. AYP is long established at WIS and I could see the skills students learn are invaluable: to orienteer, to work as teams, to develop tenacity and forbearance, and perhaps most, to appreciate the natural environment around us. Thanks to Mr Welsh and Ms Gossage for organising the Silver AYP and Mr Lancaster for organising Bronze AYP this year; it is clear students love the opportunity.

We also welcomed back our team from the South East Asia Mathematics Competition (SEAMC) to great acclaim. The Year 10 team placed 12th overall and Bruce Xu came 19th in the Individual Round. This is a very high profile event and I am very grateful to Mr Betteridge and Ms Tsui for their attendance and support with this event.

Another annual WIS event, “The PTA School Fair” takes place on Saturday 12 March. Can I urge you to come along to support us in raising funds for WIS, buy a raffle ticket (great prizes!) and have some fun with the family. It promises to be a good day out for everyone. We have a superb PTA at WIS and I am delighted we are able to host this great event once again.

See you there!

Yours,
Jane