Principal’s Message
Dear Parents, Staff, Students and Friends of WIS,
As an international community school it was pleasing this week to have the opportunity to witness respect for our host culture in action.
On Saturday evening a group of Year 9 and 10 students took part in a celebration of the 66th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China at Cyberport. The students had been schooled in poetry recitation in Mandarin by Ms Shirley Su and performed to a large Chinese audience. We were the only international School represented at this event held by the Southern District and our students’ Mandarin was simply superb; their intonation, confidence and expression were mesmerising. I was very proud to be there.
The importance of language is being focussed on at WIS at the moment with continued support to ensure all students do experience a second language as part of their WIS experience as a compulsory component of Years 7 to 13 for virtually all students. We know that language opens doors to other ways of thinking and living, and promotes understanding beyond simply linguistic capabilities.
We also hosted our annual New Parents’ Evening and Cocktail Party on Thursday for Year 7, Years 8 to 10 and Year 12 new parents to welcome them to our community. It was a lively evening; my thanks to teaching staff and leaders who gave up their evening and also to the PTA for hosting the food and drink on offer to make it an informative but also social event.
Finally, on another note, can I remind you that next week we have our annual Swimming Gala and Sports Festival to which you are invited on Thursday morning. We have a CPD day on Friday and as school is closed for the public holiday on Monday this is a 4 day weekend for students which we feel is less disruptive to learning than putting our CPD day elsewhere. ESF then has a CPD day on 2 October after the public holiday on the 1st. All this is published on our calendar.
A reminder that the school has the statutory number of days for student learning set down by the EDB and that these other days are additional days in the school year. We call these day zeros so that the 7 day cycle of lessons is less affected across the year.
I wish you a very good weekend.
Yours,
Jane
