27 Apr 2018

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents, Staff, Students and Friends of WIS,

It was a great start to the new term with graduation assemblies for Year 11 and Year 13, as well as Sports Awards. We were given words of kindness, inspiration and challenge to reflect on this moment in time with our young people. They have made extraordinary progress since their journey at the beginning of Year 7 and the teaching team have genuinely enjoyed being alongside them. It has been great to see students returning this week to touch base and we are here throughout the examination period if needed.

As our graduation events crowded out last weeks newsletter, I wanted to give particular praise to the Grade C Rugby team who played out a very competitive and hard fought game to claim eventual victory of 40-38 at the HK School Rugby Final. After three years of consecutively making the final and losing to their same rivals, it is a pleasure to see this group of young players nail it. There is a message about never giving up and playing the game until the last whistle. Well done team.

World Book Day on Monday gave a great atmosphere to the school and I did wonder if the teaching staff got more out of the day than students. The costumes were great and meeting legendary cricketer Mike Gatting dressed as Dracula was an unanticipated moment in my role so far. He inspired the students and has promised to come back on next year’s tour to work with our cricketers.

Our Business Department created another successful dragon’s den during Wednesday as Year 10 teams pitched ideas to business experts as diverse as Cat Cafe’s to smartscreen technology at the annual Brilliance for Business. The strength and evidence of design and thinking is something I particularly noticed in the students.

A final note of thanks to ESF who offered our community the opportunity to view ‘Angst’ on Tuesday evening. A hopeful film exploring how young people become anxious and how to talk to your children about overcoming those moments. Most students in the school have watched a screening and it has enabled conversations, so please do talk to your children this weekend and check in with them to see if it had any connection.

Best wishes for the first IB examination on Friday and if all else fails, don’t forget to take a few deep breaths then simply try your best, nobody can ask any more of you than that.

Happy weekend!

Yours,
Christopher Sammons
(Principal)

COMING UP:

Monday 30 April: WIS CPD Day
Tuesday 1 May: Labour Day
Monday 14 May: ID Coin Challenge
Friday 18 May: Qing & Song Day