Issue No. 20 (30 June 2021)

This site below showcases the projects that the Year 9 students have taken part in this year.  The purpose of the MYP Community Projects is for students to complete an independent, sustained inquiry into a community need.  They investigated, planned, and took action to make a difference.  Students worked with a variety of school staff, families, and experts to complete their projects. You will find a wide range of student-driven action from advocacy to direct service.  

We hope you enjoy viewing what the students have done and congratulate them on their excellent efforts! (please click on the image to access the site) 

Friday 25th June 2021 was the last day of the Year 11 ‘Stepping Up’ programme. A massive thank you is owed to all the teachers and support staff who have worked so hard to contribute to the last two weeks’ activities! 

A CAS ‘exhibition’ in The SPACE was created for students to showcase their projects to the community. They were able to demonstrate how their CAS skills have developed and to visitors their project’s aims, challenges, and successes.

Over the last few weeks, we have been lucky to have some of the winning entries to the Hong Kong National Geographic Photo Competition 2020 on show across the school. Students have responded creatively to the exhibition in several ways, using different media in a variety of classes including Chinese, Spanish, and Theory of Knowledge. For example, pupils have written poetry and prose in response to the themes they evoke in Chinese and have made Screencastify videos in Spanish, analysing the photographs technically. They have produced some superb work in multiple languages, and as a result, gained some nuanced insights into life in Hong Kong through many different lenses. We are very grateful to Wheelock, who sponsored the exhibition, and allowed us all to view it here at SIS! Many thanks to all involved, especially to Danni Li who coordinated the show, and Gladys Zhai who helped edit the project booklet HERE

We would like to congratulate our Year 7 students Clare Wai, Marcus Tiu, Isaac Kwong, Michelle Lee, Don Wong, and Emma Sien.  Throughout this term, these students have loved rehearsing together and have demonstrated outstanding collaborative skills.

Students have been very industrious since returning to the Textiles workshops, they have been hard at work using a range of different skills to inquire about diversity and inclusivity through the design and manufacture of their textiles monster.  Here is a selection of the wonderful work that students have achieved:

UN GRAND BRAVO  to all French Y7  classes who nicely finished their unit on My Town project, bringing back home a lovely souvenir inspired by Mme Armistead‘s idea for Year 7’s description of neighbourhood. Everybody enjoyed celebrated their neighbourhood in French! What talented crafts!

Congratulations to all our Y8 French students who chose a fictional holiday destination in a French Speaking Country in which they shared their experience in postcard form.

The writing skill can be difficult in French and all our students overcame their challenges through constant dedication. Not only did they acquire the skill of writing in postcard format, but they showed their inquiry skills by getting to know the French place they had chosen to stay in and shared their experience in French,  juggling with 3 different tenses! The result is incredible as it made their project look like an authentic holiday experience. Below are a few of many examples to celebrate! Un grand Bravo à tous!

Learning to Consume News Critically

As part of their AFP Digital Media course, Year 10 students learn to be active, critical analysts of the news they consume, whilst learning to apply a range of fact checking tools. Students created infographics to share their learning on key questions to ask of any news source and reflected on how they can apply their learning across the curriculum. 

Despite the pandemic, the students in the Film & Media department still managed to produce a remarkable amount of quality work in 2020-21. Sadly, the 2021 version of the Film & Media Awards ceremony had to be canceled but special thanks to Abby Wan for curating the best of the work produced via this website. Please support the students by taking the time to view some of the excellent work on display, which spans Years 9-13. The site also contains some of the best work produced by our students over the last fifteen years. Feel free to cast your vote for favourites as part of the Audience Choice section.      

Special congratulations go to the prolific Nicholas Tam (12C2) who was one of only two students to win more than one category, scooping both the Bodega Media Cinematography Award and Bodega Media Making a Difference (MAD) Award. In the latter category, Nicholas received no fewer than three of the four nominations. The other double winner was Lizzi Henricksen (13B1). Lizzi won both the Bodega Media Factual Film Award and the Bodega Media Film & Television Production Award.  The full list of nominees and winners available HERE

Sadly, for obvious reasons stemming from the pandemic, it was impossible for the Year 11 graduating class of Agence France Presse (AFP) Digital Media students to have their usual ceremony in the school hall. However, students have already received their US University-style transcripts, which highlights the learning covered and bespoke examples of individual student contributions to the course. 

The 2021 graduation class included fifty students. We are delighted to announce that we had a 100% pass rate, ten of whom qualified for the High Achievement Award or the equivalent of 94% and above. This was the highest number of students to ever achieve this grade in the four years that the qualification has been offered at South Island School. Congratulations to Thomas Hafner (11C1), Saloni Sethi (11K1), Aashika Mamgain (11N2), Zahabiyah Boty (11B2), Colette Wong (11N2), Vivienne Chung (11B2), Aliyah Sat (11C2), Chloe Byrom (11K2), Venus Lee (11N1) and Sophie Whitton (11S1).

In addition, as part of the annual, South Island Film & Media Award ceremony, a number of students were nominated in four categories associated with tasks completed in the second year of the course. The nominees and winners are listed HERE.

Left Photo lineup:

Back row (from left to right): Larisa Curran (Teacher), Sally Stanton (Teacher), Vivienne Chung, Thomas Hafner, Iain Williamson (HoD Film and Media)

Front Row (from left to right): Saloni Sethi, Venus Lee, Colette Wong, Zahabiyah Boty,  Aliyah Sat.

Right Photo lineup:

Left to right: Iain Williamson, Chloe Byrom, Aashika Mamgain and Sally Stanton.

The Spanish Department would like to congratulate Elvis Lee 10N1, Tae Kang-Stewart 10B1, and Emir Siddiqui 10M2 for creating the longest sentence of the class using the Imperfect Tense in Spanish! Their effort, creativity, and collaboration were phenomenal.

The Chinese Language Festival is a platform for Chinese learners to show interest and talent in using the language to create, present and communicate with others.

It is hosted to promote Chinese language education and provides an opportunity for learners to understand and appreciate Chinese culture. Participants are from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. They have contributed a lot of impressive work for the competition…well done!

Below are the students who achieved wonderful results in the 1st Chinese Language Festival 2020/2021.

Ms. Danni Li served as one of the judges and delivered a public talk titled Nurturing students’ multiliteracy in the multimodal classroom. 

Using a range of AI-based musical composition software from GitHub, such as ‘Beact’ and ‘Magento Lo-Fi Player’, the Tech Connect group, led by Amaanat Rekhi (9N2) have been learning some less conventional ways of engaging with music including a ‘Google Doodle’, which allows users to experiment with variations on a theme, inspired by Bach’s music. Students also listened to AI-assisted attempts to create tracks in the style of The Beatles and Metallica, to see how authentic AI can be in creative tasks of this nature.

Well done to Amaanat Rekhi, Yu Tsun Lam & Victoria Wong on their Year 9 Community Project. They were involved in creating awareness and raising funds for The Hong Kong Society For Rehabilitation by selling handmade, environmentally friendly tie-dyed tote bags and bracelets in the colours of blue (to represent cognitive impairments) and green (to represent physical impairments) for people to show their support for people with disabilities. Through making the products from scratch and selling them at school, they managed to raise an impressive total of HKD$4491.20.

Anakin Wan (12C2), Chloe Jazzy Lau (12B1), Maddy Yates (12M2), Alice Saito (12C1) & Samuel Wong (12K2) were all recipients of one of the three prestigious book awards given to students who have shown excellence in areas of Academic success, Leadership, and Service. It was tremendous to hear about their achievements and it is very clear that they were very all deserving of their awards. There were several other candidates, who were equally deserving, who have demonstrated they truly embody SIS’s Making a Difference philosophy. Keep up the great work you continue to do. 

Congratulations to the successful candidates and to those whose applications were a real pleasure to read.

We would like to acknowledge Anson Hui who is currently studying Higher Level Music as part of his International Baccalaureate Diploma. Please click here to watch Anson’s compelling performance of Chopin’s Scherzo Number 2.

Year 10 students, Jason Choi and Anson Li have completed the organisation and leadership of a student-led inter-school python coding club. A total of 46 students from South Island School and Renaissance College signed up for this 8-week course. We are proud to announce that despite the struggles of having to hold this course online, they have guided participants through a range of coding skills and interactive projects, allowing the entire duration of this club to run smoothly and according to plan. Congratulations!