Students in Year 10 GCSE Psychology have been learning about the factors leading to bystanderism. After learning about these personal and situational factors, students have pledged to take action and not be a passive bystander when they see someone in need of help. An important step in Making a Difference whenever necessary!
The SIS Peer Mentor Program is a one-year, school-wide, preventative program. It is designed as a mental health peer support program, in that young people are recruited and trained to mentor other young people. The program aims to enhance students’ social and emotional skills, expand the student support systems at SIS, and foster a school culture of openness, mutual trust, and inclusivity.
For this pilot, a group of 21 students (“Peer Mentors”) will be invited to participate in and co-develop the program. They will each mentor and support two students from a younger year group (“Peer Mentees”). The Peer Mentor will contribute to the personal learning and emotional resilience of their Peer Mentees, model responsible decision-making, and signpost available forms of support at SIS.
The program will thus offer new opportunities for student leadership, student voice, and collaboration across year groups. As a school-wide program, the program is also designed to raise mental health awareness among students and staff, and strengthen school-home partnerships.
The school welcomed back another fantastic event on Tuesday 16th November, the music department’s Winter Concert. Students presented their vast array of music talent to a live audience of teachers and fellow students in The SPACE, with wonderful performances by the Vocal Academy, Sinfonia, and Stage Band!
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a Mexican tradition celebrated in November. It is a time when families celebrate their ancestors and loved ones who have passed, by setting up elaborately decorated altars in their homes and dressing up to attend lively skull-themed street parades. The Spanish Department invited our Year 7s to create a poster or other media which depicts what they learnt about Day of the Dead, and we wanted to share our top entries with the SIS community. It is wonderful to see the creative talent within our students of Spanish!
Message from Mr. Jon Redding, Director of Sports and Extra-Curricular
It has been a very long time since we have been able to publish a sports bulletin with sports news in it! After what seems like an eternity we have been able to celebrate having some of our students participating in some externally organised competitions.
Our tennis, badminton, and rowing teams have been in action over the last week or so, taking part in HKSSF competitions with success. We are hopeful that more of our school sports teams will be able to start resuming competitive matches soon so please keep your eye on the sports noticeboard and social media pages for more information.
Tennis news
The Senior boys won a very close match over GSIS 4.5 to 3.5 – a great debut for Luca, Jonathan, and Ashton. The Player of the match was Jonathan with excellent captaincy from Adam Chan.
The senior girls tennis team took on Good Hope School, which is always a tough opponent. It was a good battle in very hot conditions and despite their best efforts, the team was defeated 1-7. Great debuts however from Kathy, Selena, and Mila. Mila got the set for us, while Kathy was player of the match for her hard-fought sets
Badminton news
The results for badminton are as follows:
Boys Division 1 Group 2
12-Nov-21 TSIS vs WYHK Lost 0-3
16-Nov-21 SPCC vs TSIS Lost 3-0
Girls Division 2 Group 2
03-Nov-21 IKTMC vs TSIS Won 0-3
Rowing news
We took 6 students to the Hong Kong Rowing Championships on Sunday with Jerome Tan and Adrian Lee taking the plunge for their first ever competitive race. They have only recently started rowing through the after-school activity programme so it is great to see them progressing to representing the school in a formal competition.
Hailey Tang was very impressive in her U14 heat where she came in 2nd place. In the final race, she, unfortunately, missed out on a bronze medal by 10 seconds. We also had a team competing in the mixed quad race with Hedia Wan, Aaron Ho, and Arnav Bopche making their debuts and Hailey Tang leading the team.
Hailey was the team MVP this weekend with her support and coaching of the newer members of the rowing team as well as her own race success. There will be more races scheduled for early next year.
Spartan Race
Kirsty Donovan from 10K2 competed in the Spartan Race in Kam Tin on Saturday 20th November. Kirsty entered the 14-17 age group race which was a very challenging 5km race that included over 20 obstacles to get past. Kirsty did extremely well and managed to finish 1st in her race. Well done Kirsty!
ESF Persuadathon was held on Saturday, November 20th. This was a persuasive speech competition, with 67 competitors from across ESF.
Our SIS speakers addressed varied and topical subjects in interesting ways, and all deserve a round of applause for their effort.
In the Grand Finals of the Senior section, Lily Haylett (11B1) came 3rd and Amaanat Rekhi (10N2) came 4th. A massive congratulations to them both!
Lily’s impressive speech was on the complex topic of the lack of organ donors in Hong Kong, something the Hong Kong LegCo has been deliberating considerably. Judges commented that Lily demonstrated excellent understanding of the topic and was able to provide insightful analysis on the social impact. She connected with the audience through pathos and delivered her speech confidently.
Amaanat’s speech addressed the very timely topic of technological disruption and the education system. Judges commented that Amaanat was able to analyse the implications to other facets of society, such as the government.
ESF CoCo is the English School Foundation’s virtual tech and computing conference. E-sports competitions, a hackathon, workshops with coding academies and inspiring talks are just some of the exciting activities that happened during ESF CoCo 2021. Nearly 100 students in ESF took part in the weekend’s events.
SIS students were very involved in the competition. Special recognition to Paeonia Leung from 7M2, who was on the 2nd Place team in the Junior division – congratulations Paeonia! The students in the winning teams won either a tour or vouchers for coding academies.
All students who took part in the Hackathon will also be receiving a water bottle from Apple: congratulations to Anirudh Rambhatla from 7M1, Edmund Chu from 13M1 and Aden Wong from 13M1. Well done!
Well done to the following students who demonstrated their outstanding performance throughout the programmes they engaged in during the 2021 summer program.
Well done to Amaanat Rekhi, who has won an award in South China Morning Post’s Young Post’’s inaugural Best of Month Awards. This award is to recognize the outstanding student works published in Young Post.
Lachlan Leung (7M1) participated in the CAISSA Hong Kong Chess Club Age Group School Championship 2021 on Sunday. The competition involved individual prizes and school prizes. Congratulations to Lachlan who came 5th in the U12 category.
