Culture
- Mother Tongue Week (March):
- Language Boards (changed daily throughout the week)
- Daily Cultural Cuisines (Korean, English, Spanish, French, etc)
- Interhouse Mother Tongue Week Quiz (Wednesday Lunch @ G06)
- Culture Concert (Thursday Lunch @ Courtyard)
- Planning for Culture Team Instagram with posts coming soon
- Updating the Culture Website
Next year:
- Diwali: Recycle some events, introduce some new ones for next year. Planning starts in September to allow for sufficient time (Diwali 2024 is November 1st)
- Activities returning: Diwali Assembly, Staff Dance
- Christmas (for new heads) – creating an idea document
Creative Arts
We launched the Inter-House Art Competition this year and completed the Photography Competition in collaboration with the Media Team. The judging process will begin in no time. The theme for this year’s competition was House Letters (i.e. Nature for Nansen).
Here are the Inter-House Competitions going on in this month:
The IS Dance Inter-House Competition will be held on June 20th and students are required to modify a viral dance to the song ‘Truth or Dare’ by Tyla and recreate it in their own style (contemporary, street, jazz, etc.)
Inter-House Improv Competition will be held on June 23th, where students will be given a prompt to improvise from.
Inter-House Banner Competition in which teams for each House have been finalised, where students will work alongside their housemates to create banner designs for the Creative Arts Faculty.
The first round of submissions in the Inter-House Music Competition has closed, and auditions will be sent out to students soon.
Media
The Media Team has been very active in bringing our contributions to the school community this semester. We released the Spring Issue of Island Currents, our school’s student article platform. Previously, our website was down but we fixed the issue by renewing the subscription with the hosting website!
Our team also took part in providing photography for various school and Inter-House events such as the CCCT NYSS x IS Friendly Matches, and have organized the Inter-House Photography Competition in collaboration with the Creative Arts Team and are currently in the judging process.
Recently, we made a video to promote the Lifelong Friends program, on behalf of the Island School Trust. This was presented in the Year 13 Graduation ceremony where we interviewed six Y13 students to share their experiences in Island School and send a message to be part of the program.
Social Action:
In April, we hosted a Food Donation Drive in collaboration with the NGO Feeding HK — more than 100 food items were collected and distributed to those experiencing food poverty in Hong Kong! In May, Pride Week took place where we promoted the cruciality of fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in Island School. During the week, painting workshops, temporary tattoo arts, movie screenings, and a Kahoot trivia quiz took place. Moving forward, we will be working alongside the Helpers Appreciation student leadership team to organize this academic year’s final Helpers Appreciation Day, which is set to take place at the end of June, expressing Island School’s gratitude towards domestic helpers in Hong Kong.
Sports
We hosted a successful sports awards ceremony this year, providing an opportunity to celebrate our school’s athletic community and highlight the importance of teamwork. Student-athletes were recognized for their contributions, with awards given for categories such as Most Valuable Player, Most Improved, and Player’s Player. The event fostered a spirit of camaraderie, as teammates and coaches came together to congratulate one another. The sports council is proud to have organised this meaningful event that brought our athletic community closer together.
Student Advisors
Recently, Student Advisors have created an Instagram account to provide updates on various events. Our competency research project has also made significant progress, with a pilot project being conducted in collaboration with the form representatives. As part of this pilot, a range of questions have been developed for Year 10 students regarding the elements course and its correlation with the six competencies. The project team has brainstormed questions, method of inquiry, and potential interviewees. An interview workshop is also being planned for the student advisors in the following weeks, which will provide them with the necessary skills to conduct effective interviews for the competency research project.
Finally, we are planning to launch a new initiative of a “Competency-based Inter House” in the first term of the next academic year. The aim of this competition is to make the process of acquiring competencies more exciting and approachable for the students.
WANBO
We introduced Textbook Marketplace which is an annual platform where older year students can sell their textbooks and revision notes to others at a lower market price. This year we even have around 300 listings!
How do I use the Textbook Marketplace?
- Access the Marketplace on Google Sheets via this link.
- Browse through the categories available (IB / iGCSE/ Other).
- If you are interested in purchasing materials or have any enquiries, contact the seller through the information they have provided on the “Contact List” page.
- Arrange exchanges directly with the seller. Note: WANBO takes no responsibility for any transactional issues surrounding resources.
Please note that all original prices are in HKD and sourced from current online listings of the book! Feel free to negotiate with and direct inquiries to the student sellers through the contact information provided. (For purposes of simplicity, ESS has been isolated just as a G4 subject.)
Do also be reminded that incoming Year 12s will not need to purchase their copy of the textbooks in the following subjects as the school is providing an online subscription for them. (They may still purchase them for additional learning as a supplement, but it is no longer compulsory to do so.)
- TOK
- Biology
- DP Business
- Chemistry
- Economics
- ESS
- Geography
- History
- Physics
- Psychology
Our team is planning to increase the visibility of Island School’s recycling actions through TV screens. We hosted the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge inter-house from 25 April to 6 May 2024. Over 4,400 observations were recorded among Island School students. Furthermore, Hong Kong ranked 1st in species count, and 2nd among 690 participating cities globally with around 36,000 observations!
Our team also focused on food waste management and composting which we helped spread the word via posters and trying to ensure individuals don’t throw away or leave reusable cutlery in classrooms since January.