KGV
Newsletter
January 2015
King George V School 2 Tin Kwong Road, Homantin, Kowloon, Hong Kong General Enquiry: (852) 2711 3029 Website: www.kgv.edu.hk Email: office@kgv.edu.hk
Volume 20, Issue 2
Introduction
Table of Contents 2 Principal’s Message 3-6
Student at Work
7-8 Speech Day 9-10
Student Led CAS
11-12
Learning Resources Centre News
13-14 Christmas Fair 15 PTSA 16 Charity Updates 17-18 School Musical 19-20
Christmas Carol Concert
21-24 Sports Update 25-26 27-28
Page 1
Alumni News Challenge Week
Principal’s Message The autumn term is always long and eventful. There are some of the classic KGV set pieces such as Speech Day, Swimming Gala and the School Production, then there are the extraordinary experiences around Challenge Week, and then there are the learning experiences in every lesson, every day that give the school its special flavour. This newsletter reflects all aspects of school life and adds in some activities that our students pursue outside the school environment that show learning never stops. As ever, the images of laughter and success are powerful ones. My congratulations to all the contributors and particularly Alex Ng who puts it all together with such flair.
We are all looking forward to 2015 and the challenges ahead. We will be welcoming the CIS/ WASC visiting team in March and sharing with them our self evaluation work. This has been going on in the background and has involved groups of staff, students and parents reflecting on where KGV is in relation to a series of standards. We shared the draft document within the Leadership team before Christmas and it was heartening to see how far we have come in the 5 years since the previous visit. I would like to take the opportunity to wish all members of our community a Happy New Year. Best wishes, Ed Wickins, Principal
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Student News
Students at Work Y10 Mini Enterprise This exciting learning opportunity was introduced more than 20 years ago at KGV and continues to thrive with hundreds of students involved. The Mini-Enterprise provides Business and Economics students with an exciting opportunity to start a small business, do product research, manufacture an original product they have developed themselves, market and sell the product and then, at the end of the Autumn Term, close down the business, submit a set of final accounts with a business report analysing their successes as entrepreneurs, as a business, as a team and as a profitable (we hope) organisation.
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The enterprise is an exercise in inquiry-based learning and is student led with a real emphasis on promoting ATL’s as students approach the IBDP or Vocational pathways. Cognitive, metacognitive and affective skills are developed and we emphasise Thinking skills, communication skills, self-management skills, social skills and research skills linking closely with the attitudes and characteristics identified in the IB learner profile. Although these skills appear as distinct categories, the mini enterprise promotes them as interrelated. After the initial introduction to the project in November students
are briefed as to the enterprise requirements and the assessment rubric explained. Our students open bank accounts in school and are offered an overdraft facility allowing them to source raw materials, components and packaging for their products. Trading is strongly discouraged with the emphasis on originality, initiative and creativity. The demands of the Mini Enterprise are such that every student lives the learner profile whilst engaged in this hands-on initiative. In the next newsletter we will profile the Mini-Enterprise winners and their companies. Ian Goff, Head of Business and Economics
Santa’s Elves Baking Extravaganza Christmas time in the LSC is always very busy. The students have all participated in writing the annual Christmas Play, this year featuring the Abominable Snowman. In preparation for the performance and joint KGV JCSR Christmas party, Santa’s elves have all been busy baking Christmas cookies and cupcakes at the Baking Extravaganza – an after school activity for LSC students and their parents. For many of the students it was the first time they had used the facilities in the Food rooms, and they were quick to adapt and transfer the skills they have learnt in the LSC kitchen to a larger food preparation environment. Karen Abell, Learning Director:Access
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Student News
Students at Work KGV Trailwalker 2014 The KGV Trailwalker Challenge was a CAS Project led by Year 13 students, Judith Lin and King Yeung Luk. The activity consisted of: • Creativity: approximately 10 hours of planning the Trailwalker and a practice hike as well as carrying out a Risk Assessment of the trail • Action: approximately 15 hours of hiking, including practice walk and the Trailwalker On Sunday November 16th a group of 14 Year 13 students, along with Mr Riding, Ms Williams and Mr Corrigall, successfully completed the 27km hike in a total of 8 hours. The KGV Trailwalker started at the beginning of Stage 1 of the Hong Kong trail at the Peak and ended at the end of Stage 4 at Wong Nei Chung Gap Road.
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Year 7 Personal Identity Exhibition Personal Identity Exhibition was also held during the Christmas fair at the Learning Resources Centre, and was an excellent experience for the year 7 students that were involved. Their projects were shown on exhibition boards in the LRC and we enjoyed some memorable moments when listening to their cultural stories.
Hebe Haven 24 hours dingy race We Won the Hebe Haven 24 Hour Charity Dinghy Race! KGV race team not only won their class, Laser 2000s – they won the whole race! Congratulations to the sailors, who braved no wind at 2am, then lots of wind at 10am, and in particular to Antonio Franco and Callum Gregor, who clawed back 4 minutes in as many hours to narrowly squeeze the victory at the end of the race! Also a huge well done to the participants on the fun boats, who helped raise over $12000 for a variety of Hong Kong children’s charities.
Pedal Kart 2014 Hong Kong 24 Hour Charity Pedal Kart Grand Prix on 22nd November had over 200 KGV Students, staff and Alumni participated at Victoria Park. Congratulations to everyone that participated and to those that came along to support our teams. The Staff Elite Team were Formula 2 winners and Nightingale won the overall School Kart prize.
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School News
Speech Day It was lovely to see so many parents, students and other members of our community at this year’s KGV Speech Day, which was held at the Academic Community Hall, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong on Friday 7th November. Prizewinners received awards for a diverse range of endeavours – from the Ezra Abraham Scholarships which recognize academic excellence, to the Hendon Harris Sports Award which recognizes an outstanding sportsperson, to the Alumni Social Responsibility Prize which recognizes a commitment to volunteer/ charity work and other socially responsible activities. Our orchestra and choir provided music throughout, with superb performances of pieces which ranged from the beautiful ‘Sunrise Mass’ (Ola Gjeilo) to the rhythmic ‘Turn the World Around’ (Belafonte).
Our speaker, Mr Douglas Young, gave an inspiring speech as part of the evening’s proceedings. Mr Young has spent his life designing beautiful products which draw from Hong Kong’s culture and history, and he shared with us his thoughts on the importance of design and on the creative skills and attitudes which go into making design happen. Mr Young’s speech was very well-received by students, parents and staff and challenged us all to think about the importance of creativity to the future of our society, and we are very grateful that he was able to join us to be our speaker for this year’s event. Finally, thanks go also to the many people – students, staff and others – who gave of their time and energy to make Speech Day a success once again. James Smith, Vice Principal
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School News
Student Led CAS Student Led CAS continues to grow as a substantial part of the KGV co-curricular program and was given the annual boost at the KGV CAS Fair early on this year. Student Led CAS is a program designed to allow students to propose, plan and lead their own co-curricular activities for fellow students giving them the autonomy they desired. This opportunity has been greatly received by Senior School students, in particular, the Year 12 students, and the various activities have continued to gain momentum. Students leading these activities have organized the materials, planned the activities and supervised/ demonstrated/ taught the other students. They have responded extremely well to the opportunity demonstrating superb leadership skills and should be congratulated for further enriching KGV’s cocurricular program. In addition to the student’s commitment to the program, teachers have also selflessly given up their time to support the students, providing them with the much needed adult supervision. So a huge thanks to all teachers who have volunteered this year.
A small committee of Senior School Prefects that have taken on the responsibility of helping coordinate this program lead by Prefect Jeffrey Chau (members include; Michelle Wong, Grace Chen, Kimberley Lai and Luna Otaki). An exciting prospect is underway for this year expanding on the concept of ‘Student Led CAS’. October 2015 will see for the first time, a Student Led Challenge Week Trip. Following this year’s Challenge Week, a group of students applied to be the first students to design, plan and lead a trip in school. They have been working with external organizations to come up with an idea that fulfills KGV’s requirements for trips. Already, I have been extremely pleased with the students approach demonstrating the quality of CAS students at school. Watch this space and I am sure the trip will be a success and I will update you on progress later in the year.
Dean Beard, CAS Co-ordinator
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School News
Learning Resources Centre The LRC has now been open for a term with staff and students taking full advantage of the opportunities this facility offers. We have seen dozens of new books arrive on our shelves only to be quickly taken out on loan by eager students and thanks to support from the Lion Fund, there are lots more books on the way. November saw the first meeting of the LRC Student Committee with representatives from each year group sharing ideas on how the LRC can better serve the school community. They have already worked on writing a LRC user policy and the Christmas ‘gift’ a book scheme which aims to introduce students to new genres and authors.
The LRC continues to host literary events, this term local poet, Professor Agnes Lam, came to talk about her latest work, Becoming Poets: The Asian English Experience, with some Year 9 students. She introduced the life experiences of various published poets in Asia and talked about her poetry. To express our gratitude, Sonia Chen presented Agnes with a collage which was inspired by Agnes Lam’s poem Vanilla in the Stars. In return, Agnes gave us her poetry book, A Pond in the Sky. Next term promises to be as busy and exciting with our International Battle of the Books students competing, a visit from UK based author Marcus Alexander and lots of workshops to support our senior students completing their Extended Essay. We look forward to seeing you in the new year. Duncan Shiel, LRC Manager
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School News
Christmas Fair On Friday 5/12 we held our Christmas festival with many fun activities such as sport, musical, game stalls, food and music! Parents and kids enjoyed lovely and diverse games such as jukebox jury, cross dress challenge or dart competition, all organised by our students. The PTSA had delicious food stalls with Korean, Chinese, Indian, Japanese food and a BBQ place. Parents could have a glass of mulled wine or beer at our bar and watch a netball fun tournament between Alumni, teachers and students. The Wizard of Oz musical closed the evening of success! A special thanks to all KGV students, staff, alumni and parents who contributed to the achievement of this Christmas festival! Anne Dubuc, Community Development Manager
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School News
PTSA The PTSA has had some very successful and enjoyable events in term 1.In October we held our annual Diwali lunchtime event which was a festive cultural event enjoyed by all. Delicious Indian lunch was served, kindly contributed by parents. There were several students performances, some danced and some played instruments. For the first time we arranged a ‘Parenting Teenagers Course’ at our school. This was a five session course spreading five weeks from October to November. The course was a great success where we had some committed parents who attended all or most of the sessions. The feed back was extremely positive and parents took back some very useful tips on parenting their teenagers. We are thankful to Lisa Card and Dan Evers, Parents of KGV students who facilitated this wonderful course.
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Our Y7 Parents Lunch with the Principal held in November had a promising response. The lunch was held at Arirang Korean Restaurant, Kowloon. This was a great opportunity for our new Y7 parents to connect with the Principal and Head of Middle School. This December the School held a Christmas fair in conjunction with the ‘Wizard of Oz’ musical. The PTSA played an important part by organising and coordinating all the food stalls and the mulled wine stall. This was a perfect opportunity for parents from our diverse cultural backgrounds to work together. Rishika Chandiramani, PTSA Administrator
Our main focus for this term was the Christmas Refugee Party, which ran successfully once again on the 13th of December. We distributed bags to over 100 families and each child received a present from ‘Santa’. Once again we received extremely generous donations, without which we would have been unable to cater for such a large crowd. Every year, at sports day, the Charity Committee organise a sponsored walk. Students collect money and walk or run for an hour to raise funds for the three charities we’re supporting. Despite the rainy day, there were happy faces and smiles all round including a Unicorn! A big congratulations to students who won prizes at sponsored walk. Komal Harjani, Head of Charity
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y thermome t i r 140,000
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This year the Charity Committee are supporting three charities; Cambodian Children’s Fund, Braille Without Borders and Masarang Foundation. These three charities are based all around Asia, and we believe these charities will be able to best utilise our donations and make the largest positive impact in their communities.
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Charity updates
120,000 100,000 90,000 70,000 50,000 30,000 0
We Need Your Support! Money raised so far in 2014: HK$ 109935.8
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Performing Arts
School Musical As the Munchkins famously sing to Dorothy, audiences followed the Yellow Brick Road and experienced a performance to remember as they entered the land of Oz on December 3rd, 4th and 5th. This year’s school production of “The Wizard of Oz’ showcased the fine talents of students from years 7 to 13 in a colourful explosion of song and dance. The story revolves around a runaway, Dorothy (played by Rhian Anderson) and her little dog Toto (a very dog-like Jaydon Luk) being transported from her beloved Kansas to the Land of Oz by a cyclone. In this weird and wonderful place, where trees speak, crows sing and little Munchkin people pop out of nowhere, she meets a magical array of people including Glinda, the Good Witch of the North (Celina Wong), the clumsy Scarecrow (Dylan Osbourne),
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the heartwarming Tin Man (Rock Lee) and the very cowardly Lion (Leif Tse) who all help her defeat the Wicked Witch of the West (Yu Kitamura) and find her way back to Kansas. The creative direction team encompassed all the fun and magic of the MGM film. Performed in the Theatre in the Round, the performers were able to get up close and personal with the audience, creating comic moments such as holding Ms Gulch’s scooter and the sudden appearance of the Tin Man. Ms Murchie directed the orchestra, consisting of both teachers and music students, to a professional level, bringing an energy to the show that enthralled both singers and audience members. For many students, this was the first time they had performed in a full length show, and their commitment to rehearsals
during lunch, after school and even at weekends, is to be commended. The costumes, designed by the talented D&T department, were remarkable. Inspired by the film, Dorothy’s dress and ruby slippers encapsulated the innocence of the all-American 1930s, whilst the brightly coloured gnome-like Munchkins made it clear that she “wasn’t in Kansas anymore”. The attention to detail ran throughout the supporting cast’s costumes, with frayed yarn on the scarecrow’s hat, the Witch’s green nails and the Tin Man’s silvered hair. With the audience so close to the actors, this made the magic all the more real and supported their outstanding performances beautifully. An enthusiastic and beautifully cohesive piece of theatre, this show will surely remain as close to our hearts as the song ‘Over the Rainbow”. Fabulous. Caroline Payne, Teacher
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Performing Arts
Christmas Carol Concert On Wednesday 17th December at 6pm, a hush fell over the school hall as all the lights went out and a candle-lit procession signalled the start of the 2014 KGV Carol Concert. What a wonderful sight it was to see the Year 7 students walking shimmering into the hall, accompanied by the beautiful strains of ‘Sankta Lucia’ sang by the Chamber choir. Sankta Lucia is the patron Saint of light in Skandanavian countries, who’se candlelight has been filling school halls and gatherings for centuries in the hope that the light will symbolize all good things to come.
There were some great performances, in particular ‘Behold the star’ sung by the Chamber choir, and also the Ukulele band who made their debut performance. Surely the highlight for most though, will have been ‘White Christmas’ which saw KGV Alumni, Chris Carpio, join the students on the piano.
The audience were in fine voice and it was uplifting to hear everyone singing classic carols such as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘Good King Wenceslas’. The singing was accompanied by the training orchestra who did a fabulous job at learning all the carols. Year 7 were also in great voice and the audience thoroughly enjoyed their Swingalong number.
There were some lovely refreshments served by both the PTSA as well as the charity committee and want to thank that special person in Red who made an appearance towards the latter part of the evening. It was a wonderful Christmas celebration and a fitting end to the first term at KGV.
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The students had been very busy rehearsing seasonal music for some time and they did not disappoint. It was an absolutely wonderful occasion that was enjoyed by students, staff, parents and friends old and new.
KGV Music Department
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Sports Update
Taijiquan, Sailing World Taijiquan Championships 2014 Four years ago, I started to train as a Scholarship Athlete of the Hong Kong Wushu Team. Since then, I have been training at the Hong Kong Sports Institute every day. Although it is difficult to balance between school work and 20-30 hours of training every week, I am glad to have supportive teachers, family, and friends who encouraged me to persevere. November this year, I represented Hong Kong in the World Taijiquan Championships in Chengdu, China. It was an open-age competition where I competed with former world champions which I idolised from YouTube videos. As one of the youngest competitors, I was overjoyed to achieve a bronze medal for my individual Taiji Sword event, and a silver medal for our team’s Group Taiji event.
This was the first time in history that Taiji became a team event in the World Championships, and I feel proud and privileged to be part of this endeavor. In this experience, our team of six was mutually supportive and became like a family to me. Furthermore, I was excited to meet many new and old friends from all over the world and experience the local culture and delicacies like the spicy hotpot! I am grateful to have the experience of this competition and will continue to prepare for the challenges in the future. My next major goal is to compete in the Universiade 2017 which will be held in Taiwan. In addition, I will be nominated in the Hong Kong Sports Star Awards for winning a gold medal with my partner in the Dual Event at the World Junior Wushu Championships earlier this year. Please remember to vote for us under the Team Event category! Jessica Chan - Year 13 student
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ISAF Youth World Championships During the Summer Holidays Hugo Christensson (HKA)and I participated in the ISAF youth world championships in Tavira, Portugal and the 420 World championships in Travem端nde, Germany. The best team from each country was invited to the ISAF youth worlds, which meant it was a small but competitive fleet of 32 boats. The racing was very close and competitive with the top 3 being within 3 points of each other going into the final day. After 5 tough days of racing in a range of conditions we ended up in 14th place.
The day after the ISAF youth worlds we headed to Germany for the 420 world Championships. With 112 boats entered for the regatta we were very excited to get a taste of big boat 420 sailing, as this is our first year in the boat. After arriving at the venue we had a weeks training in 20+ kts of wind giving us some great training as we generally get light winds in Hong Kong. Sadly, during the regatta the wind vanished and we had below 10kts for the whole week. With the 112 boats split into 4 fleets it was very exciting sailing and lived up to all of our expectations. After 5 days and 12 races we ended up 14th place. We are looking forward to next summer and some more great racing! Calum Gregor - Year 11 Student
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Sports Update
Ice Hockey Taipei Cup, Taiwan I started playing Ice Hockey at the age of five after learning how to skate and going onto lessons under a coach. After a while I went on to train for almost seven years with Barry Beck, a professional hockey player who played in the NHL. I have been with the Hong Kong selects for the past four years. The most recent tournament was the Taipei cup, the tournament took place on October 1st- 6th in the Taipei arena. There were many tournaments I have been to and here are some of them Beijing, Taipei, Ottawa, Singapore, Mi5’s in Hong Kong, Quebec, Korea and Shanghai.
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I had an award for Division best Defenseman in the 2010 Mi5’s.I like Ice Hockey because I really like to shoot the puck, you can skate fast and hockey can make you tougher and it is a really good sport to play.
Oscar Chung - Year 8 Student
The 2nd Chinese Taipei Youth Ice Hockey Tournament During September of 2014 I was involved in The 2nd Chinese Taipei Youth Ice Hockey Tournament representing Hong Kong. I play goalkeeper and this was the first time Hong Kong sent a national team (not club team) to a tournament. Even though it was almost all the same players as previous club teams, because of limited ice hockey players in Hong Kong, it was still a bit of a change as we all had Hong Kong jerseys, shirts and tracksuits. The tournament consisted of 5 teams (in our age group) with 3 Taipei teams, The Beijing Imperial Guards and Team Hong Kong. We first had a round robin stage where we played all the teams. We played the 3 Taipei teams first, winning all the games by at least 2 goals. With the help of my defense I made some vital saves to keep us in the game. We then played the Beijing Imperial Guards, which we won 3-2. Then we faced off against them again in the semi final stage where they beat us 6-3. They played well and made good plays to put the puck in the back of our net. This meant we would be playing
for bronze and we faced off against the Taipei Typhoons. Team HK started off strong getting a 2 goal lead by the end of the 2nd period and keeping them in their defensive zone for most of the time. But in the 3rd and last period they scored 2 goals with well executed plays, breaking down our defense and tying the game up. We played the regulation extra time without either team scoring, this lead to the penalty shoot-outs. Both teams scored with their first shots. Next there was a save made by their goalie putting the pressure on both me and their player but I came out on top and saved his shot. Then our player missed his shot again leaving it down to me to keep us in the game. Disappointingly I didn’t do it a second time. We finished the tournament in fourth place. For me hockey has always been my stress relief, be it ice hockey or inline hockey and being able to do what I love and represent my home is always an honour. Joshua Ho - Year 11 student
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Alumni News
Alumni News Alumni 72’ visit at KGV On the 12th of November we had the pleasure to welcome back 28 KGV Alumni from the class of 72’. At the suggestion of Paul Varty, this wonderful event gathered people who, for some of them,haven’t seen each other for almost 40 years! Alumni from the United States, Oman, United Kingdom and Australia made the trip to Hong Kong and joined many others Hong Kong based Class of 72’ Alumni to have an enjoyable moment of friendship and memories at KGV.
It was also the occasion to have our first Alumni group in the Heritage Centre which has come to completion. After a wonderful breakfast and warm welcome from our current Principal Dr. Ed Wickins, they had the chance to have a school campus tour led by KGV students and attended the middle school assembly. They also found pictures of their years at KGV on our newly introduced online archives… which led to a lot of fun! Long life to their friendship!
Anne Dubuc, Community Development Manager
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KGV Alumni Interview
Ronak Punjabi - 2006 Alumnus • 1. My childhood dream job was… to be a hiphop record producer. • 2. My most memorable event or activity at KGV was… rehearsing for whole-school plays with Mr Baker and putting on such polished productions for an audience. • 3. My best sporting match was… not a match as such, but winning silver in a relay race along with my friends in a Swimming Gala. • 4. A word of advice I would give to the current KGV student would be… to pass this advice on: Honestas ante Honores • 5. I am proud of being a KGV alumnus because… thanks to KGV’s holistic education, we’re generally a community of well-rounded individuals who are open-minded, confident and driven, with a set of moral values to guide us.
Lion Fund Thanks to numerous generous donations from parents and KGV Alumni, the 6 weeks intensive launch of Lion Fund has been a tremendous success with HK$93,000 raised among 62 donors. The donation range stands from HK$200 until HK$30,000 and we still have an additional pledge of HK$30,000 for the next term to come. Some gifts are dedicated to specific projects such as benches and trees for the driveway (see picture), books for the library and the giant chess pieces. A special thanks to our Y11 Chinese students made a kind donation to the Y11 language program, on their very own initiative. It is always a good time to give and we still count on the generosity of our community to participate to the Y11 language immersion program, to name but one our high priorities. Your gift will make a difference, starting with HK$100!
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Trips & Activities
Challenge Week, Language Trip 2000 students and staff engaged in a wide variety of activities around Hong Kong (27 activities locally plus Year 7 and Year 8 camp) and around the World (14 overseas activities) as part of Challenge Week 2014. For the first time all Year 11 students were engaged in a language immersion experience travelling to Europe and China (4 overseas immersion experiences) as well as studying their foreign language locally (4 opportunities locally) with native speakers running the week. The language immersion week was evaluated and deemed an overwhelming success. It is an event that will forever change the culture of KGV and the experiences of our students. Our portfolio of activities will continue to create long-term social and experiential memories, and now more immediately for the language immersion students, academic benefits as they approach their written and oral IGCSE language examinations. Students took part in activities that formed new friendships, extended their understanding of the world, pushed them out of their comfort zone, and
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challenged them mentally, physically and emotionally. Our students represented KGV with integrity, pride and honour during the week. We are very proud of them. Our teachers and support staff invested an incredible amount of time and energy organising the logistics, safety and supervision of all the activities, an investment that was repaid by the excitement and enjoyment of our students. Challenge Week photos can be found in School Photo Gallery (http://gallery. kgv.edu.hk) Planning has already started for Challenge Week 2015 with teachers proposing activities for next October. Once these have been finalised the website will be updated early in the new year giving parents and students time to discuss together their preferences for the next Challenge Week. Find out more in the Challenge Week Section of our school website. Tim Carrell, Vice Principal Ian Goff, Head of Business Education
The first Year 11 Language immersion courses took place in Challenge week in October. All Year 11 students participated in either an overseas or a local course. Students travelled to Xian and Qingdao to learn Mandarin, to Salamanca to learn Spanish and to Strasbourg to learn French and German. Locally the Chinese department ran a variety of activities in Mandarin and students learning European languages attended a course organized by HKU Space. The response of students on each course was overwhelmingly positive with many commenting on the benefits to their language learning. As one student who went to Spain said: “I liked talking to local Spanish people the most because, even though it was unnerving and difficult, it improved my speaking and listening skills the most.� All the courses were a huge success due to the support of the PTSA and also the enthusiasm and passion of the Year 11 students who took part. We look forward to developing this Challenge week experience for 2015 and please support this great initiative by selling as many raffle tickets as you can! MFL Department
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