NLCS Jeju Newsletter 17 February 2023

17 February 2023

Newsletter

North London Collegiate School Jeju

TOP NEWS

ENGLISH ENRICHMENT WEEK CHEMISTRY ENRICHMENT WEEK

ECONOMICS ENRICHMENT WEEK

UNPLUGGED 2023

MEDICAL REVIEW

Photo by Minju Kang

PRINCIPAL’S LETTER

Dear Parents, Students, Staff and Friends of NLCS Jeju

This week it has been good to see our community supporting the relief funds in response to the devastation caused by the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria . The student groups, including SWAG and TowerAid, have been active in this. We also thank the PRG for their work preparing for the secondhand uniform sale which they arranged today and their donation of all sales to the fund. This disaster has impacted two families in our community and as a school we are committed to the longer term support required.

Over the last few weeks we have experienced some excellent enrichment weeks in Chemistry and Economics, which have involved the students and staff in many enlightening talks, lectures and activities. These have often been very hands-on and have got students talking and discussing. We have also witnessed high level scholarly skills in the work of the various teams in preparing their presentations and research as part of the Medical Review. We thank the work of our judges and their participation in this : Dr. Joongsuck Kim, Trauma Surgeon at Jeju General Hospital, and also Dr. June Rhee, who was a much appreciated Governor of the School. We are looking forward to the finals this evening.

These last few weeks epitomise what an NLCS education is all about, as the breadth and depth of opportunities available both in class and beyond for our students to learn from, grow and participate in has been immense. Our students have been able to showcase and develop their talents - ably supported and guided by staff. We see the continued opportunities in Sonitas Unplugged performances over the weekend and the sports fixtures. This weekend during Bryant we are also delighted to welcome some visitors into school to witness what this means through a Bryant Saturday.

I welcome all our community to join us and sign up for the many events where you can see your children participating and learning more about the NLCS way, which is different and is often unique in equipping our students to be life long, independent learners as well as the global citizens and leaders of the future. Please do join us whether it is at a house tea or at the Parents as Partners events or in attending an event such as the Medical Review this evening. We look forward to meeting with you!

Yours sincerely,

Lynne Oldfield Principal

The Main Event

Here are the biggest stories from around the School this week.

JS ENGLISH ENRICHMENT WEEK

Our Junior School enrichment week was great fun. Thank you to Ms. Dee Patterson for arranging such a lovely week, and thanks to all the staff and students who took part and supported the activities. We had open mic sessions, poem writing, a spelling bee and much more! Well done all! More pictures.

The Main Event

CHEMISTRY ENRICHMENT WEEK

The corridors were filled with ooohs and aaahs each break and lunchtime, as our students got to carry out colourful experiments outside the Library. This was a very exciting week and it is safe to say that we were all inspired by the activities that were arranged by Mr. Derek Patenaude (Head of Chemistry) and his team. Thanks to everyone who helped make this such a success! More pictures.

The Main Event

CHEMISTRY VIDEO

The team went one step further and produced this brilliant video - take a look! Thank you to Mr. Mike Kim and Mr. Dom Ng for the footage and editing.

ECONOMICS ENRICHMENT WEEK

This week we have been enjoying a number of informative activities arranged by Mr. Raymond Maher with support from his department and students. We have enjoyed lectures and discussions around key topics such as whether or not inheritance tax should be abolished. There have also been activities including ‘Guess the Economist’ and ‘Guess the Meaning’ as well as a risk, choice and opportunity cost game.

For many of our younger students, Economics may be an unknown subject and hosting this enrichment week really will help students to decide if this is something they would like to study at IBDP or pursue as a career.

The Main Event

ECONOMICS ENRICHMENT WEEK

The Main Event

DRAMA ENRICHMENT WEEK

We cannot wait to see what is in store for us next week! Stay tuned for lots of updates and photos of what we are sure will be another memorable Enrichment Week.

Don’t miss our posts!

Follow us on our social media pages to never miss out! Our recent posts include:

• Parents as Partners - Boarding Special

• Unplugged 2023

• Chemistry Enrichment Week

• English Enrichment Week

• Arario Museum

• IB World Schools Yearbook 2023

• Historical Figure Day Video

• Jeju Forensic Network - Online Debating Championships

• How to sink an orange

• Junior School Information Session

NLCS Jeju Awards and Achievements

Congratulations to all our recent award winners! Click here (https://bit.ly/nlcsstudentachievements )

TÜRKİYE AND SYRIA EARTHQUAKES

The whole community is deeply saddened by the loss of life and the destruction caused by earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.

Thank you to TowerAid, who sold Turkish snacks and drinks, to SWAG who donated the money they raised from a Valentine’s Day activity, to the Junior School for donating the money raised at their recent Casual Clothes Day and to our PRG who donated money raised from today’s second hand school uniform sale - all money collected will be given to the United Nations Crisis Relief appeal. Thank you also to the Beyond the Curriculum Team who coordinated everything.

Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by the disaster.

Other News

MEDICAL REVIEW

The annual medical review takes place tonight!

Last week teams presented their chosen topic and findings to panels of judges in the preliminary rounds. All the groups did brilliantly and four were selected to take part tonight:

• Seojin Yang and Jungwoo Won - ‘Microbubbles’

• Eugene Lee and Yena Cho - ‘The Case For and Against STEM Cell Research’

• Hailey Choi and Jimin Son - ‘Gene Therapy’

• Hyun Koo and Sean Park - ‘Three Parent Babies’

They will have to impress judges - Teachers - Mr. Geoff Hall and Mr. Tajvir Singh, as well as Dr. Joongsuck Kim (Research Team Manager and Trauma Surgeon at Jeju General Hospital) and Dr. Sang June Rhee (currently teaching Medicine at Yonsei University and former NLCS Jeju Parent Governor).

We will share more information after the event. Well done to those selected and good luck!

GROUP 4 PROJECT

Our IB students worked collaboratively across different scientific disciplines to provide solutions for various global issues based on the theme ‘How to make the world a better place’.

The project is split into three main stages - planning, action and evaluation. Their ideas were presented to different audiences during the exhibition.

Congratulations to our winners!

1st place: Jason Kim, Ted Lee, Julia Back, Eric Kim, Lisa Zhang, Hyeonah Joh and Victor Kim, with their project “To what extent can we diagnose lung cancer using deep learning?”

2nd place: Ryan Lee, Anthony Nam, Aiden Park, Scott Son, Alex Hwang, Shawn Lew and Taewoo Kim with their project “Development of aerial search and rescue system for coastal area”.

3rd place: Joy Lee, Amy Nam, Ricky Song, Woo Kim, Saine Kim and Eunju Seo with their project “What type of filter is most effective in filtering water of insoluble impurities?”

The groups displayed their work at a Science Fair before the presentations. Here are some photos.

Other News

REGENERON ISEF 2023

Congratulations to Alvin Jeong (Year 12) who took part in the Korea Science and Engineering Fair (KSEF) and won the gold prize with his project ‘Applying fractal structures to Vision Transformers’. Find out more about KSEF here.

The winners of the KSEF competition will now compete in the Regeneron ISEF 2023 competition, and represent South Korea. The event will take place in Texas in May. Students will be required to present their research to eminent professors and Nobel prize winners.

This is an incredible achievement.

“When I challenged the AI field as a research topic, everything was new and difficult, but now that I have completed the research, I have learnt a lot - I am very much looking forward to participating in a place where I can see the research of peers gathered from all around the world and directly communicate with related academic professors”. - Alvin

We wish Alvin all the best! Thank you to Mr. Jearson Narvaez for all his support throughout the competition.

CONRAD CHALLENGE

The Conrad Challenge is an annual innovation and entrepreneurship competition sponsored by NASA and Dell technologies that encourages students to change the world.

Here the team of five (Alvin, James, Jayden, Aaren and Jinu) explain further: “Our team competed with 950 other teams from around the world to create innovations that address global challenges.

The Window net, our innovation, is an interlinked network that provides wireless access to windows and air conditioners through a novel bluetooth-mesh network. Our innovation also offers a user-friendly application to efficiently monitor and control the wireless network. By using our product, non-residential building owners can reduce waste electricity bills and environmental damage as residents and workers cannot use the AC while a window is open. This is a huge benefit as in non-residential compartments, the users and payers of electricity are different, meaning that users lack motivation to minimise waste energy consumption, requiring a method to enforce environmental measures.

Our team ranked top 5 in the cyber technology and security division and was invited to Houston to give a power pitch of our innovation at the Houston space centre. Overall, the challenge was a very rewarding experience and we are looking forward to implementing our innovation in our school as well if possible.”

Other News

UNPLUGGED

Our student music society, Sonitas, arranged a fantastic night of music for our boarding students. ‘Unplugged 2023’ showcased the talent of so many of our students. A huge thank you to Sonitas for arranging such a memorable event for everyone to enjoy, thank you to the performers and those backstage who made everything possible.

Photos by Jubin Park, Minju Kang and Seijun (Sam) Kim

Such a treat to have a concert on campus! Take a look at these great photos, captured by our student photographers.

Thank you also to Mr. Matthew Kim, class of 2015 and professional music producer, who spent the weekend here to support our students, your time and expertise are invaluable and greatly appreciated.

Other News

RAT TEST KITS - DONATION

During the COVID-19 pandemic, NLCS Jeju had received Rapid Antigen Test kits from the POE and also purchased their own to help monitor the spread of the disease. Test kits have been distributed to students and staff on numerous occasions alongside the Medical Centre completing their own testing. The School however, has a large supply of kits and therefore decided to share their supplies with the local community and to those less fortunate, before the tests expire.

The two villages that received our donations are Gueok-ri Village & Daeryoon Village, Seogwipo. They will distribute them to the vulnerable social (underprivileged) group in the village such as the disabled, lower-income group, the elderly who live alone etc.

The School still has a significant number of test kits available and will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation within the NLCS Jeju community.

Sungdong Kang, Head of Gueok-ri Village

Bongju Ko, The Youth Commission of Daeryundong

Other News

MATHS ARTWORK

30 years ago, when doing his teaching practice, Mr. Simon Downes (Head of Junior School Maths) saw a mural on the wall of the Maths Department and vowed one day to recreate it. That time has come! Armed with compaseses, a ruler and a pencil - it took a mere 250-300 hours from start to finish, you can admire Mr. Downes’ work on the 4th floor of the Junior School building. Here is the video.

Other News

TITANIC DAY

“Recently, Year 2 invited parents to join teachers and students in a Titanic voyage across the playground and into the classrooms.

With all students and staff dressed in Titanic themed clothing, we set off to help piece together the fascinating history of the infamous ship.

Parents joined in the activities before we set sail with a whole day of Titanic themed fun. At the end of the day, as tired as we all were at sea for hours, we were just happy not to see any icebergs!” - Mr. Lillywhite.

THE ARCHIPELAGO

You may notice that our Junior School Librarian, Mr. Guk-Hyun Nam looks a little different recently! Mr. Nam cut his hair in January and donated it to a charity that provides free wigs to young people who experience hair loss through cancer treatment. Read more about the charity here. What a great thing to do! Well done Mr. Nam.

We are delighted to share with you an update from Brandon Yoon, who looks after the NLCS Jeju biodiversity archive. In Autumn we shared some fantastic photos that he had captured of nature on campus and now, here are some wonderful winter night sky shots for you to enjoy. Visit the website for more information.

SOHAPPY Insights

We are ‘happy’ to introduce you to ‘SoHAPPY Insights’ , a student led project. Director, Seoha Han (Y9), creates videos exploring different topics. The aim of which is to share positive insights on any subject, turning the complex into the simple - with the tagline ‘small beginnings - great things!’ all with a focus on global perspective, and ethical choices and actions.

This week we are sharing her video on her summer trip to Europe - where you can find out more about the countries she visited - Switzerland, France and Italy. We will share more videos in future editions. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Well done, Seoha.

Other News

IB VISUAL ART EXHIBITION

We are looking forward to another exhibition, more information shared soon.

ASIA RUGBY INTERNATIONAL ONLINE SUMMIT - 2 FEBRUARY.

Our students had the opportunity to join the online summit - the theme was the rugby situation at schools in different countries. As participants, our students were required to share their presentations and answer any questions raised.

The group were very lucky as they all had the opportunity to listen to the guest speakerMr. Michael Leitch - rugby union player who plays for the Toshiba Brave Lupus.

KISAC HIGH AND MIDDLE SCHOOL SWIM MEET

Well done to all our students who competed in the recent event, you all showed such commitment to the sport and great teamwork! Thanks to the coaches and staff who supported the students.

BOARDING HOME TEAS

Parents of boarding students are cordially invited to afternoon tea in their child’s boarding home. We are delighted that we can return to hosting such lovely events following a hiatus due to COVID.

Boarding News

AEWOL SUNDAYS

Every Sunday in Aewol, our students and staff gather together with the purpose of becoming more internationally minded. Recently, Mr Yates presented on Thaipusam, the Tamil Hindu Festival, which takes place in February and last Sunday the housemates celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, looking at how gender bias has affected research outcomes and how scientific research is more accurate when gender is considered and how women add unique perspectives that allow for better science.

Mr. Tuffs has this message to share: “Women were leaders in building the foundation of modern programming and unveiled the structure of DNA. Their work inspired environmental movements and the discovery of new genes. They broke the sound barrier - and gender barriers along the way. Inspiring more young women to pursue careers in science starts with simply sharing their stories. To contribute towards this in a small way, we then created our own gallery of inspirational women in science and, indeed, in other fields too. We will continue to add to this over the year, creating a corridor of global inspiration.”

PARENTS AS PARTNERS - BOARDING SPECIAL

We were delighted to see so many parents join us for the boarding special. We hope you came away with a better understanding of boarding and the benefits it can offer to a young person. If you would like to know more about boarding please get in touch with Mr. Scargill who will be happy to advise you further (pscargill@nlcsjeju.kr).

From encouraging lucky haircuts to hurling beans at demons in the streets, the cultural holidays of February are filled with riotous fun, religious escapism, and traditions that date back to the beginnings of civilization.

Here are some key dates from our CAC. Setsubun (Feb 3rd)

Setsubun, meaning ‘seasonal divide’ in Japanese, is the day before the beginning of spring in Japan’s old calendar. The Japanese perform mamemaki, or bean throwing, at those who are daring enough to wear oni (demon) masks. Haru Matsuri, the Spring Festival that Setsubun is part of, is a time of cleansing and preparation for the coming year. Read more about Setsubun here.

Valentine’s Day (Feb 14th)

We all know the story of St. Valentine—the brave cupid who, disobeying the edict of the Emperor Claudius II, married couples in secret until he was caught and martyred. It is said that his final letter to his daughter was signed ‘from your Valentine’, inspiring the secular tradition of sending Valentines to your loved ones. Read more about Valentine’s day here.

Cultural Awareness Committee news

Zhonghe Festival (Feb 21st)

Also known as the Blue Dragon Festival, Zhonghe is a celebration of the Chinese Dragon God, the deity in charge of rain. Zhonghe dates back to the Tang and Song dynasties, when certain villages began celebrating the importance of rain in medieval agriculture. It is traditional to get a haircut on Zhonghe, as this appeases the Dragon God’s pride and is believed to bring good luck. Read more about the Blue Dragon Festival here.

Israʾ and Miʿraj refer to the miraculous Night Journey and Ascension of the Islam prophet Muhammad, when he travelled from Mecca to Jerusalem then from Jerusalem to the heavens. To celebrate the two legs of the Night Journey, some Muslims gather at their local mosque for prayers, while others tell stories of the Journey at home. Read more about Israʾ and Miʿraj here.

Israʾ and Miʿraj (Feb 28th)

Mardi Gras refers to the Carnival celebrations that begin on Three Kings Day and culminate on Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday”, reflecting the custom of having one last night to eat rich, fatty foods before Lent begins. Celebrations include riotous parades, eating and drinking, and masking up for dances. Read more about Mardi Gras here.

ONLJ

We were delighted that Matthew Kim could join us for ‘Unplugged 2023’ and more so that he agreed to an interview with our Alumni and Development Manager, Ms. Yuri Shin.

If you too would like to let the NLCS Jeju community know what you have been up to since graduating from the School, please email Ms. Shin today - alumnioffice@nlcsjeju.kr.

Mardi Gras

The School catering team, Quadra, are responsible for our two canteens, our Smiley Cafe and our event refreshments. Recently some new staff members joined Quarda and we thought you may want to know the people behind the scenes and discover who is responsible for the irresistible baked goods in the cafe.

Name: Minjeong Kim

Occupation: Senior Nutritionist

Experience: Korea Racing Association, Korean schools

What do you love about your job?

I really enjoy developing menus to provide food from many parts of the world to the students and teachers of various nationalities, and it is very gratifying to be able to communicate about the menu with the school community.

Name: Taewan Kim

Occupation: GM & Executive Chef, Senior School Head Chef

Experience:

Shilla Hotel Jeju, Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo, Podo Hotel (Jeju), total 22 yrs experience

What do you love about your job?

I feel a tremendous amount of joy and pride when considerations on nutrition and taste of food lead to the healthy growth of students that also bring their affectionate and positive feedback.

Minjeong Kim (left) and Taewan Kim (right)

Name: Jieun Cha

Occupation: Junior School Nutritionist

Experience: Wellsfresh, AK Plaza

What do you love about your job?

I really enjoy my work here as it requires me to apply creativity to achieve maximum satisfaction from the children.

Name: Taewook Kim

Occupation: Junior School Head Chef

Experience: Jeju Shilla Hotel 10 yrs, total 17 yrs experience

What do you love about your job?

While I had a lot of interaction with adults during my previous work, here I feel rewarded seeing the smiles and joy of all the children during meal times.

Jieun Cha (left) and Taewook Kim (right)

Name: Kiwoong Park

Occupation: Bakery Head Patissier

Experience: Jeju Hidden Cliff Hotel, The Table (Japan) Seoul Sinsa Branch, Poong-rim Cafe (Jeju), total 19 yrs patissier experience

What do you love about your job?

I’m really delighted to be able to see the happy expressions of all those who eat our bakery items.

Name: Eunjin Yoon

Occupation: Cafe Barista

Experience: Starbucks

What do you love about your job?

It is very fulfilling to be able to serve coffee and bread while interacting with teachers and students in a school filled with so much positive energy, and it is very enjoyable to work in harmony with colleagues.

Name: Kye-ok Yoo

Occupation: Cafe Barista

Experience: Hospital customer service

What do you love about your job?

Very rewarding to be able to serve delicious bakery goods and beverages to my customers, and the communication itself with the customers I meet every day makes me so happy.

Eujin Yoon (Left) and Kye-ok Yoo (right)

...and finally

PRG UNIFORM SALE

A huge thank you to all our PRG members and volunteers who helped sort numerous piles of secondhand and lost property clothing to sell at the secondhand uniform sale today. This was another great success. Thank you also to those who donated, and the Parent Liaison, Beyond the Curriculum and Events teams who coordinated the sale. We will let you know how much money was raised soon. All money raised will be donated in support of those affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.