Weekly Newsletter 23 April 2021 by North London Collegiate School Jeju

NEWSWEEK

North London Collegiate School Jeju

WELCOME TO OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

23 April 2021

TRANSITION BOOK WEEK STUDENTS AWARDS

A Letter From The Principal Dear Parents, Students, Staff and Friends of NLCS Jeju In the Senior School Years 10 and 12 have just completed their mock examinations for the IGCSEs and IB Diploma, working in a similar manner to the necessary protocols of the ‘real examinations’ which they will sit in the summer of 2022. This experience is invaluable in ensuring that they identify areas where they can develop further as well as confirming areas where they are more confident. We now follow on with some summative tests in Years 7-9. This is all only a small part of the assessment procedures here at NLCS Jeju which - when linked with the attainment of students across the year - enable final reports to ensure that we can be confident in the annual attainment and progress of students across the School. Likewise in a less fomalised manner the attainment and progress of students is measured in the Junior School. Yet still the life of a school continues and at NLCS Jeju our students understand the importance of their involvement in academic societies, sports, drama and music as well as pursuing and developing passions in many other areas. This week we see students learning about future studies as they transition from one part of the school to another and we see the opportunities that students were presented with in Physics Enrichment Week. The library is the heart of NLCS jeju and this week we had students engaged in many activities in celebration of Book Week. It is also exciting that in this, our tenth year, we have a very special Art Festival to prepare for. Lynne Oldfield Principal

North London Collegiate School Jeju

TRANSITION Year 6 Lunch It was a pleasure to see all of our Year 6 students start the exciting transition process from Junior to Senior Schools. Last Friday they all came over to Senior School and had lunch in the Dining Hall. Ms Kate Sommerville and the Pastoral team explained all about the Resilience Tree and what it means to the students’ journeys. Don’t hesitate to contact Ms Sommerville or Mr Washington in the Junior School if you’d like to know more.

North NorthLondon London Collegiate CollegiateSchool School Jeju Jeju

TRANSITION

Language Taster Sessions Our Year 6 students spent some of this week in classes in Senior School. Our Languages department hosted Mandarin, Latin and French and Spanish classes. Our Junior School students had an amazing time and their enthusiasm shone through.Thank you to Ms Laetitia Choi, Ms Jenny Liu, Ms Margeret Braid, Ms Dan Wang, Mr Nicholas Herlihy, Mr Tom Perry and Ms Abi Warrier for great classes. Students will now be able to choose 2 languages that they will study in Year 7, One choice is Latin or Mandarin and one is French or Spanish.

PHYSICS ENRICHMENT WEEK This week was Physics Enrichment Week and Head of Physics - Mr. Nick Gillings and his team put on lots of great activities for students. Lunchtimes saw activities like Microwave Madness where students thronged to join the fun. This was followed up with Hoverboard rides and quizzes. On Wednesday Mr. Gillings gave a lecture on Exoplanets and The Search For ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. The students were enthralled. Thank you very much to all our Physics team for your enthusiasm.

JESLYN PARK - AMBASSADOR TO BELGIUM Many of our students are stretching themselves and accepting new challenges outside School in holidays and leisure time. We congratulate Jeslyn Park in Year 11 who has been elected as a Youth Ambassador to Belgium. 2021 marks the 120th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Belgium so this is an important year. During this year, Jeslyn will serve as a Youth Ambassador for various events organised by the Belgian Embassy. Jeslyn has been meeting with the Ambassador to Belgium in Seoul and organises communication and exchange activities with Belgian students. Congratulations, Jeslyn - you are a wonderful example! And thank you to Jeslyn’s mother for sharing this great news. Ms. Sarah Thornley, Jeslyn’s Form Tutor says “This is incredible news! Jeslyn told me she had a meeting with the Belgian ambassador last month and I couldn’t believe it. She really is an inspirational individual: I am so impressed with her achievements and her positive attitude that she applies to all that she does. “

ARTS WEEK Arts Week is a real highlight of our School year and every year brings different talent in all elements of the Arts. AVP - Mr. Neil Tamlyn explains why this year is special “It is incredible to think that we are now on the eve of our tenth NLCS Jeju Arts Festival. Who would have thought that this concept, introduced by Mr. Hewlett (Vice Principal, Boys School) back in 2011 would have such longevity and become a defining feature of the calendar at NLCS Jeju. The idea that we celebrate creativity through our student’s talents is such a purposeful and positive end to the year that I can not imagine an NLCS calendar without it. It is of course our students who make the event the huge success that it always is (successful even last year during a pandemic). Many of the most important efforts go unseen - such as the large technical teams helping with the staging, lighting and sound design, along with what have become mini TV studios that support each of our Livestreams.

Past students clearly remember the experiences of performing or providing technical support for events and the number of Alumni that have contacted me to be involved has been very rewarding and we will have more than twenty past students helping us this year. Parents have also been very generous with their time and resources and to have additional professional creative support adds another level of expertise and professionalism to the events. We have chosen ‘Journey’ as this year’s theme and the logo (designed by Chee Won Choi, Year 11) will feature on all of the promotional material including a re-introduction of the Arts Festival App which will give the details of all of the events and allow you to view the live streams. This app will be released in May and of course, we very much hope to see you attend the amazing performances and exhibitions in person, subject to COVID-19 regulations and guidelines.”

STUDENT COUNCIL Our Student Council have been working hard and have been very busy planning a bright future for every student. Here they share a letter with the student community Dear NLCS Jeju Community, It is an honour for us, the Student Council, to reach out to all of you for the first time. Despite uncertainties regarding the current pandemic, we have managed to meet weekly and discuss important agenda items to bring positive changes to our community. The Year Group Representatives regularly bring in issues relevant to the whole school and look into viable solutions. In addition to these meetings, the Student Council held a Q&A session with Ms. Oldfield. Below are some of the points we discussed Plans to arrange fixtures, discussed the impact that Covid has had on school fixtures and what opportunities there may be this term. How could we better utilise the outside spaces for students during break and lunchtimes. We have formed a committee to get feedback from students and will present this to Ms. Oldfield. Currently, there are three sub-committees within the Student Council: Food, Action, and Publicity. In the near future, we hope to initiate a school-wide campaign to promote the use of bicycles and buses for day students living within the GEC. We hope that this will help to reduce congestion outside of school. In our meeting this week, we discussed the ways in which Tutor groups could work together and we look forward to sharing some of these ideas with the Heads of Year. Do look out for more updates from us! Sincerely, The Student Council

BIOLOGY OLYMPIAD Many congratulations to our students for participating in the grueling British Biology Olympiad which took place in school on March 12 before the Easter break. 35 of our students in Years 10 - 12 competed against thousands of the brightest and best young biologists around the world. The level was beyond the IBDP syllabus, so our Biology teachers and all of us give huge congratulations to all who took part, and in particular to Sarah Seoyoon Park (Yr11) who won a Silver award and Seyfried Sookyung Sung (Yr12) and Cindy Ji Hyung Ku (Yr12) who both won Bronze awards.

A special mention should go to Sarah and other students who went on to perform in the Spring Concert directly after the Olympiad! There will be another opportunity for students to test themselves in the Intermediate Biology Olympiad in June. We hope even more students will choose to participate. If you would like to know more then please contact any of the Senior School Biology team.

Seyfried Sookyung Sung

Cindy Ji Hyung Ku

Sarah Seoyoon Park

BOOK WEEK There has been so much going on this week across our School. Each library and English department have been celebrating in many different ways. Events have included Reading Marathons, Dress Up Parade, Book Sales, Bookmark Making,The Big Read, Guest Readers and much, much more. Take a look at some of the great pictures from this week.

BOOK WEEK PARADE

North London Collegiate School Jeju

BOOK WEEK

North London Collegiate School Jeju

*Students wore masks throughout except if posing alone and apart

North London Collegiate School Jeju

*Students wore masks throughout except if posing alone and apart

North London Collegiate School Jeju

*Students wore masks throughout except if posing alone and apart

North London Collegiate School Jeju

*Students wore masks throughout except if posing alone and apart

Guest Readers The Junior School gave an open invitation to guest readers to join each class Story Time this week. The response was so enthusiastic with many Senior School teachers, admin and support and even lots of senior team joining in the fun. Thank you, children, for letting us be part of your day in such a special way.

Bookmark Competition Over the online learning period, students were asked to design their own bookmark. Among many amazing entries, the worthy winners are Year 8 student - Yunseon Park and Year 4 students - Laurence Lee and Hyunbin Alex Jung. Their bookmarks are printed and being used as the NLCS Jeju Library bookmark. They are available at the library now! Congratulations to all who participated.

Who Are These Mystery Readers? Can you guess who’s behind these books? We love the amazing activities dreamed up by our Junior School teachers. Thank you very much to Mr. Peter Evans, Head of First School who shared these great snaps!

Who Are These Mystery Readers?

North London Collegiate School Jeju

Get Caught Reading We can’t resist sharing some amazing pictures of our Junior School teachers and students getting caught reading. We are so sorry we can’t share them all. You are exceptional readers!

TOP READERS! Honors Reader Status Ms. Sarah Thornley and the Senior School English department want to highlight some exceptional readers. As we’ve seen in Book Week this week - reading is essential for all round academic excellence. Ms. Thornley singles out Sunny Bae in Year 7 - “She has recently achieved Honors Reader status on Accelerated Reader (this involves collecting 100 points by reading books from a challenging list of books selected by the teacher). She read a great range of books, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Wind in The Willows. “

Well done, Sunny!

Word Millionaires We also celebrate a number of students who have achieved word millionaire status (i.e. have read at least a million words so far this year) Word Counts Year 7 Ke’er Fan - 3.7m Minjin Kim - 2.2m Seohyun (Sunny) Bae - 2.1m Chaeyul Kim - 1.8m Hwee Lee - 2.8m Donghyun Lee - 2m Jisoo Park - 1.3m Yisan Gwak - 1.2m Soowhan Jun - 1.2m Hyunmin Jeong - 1m HyunMin Yang - 1.5m Samuel Reuben Hall Mendoza - 2.5m Junhyuk Lee - 1m You Jie Huang Walcott - 1.8m Ziu Choi - 1.3m Peta Oliver 1.1m Shu Yuet Hu - 1.1m Year 8 Jaehoon Song - 1.3m Yoonsung Lee - 2.8m Jinwon Lee - 2.7m Jinwoo Lim - 1.1m Seowoo Kim - 3m Year 9 Huaijin (William)Wen - 1.5m Sewoong Park - 1.4m Joonseok Oh - 1.1m Yuna Song 1.1m Hyunseo Kim - 1.6m Chaein Lee - 1.3m Jiyu Ahn - 1.2m Geumbee Ahn - 1m Haeun Jeong - 1.7m Min Hoon Lee - 1.1m

Songak Library Best Reader Award Year 10 Ye Chan Jeon Songak Library announced the best readers in the first quarter of 2021 and we are very proud that Ye Chan is selected as one of them. Congratulations!

MUN If you want to get more involved with MUN then why not join this one day workshop organised by Ms Alison Tuck. Lots of opportunities to learn more, practise your skills and watch how it’s done. See the poster for details.

One Day MUN Workshop One Day MUN Workshop - Year 7-9 students that culminates in a Mini MUN simulation Topic: Primary Education (SDG 4) Date and Time : Saturday 15 May, 9:00 - 15:30 Cost: 30,000 KRW One Day Chairing Workshop - Year 10 (Grade 11)and 12 students (Grade 12) (For NLCS Jeju, first Year IGCSE and First-Year IB) If you want to learn more and take part in this important, stimulating, and educational day, we’d love to have you! Sign Up quickly as places are limited! Registration: https://forms.gle/aE29idDocbBxuqfw7 Contact: Alison Tuck, atuck@nlcsjeju.kr

DEBATE Well done to Alvin Song, Year 7 who has had more Debate success! He took part in a competition called Asia World Schools 2021. His team (Semi-Pronouns) consisted of Alvin and two students from SFS - division was Novices. The team made 4th place in the Open division, then made it to the Semi Finals Alvin was awarded top speaker in the Novice division and 3rd best overall. Well done to Alvin and all our students who spend their leisure time in such amazing pursuits.

Alvin Song

As the 3rd OPEN BEST SPEAKER of ASIA WORLD SCHOOLS 2021 10th - 11th April 2021

Alvin Song

As the OPEN SEMI FINALIST of ASIA WORLD SCHOOLS 2021 10th - 11th April 2021

Weekend in the Boarding Houses Baking Vanilla Cupcakes Another fun weekend at Noro House! Year 7 and 8 girls baked these pretty and delicious vanilla cupcakes and then all the Noro girls enjoyed evening games. Thank you to Ms. Jodie Torrance, HM, for sharing.

Sarah Outings and Adventures Thank you to AHM, Mr James Tuffs for these great pictures of the adventures in Sarah House. Students went on a trip out to Seogwipo, enjoyed a karaoke competition and then sat by the House bonfire in the mild weather.

NEWS STORY! NLCS Jeju is in the news again. This news story features Mr. Nicholas Chaddock and his intrepid Duke Of Edinburgh students. Take a look and see the adventures that our students are having! http://www.edpl.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=724

MEET OUR LITTLE EIGHT Despite limited opportunities under unusual school days, our brilliant Little Eight have worked hard to support the school, teachers and students in various ways. We would like to share their individual stories every week. We start with Yerim (Chloe ) Lee -

Yerim Chloe Lee “I CAN’T BELIEVE WE HAVE ONE MORE TERM TO GO! I remember the first day when I officially became a member of the Little 8. I can’t forget that impression I felt when I was selected. Being able to become a Little 8 was one of the most amazing opportunities in Junior School. Because of the pandemic situation, we didn’t have lots of opportunities like we would’ve had in previous years, but I still enjoyed the activities and the tasks taken part in. Weekly we participated in our ‘Little 8 meeting’ which happened every single Thursday. I loved how we could express our opinions about our school and how we were able to contribute our ideas to make it a better place. Even though we had loads of events that we’ve handled, I have two most memorable events as a Little 8. One of the most significant events that I’ve contributed to was Founder’s Day. It is one of the most important days where we celebrate and when we were told we would all have a role, everyone was quite tense (but mostly excited). It was obviously a lot of pressure for me, but it was a privilege to have that opportunity. The second event that I can’t forget about is the new student induction. I was astonished when I heard that 6IJ was going to be joining us in January. It was a new thing that never really happened before. All of our members were delighted to welcome the new students in our school. When the new students finally came, we had our speech in front of all the new students. I tried to warmly welcome them because I am pretty sure we all know the feelings when you are in a new environment. After all that we divided into partners and toured the new students around our campus. During the tour, there were some questions and we tried to answer them and be as helpful as we could. I felt good about myself to help new students when they might have been struggling. Before I move on to my next journey in the Senior School, I will try to leave the pride to the next ‘Little 8s’ and be a role model for others as I complete my final year at NLCS Jeju Junior School.”

North London Collegiate School Jeju

“I loved how we could express our opinions about our school and how we were able to contribute our ideas to make it a better place. “

Yerim Chloe Lee, Little Eight

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UGC Our Head of University Guidance Counselling, Ms Izabella Sloczynska has given us an update on US university applications which have been coming through in the last few weeks. “ Congratulations to all our Year 13 applicants to the US. It is another year of success for NLCS Jeju Despite the challenges facing applicants worldwide, students have received offers from prestigious and competitive universities including:

• Stanford • Cornell • Johns Hopkins • NYU • UC Berkeley • UCLA • Carnegie Mellon • Boston University • University of Michigan • Chicago • Emory • Georgia Tech and many more. We will be sharing full details of all universities worldwide and the stories of many more of our students and their individual choices and successes. We are very much looking forward to celebrating our Class of 2021 at the valedictory ceremony after the IB exams. The UGC at NLCS Jeju are now focusing on Year 12 and their preparations for the new applications cycle. Here we go again and we are here for you all! “

North London Collegiate School Jeju

MEET OUR ALUMNI DaeKyung Kim - Secretary - Class of 2015 DaeKyung Kim, Class of 2015 and an active alumni, shares his story. “As an undergraduate, I received a Bachelor’s degree in Law (LLB) at the University of Nottingham. Prior to university, I was deeply interested in debating. I felt that negotiation, oratory and the ability to think on one’s feet are as important as a detailed knowledge of the law for its vocational purpose. However, in university I got interested in economic benefit and loss occurring from disputes between international businesses. Therefore, I decided to extend my studies to a Master’s degree in law (LLM International Commercial Law) at the same university and recently completed it. Being a law student in the UK as a foreigner is definitely challenging. Law is a new area of study to most undergraduates and demands an immense amount of effort and time. However, once one understands the strategies underlying the subject, it becomes a fascinating subject to study. My first two years were really tough, getting used to new environments and studies. I was unsatisfied with my academic outcomes and frankly did not enjoy life in the UK. However, I really enjoyed the third year and the postgraduate studies as the earlier hard work paid off. I had my own academic tactics and got used to life in the UK. I completed my studies in December 2020 and am now taking a rest and preparing myself to serve the military services. I am highly interested in disputes, litigation and arbitration. Specifically, I am eager to practice an area of law in the near future which deals with disputes arising from trading tangible goods, which is mainly dealt by international arbitration. I see potential in emerging markets in the near future to strategically embrace globalisation, when governments realise it is not an encroaching evil, but inevitability. Such economies can benefit much from the expertise of English lawyers on matters such as energy, natural resources, and infrastructure in investment in resource-rich parts of Asia such as Burma and Vietnam. There is a driving demand for English lawyers that understand these emerging markets. In addition, I gained great interest in sports arbitration while writing my undergraduate dissertation on the role of arbitration in the European football market. It is another aim of mine to work as an arbitrator for the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the near future. I am especially interested in practicing arbitration in the European football market where one of the largest sports capitals in the world is focused. Friends that I met at NLCS Jeju are very important to me. They are friends that I have spent my last ten years with and will be the friends that I spend the rest of my life with. This was the biggest reason I decided to work for the Alumni Network. Every moment I spent time with them at NLCS Jeju were memorable moments for me. But to choose a highlight, I would choose playing football after school. No such feeling can replace that excitement, ten minutes before the end of school.”

I was a boarder when I was at NLCS Jeju. My boarding life at NLCS Jeju, without a doubt was one of the most valuable moments of my life so far. The opportunity to spend all day, all week, with my best friends would not have been possible if it was not for the boarding life at NLCS Jeju. We played sports, studied until late night and shared each other’s happiness and worries. I still miss those days, the youth - my friends and I were always together.

North London Collegiate School Jeju

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