NLCS JEJU NEWSLETTER 03 June 2022
6 • Mandarin Enrichment Week • Year 6 Residential Trip • Academic Support Programme for Boarders • Junior School Sports Day
PRINCIPAL’S LETTER Dear Parents, Students, Staff and Friends of NLCS Jeju Last week we had an inspection team from London who were delighted to visit us and to see the School in Action. They were very pleased with the School and highlighted improvements since the last inspection three years ago. The report will be available to our community very soon and will inform our School Development Plan for the coming years as it will include recommendations on how we can improve further. We also have more visitors this week as we have our Governors for the termly meeting . On Saturday we will be celebrating our Valedictory for our Class of 2022. This is always an exciting time as we know that our students have given their all to succeed in the IB Diploma Programme. I am delighted with their attitude to their studies which showed courage, resilience and commitment. They also have their social celebrations to look forward to! It is wonderful that we now have less restrictions and so we can celebrate as a community with parents. The achievements of this group of young people and the ways in which they have found success in so many disciplines and in their service and commitment to NLCS Jeju is a great role model for all our students. The end of term may be approaching but at NLCS jeju life is certainly not getting any slower either in the classroom or beyond. This time of year we also have much to look forward to with sports events and tournaments in a variety of sports in which our students have excelled. They have been very active in tournaments. I hope you will read about these below and on social media. We are blessed with the amazing art exhibitions of the last few weeks from IGCSE students but also the IB Diploma Programme students. Visitors to the school are remarking on the quality of this work. Hundreds of students are also preparing with enthusiasm and commitment for the Art Festival later this month which will showcase all the talents we have in the Arts: art, dance, drama and music. Please follow the events and use the App so that you do not miss any events.
Your sincerely, Lynne Oldfield Principal
North London Collegiate School Jeju
ENRICHMENT WEEK STORIES MANDARIN ENRICHMENT WEEK The 4th week of May was Mandarin Enrichment Week. Volunteer students passionate about Chinese culture, members of the Mandarin society, the Mandarin department and the Chinese Cultural Appreciation Project prepared a diverse range of games and activities most representative of Chinese culture in front of the Senior School Library during lunchtimes. Students were able to immerse themselves in various aspects of Chinese culture through activities such as painting opera masks and mini tiger models, making bamboo helicopters and Chinese knots, solving lantern riddles, and learning Chinese calligraphy. Moreover, students seemed to most enjoy interacting and taking photos with the big panda puppet!
As part of the enrichment lecture series, Ms. Jenny Liu and Year 12 students - Yuxuan (Jessica) Zheng and Tianle (Tina) Chen prepared and delivered an interactive and insightful lecture on Beijing opera and Kun opera to Year 8 students. Students closely observed the masks of Beijing opera and enjoyed a special performance of Zao Luo Pao (a song from Kun opera work The Peony Pavilion) by Shu Yuet (Luna) Hu in Year 8. Click on this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9w4CymevEA&ab_ channel=NLCSJejuOfficialYouTubeChannel ) to watch the full lecture. We were also lucky enough to enjoy an impressive performance of Chinese dragon dance by Junior School students on Thursday. The dance was accompanied also by Junior School students playing Chinese traditional drums and cymbals. Many staff and students could not resist and stopped by to watch the swift movement of the dragon. In addition, panda badges and Chinese-style tattoo stickers were being sold in front of the senior school library. In total, 140,000 won were raised to donate to the United Nations World Food Programme. More Photos > https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzRvm3
OTHER STORIES FROM AROUND THE SCHOOL YEAR 8 LANGUAGE AMBASSADORS Ms. Louise Symonds - “Sabrina Huh, Shayla Hwang, Oscar Kim, Joy Oh, Teddy Shin, Jian Yeo - have thrown themselves into their morning ‘Language’ sessions, reading with Junior School students. They have had the pleasure of working with both Year 1 and Year 6 pupils. They are delighted to be able to use their linguistic skills with such a superb group of students and are very excited to be making regular visits in the future.”
UQ TASTER LECTURE Professor Sarah Roberts-Thomson, from the Health and Behavioural Sciences Faculty at the University of Queensland delivered a virtual taster lecture on 18 May to the CCA Medical Dialogues and other interested Year 12 students. The lecture, entitled ‘Human cancer and cancer drug discovery’, was a fascinating presentation about cancer research, which included an explanation of why and how cancer drug therapy has become personalised in recent years. The academic content of the lecture stretched the students beyond the IB curriculum, giving them both a real ‘taste’ of what their future classes at university will be like especially in the field of medical research. The recording of the lecture can be viewed here. Other professors from the Health and Behavioural Sciences Faculty will present taster lectures to the Medical Dialogues in the new academic year on a range of topics.
YEAR 6 RESIDENTIAL TRIP Our Year 6 students had the honour of being the first guests at a new adventure campsite in Cheongju in May. An incredible opportunity which challenged students with various different activities and cemented lifelong friendships as they prepare to say goodbye to Junior School in June and start their next exciting chapter in Year 7 in August. The photos and video footage, recorded by Mr. Mike Kim and Ms. Yoonjin Kim captures the essence of the trip perfectly. More pictures > https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzSySy
A message from a Year 6 parent: “I would like to sincerely thank all the teachers who contributed to the Year 6 trip. All teachers worked so hard and cared for our Year 6 students to give a valuable experience. Sharing the student’s journey and activities in real time through seesaw, the teacher’s & parent’s communication channel, was such a fantastic experience (I can feel all activities and it seems like I’m with them). I believe that they have built up true friendships through new experiences that are difficult to encounter in their daily lives, such as kayaking, zip-lining, campfire, barbecue and camping. I think our children are so lucky because such wonderful teachers are always with us.”
PARENTS AS PARTNERS On May 29 NLCS Jeju held their second Parents as Partners workshops. The event was introduced by Director of IT Craig Wehrle who set in context the challenges students and parents face in managing online activities safely.This was followed by three workshops focusing on the school’s context and how NLCS Jeju works with students to develop their confidence and competency in managing challenging situations. Parent feedback was positive: “I found the workshop very useful. By experiencing the classroom activities myself, I was able to realise that my children are getting this quality education, which made me feel satisfied with and be proud of NLCS Jeju!! “ The Parents as Partners Programme will continue next academic year. We hope that you will be able to take part.
OLLE COMPLETION Olle Walks are synonymous with Jeju - the 26 main routes span 425 kms around Jeju. Congratulations to our students Lincoln Robertson, Emrys Robertson (and sister Seren), Hannah Towner, Alex Towner and staff members Ms. Alison Tuck, Ms. Karen Holland, Mr. James Towner, Mr. Owain Robertson and Ms. Megan Hardy, who all completed their Olle Trails in May. Well done!
BEE UPDATE Another inspiring article by our resident beekeeping enthusiast, Chandler Ahn as well as some recent photos from World Bee Day. Bates’ Flower Flies Hover flies are some of nature’s cleverest mimics. They are most often found hovering—hence their common name—over a flower, wearing black and yellow stripes and a pair of clear wings, shot through with dark nervures. Some resemble wasps, in livid yellow, touched up with black bands; some look like honeybees, with short and stubby bodies and a thin beard of bee fuzz. They are a classic example of Batesian mimicry, wherein a non-harmful species evolves to mimic the appearance of a species that is harmful to potential predators. Bees have stings, and hover flies do not; to a wary predator, however, they are often indistinguishable. So how, then, do we tell between a hover fly and a bee? If we may overcome our instinctive aversion to the buzz and venture closer to our chosen specimen of black and yellow, we will be able to see that hover flies have shorter antennae and only one pair of wings, while bees have longer, more obvious antennae and two pairs of wings. And while a bee is constantly on the move along an unpredictable jag (think Flight of the Bumblebee), hover flies are more ponderous, remaining pinned over a flower for tens of seconds at a time. The hover fly, unlike the bumblebee, has never had much of a boost from artists. Yet it continues to appear in our gardens summer after summer, the embodiment of a success strategy that has allowed it—stingless, defenceless, benign—to survive into the twenty-first century. The next time you see a bee-coloured insect drowsing on one of the campus daffodils, go closer and examine its antennae, its wings. You never know which—the Apidae or the Syrphidae—you will find.
IBDP MUSIC TRIP Mr. Harry Thorrington - “On Friday May 20, the Senior School Music department was delighted to be able to run its first curriculum trip since the Pandemic hit. Our IBDP Year 12 Musicians visited Seoul, where they availed themselves of new music equipment from the Nakwon Musical Instrument Arcade, looked at ancient instruments from the National Museum collection, and in the evening visited the Lotte Concert Hall. By far the best acoustics in Korea, this cultural space played host to a programme of Sibelius, Smetana, and a world première, Paul Chihara’s Viola Concerto, played by one of the world’s best violists, KoreanAmerican Richard Yongjae O’Neill. NLCS Jeju truly looks forward to offering our students across all year groups the opportunity to experience live music in the next academic year!”
ACADEMIC SUPPORT PROGRAMME FOR BOARDERS All of our boarding students have access to our Academic Support Programme. The programme sees our own teachers visiting Boarding Homes in the evening to be on hand to give support and guidance to our students who are completing their homework, revising for exams or doing general study. Ms. Kym Prichard and Mr. Peter Scargill explain how the programme works and what added benefits it offers our boarding students in our video..
Mr. Scargill also hosted a Boarding information session for our current and new parents you can watch the livestream here. Find out why we are so passionate about boarding!
MATHS COMPETITIONS
Our medal and book prizes for the 2021 UKMT Olympiad finally arrived! Every year many thousands of students around the world enter the Junior Maths Challenge and 1200 top scorers are invited to continue to the Olympiad competition. Our medal winners are in the top 100 scorers of the Olympiad - a huge achievement! We have 23 students across Y5 - Y8 who have qualified for this year’s Olympiad in June and we wish Hyoungtak Cha, Taehong Ha, Yeonjae Jo, Jaewon Kang, Seowoo Kim, Junseok Lee, Jimin Lim, Sejin Park, Heejin Roh and Jimin Son good luck!
WMC SENIOR 21 students (Year 11 and Year 12) entered the World Mathematics Championships in March. The competition has migrated online since the Covid 19 pandemic, but still offers rounds which test a wide range of mathematical skills and knowledge in solo and team settings. To fit around their busy schedules, our students had to compete across several evenings and had one very intense morning off their timetabled lessons in school. Students were scored in multiple categories including strategy, collaboration, knowledge and creativity. Our talented mathematicians came away with a clutch of rewards and commendations in several categories. Well done Joonhwan Bae, Daniel Chang, Jinwoo Chun, Hyeonbi Jee, Sehun Jeong, Daewoong Kang, Joon Seok Kang, Yejune Kim, Yeonwoo Kim, Dong Gun Lee, Yujin Lee, Seok Hyeon Moon, Jinyeong Oh, Ashley Park, Kelly Park, Seo Yoon Park, Jiwoo Shin, Yuta Takeda, Seungwon Yang, WooChan Yeo and Daniel Yoo.
WMTC The World Maths Team Championships was entered by a group of Year 12 students under their own initiative. During a 5 hour competition day they worked across team, relay and individual rounds full of challenging problems. The competition is entered by the best International Schools in China and Korea and has a heavier focus on teamwork and communication than other school maths competitions. Well done Jiwoo Shin, Seoyoon Park, Ashley Park, Hyunsuh Koh, Hyeonbi Jee and Yoonseo Cha.
JUNIOR SCHOOL SPORTS DAY Here are some photos from our fantastic Junior School Sports Day! Well done to everyone who took part and thank you to all of you who joined us and cheered our students on! More pictures > https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzSokr
JUNIOR SCHOOL PRG Thank you to our ever kind and generous Junior School PRG who treated our Junior School students and staff to ice cream and cold drinks to keep them cool on the warm sports day!
QUEEN’S PLATINUM As the UK celebrates 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II on the throne, NLCS Jeju has also recognised this important, historical occasion with a staff BBQ, banners, bunting, cookies and cake! We will also celebrate the Queen’s Birthday next week at the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea and are delighted our students will perform for all the guests at this event.
STUDENT’S AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS Our fortnightly round up of our student’s achievements, congratulations to you all.
Name: Year 2 Gideon Sahr, Jian Kim, Rui Lim (Liam) Wang, Jiyul (Tia) Kim Award: 2nd place in Jeju Youth Sports Council Football Competition. Date: 7 May 2022
Name: Max Minhyeok Kim Award: 6th and 8th place at the Fairfax Challenge SYC/RJCC fencing competition Date: 13-15 May 2022
Name: Soohwan (Benjamin) Jun Award: 1st place in a national filmmaking competition - Prime Minister of Unification Award Date: May 2022
Name: Emily Riwon Hwang Award: National Latin Exam - Maxima Cum Laude (Silver award) National Mythology Exam - Magna Cum Laude (Bronze award) National Classical Etymology Exam (Silver Award)
Name: Yerim (Chloe) Lee Award: National Latin Exam - Maxima Cum Laude (Silver award) Date: May 2022
Name: Homin (Max) Yoon Award: 43rd English/Maths Academic Competition hosted by GAGT - 1st place in Maths in Jeju
OTHER NEWS - LETTERS
ART FESTIVAL LETTER AND APP >>>> Letter
STAFF NEWS
FELLOWSHIP Congratulations to Mr. Jason Sannegadu who is now an Associate Fellow of the Royal Society of History (RHS). “It is a privilege to be elected as an Associate Fellow and be part of an organisation that celebrates the work of Historians internationally. The RHS has an incredible history that spans 150 years and is very much at the forefront of scholarly work.
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