 Kowloon Junior School and KGV capital projects
The Kowloon Junior School building project has secured in principle support from the Hong Kong SAR Government Administration. It is a major investment by ESF, with an estimated cost of HK$420 million.
Kowloon Junior School is currently operated in two separate campuses – Perth Street, Homantin and Rose Street, Yau Yat Chuen, Kowloon Tong. The development is a knock-down/rebuild project that will reunite the two existing campuses into one location at Perth Street. Upon completion of the project, it will offer more than 900 places and facilities such as a school hall, gymnasium, library and a performing arts centre.
ESF will now start detailed preparation work with various government departments in the run-up to seeking final funding approval from the Legislative Council’s Finance Committee at the beginning of 2011. We are confident that LEGCO will support this project.
The ESF Board of Governors has approved the funding of the King George V School project. This approval represents a significant investment by ESF in improving and extending its existing facilities, with an estimated cost of HK$240 million.
The project includes the provision of two new academic blocks - a Science Centre and Performing Arts Centre - as well as some re-provisioning of the existing school accommodation.
Admissions update
During last September’s central application period, ESF received 1743 applications for the 1020 Year 1 places in primary schools that will be available in August 2010. Discovery College and Renaissance College were similarly oversubscribed. First round interviews were held in January with deposits being required to secure places offered by mid February. For each school, the take up of places is partly dependent on the number of dual applicants interviewed at both a PI school and a primary school. Schools have continued to interview to fill any remaining places. All schools have waiting lists of both on-time and late applicants should unexpected vacancies occur before the start of the year.
Transferring students from Year 6 in ESF primary schools fill the majority of places available in Year 7 at secondary school. Remaining places have been filled from the pool of external applicants who successfully passed the assessments that took place last October. As in previous years more places were available for external candidates at schools on Hong Kong Island.
The corporate surety scheme has once again proved popular, we've received 206 applications for 120 places. Placements will continue to be made throughout June.
Applications continue to be received for all year groups. At this stage all schools anticipate full enrolment in August. (Due to the ongoing expansion of Discovery College there is the possibility of a few places remaining in some secondary year groups.)
PYP authorisation and CIS/WASC accreditation
We are pleased to announce that Discovery College, Kowloon Junior School and Peak School have now been authorised to offer the Primary Years Programme (PYP) of the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) while Kennedy School has received the CIS/WASC accreditation.
Congratulations to Mark Beach, Mark Cripps, Les Graham, Paul Hay and their team for this achievement.
Senior post announcements
We are pleased to announce the following senior appointments:
Angela Hui is the new Director of Development with effect from 1 June 2010. The new role will carry responsibility for fund-raising at ESF. Angela has held senior development roles in both the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Society and Hong Kong Arts Festival Society for more than 12 years. Before these development roles, Angela enjoyed a distinguished career as a conference and events manager in a NGO and as an executive officer in a university.
Vivian Cheung will take over the Chief Financial Officer position at ESF Centre from Rob Bennett.
Vivian is currently Head of Compliance with Merrill Lynch (Asia Pacific) Limited. She has been with Merrill Lynch since 1997 holding roles ranging from HK Financial Controller; Regional Audit Manager to Chief Administrative Officer. Before joining Merrill Lynch, Vivian held Senior Audit roles in Ernst & Young, Prudential – Bache & Nomura Bank. Her Career in audit and finance spans 20 years in both UK and Hong Kong.
Battle of the books
 Despite strong competition, KGV retained their crown at the 10th Annual Battle of the Books Championship on 18 May.
16 schools entered the literary event with four making it through to the Grand Final held at Chinese International School.
Students from KGV, West Island School, Sha Tin College and Christian Alliance International School answered questions from a list of 20 books in a quiz style format. Titles included Little Women, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and student favourite Lion Boy.
Rounding off a strong ESF performance; Beacon Hill beat a total of 20 schools to win the Primary contest.
Go here for photographs then click on thumbnails to enlarge.
SEN careers fair 2010
On 5 May the first SEN Careers Event was held at Jockey Club Sarah Roe School. Fifteen organisations participated to provide information about post-school options and overseas programmes for students with disabilities. Students, parents and teachers collected a wide range of materials available from the providers.
Feedback from different parties was extremely positive. Congratulations to Alan Howells and his team on the successful event.
Event highlights at Island School
Charity and Fashion Combine for a Good Cause
On 23 April, Island School and TrunkAid, a registered Hong Kong charity organisation, hosted the Vivacity Fashion Show. The charity event was organised by Year 12 students with the aim of raising funds to build a water purification system and well in rural Thailand’s Thaton village.
The event raised a total of $37,000, with all proceeds going to The Thaton Project. Congratulations to all involved for organising the event and supporting such a worthwhile cause.
Go here for photographs then click on thumbnails to enlarge
Battle of the bands
Island School's Student Ambassadors of Room to Read - a charity seeks to transform the lives of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education, organised a “Battle of the Bands” fundraiser on 17 April. Led by Christian Houston-Floyd, it raised more than $350,000. Bands representing six Hong Kong schools performed and entertained an audience of over 450.
Go here for photographs then click on thumbnails to enlarge
Event highlights at South Island School
UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge
Last February over 200,000 students from all over the world took part in the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge, a competition aimed at students in Years 9 to 11 . The top 1500 were invited to participate in the International Intermediate Olympiad, nine were from South Island School and they all did extremely well:
Four of them received a merit certificate; Julian Knowles a certificate of distinction, and special awards for those who were placed in the top 50 in the world - John Shin (Y9), Alvina Fok (Y10) and Derek Leung and Ronald Yip (Y11).
Congratulations go to the students and thanks go to their teachers for continued encouragement and support.
Sing Tao inter-school debating competition
South Island beat La Salle College in the final of the Sing Tao inter-school debating competition 2010 and regained the championship of the English section. The topic was “Should the broadcast rights of the World Cup 2010 be given to free TV channels?”
All credits go to Mary Garland and the team:
Paul Lau – Captain
Tiffany Chung – First speaker
Ivan Siu – Second Speaker
Madhav Menon – Floor speaker
Pavan Hegde – Floor speaker
Tiffany Shih – Floor speaker
Sha Tin College alumnus won inaugural Preverse Prize
A former student of Sha Tin College, Rebecca Tomasis won the first Proverse Prize for her unpublished novel, "Mishpacha!". Rebecca’s novel will be published by Proverse Hong Kong within the next twelve months and the books may now be ordered in advance online: proversepublishing.com
Young writers awards results
 ESF schools were strongly represented at the Hong Kong Young Writers Awards 2010, winning prizes in three categories.
Author and award-winning journalist Nury Vittachi got the ball rolling with a humorous pep talk to illustrate why Hong Kong needs more creative thinking. This was followed by the presentation ceremony.
Alantha Zhang (CWB) won in the 9 and under age group with her short story, A Pearl on the Shore of South China Sea: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [HKUST] and Justin Lai (BHS) came out on top with his tale, The Hidden Time Machine.
Nadia Cheng (BS) won a prize for her artwork which was selected as the cover of the anthology of writing compiled from this year’s submissions. All three admitted to being excited, proud and even a little nervous on hearing they had won.
There were also awards for a number of ESF students whose work is featured in the New Tales of the South China Sea anthology.
Go here for photographs then click on thumbnails to enlarge.
Guide to Corporate Governance for Subvented Organisations
The Efficiency Unit of the Hong Kong Government held four half-day conferences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to launch this guide. ESF’s Chief Executive Officer, Heather Du Quesnay, was invited to speak at the final conference to describe the journey of an organisation which was successfully reforming its governance. All members of the ESF community share the credit for the progress that ESF has made on this challenging journey.
Summer works programme
We are now at an advanced stage of planning for repair and maintenance works at our schools over the summer holidays. Highlights of the programme include the creation of a new library annex and associated improvement works for Bradbury School at the old ESF Centre building at Stubbs Road, the extensive sun shading structure installation at Kennedy School, and the replacement of Auditorium seating and flooring at West Island School.
Exam result dates
After all their hard work Year 13 students will receive their IB Examination results on 6 July. It will be a day of joy for some, and uncertainty for others. We plan to release provisional data on 9 July. Our Higher Education Counsellors will be ready to advise students and parents.
For students who miss their offers and are UK bound, please note that UK universities do not confirm places until around 20 August when A-level results are published.
BTEC qualifications and IGCSE examination results will be released at the end of the third and fourth weeks of August.
Thanks and farewells
This is the last e-newsletter until term ends, we have to say goodbye and express thanks to colleagues who are retiring or moving on to new challenges. Their hard work and contributions will be recognised within their school communities. While there isn’t room here to recognise all the people who have helped our schools develop, we would like to mention a few names
John Wray, Principal of South Island School, is moving on to work in Canada after nine years of service to ESF. He has led South Island School through some significant changes with flying colours, including the transition to IB Diploma.
Andrew Sortwell is returning to the UK after three years with ESF. As the Director of Education, Andrew has been a lynchpin in developing ESF’s educational agenda, supporting schools in the introduction of the Primary Years Programme and the IB Diploma and through the rigours of the CIS/WASC accreditation exercise. Andrew has led significantly developments in the continuing professional development programme for teachers and been a trusted adviser to principals and school councils.
Robert Bennett, Chief Financial Officer is leaving ESF after two highly successful years. In these two years, Rob has stream-lined the finance reporting systems and increased the transparency of the accounts. He has played a part in improving relationships with the Government resulting in the Government’s agreement to part-funding the Kowloon Junior School building programme and enhanced the ESF’s billing system to be more modern and efficient.
We wish them well for the future.
ESL summer camps
 Keep children active, entertained and engaged this summer with ESL’s summer camps!
This year we offer:
English and Spanish language camps for kindergarten, primary and secondary aged children Click here to find out more
Multi-sports camps and specialist sports clinics - Introducing mini-polo and synchronised swimming specialist clinics. Click here to find out more
Contact ESF Educational Services: 2711 2811 or www.esf.org.hk |
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