CAS week and upcoming exams: A busy end to April 2024
The second week back after the Easter holidays is notable for two main things: the first week of study leave for our Year 13 (IB) and Year 11 (IGCSE) students to get ready for their upcoming exams, the first of which started on Thursday 25 April 2024, and the rest of the IS Secondary students engaged in a series of activities for the CAS week which takes place both in Hong Kong and further afield in SE Asia (Borneo, Cambodia, Bali and Phuket). The BPR campus is very quiet with just the French Stream students here!
The IB examinations will now start in earnest over the next three weeks, with the final examination taking place on Friday 17 May. It is an externally verified and trusted system, which sees all student papers marked, re-marked and verified through a series of checks involving experienced and trained IB staff before the final grades get released in early July each year. Our students have been well prepared by our teachers, and all internal assessments have been submitted to the IBO as part of the assessment process. The culmination of their examination period will be a graduation ceremony at school in the late afternoon of their final examination, followed by a family sponsored dinner in the evening to include parents, students and teachers. A big thanks goes to Mr Michael Ormiston and the team of Year 13 parents who have organised this annual event. The following evening, on Saturday 18 May, a student-organised ball will take place for Year 13 and Terminale students.
Year 11 IGCSE examinations are spread, unfortunately, over a much longer timeframe starting this week and not ending until the middle of June. As per the IB Diploma examinations, the student papers go through a series of checks to ensure accuracy in the marks awarded. These results are published in mid-August, and help our students to confirm their IB Diploma choices ahead of their return to FIS in September 2024. Currently we are looking at a record breaking number of IB students for Year 12, with over 50 expected to start with us. The previous record was 40 in 2022. This talks to the popularity of the school, and an alignment of our families with the FIS HK strategy which promotes a diverse and engaged community.
The CAS week has been expertly put together by our Vice Principal, Ms Helen Marshall, and is proving to be a great learning experience for our students. There will be more written in the Bulletin in upcoming weeks about the various trips when they have returned and reviewed the opportunities that were afforded to each group of students. As we grow next year to just short of 500 students in our division, I am sure that we will be able to offer an even wider programme that engages all our students in worthwhile learning experiences. I would encourage you to be curious upon the return of your son/daughter from these trips, and really explore what they learned about themselves when doing things outside the school walls.
