On the Monday 20th March 2017, a whole-school assembly was held with a range of topics being covered. For the first time, an email was sent out for students to volunteer to speak, and many did.
Firstly, there was a musical introduction from some Year 7s who were guided by their teacher, playing the flute. Next came Akash, Bharat, Allan and Shinji in Year 9 who talked about Indian music: the general stereotype, a comparison to western music, and a look at Punjabi and pop Indian music – a great insight into their culture.
I then made a brief speech about starting a proper student committee to write for the FIS website. At the time of writing, three pupils have already volunteered to join.
Rachel and Akash, both in Year 9 followed with a presentation on their experience in the World Scholars’ Cup. The whole team had been training for the event every Wednesday at lunchtime, and each team got through to the next round in Hanoi. Everyone from FIS ranked very highly and received medals and awards. At the end of the year, during CAS weeks, these students will fly to Hanoi and the best ones will go to Yale after that.
Alya (Year 12) and Caoimhe (Year 11) continued by speaking about their newly-founded QSA (more information here). Marine, Hugo, Teo, Paul, Ethan and I (Year 10) then spoke about our experience at ISTA festival, which is a theatre festival that took place in Singapore (more information here).
Leelani, Sharlen and Nikki followed up and shared their achievements at the inter-schools equestrian competition at the Lo Wu Saddle Club. All three moved to the semi-finals. Sharlen was 6th overall in jumping and 4th in dressage, and Laura was 2nd in jumping and 3rd in dressage.
Mr Williams ended the assembly with the end-of-term achievement and ATL (attitude to learning) awards to each class. This was different from last term’s awards, as they weren’t about who the best is, but rather who had improved the most since last term. FIS wants to promote and encourage students to see learning from this perspective. A few words about those leaving us were said, and Mrs Hall made a speech dedicated to the Year 11s and Year 13s motivating them for their IGCSE and IB exams respectively.
The next assembly will be held on Monday 8th May, 2017.