South Island School

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South Island School

Established	1977
School type	Private, comprehensive, international, secondary, co-educational.
Principal	Mr. John Wray
Students	approx. 12001
Years	Year 7-13
Location	50 Nam Fung Road Aberdeen Hong Kong
Information	(852) 2555 9313 sis@sis.edu.hk
Website	http://www.sis.edu.hk/

South Island School (南島中學) is a school founded by English Schools Foundation in Hong Kong, located on No.50 Nam Fung Road, Shouson Hill, Aberdeen, Hong Kong SAR China in the southern part of Hong Kong Island.

Contents 1 School's Aims 2 History 3 Students 4 Faculties 5 Timetable 6 Catering 7 Student Council 8 Activities 9 Debating 10 External links

[edit] School's Aims

• To develop students' confidence, self-esteem and a range of positive values and personal qualities.

• To produce enthusiastic, active, independent and lifelong learners.

• To equip students with 21st Century skills including international and multicultural understanding.

• To provide an excellent academic education through which our students can achieve their personal best.

• To provide outstanding enrichment opportunities within and beyond the school curriculum.

• To develop student's sense of responsibility and active involvement in the communities in which they live and work.

[edit] History

In 1977, South Island School was founded as a nucleus of additional classes to accommodate students within the ages of 11 and 18 from Island School, a fellow ESF School. The school moved to its current location at 50 Nam Fung Road in 1983. The first version of the school consisted of the Ching Ling Soon Block (shortened to C-block in everyday conversation), and an outdoor swimming pool.

As the school grew in size, more facilities were required. The next big change to the school came with the construction of the Stephen Hawking Block (shortened to S-block in school conversation), and the change of the outdoor swimming pool to an indoor one, allowing all-year round swimming lessons. [1]

The school also featured in the film "Tiger of Wanchai" rather aptly, given it's style of construction with narrow aperture windows, as a prison. Look out for the Brian Tilbrook ICAC sign.

By 2003, the school was starting to show its age. A growing student population warranted the construction of a new school block. Also, renovation of the now twenty-year old C-block was needed. Construction began on a new eight-story building that would accompany the C-block and the S-block. By 2004, the new block was completed, and was designated the Da Vinci Block (called D-block in school conversation).

In the next few years, the school's classrooms were upgraded with the installation of interactive whiteboards, while the renovation of the C-block continued. In 2005, the school announced that it would be switching away from the A-levels to the International Baccalaureate. The Year 2007 was set as the implementation year for the IB, meaning that the current Year 11 would be the first students to take the IB Diploma Programme, which allows students to take six courses, as compared with currently four As-levels, excluding General Studies.

[edit] Students

As South Island School is an international school, many nationalities are represented in the school. The majority of students in SIS are Hong Kong-born Chinese; however, many other nationalities can be found in SIS, with considerable groups of Indian, British, Japanese< American and Korean students. There are 3 sections:

• The Lower Section (Years 7-8)
• The Middle Section (Years 9-11)
• The Senior Section (Years 12-13)

Students are separated into seven houses, each with their own appropriate colors:

• Aylward - Yellow (named after Gladys Aylward)
• Hillary - Blue (named after Edmund Hillary)
• Jefferson - Purple (named after Thomas Jefferson)
• Marden - Orange (named after Anne Marden)
• Noble - Light blue (named after Christina Noble)
• Schweitzer - Green (named after Albert Schweitzer)
• Tolstoy - Red (named after Leo Tolstoy)

The members of each house compete in various competitions throughout the year, ranging from Athletics, swimming to Music and Debating. Depending on the finishing place, each house is awarded different amounts of points. At the end of the year, the total number of points is counted and in the last Assembly before school closes for the summer, the House cup is presented to the winning House.

[edit] Faculties

The faculties are as follows:

• Careers
• Creative Arts: Art, Drama, Media Studies, Music
• Design Technology: Food Technology,Textiles Technology,Graphics
• English
• English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
• General Studies
• Humanities: History, Geography, Religious Studies, Economics, Business Studies
• ICT
• Learning Support
• Mathematics
• Modern Foreign Languages: Mandarin, French, German, Spanish
• Physical Education
• PSE (Personal and Social Education)
• Science: Biology, Physics, Chemistry

[edit] Timetable

During the 2006-2007 school year, South Island School implemented a timetable consisting of 2 hour lessons, with three 2 hour lessons being held per day. The school also shortened the length of it's day on Tuesday and Friday, by starting school late on Tuesday (at 10:00 rather than 8:00) and finishing early on Friday (ending at 13:00 rather than at 3:10). The school also implemented a '2 week system'. In this system, a student's timetable would cover not one but two weeks. This means that one timetable cycle would take two weeks to complete.

A typical timetable may look like this:

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	WEEKEND	! Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8:00 - 10:00	English	NO SCHOOL	Geography	Physics	Chemistry	NO SCOOL	Math	NO SCHOOL	Religious Studies	History	Biology
10:00 - 10:30	BREAK	Pastoral Period	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	NO SCHOOL	BREAK	Pastoral Period	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK
10:30 - 12:30	Biology	PSE	P.E.	Economics	ICT	NO SCHOOL	Business Studies	History	French	English	Chemistry
12:30-1:10	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	Pastoral period	NO SCHOOL	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	Pastoral Period
1:10-3:10	Chinese	Business Studies	Food Technology	D+T	NO SCHOOL	NO SCHOOL	German	P.E.	Textiles	Geography	Free Period

Note that free periods are only available for year 12s and 13s, and that for younger years Language and Math periods are split up into 1 hour sessions only.

[edit] Catering

South Island School features an array of cuisines served by a private catering company, currently Chartwells. The refectory offers gracious seating space to accommodate a large body of students during peak hours, allowing the facilitation of several different activities.

Snacks consisting of various confectionaries such as chicken wings and hot dogs are sold throughout the day, starting at 10:20 AM and ends at school closure.

There has been recent controversy over the pricing of school food. Many students have complainedd that confectionary items available within school were overpriced, drawing comparisons between the prices of products within school as opposed to the prices of the same product outside of school. Chartwells have responded however by stating that in order to maintain food quality as well as health and safety, a majority of raw products (i.e. meats such as beef) have to be imported, resulting in inflated prices.

[edit] Student Council

The Student Council was formed in South Island School so that students would be able to speak their opinions out. At the start of each academic year, each year elects a Year Representative from a pool of Class Representatives which are selected by each class. The elected Year Representatives sit in the Student Council with the Headmaster, The Prefects and the Head Boy and Girl. In this forum they debate the problems of the school, and come up with solutions. In recent years the Student Council has been criticized for not solving the problems of the students. However, in the most recent Academic Year, (2005-2006) numerous problems were solved and this was recognised by the majority of Students.

[edit] Activities

South Island School offers a range of extra curricular activities. These can vary from Squash to Chess. Also, each student is obliged to take part in two house events during the year. These two events are usually the Ahtletics Competition and the Swimming Gala. As well as inter-house competitions, S.I.S. competes in various inter-school competitions, such as basketball and football.

[edit] Debating

In the Academic year of 2005-2006 a debating team was sent in to compete in Hong Kong's biggest inter-school competition. Despite this being only their first competition, the team of 6 were able to reach the finals, defeating Ying Wa Girl's School to win the Sing Tao Debating Cup.

[edit] External links

• South Island School
• English Schools Foundation