From the Head of Secondary 07.12.2019

With the end of term swiftly approaching life goes on as normal in Secondary with some added extras thrown in!  All praise to Santa and his helpers for the tremendous amount of work they put into to make sure that our older students enjoy all the fun of the festive season, from traditional Christmas lunch yesterday, to Christmas cookies on Tuesday. The school is looking fantastic thanks to the efforts of our parents who spent hours putting up the decorations. Next Friday we have our Celebration Assembly starting at 8am in the Hall. We will be giving out Maths awards, Merit certificates and Duke of Edinburgh awards as well as listening to some of our very talented student musicians. This will be followed by our annual Spellathon Final where our best spellers in Years 7, 8 and 9 go head to head in an exciting battle to decide who will be win the title of Spellathon Champion 2019 and take home the trophy. Parents are very welcome to attend both of these events.  At about 11am students will be able to clear their lockers, party in their form rooms and, finally, receive their Term 1 reports before they leave at 12pm for their holidays!

In amongst all of this students will be continuing their learning and teachers will be continuing with their teaching. The Year 7 Parent/Teacher afternoon is on Monday and also Year 7 have their History trip on Wednesday to the Sabah Museum so it’s a particularly special week for them.

I would like to remind parents that we provide lockers for all of our students and ask that they bring a lock from home so that they can keep their belongings safe. Unfortunately this has not always happened so we would like to reinforce this message: can parents please ensure that their child has a lock and please talk to them about the importance of keeping their possessions safe. Thank you!

Margaret Renshaw

Head of Secondary

The first Global Goals day at KIS started with an inspirational assembly by Dr. Milena Salgado Lynn. What I found interesting was that they had tackled so many of the Global Goals at the Danau Girang Field Centre before the United Nations had published the Goals in 2015. Secondary students then returned to normal classes with a Global theme such as the impact of human population in Biology and pollution in Geography.

The whole school participated in the same lesson during period 4. Mrs Anuar Ghani prepared the fantastic “The Big Lesson”. This focussed on the Global Goals and how we could make a difference one step at a time. Year 10 have been focussing on the Global Goals during PSHE lessons. They have been working in teams, building their collaborative skills at the same time as developing a strategy to help others reduce the plastic that they use and access the education that is a human right. This culminated in a flurry of activity at the start of lunchtime as the rest of secondary walked around the stalls and discussed the ideas and solutions that the Year 10 had devised.

After lunch, KS3 lined up in their PE kits in anticipation of the Terrific Trash Treasure Trawl. Never seen before, this crazy activity was my idea and I hold full responsibility for the bedlam that followed. Students and staff watched in confusion as Ground Staff tipped bags of litter on the basketball court. Slowly the inkling of understanding seeped into the crowd as I explained that we are not sorting our litter or using the recycling bins we have at school. As soon as the concept was explained, and the whistle was blown, students started grabbing rubbish with abandon and putting it into the correct bins for recycling. There was some misrecognition of paper and we need to learn about which plastics can be recycled but fun was had by all. It was a loud and hot activity and a new way of tackling a challenging problem.

The students then attended a talk on a Zero Waste Lifestyle as a succinct conclusion to the day and an example of how they can make a change in their own lives. As we nurture our students into Global Citizens it is important that they can see the relevance of Global initiatives and how they will have an impact on their lives. Global Goals Day 2019 was a satisfying start.

Ms L J Service

On the 29th-30th November 2019, the year 12s carried on the annual tradition of 4fest. What is 4fest you may wonder? It is an overnight event that is hosted by the year 12s every year and they lay on fun-filled team building activities. This event is for students in Year 10 and above but is mainly targeted at the students in KS4 who are in the students in year 10 and year 11, hence the name “4Fest” .

Throughout the preparations for 4Fest, all the students in year 12s diligently prepared the necessities and activities that take place at the event. Examples of these is the food and the accommodation prepared for the students. The year 12s nominated Pascal as the Head 4Fest organiser. Pascal delegated different tasks to different groups in year 12  and each group focussed on specific roles for the event and a leader was in charge of each group. He successfully led us all towards the day whilst ensuring that everyone performed their tasks well and on schedule.

With all the tasks delegated, everyone contributed to an excellent job. Everything was prepared before the event started including the teams for the students attending, activities, schedule, letters as well as the posters that were hung around the school two weeks prior to the event. In the end, we decided that cereal and milk for breakfast and pizza for dinner alongside a variety of drinks was the best choice. For games, we all agreed on musical chairs, limbo, football, prison break and the famous Capture the Flag game.

As the day for 4Fest approached us, 30 students in total had signed up for the event. However, 5 of them had canceled unexpectedly on the day which resulted to minor problems since the teams that had been planned had to be re-organised and there was also food left over!

Despite all that, 4Fest ran as triumphantly as planned and everyone who participated and the teachers who signed up received plenty of food and drinks. According to the students, they all had an enjoyable night while taking part in all the activities held during 4Fest whilst knowing that some of them were able to spend some more time with their friends. Some are already looking forward to the upcoming 4Fest event next year!

Tazkhi and Iffa Year 12

In the last week or so we received the results of two Maths competitions our students have been involved in, and the results make for great reading.

First, the UKMT Senior Maths Challenge – the following students received the Bronze Award:

Kaori Weightman

Naavin Ravinthran

Jimin Hwang

Bobby Wong

Koenraad Dols

The following students received the Silver Award:

Ethan McElhone

Pascal U

Suraj Kanpoori.

Suraj narrowly missed out on a Gold – a great achievement for a Year 12 student!

All students who took part will receive a certificate of participation in the coming days and, if the certificates arrive in time from the UK, the Bronze and Silver Award winners will receive their recognition at the end of term assembly.

Now for the FOBISIA Maths Challenge 2019. This online challenge took place between 14^th and 25^th November and was open to students in Years 5 to 8. It involved 4 separate mini-tests (Starter, Bronze, Silver and Gold), and if students were 100% successful at each of these levels, they received an over-arching Platinum Award. In total:

57 of our students successfully completed the Starter Level Challenge

35 of our students successfully completed the Bronze Level Challenge

23 of our students successfully completed the Silver Level Challenge

20 of our students successfully completed the Gold Level Challenge

and 17 of our students successfully completed all four, thus received the Platinum Award. They were:

From Y6

Seyoung Jung

From Y7

Anny Ling, Celine Hiew, Kang Jeong Mo, Natalia Wehrendt, Sarah Jong, Choe Seo Yeon, Tong Pik Yen and Sandra Tanguy.

From Y8

Amos Yeap, Darren Ling, Debbie Wong, Hannah Hammer, Jatin Sharma, Ombeline Soubrier, Shokina Shamsiddinova and Zack Ngu.

These students will receive their Platinum certificates at the end of term 1 assembly next Friday.

Well done to all the students who completed in these challenges and congratulations to all those who won certificates.

Mr Davis

Head of Secondary Maths

In History the Year 7 students have been learning about archaeology ahead of their trip to the Sabah Museum on the 11th December. As part of this they were asked to research what archaeologists do and find out about some key archaeological sites. They then made an informative leaflet from their findings.

I was impressed with all of the leaflets I received. Sarah’s in 7S stood out for its attention to detail and the amount of hard work and effort she put in. Well done Sarah!

Miss Bater

Secondary English Teacher