From the Head of Secondary 27.04.2024

On Tuesday our IGCSE and A Level students had their last day in school before they went on Study Leave on Wednesday. To mark the occasion we held a small but noisy and joyful event in the multi-purpose room where the students enjoyed chatting to their friends, signing each other’s school shirts, and eating cake.

We had some words of wisdom from teachers, together with final important reminders about how to get through the exam period successfully before we all trooped outside for the classic KIS photograph on the school field. The students were in good form and they must be congratulated on all of the hard work they have put in to reach this point. From now on we will just see them in school for revision sessions and, of course, for their examinations.

Good luck to Years 11, 12 and 13!

Secondary Global Citizenship Award 2024

I would now like to invite nominations from our community for nominations for the Secondary Global Citizenship Award 2024.

The profile of the selected student must be aligned with the school’s vision of Global Citizenship:

“A global citizen understands that we are all connected, upholds the values of equality and actively contributes to the development of a better world.”

Global Citizens

• have an awareness of the wider world and a sense of their own role within it
• respect and value diversity
• are committed to social justice, equality and sustainability
• participate in the community at a range of levels, from local to global
• take responsibility for their actions

Global Citizenship involves:

• Enquiring, discussing, thinking critically, reflecting and collaborating
• Exploring the complexity of global issues and engaging with multiple perspectives
• Applying learning to real-life issues and contexts
• All ages and all areas of the curriculum
• The whole school community

The award winner will be selected from the nominees by the Senior Leadership Team, and the award will consist of an engraved trophy and certificate, and will be presented at the end of Term 3.

If you would like to nominate a student for this award, please email me at margaretrenshaw@kis.edu.my with their name, form, and the reasons why you think that this student deserves the Award. Staff and students will also be nominating their candidates.

In last week’s newsletter I mentioned Julia Aveline Rabenjoro’s recent work with ADEX and other environmental initiatives, and I am delighted that she has written this piece so that we can all find out more. 

‘ADEX is the largest dive exhibition in South East Asia. All year long its CEO John Thet and his team take this big event around the region, from the Philippines to China, Australia, Indonesia and the Maldives to name a few, and last year, for the very first time at SICC in Kota Kinabalu. I was happy to participate as a speaker and as a scuba diver while joining their 24 hours reef cleanup in our very TARP.

The team organiser reached out a few months ago to invite me to be one of their speakers again for their special jubilee celebrating their 30th anniversary in Singapore, where the exhibition was created.

Luckily for me, my IGCSE exams happened to start later so I happily accepted and flew there with my mother on the 11th April. The event started the next day and several exhibitors were already setting their booths up when I went to get my speaker badge.

I started to feel the inevitable anxiety realising the space was much bigger than in KK, with 3 stages, a pool and a tank for the mermaids and artists to perform in. I spent a lot of the evening going over my speech, while being pretty sure there was no way I could remember it all and speak for 20 minutes continuously without any notes.

Friday 12th April was the first day of the event and the brief I was given stated to attend the opening ceremony at 11am. I arrived earlier to record a clip for ADEX’s socials, and got one of the best – if not the best – moment of this weekend by bumping into Cristina Zenato who came all the way from the Bahamas to do two presentations and join a panel. She is one of my biggest inspirations and I had the chance to talk with her twice on Zoom calls, one of them being for my interview series and the other for a livestream I organized. Meeting her in real life was quite intimidating but she was such a sweet and easy person to talk to. I’d recommend to check her socials and see the amazing work she has been doing for the last 30 years to help raise awareness and conserve sharks. She is also a very experienced cave diver/explorer and instructor.

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The opening ceremony was the occasion to see all the speakers on stage – I knew a few from KK and got to meet a few more afterwards in the speakers lounge for an informal gathering. My very first steps on the main stage were to collect a beautiful plaque as I was appointed the first ADEX Youth Ambassador, an honour I greatly appreciated. As I mentioned when briefly introducing myself on stage, I am happy to see youth’s efforts recognised as I know there are a lot of kids and teens around the world already raising their voices and stepping up to help our oceans.

On Saturday I met with the other young speaker of the event, Isabelle. She is from Singapore and 16 like me. She just started an organisation called Kaia Initiative and was joined by a dozen young volunteers to run their booth. Their mission is to engage youth into diving, raise funds and organise sharing sessions online or in schools.

Watching and listening to marine wildlife photographers was like a journey in itself. It only expanded my desire to travel and discover the rest of the world! Time flies when you are hooked into good stories and it was already the end of Day 2 for the public, but not for the speakers and exhibitors as a networking party was scheduled to start; an occasion to hang out and try the delicious buffet set up.

The final day of ADEX was also the day of my talk: Getting Youth to Dive into Conservation. It summarised my story, how I got into diving then conservation, my group of teen divers that do reef cleanups and a few examples of other youth around the world. Despite the non-stop nerves, I eventually walked up and delivered my talk. Having Cristina Zenato in the audience to support me was really special and I was thrilled to finish with the feeling that I had done well! Several people who had watched talked to me after, saying they were impressed by my speech, and my mother was very happy with it too.

I will for sure remember ADEX 2024 for so many reasons. It was only 5 days but it felt longer as so many things happened, with lots of people; some that I’d seen online who didn’t know me and some I had never met who had seen me. An incredible time in an incredible city, and I’m excited to see what’s next.’

Well done Julia and many congratulations on all the important work that you are doing.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs Margaret Renshaw

Deputy Principal / Head of Secondary