From the Head of Secondary 28.11.2020

Global Goals Week

Global Goals Week has been a terrific success in Secondary this week, not least because it was led entirely by the students themselves. The Prefect team, led by Zach Robinson, did a great job in preparing resources and creating PowerPoints with audio which were shown every morning by tutors to their forms. These focussed on each of the 17 Global Goals and the final assembly, on Friday, summarised the universal successes which had been achieved and the challenges that the world still faces. Throughout the week there were also fun [but serious themed] competitions which were open to all students. I would also like to thank Celeste Chung and the Girl Up team for leading a lunchtime discussion about what this group is doing to raise awareness of the lives of girls and women around the world. At 3pm every day we were privileged to be able to listen to a range of presentations from local environmental organisations. The clarity of the narrative messages, supported by incredible video and imagery, made us deeply aware of the damage that humankind is doing to the natural world, and what we need to do now to rectify the situation. Every single one of us has a role to play.

Christmas Angels

Many thanks to the KIS community for responding so positively to the Secondary Student Council’s quest in donating personalised gifts to the Sabah Cheshire Home. There are still a few gaps on the wish-list, so it’s not too late to make somebody’s Christmas extra special this year!

Next Week’s Events

Next week is another busy week in Secondary. The annual A Level Fair is on Monday from 1pm to 3pm. Mr Hallas in directing our first ever virtual event of this nature and he will set the ball rolling with a presentation about the KIS A Level programme at 1pm. This will be followed by an opportunity for the students to hear about specific A Level subjects from teachers and Heads of Departments. This event will be attended by all of our Year 11 students, and we hope that many parents will also attend. It is an important part of our Careers Education programme as these young people make some serious decisions narrowing down their choices for further study at a higher level. On Thursday we have the Year 7/12/13 Parent/Teacher days. Parents are making appointments to meet with their child’s teachers throughout the day. Normal lessons will be suspended for students in these year groups on that day as they attend the meetings with their parents, and teachers who are involved in these meetings will set work for their other classes to complete independently.

Mrs Margaret Renshaw

Deputy Principal/Head of Secondary

This week has seen Gaya overtake Sapi for second place and closed the gap on Sulug. Sulug’s lead has been reduced to around 40 points over Gaya and around 80 points over Sapi. This resurgence from Gaya has been largely due to the recent house competition. Students submitted many photos of positive things in their life during online learning.

Here at the top 3 submissions.

1st place Diego Toro 9S Gaya – 60 points

2nd – Keith Wong 10S Gaya – 40 points

3rd – Laverne 11S Sapi – 20 points

Sapi closed the gap to Sulug by attaining the most points in the Maths UKMT competition. The current house contest is a self-portrait competition in which students’ fine art skills are tested in competition to submit a hand-drawn self-portrait. The top 5 drawings will be awarded House Points.

Can Sulug be dethroned before the end of the term?!

Mr Baxter

House Coordinator

Ms Service has been having fun this week by encouraging her Year 10 Biologists to perform a number of experiments at home. It all began with the exciting discovery that Vanish (in the pink bottle) has Hydrogen peroxide as one of its active ingredients. It is basic science teacher knowledge that potatoes contain the enzyme “Catalase”, and with a flash of inspiration, a plethora of experiments were imagined.

We started by changing the concentration of the Hydrogen peroxide, and then the concentration of the enzyme. As you would expect, as each of these concentrations increases then the volume of froth produced also increases, as shown in this photo from Alexis.

Next we investigated the effect of temperature. This is interesting because there are two different contradicting effects. The reaction happens faster as it gets hotter BUT if it gets too hot it slows down, as explained by Yanjing:

In this photo the temperature increases from icy on the left to boiling on the right, with room temperature showing the most foam.

Finally we looked at the effect of PH. This is when Ms Service discovered the somewhat alarming interaction between Hydrogen peroxide and bleach (DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME) and so she was glad that she could warn the students not to do this part of the experiment.

So they just added vinegar to the experiment to see what happens in an acidic environment. The enzyme does not work.

Here you can see frothing in the glass on the right and no frothing in the glass on the left, with the vinegar.

The experiment worked phenomenally well. In fact it worked better than the same practical in school but don’t tell anyone!

Ms Service would like to thank her Year 10 students for getting involved and having a go, it makes online learning much easier if we are working together and having fun!