From the Head of Secondary 29.01.2022
Fantastic news this week that Julia Aveline Rabenjoro has been chosen to be a PADI Ambassadiver 2022! This is a tremendous honour and one which Julia should be very proud of. She is an inspiration for her generation.
PADI AmbassaDivers are ‘committed to elevating diving in their communities and across the planet’ [https://www.padi.com/ambassadivers] and as a PADI AmbassaDiver Julia is a torchbearer in the promotion of PADI’s ten year blueprint for Ocean Action, covering such areas as ridding the oceans of marine debris and protecting endangered and vulnerable marine species.
It would be great if Julia’s success encouraged other young people to get involved. If any are interested, I am sure that she will be more than happy to answer questions, and perhaps in a future newsletter we can hear more from her about everything she is doing to protect and heal the planet.
Year 11 Mock Examinations 7 – 16 February
Immediately after the CNY break, Year 11 will plunge into their very important IGCSE Mock Examinations. All have now received the mock timetables and the daily protocol has been communicated to them. The holiday should be spent in serious revision so that they can perform at their very best in these vital exams.
Good luck to Year 11 in their revision and in their exams!
Read on to peruse a truly impactful piece of writing from Juah Son in Year 9. Juah clearly feels very passionate about ideas surrounding the environment, change and progress and I was delighted that she made the decision to compose this piece and send it to me for the newsletter. Very well done Juah!
Our Year 12 Computer Science students have been on a trip [to the KIS server-room, but a trip nevertheless….!]. Read their accounts further on in this section. Some parts will definitely make you smile!
Mrs Margaret Renshaw
Head of Secondary / Deputy Principal
WHAT WE CAN DO AFTER COVID
Since Covid 19 is coming to an end we need to start thinking about what we can do to stop disrespecting the environment and animals.
When lockdown started nobody was able to go out and live a normal life, and that had a huge effect on the environment. For example, there were fewer cars on the road which meant that the amount of gas released into the atmosphere was decreasing. Additionally, the coral in the sea began to recover and flourish, which means that the sea animals are returning to their homes; this is happening because there were fewer tourists/people visiting the islands.
As this lockdown happened we saw and noticed the beneficial changes that were happening and although we didn’t plan for this to happen, it did, and we must look at the changes in the environment as a result. We need to remember these good changes in order to keep trying to reduce the amount of plastic, especially disposable materials and stop being greedy and relying too much on the environment and the poor animals.
Unfortunately, to this day, often for the sake of human entertainment, animals are still being locked up in small, cramped cages for humans to watch and film; these innocent animals do not want to perform but want to enjoy being free in their natural habitat.
We also need to start thinking about things that we shouldn’t take for granted. Students like us take almost everything for granted not knowing and understanding how tough things were many years ago. We have to start appreciating that we get to live with a roof over our heads. Jane Goodall, who is an English primatologist, once said in an interview that growing up she didn’t have as much freedom because World War 2 was taking place. Because of this she was very grateful and considered herself lucky when she got to eat during that horrible time. We might have not gone through World War 2 but we are in our own war with this virus. People are risking their lives and people are dying. This pandemic is like war to us.
Through this pandemic, we were able to learn and understand that freedom is really important to not just people but animals as well. Using this chance we can now take responsibility to protect the natural environment.
If you look at it in a positive way, the virus and this whole pandemic gave us a chance to protect the environment. All this time many people have told us to make a change but we didn’t listen but now this is the time we have to follow and take action to start making a change.
Once this virus ends (which I hope will be soon) there will be other new viruses that will be discovered and will take over sooner or later. But most of these viruses are from animals that have transferred that virus onto people. Animals get pushed into closer contact with humans as they lose their habitat and their homes get destroyed by people. We are the cause of all this.
From now on we have to start thinking about our choices and our actions, otherwise, we will be putting ourselves in more danger and trouble. As students, we need to start making small changes one step at a time to save our earth so that the future generations doesn’t have to experience what we are going through right now.
Juah Son 9S
COMPUTER SCIENCE REPORT
Report by Hanson Wong
My Computer Science class and I went to the server room which is located at the primary building on the first floor.
There we learnt about how servers work, how to maintain them, and so on….
Here are some of the questions that I asked Questions:
How often is the server updated? – Pretty much everyday
Where do you store the backups? – The backups are also stored in the server with the same files however only the staff’s files are backed up since if a student loses hours at work it’s not their fault.
Does a device have to be connected through LAN to be able to connect to the server? – No, any device can be connected to the server through LAN and Wifi.
If there’s a power cut what happens to the server? – There are batteries that are always charged and whenever the school has a power cut it can run the server for about 3 days.
If I download funny photos, is it saved on the server? – Yes, they do get saved into the server
Report by Courtney Thornton
Visiting the server room was an eye-opening experience. I learned more about how the technology works, and the behind the scenes of the computer system within KIS. Having the privilege to see the server room changed me, and allowed me now see the school from a different perspective. I was most interested in the thermal sensors, and if they would constantly send Mr Collin emails if I put them in my mouth, but I never got the chance to ask! That is the greatest regret I have in my life so far, and probably ever will have.
Mr Collins answered our many questions very eloquently and I understood the system thoroughly. Seeing the components and connections captivated me, and will now further aid me in my studies. Having the chance to see it in real life rather than a textbook enhanced my way of thinking.
I recommend any future ICT or Computer Science students to visit the server room with the same enthusiasm as our class did.
Our Special Trip by Ryan Chen
The visit to the server room was informative and eye-opening. I got a fundamentally deeper understanding of how servers worked, and more specifically, how data was stored in KIS. I felt like I was myself when I was in the server room, a rare phenomenon in this cold and cruel world that has turned me into a husk of the man I once was. Mr Collins’ thorough explanations of the machinery enhanced my comprehension of what they did, and even helped me further grasp the concepts taught in previous chapters of the computer science syllabus. Overall, this has been an interesting and educational experience, thank you Ms B and Mr Collins.
Report by Richie Ling
As you can see in the above pictures, my classmates and I were on a sort of trip to the server room for our Computer Science class. It’s all thanks to Miss Bernard and Mr Collins that set this time up for us to make this visit the school’s server. To begin with, little did I know that the school’s network took a lot of time to set up the LAN cables throughout the school’s ceilings. Mr Collins told us that the server has a capacity of about 6 terabytes that stores downloads from desktop to school laptops; all types of files can be stored. The server has a back-up power supply of large battery cells which can hold up to 3 days in a power cut situation. Normally, server rooms are supposed to have an air conditioning system running for 24 hours a day to maintain a room temperature of less than 16 degrees Celsius.
