From the Principal's Desk - 25 July 2011

25 July 2011

Dear Parents and Guardians

THE START OF THE SECOND SEMESTER (写在新学期开始的话)

Click here for Chinese Translation

A Fruitful First Semester

It has been a busy but very fruitful semester ever since the start of the school year in January.   Besides the excitement and jubilation over the release of the IB and IGCSE results, much has transpired in the months that followed.  

The launch of the HCIS Scholarships on Founders Day marked a new milestone in HCIS’ continued focus and emphasis on the academic and all-round development of the individual.  It was a revelation of sorts for many of our donors to discover the significant role that they could play in supporting the education of our children.   As a non-profit entity, our school is just as in need of financial support and donations as any other regular school.  

The school was abuzz with life and activity in the last semester with activities like Innofest, the Inter-school Debates, the Humanities Seminar, the Economics Forum and the Business Challenge. In fact there was no dearth of exciting events to challenge our students enthusiastically and imaginatively beyond classroom learning.  Our teachers were most impressed by the way our students stood their ground proudly and firmly against their peers from other schools. Often times, our students performed exceedingly well against older and more accomplished students as the case in the ACJC Model United Nations (ACMUN), the Hague International Model United Nations Competitions (THIMUN), and the ‘Singapore Poly Debate Open 2011’.  In the latter, our young team fearlessly competed and overcame competition from SJI and the Singapore Polytechnic. They finally lost to the team from ACJC.  

On the international front, our school continued to do very well in many competitions especially in the Chinese arena such as the 第十一届华人少年作文比赛 and the 第八届孔子杯比赛.   In May, it was most encouraging that our school was highly noted by the Cambridge Examination Syndicate for being Top in the World for the 2010 IGCSE Examinations for Mathematics.  Both Nikhil Choudhary and Sarah Too from the Secondary 4 class of 2010 received this top honours.  With this, including the award for Mandarin to Lam Aishyn for her performance in the May 2010 IGCSE Examinations, HCIS would have garnered three  Top in the World awards in 2010, bringing the total of such awards to five in our school’s short history.   

Furthermore, it was another feather in our cap when the result of the IGCSE Enterprise Competition was released recently. Elisabeth Fong from Sec 4 (Resilience) came in as the international champion from among 660 entries from 30 over countries. Jenna Lee also of Secondary 4 (Resilience) was also highly commended for coming in within the top 15 finalists worldwide.

All this goes to show the depth and breadth of the potential that lies hidden in our students.  We are confident that more will emerge to set new benchmarks for themselves and their peers.

Upcoming Events

As we commence a new semester, we are confident that it will be just as exciting as the previous one. For everybody in the school, the second semester brings the promise of a range of exciting programmes and activities: the Student Council Investiture (29 June), the International Friendship Day Celebrations (21 July), the Chinese Singing Competition (28 July), the Parent-Teacher Interaction for Secondary Four (29 July), the National Day Celebrations (8 August), the Mid-Autumn Festival Celebrations (31 August) and many more.  

Another initiative that we are excited about is the Internationalism Week/Sabbatical Week starting 10 November 2011 after the End-of-year Examinations.  During this  week, we intend to spread out an exciting range of overseas and local programmes to expose our students to a wide range of learning activities and experiences.  

For our Secondary 4 and Pre-University 2 students, the next two terms will be especially busy ones as they forge ahead with preparing for the IGCSE and IB Diploma examinations.  For them, the Preliminary Examinations will commence from 29 August 2011 into Term Four.   Going by the good news that we have received sporadically from our last batch of graduates on their admission to the various top universities such as Oxford University, Williams College, NUS, UNSW and many more similar tertiary institutions, we are confident that our current students, too, will be able to rise to the occasion to make us feel proud.

Finally, my teachers and I are acutely aware that our work is made much easier with the trust, understanding and support that you as parents have given the school.   We thank you for that and will continue to work with you closely to make the difference in the lives of your child.  

Thank you.

Koh Chin Nguang
Principal