5 Oct 2018

Message from the Principal

This week, I had the pleasure of attending a ‘Learning Journey’ celebration of student work at ESF Clear Water Bay School (CWBS). It was great to go with my ‘parent hat’ on and celebrate the work of my daughter and the other Year 4 CWBS students. I was impressed with the quality of the work, the engagement and passion of the students and the excellent teaching.

As a majority of the students at CWBS transition to KGV School for Year 7, it was specially exciting to think these passionate ‘little people’ will be joining KGV School in August 2021!  We will continue to work closely with our partner ESF primary schools to deepen and strengthen this transition work.

What else stood out for me was the obvious alignment in our curriculum between our schools, essentially provided by implementing the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculums. The IB offers a continuum of international education, where programmes encourage both personal and academic achievement, challenging students to excel in their studies and in their personal development. Seeing the depth of reflection and profound thinking through an inquiry process evident in all our ESF primary schools, provides all our students with a strong learning platform to continue this personal development and academic growth through KGV School and beyond.

As we develop our IB Middle Years Programme (now in our second year of implementation), we will see even greater alignment between KGV School and our partner schools Kowloon Junior School, CWBS and Beacon Hill School.

I think having a consistent curriculum framework across our schools is why our students are able to achieve to such high levels throughout the learning journey from kindergarten to Year 13. A remarkable 25% of our recent graduating students achieved an IB Diploma score of 40 or more (max 45), compared to the world average of 8%. Hard work and student talent fundamentally drive these outcomes. Passionate teachers, supportive parents and an effective and aligned curriculum framework take student achievement and success to a completely new level.

Due to the comprehensive nature of the IB programme, our students completing the BTEC applied learning curriculum (non-IB) in Year 12 and 13 also achieved outstanding results. The Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS) learning component of the IB programme also builds a sense of social responsibility, community mindedness and balance to the curriculum and extra-curricular experiences for our students.

I think we all should have great confidence in our school system, our teachers, and the future for our students. They are all on an exciting learning journey that begins in kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and then to an exciting phase when they are accepted into some of the best universities around the world. The fact that over 99% of our graduating Year 13 class attend university or tertiary study is an incredible achievement – something we should always celebrate and acknowledge as a community.

It takes a whole community to journey a child from ‘crayon to college’, and I think we all do a remarkably good job!

Kind regards

Mark Blackshaw
Principal
King George V