The End-of-Term Whirlwind
The End-of-Term Whirlwind
Monday, 26 May 2008
The final week of any academic year in any school is always a hectic time. At LPCUWC, I think we usually manage to compress about three weeks worth of realistic busy-ness into our final week, and during this past week I think we may have been stretching towards three and a half. The metaphor of a ‘whirlwind’ springs to mind.
I am mentioning the ToK events because on that same day, we welcomed a delegation of six educators from Indonesia who had timed their visit to coincide with the ToK Day. The visitors were led by Eddy Henry, who is a member of the UWC International Board and a member of the UWC Indonesian National Committee. Eddy also serves as Director of Programs and Alumni Affairs of the Sampoerna Foundation, which has recently launched a program called United Schools International (USI). The program requires a partnership between local (municipal) governments, which will provide assistance to selected state-owned upper secondary school (grade 10-12) in the municipality, to help the school provide an international quality education. The Sampoerna Foundation had selected three schools to be in a pilot program this year, and representatives of these schools came to LPCUWC on Monday to learn from our experiences.
On Tuesday, the 1st Year students conducted a Day of Reflection to begin planning the changes they would like to make to the new academic year when they return in August. The day included an extremely useful College Meeting, to which teachers and 2nd Year students (who were not doing IB exams at the time) were invited in which the new overnight procedures for next year were outlined and discussed, followed by a wide-ranging discussion on College Rules – their history and evolution, and their adequacy and effectiveness.
Wednesday afternoon did finish in a very pleasant manner, however, when I attended the Exhibition of 1st Year Art in the Visual Arts Centre. Suffice to say that I was VERY impressed by the creativity and passion shown in the work on display. After dinner in the canteen (our last canteen meal for the year that included ice cream), Di and I hosted a most enjoyable tutor group supper at our home, providing a great occasion for us all to reflect on aspects of the year, talk excitedly about plans for summer, and for the 2nd Year students to bid a fond farewell to their good friend, the chocolate fountain.
Much of my time on Thursday and Friday was spent preparing a report for the LPCUWC Board meeting that will be held next Wednesday. In reality, I was multi-taking, as the one-on-one meetings with teachers were continuing, the correspondence with National Committees was continuing, and the report writing was continuing. The Board has scheduled an extra meeting next week to approve some matters that are needed for us to begin construction on our new auditorium in October, as well as finalise a few other outstanding matters.
On Friday morning I managed to complete my Board Report (having stayed up late very late on Thursday night to complete by ToK class reports and my tutor group reports). I then caught up individually with a few 1st Year students whose reports were causing me some concern because of low effort grades and/or achievement, before catching up with Rudolf Lai, a 1st Year student who has agreed to co-ordinate a team of students under the name “LPC Netorial” to redesign and maintain the College website. The work is proceeding extremely well, and I am confident the new College website, under Rudolf’s guidance, will be ready for a public launch in late June or early July.
Late on Friday morning, I worked with Jenny (my secretary) to finalise the offers of places for Hong Kong applicants to enter LPCUWC in September 2008. The offers to Hong Kong applicants to enter overseas UWCs were finalised a few weeks ago, but as the levels of scholarship assistance offered to students at LPCUWC are means-tested, it is not possible to make the offers until early June, i.e. after the most recent financial data has been confirmed by government authorities. Now that Jenny and I have confirmed the names in the first round of offers, our administrative staff can calculate the level of scholarship assistance we are able to offer to each, and once this is done, the letters of offer can be sent. Provided there are no unanticipated delays, I am hoping that the letters of offer will be posted during the first week of June.
Unfortunately, some unanticipated urgent correspondence with a couple of National Committees prevented my attendance at the Heads of House end-of-term drinks, although Di managed to get there and thoroughly enjoyed the occasion. I did make it to dinner in the canteen, however, and to the 1st Year show that followed in the Courtyard. The 1st Year show is an annual event at the College in which the 1st Year students farewell the 2nd students by imitating them in a series of performances. It is usually held on the night of the final IB exam, which had been completed that morning - Geography being the last exam for our students this year). The quality of the imitations is shown by the fact that we very seldom ever have to ask to ask someone near us who is being imitated – it is usually extremely clear!
Saturday evening was the time scheduled for the 2nd Year students’ Graduation Dinner. Because of the hectic nature of the week, I had still not written my speech for the dinner, so most of the afternoon was spent doing that – in between helping Di with some lesson preparation of her own that she needed by this morning. The speech writing was interrupted at 4:00 pm when I was scheduled to do my share of supervising with room clearances, which is the process of clearing out rooms prior to departures. I was allocated to Block 4 where, coincidentally, the deadline for completing the process was 4:00 pm. Perhaps not unexpectedly, there were a few students still (I wish I could frantically) trying to finish their clearances.
Buses left for the graduation dinner from the Front Roundabout at 6:00 pm, and having put the finishing touches to my speech, Di and I managed to reach the roundabout with about 10 minutes to spare. This was because the last bus left about 11 minutes late.
The graduation dinner was held a new (for us) venue, the Royal Hong Kong Hotel in Causeway Bay. It was a great evening and a fitting tribute to our outstanding group of 2nd Year students, an amazing group that we will all miss very much. The Masters of Ceremonies were Angad (from India) and Libbe (from New Zealand), and in addition to John Green’s very fine address on behalf of the staff, excellent speeches were given by Anna (from Italy) and Chishio (from Japan), the latter being one of the most intense, emotional, mature, positive and honest speeches I have ever experienced from a student.
After this very moving ceremony, co-ordinated very professionally by Trevor (thank you!), we adjourned at about 8:00 pm to the canteen for our formal end-of-year dinner, magnificently catered and served by Raymond and his team from Sodexho. Well-fed and happy, we then moved to the Courtyard at about 9:30 pm for two hours of musical presentations and performances to conclude the year.
Well – that is actually not quite right. The year has closed for our students, most of whom will depart tomorrow in a sea of tears, hugs, laughter and protracted farewells. For the staff, we have a final staff meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning, followed by an afternoon tea in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Then for my own schedule, I have a Board meeting planned for Wednesday, and several more one-on-one meetings with staff. And yet, the pace of the coming week could not possibly be anything like the wonderful but exhausting whirlwind we have experienced over the past seven days!
This week’s blog has been quite long, but that is probably necessary to reflect the kind of week we have all shared in the College. It probably helps you to appreciate why I was not able to upload this week’s blog quite as early as usual. So, to relax and unwind from the long read, please enjoy two short extracts from Thursday’s music concert in our home by clicking the links below. The first extract is from Eric Pun’s (Hong Kong) piano performance of “”Liebetraum” by Liszt. The second extract is the song “All I Ask of You” from Phantom of the Opera, performed by Daniel Holy (Czech Republic) and Nathalie Lidman (Sweden), accompanied by Damian Priamurskiy (Russia) on the piano.
The graduating students who visited North Korea during their time at LPCUWC are still practising their “statue wave”