Head of School Blog

Jan 04
2022

Christmas Assembly and Awards Ceremony Address

High on any list of the unhelpful things that people say about school must surely be the comment that the purpose of school is to prepare students for real life. This gives a fatally false impression and misunderstands the way that human development works. School doesn’t prepare you for ‘real...

Nov 10
2021

Why not 50+1?

In September 2015, ICHK Secondary adopted the 5+1 Model. As its name suggests, 5+1 is a way of conceptually modelling students in order to support them better as learners in the school environment. Again, as the name suggests, it has five core parts, plus one additional component. The five parts...

Jun 27
2021

End of Year Assembly and Awards Ceremony Address

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate everyone in the ICHK community for having made it through to the end of term 3 and the end of the year. It has been an extraordinary 12 months and, I am confident in saying, a year that we’ll all be very pleased to see the back

Jun 17
2021

Graduation Assembly: Head of School's Address

Congratulations to the graduating class of 2021. For students to have reached this point in their learning journey is always worthy of celebration – in case you haven’t noticed, you have left school! Yes, that’s it, you’re no longer school children; one phase of life is over – and another phase...

May 17
2021

Learning through observation and pitching in

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the power of habit in our lives, and the difficulty we face in trying to change habits once they have become firmly embedded in thought and action. Picking up good habits and dropping bad ones should be one of our principal aims in life, because, by definition,

Mar 26
2021

Easter Assembly Address

Last week I was chatting with a friend about a job interview he had recently been through after applying for a senior position at an international school in eastern Europe. For some employers, job interviews are subject to a kind of arms race, as they think up novel ways to unsettle candidates in...

Mar 01
2021

Energy: the essential component of any truly successful learning experience

I have found myself in several conversations recently with teachers, parents and students, reflecting on what exactly is missing from children’s lives during this period of disruption, including its repercussions for on-campus learning. Several themes reliably come up: structure, routine,...

Dec 11
2020

End of Term Assembly: Head of School's Address

A very good morning to you all – and welcome to this final assembly of Term 1, on the last school day of 2020. What a year it has been. How could I possibly bring the term to a close and speak to you about anything other than the virus-shaped elephant in the room: our