Today is the end of term and the end of school for 2019. The Christmas period is upon us, and whether we individually recognise the religious season or not, it is impossible to escape the decorations, the loudspeakers playing Christmas songs, and of course the mountains of calories waiting to surface in January, so that when standing on the scales you ask ‘why?’....yet again. At least our condominium has been spared the inflatable snowmen this year…..

Hand phones in school

From next term we are introducing an ‘out of sight’ handphone policy.

Parents have received a letter explaining that students will not be allowed access to their phones during lunchtime and breaks, extending further our current restrictions on use in classes. The sixth form (years 12 and 13) may access their phones in the Sixth Form Centre.

Excessive attention to phones is antisocial; defaulting to phone browsing isolates students from others, and discourages conversation and social mixing. The primary reasons many students give for wanting to come to POWIIS is to improve their English, and to increase their confidence.

Parents are asked to support this policy, by not contacting their children during the school day. If there is an urgent need to contact them, a message can be relayed through the school reception number (04 - 868 9999).

This new arrangement reflects similar steps being taken in other prominent schools in Malaysia and around the world, and in some cases in legislation. We are not prohibiting phones in school, but they are not to be used during the school day. Students found to be accessing their phones will be cautioned initially; phones will not be confiscated, but students have been told how repeated events will be managed.

Students have been reminded they are to bring their laptops/tablets to school each day to access on-line resources and administration.

The school was also been reminded that filming of others without their express permission at any time, at school, on buses or anywhere associated with school activity, is also unacceptable under school policy. This extends to video watches and any recording devices, not just handphones, iPads etc.

So a busy and successful term draws to an end. We say farewell to Ms Laura Richardson who is relocating to Germany with her partner and his new role, and also to Ms Silvia Vuong who is leaving us to take up her new role as a full time mum!

I wish all a happy and joyful Christmas, surrounded by family and friends - the greatest gifts any of us can receive.

13 DECEMBER 2019ISSUE 72 WWW.POWIIS.EDU.MY

From the PrincipalMr Simon Leese

Click here for POWIIS Facebook page and website

Photo Gallery -Cross Country

https://www.facebook.com/prince.of.wales.island.international.school/http://www.powiis.edu.my/

THE PULSE | 13 DECEMBER 201902

The Year 11 GCSE Art students spent the day visiting art galleries and exploring George Town. Our students sketched from observation and took plenty of photographs with the intention of soaking up some creative inspiration for their forthcoming GCSE examination. We had the privilege of visiting Penang State Gallery, where students enjoyed a retrospective exhibition by the famous artist Cheah Yew Saik.

Year 11 GCSE Art TripMrs Farida Khan-Evans

Jocelyn Lee Shi Han from Year 10 was invited to compose an official theme song for PYDC ( Penang Youth Development Corporation) by the Penang State Government. PYDC provides opportunities in various areas to the youth of Penang, under the Youth and

Sports portfolio. The theme song titled ‘Youth For Future’; both music and lyrics were by Jocelyn. It was introduced at the launching ceremony of Youth For Future on the 23rd of November and will be played at all PYDC events.

‘Youth For Future’ by Jocelyn Lee Mr Ben Lim

Chinese New Year is fast approaching! From the beginning of next term, we will be holding a series of CNY themed activities, and most importantly, on January 20th, the POWIIS Temple Fair, a celebration of Chinese traditional arts, performance and handcrafts. Students are already preparing decorations and rehearsing for the upcoming event! (as is the Principal for his annual attempt at Mandarin!)

Chinese New Year CelebrationsMs Lufia Pang

THE PULSE | 13 DECEMBER 201903

Despite being the penultimate weekend of Term 1, a team of senior POWIIS students led by Megan Lim and Euan Wong organised the first POWIIS Debate Championship. Our inaugural Asian Parliamentary open debating tournament, was supported by our experienced Chief Adjudicator Albert Kamahlendra and his team of national level varsity debaters from Intertext. 23 teams from all over Malaysia (some coming as far as Negeri Sembilan) engaged in a keenly contested affair, involving a range of experience and ages. Three POWIIS teams participated and one of our teams consisting of Year 8 and 9 students, defeated a finalist team comprising of national high school

debating team representatives in round two, and were placed in the Top 10. Our congratulations to team “Chicken Milani”, an independent foundation year mixed team from Perak that won our inaugural final against team “Maryam, Meenachi and Mei Ling”, another independent team from the Klang Valley on a 7-2 ballot split, while a special mention goes to Afrina Dayana Chairil for winning the Best Speaker Trophy.

All in all, the participating teams were very pleased with the organisation as well as hospitality shown by our POWIIS student debating ambassadors who took care of their needs to the best of their ability. The

outcome is not what matters the most; it is the experience of challenging the limits of your ability and learning from it that counts. Well done to Megan, Euan and team, for establishing what will hopefully become a platform that will elevate the spirit of debating at POWIIS.

We look forward to see many of the participating schools soon in future debate tournaments, and we look forward to welcoming them again in our next debating championship as well as to future inter-school activities organised by POWIIS.

POWIIS Debate Championship 2019Mr Darren Lim

We had over 50 students take part in the Fobisia Maths online challenge. The competition was open to students in years 7 and 8. Between them we achieved 42 Bronze certificates, 20 Silver and 15 Gold. We had 10 students that will receive Platinum certificates for completing all three of the Bronze, Silver and Gold challenges.

Congratulations to all of our winners.Platinum winners are:Sue Hwang Year 7Agastya Mehra Year 7Yoshi Nakamura Year 7Jessica Rujirathumdumrong Year 7Sena Sakai Year 7Anna Sukkerd Year 7Wan Shuen Teo Year 7Shelly Zhou Year 7Bruce Hu Year 8Stenson Khoo Year 8

FOBISIA MathsMr Martin Clarke

THE PULSE | 13 DECEMBER 201904

On Tuesday 3rd December each House’s best three bakers assembled to compete in a battle of biscuit bakery. Each House team had to produce a display of 15 iced biscuits.

Tensions were high as our judges, French patisserie chefs from The Alliance Francaise, Penang, visited POWIIS on Wednesday to judge the bakes. Results were close but huge congratulations and well done to Cornwall students: Rawin Sonpongchaiyakul, Nattakan Kanchanamethakul and Joshua Lloyd for their winning biscuit display.

Not to leave all the baking fun for the students, POWIIS staff competed in our annual Christmas Bake Off on Wednesday 4th December. We had 11 amazing entries from traditional German Christmas cookies to chocolate cake to cranberry and white chocolate cake. French patisseries chefs from The Alliance Francaise, Penang came along to judge all the christmassy baked goodies. And POWIIS’s best baker is ... Ms. Khalifah Bennett with her delicious spiced apple cake decorated with a festive fondant Santa. A big thank you to all the POWIIS staff who took part in the Bake Off this year!

Today the top two teams of bakers headed off to The Alliance Francaise in Georgetown for a master class in patisserie from a French pastry chef.

Students learnt to make profiteroles with homemade creme patisserie and all had a delicious box of bakes to take away with them. Well done bakers!

At lunch time on Wednesday 4th December, POWIIS staff and students were treated to a grand bake sale. All of the mouth-watering bakes from the POWIIS Teacher Christmas Bake Off and from the POWIIS Inter-House Bake Off were sold with proceeds going towards the great charity work that our Humanitarian Society do. A wonderful 1435RM was raised for charity and everyone enjoyed some delicious treats.

The Great POWIIS Teacher Christmas Bake OffMs Suzie Allen

The Great POWIIS Inter-House Bake Off Winners’ TripMs Suzie Allen

The Great POWIIS Bake Off Cake SaleMs Suzie Allen

The Great POWIIS Inter-House Bake OffMs Suzie Allen

THE PULSE | 13 DECEMBER 201905

POWIIS Inter House Cross Country event 2019Mr Matthew Deegan

JSLA Sports Leaders at the Primary Schools Sports WeekendMr Matthew DeeganThe annual whole school event returned to the

POWIIS campus this year with a new format to include as many pupils as possible in a series of fun runs and races. All students were able to take part in a 1.2km fun run around the school and back onto the front field to score a point for their house. Then, individual races were held to give runners a chance to battle it out for bonus points and winners/runners up

medals for each year group. Finally, a House XC relay – 2 boys/2 girls from each house - was held to win the last bonus points on offer before finding out which house had scored the most over the afternoon. Well done to all staff and students for a fun afternoon and lots of effort - congratulations to RUTLAND who took the overall XC winners’ title!

Our Year 10 and Year 11 Junior Sports Leaders were invited to help officiate at the recent Primary Games at Penang Sports Club for the Athletics and Football competitions. There, POWIIS students did a great job and represented the school brilliantly – helping the staff and primary pupils at the various events.

Last weekend, POWIIS U15 boys football team played a friendly game against Bukit Gelugor Sports Club. The boys played very well throughout the game showcasing some

excellent attacking football. After dominating the game they secured a comfortable 5-1 victory. Well done to all involved!

POWIIS U15 Boys Football TeamMr Matthew Eccles

THE PULSE | 13 DECEMBER 201906

Breakers Cup Tournament in Phuket 2019Mr Matthew Peak

U13 & U15 Girls Netball Trip – SingaporeMrs Kellyann Dave-Coulson

This past week the Girls Basketball team travelled to Phuket to take part in the 2019 Breakers Cup Tournament held at British International School Phuket. The girls faced an uphill challenge as they were taking part in a 19 and Under tournament, facing off against teams much taller as well as three to four years older than themselves. In their first game they were up against last year’s winners American School Bangkok; most of the girls from ASB were over six feet tall with our tallest just five feet five!!! After a strong start by ASB our girls were able to gather themselves and

play a competitive match. After one of the hardest matches they have had, up came another challenge, facing 2017 winners of the tournament British International School Phuket. The girls played well, however came up short in a closely fought match losing their second game by a few points. The girls started to see that they could play with the older girls and came out on fire in their third game against Nexus, winning by 35 points. On the second day of play the girls started the day with a match against IGB KL, but once again they were outsized. With hard work and great

teamwork, the girls won by 27 points putting them in the Winners’ Cup finals. In their finals the girls came out strong building a small lead, but after suffering an injury the team were unable to hold off British School Manila losing by four points. The girls showed that they are truly a special group of young ladies with outstanding talent on and off the court. They were praised for their sportsmanship and talent, showing the POWIIS Pride! The girls would also like to thank those parents who attended the matches; it was wonderful to have your support so far from home!!

Well done to our girls teams who travelled to Singapore to take part in the annual FOBISIA Netball tournament. There they met some tough opposition from some of the biggest schools in SE Asia and gained some valuable experience in their netball development, which I know will help them next term. Many thanks to Mrs Davey-Coulson and Mrs Park for taking the girls and making sure they had such a great time!

Tip off against a much bigger opponent, this was one of the smallest teams they played.

Ziyi on the move with the girls coming in for support

Zijun, the heart and sole of our team! Once again outsized but not outplayed!

Dinner by the pool, nothing beats a pizza!

Team and Parents

Match against BIS, this is where they figured out they can play against anyone! Zining on the move.

THE PULSE | 13 DECEMBER 201907

The year 11 IGCSE drama students performed an extract from the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Simon Stephens. One of the groups also showcased in the final TLP of the year.

The ten drama students have had to study the contextual themes and issues of the play in order to achieve the practical realisation of their characters in performance. They have had to interpret their roles and portray them in a physical theatre styled performance, which was highly effective. Students displayed various dramatic skills

from extremely clear vocal articulation and confident projection, powerful physicality and a commanding use of the performance space with effective pacing and well-differentiated levels of emotional intensity. The overall performance pieces were consistently engaging and had an excellent rapport with the audience.

Well done to year 11 drama students on completing all elements of their IGCSE Drama coursework; the next step is working towards their 2.5 hour written exam!

IGCSE Drama and Last TLPMr Dylan Boyd

Sena Sakai (Year 7) participated in another tennis championship, this time in Selangor, near Kuala Lumpur between the 23rd and 27th November and despite being in the hardest draw, she WON!!!!

This means she is the Champion of Malaysia for under 12 girls and Mrs Park is as proud as ever.

Great job Sena!

Tennis Championship: Sena SakaiMrs Ruth Park

Students below have participated in the 38th national inter-club swimming championships for the President Cup 2019 on the 22nd - 24th November 2019 at Pusat Akuatik Darul Ehsan in Shah Alam, Selangor. Debbie Low Yi Xuan

Daniel Taylor

Peace Lee Pei Sze

Aiden Lee Hao Keane

Jeselyn Pang Jia Xuan Quincylla Mohamad Firdaus Visavanathan achieved the bronze medal in girls 11 -12 -50 LC Metre Breakstroke event. Well done!

National Inter-club Swimming Championships

THE PULSE | 13 DECEMBER 201908

Important Dates forDecember 2019 & January 2020

14th Dec 2019 Christmas Holiday

6th Jan 2020 Term 2 Begins

13th - 17th Jan 2020 Year 11 Mock Exam Week

14th Jan 2020 Senior Boys Basketball & U15 Boys & Girls Football @ UPS vs Uplands & GEMS

18th Jan 2020 PSAC Senior Boys & Girls (GEMS) Basketball Tournament

20th Jan 2020 Chinese New Year Celebration

24th - 27th Jan 2020 Half Term Break

31st Jan 2020 PSAC Girls Basketball @ Uplands

31st Jan 2020 Entrance Assessment Day

Click here for full school calendar

Entrance assessments are still possible by special arrangement and subject to available spaces. Please mention to friends and contacts who may wish to be included. Contact Michelle Goh at admissions@powiis.edu.my

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