August - September 2015

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92 Aug-Sep15
LIFE&FAMILY
Close to Home
Victoria Shanghai Academy offers students
the opportunity to learn more about Chinese
culture, through both their curriculum and first-
hand experiences.
Children in Hong Kong are exposed to so many wonderful
experiences and really have so many advantages in terms
of tolerance and a better understanding of the wider world.
However, many students struggle with finding their own
cultural identity. In multicultural international schools, their
own culture can sometimes get lost.
At Victoria Shanghai Academy, Chinese heritage and
culture have been integrated into everything that they do.
Janet Au-Yeung, Deputy Secondary Principal, says, “The
aim is to help students’ awareness of their own cultural
identity, as well as to cultivate a love for the motherland.”
From singing the national anthem and school song at
assemblies, to celebrating Chinese festivals, and studying
Chinese history, music, arts and traditional characters, the
students are immersed in Chinese culture, both formally
and informally throughout the school year.
In the secondary years, the students have an opportunity
to participate in CAS trips (Creativity, Activity, Service), an
integral part of the IBprogramme. These trips allow students
to take what they have learned in the classroom and
practice it in the community. They are given a wide range
of destinations to choose from, but they are encouraged to
visit China at least once before they graduate. Last year, a
group travelled to Xi’an, and taught English to local primary
school students there.
These trips, combined with the constant exposure to
Chinese culture within the school, give the students a real
sense of pride in the Chinese heritage, and a better sense
of what it means to be a part of that.
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Many aspects of schooling in
Hong Kong can be confusing,
least of all the admissions
process. We asked RUTH
BENNY of Top Schools to
clarify a few of the main issues.
3 Common
Misunderstandings
#1 Waitlists & waitpools
Many parents talk of the dreaded waitlist. Yet waitlists are
not actually as scary as the talk of waitlists.
For most schools, a waitlist doesn’t exist until the first
round of interviews has been completed for entry level. The
three possible outcomes from an interview are: accepted,
waitlisted and rejected. For students not even interviewed,
they are not waitlisted. Their application is simply “rolled
over” to the following year.
A minority of schools do operate a waitlist with strict(ish)
sequencing but, increasingly, the waitpool is taking over.
In our opinion, a waitpool makes more sense. A school
operating a waitpool will collect all applications during a
prescribed period before interviews are scheduled. By
some non-scientific method that takes a variety of factors
into account, applicants will be selected to be invited to
interview. Factors considered include:
• an applicant’s English-language proficiency (and that
of the parents)
• nationality
• gender
• race/ethnicity
• month of birth
The idea is to create diverse classes of suitable children.
Essentially, all international schools are striving for this,
except that their definition of “suitable” differs.
So, the dreaded waitlist is mostly applicable to late
applicants. If you’re not late, you needn’t worry too much
about waitlists and waitpools.