GSIS and Ma On Shan

[Jonathanmommy]

Pokfulam / Wanchai locations

Hi Genome,

It seems like you have been following on the development of this whole relocation and decanting school business.

As a prospective parent (my older child will be interviewing for K1 this coming year and I also have a younger child who is turning 1 year old) I am curious to know what is going to happen with the Pokfulam and Wanchai locations.

I heard the Pokfulam location (which is supposed to be the permanent Kindergarten location) is not very nice and is currently being used by another school as a decanter campus. Have you seen it? It is sort of useless for us to go visit the Peak campus now, if our children will be going to the Pokfulam campus for kindergarten and then lower primary in Wanchai until 2016. Then I heard the location of the Wanchai campus is even worse.

How is the school going to manage 3 campuses? How will the resources be allocated? Will the teacher support / computer and library resources be spread too thin?

While the ambitious project of upgrading the Peak campus is great, it could mean the school offering to the incoming students in the kindergarten and lower primary session be hugely compromised. As a prospective parent, it could mean HKIS or CIS will be a much better choice?

I am really eager to hear your opinion on this. Thanks.

 

[zeus1]

Talk about reelecting people what I would like to know and which I have not seen is when or how does the Principal Mr Green get elected in to his position does he need to change to?

 

[genome]

Blee have seen your message and promise will get back with my points of view.

On a side note thins Zeus has raised an interestin question re the principal does anyone know how that works? Is he elected, reapointed and how is this done with what consultation? or do parents have no choice? Would love to find out.

 

[Tabby]

Mr Foehn needs to be replaced! After all he is the one who brought GSIS into this miserable situation of not enough space over the last ten years with not enough forward planning, not getting the new annex approved through his incompetence and ignorance and all its consequences and debacles we as a community had to suffer from!

 

[genome]

Tabby I tend to agree with you.
I think what is needed is to take a look at who was responsible for the buildig planning and they should be replaced and my understanding it is Mr Foehn. After all the issues with campus development and the way it was handled in the last year caused the largest split in the schools history! We cannot have the same situation as last year it is time for change.
It is time for new people with a fresh approach who can get things done. I know some of you out there will say lets keep the status quo, steady hands, dont rock the boat and all that but sorry the status quo is mediocre to say the least. We actually have nothing to lose with change.

 

[genome]

"Oh where oh where is the rainmaker"

 

[genome]

The time for change has been and gone and the parents have chosen. Lets hope that the board takes note of the voice of the parents over the last year and takes this in to account when making decisions in that they must now come to realize that they are not alone in deciding what is best for the school. I hope that together we can make GSIS a place where parents are proud to send their children and to put our past differences behind us.

 

[Alexander]

The time for change has been and gone and the parents have chosen. Lets hope that the board takes note of the voice of the parents over the last year and takes this in to account when making decisions in that they must now come to realize that they are not alone in deciding what is best for the school. I hope that together we can make GSIS a place where parents are proud to send their children and to put our past differences behind us.

Reading your post one would think that a new Board has been installed.

But in fact the old Board has been voted in with very high votes! No one from the old Board was removed. A vacancy which the old Board did not have any candidate to fill went to Desire Jebsen who had the lowest number of votes, only about 1/3 of the votes of the highest scorer Martina Beck and about half of the others who had roughly the same number of votes, like Marco Foehn.

So what is the message? Must be that it is clear that the majority of the parents want the same board and do want the others.

It is right that everyone should put the past differences behind them and move forward.

 

[martina.hornung]

'Election' of the GSIS Principal

Talk about reelecting people what I would like to know and which I have not seen is when or how does the Principal Mr Green get elected in to his position does he need to change to?

I hope I can bring some light to that. There is actually no formal 'election' process and parents have no say at all. Whenever there is a vacancy in a German foreign school abroad it is the 'Zentralstelle f?r Auslandsschulwesen - ZfA' (Central agency for German foreign schools abroad) who is going to fill it. The procedure to my knowledge works as follows. Interested principals may apply to the ZfA, the ZfA then selects three candidates which are proposed to the school. The School Board takes the final decision. Maybe interesting to note, the Board just before this years AGM took place, prolonged Mr. Greens contract another 2 years (until 2012) which is then the maximum of 6 years possible.

 

[genome]

Guess change is not something school really likes same board same principal. Oh well...........................