Head of Secondary Message, Term 3, Week 3 2026

Congratulations to Year 12 students who today completed their trial and mock examinations. In many ways, this exam block is even more daunting than final exams, as it’s packed into a hectic eight-day period rather than four weeks. The trials are an invaluable opportunity to develop all-important “match fitness” two months out from finals, and the students stepped up to the challenge with admirable focus and determination. The cohort returns to normal classes on Monday, with their final six weeks of secondary school ahead of them, including the highly anticipated Senior Formal on 28 August.

The smooth running of exams wouldn’t be possible without the superb efforts of our Examinations Supervisor, Fenny Chau, and her wonderful team of exam invigilators. A sincere thank you to Fenny and her team. The invigilators consist of parents and community members who are employed on a causal basis. If you are interested in working with us in this capacity, please reach out to employment@aishk.edu.hk as we start to prepare for this year’s final exams in October. Role descriptions and further details are available on request.

By now, all Year 7 and 9 parents should have received their child’s 2026 NAPLAN results. Once again, AISHK performed extremely well in the tests, with strong average scores well above national averages in the key areas of reading, writing, language conventions and numeracy. In particular, AISHK’s scores in the reading and numeracy tests were very pleasing. While NAPLAN offers a snapshot of your child’s skills in key areas, benchmarked against Australian averages, it is not part of AISHK’s school grading or reporting and is used primarily as a data reference point.

As ever, it was lovely to catch up with so many families from Years 7 to 10 at the recent parent-student-teacher conferences. While these evenings are a golden opportunity for students and parents to receive feedback on their academic progress and areas for growth, they are also a time for our secondary community to gather after the summer holidays and build connections. If you were unable to attend in person this year, please reach out directly to your child’s teacher to request a call or meeting.

One question that came up often during interviews was AI and its effect on education. AISHK has established two staff focus groups in Primary and Secondary, tasked with exploring how AI can be used thoughtfully and effectively to support teaching and learning, while also considering boundaries, challenges, and responsibilities. AI has forced teachers everywhere to rethink approaches to assessment, and from this term, we will be publishing clear guidelines and expectations for AI in Secondary assessment task notifications. While AI offers benefit to all our lives, students must be taught how and when to use it safely and appropriately, with academic integrity at the heart of all their work.

As we move further into term 3, another important aspect of the home-school partnership is offering visibility to parents of Secondary assessment tasks and assignments. Please be reminded of the ‘Summative Assessment’ module on iSAMS, which was launched last term. As tasks and assignments are issued in coming weeks, the platform will show task sheets and test notifications for your child so that you can support their studies at home.

While it has been a week of extreme heat, the rain is never far away at this time of year in Hong Kong, as we saw this morning. Should there be any school days cancelled due to adverse weather, we will continue to offer our blended Secondary model of online learning. This involves asynchronous work and activities posted on Teams classrooms in the morning, as well as live video check-ins that follow the regular secondary timetable.

Finally, a very warm welcome to Mr Paul Allams, who has joined our English department this term while also teaching Drama. Mr Allams has quickly forged positive relationships with his classes and we look forward to his contributions to AISHK.

Wishing all secondary families a fun and fabulous weekend!