Enrichment Activities
Music
Music plays a very important part of life at HIKSVS International School. We strive for excellence in every aspect of music-making. The music curriculum is based on the three core strands of technical, academic and artistic proficiency in music.
As an academic subject it is taught to all classes by qualified specialist music teachers and individual instrumental lessons are offered for those wishing to develop their skills further. Pupils use music technology from an early age to develop their understanding of music theory and this includes the use of ICT to explore compositional techniques. Each term we hold formal and informal concerts and shows, and music plays a major part in festive celebrations throughout the School.
Sport
Ever mindful that enjoyment is a key factor in children’s participation in Sports, staff in the department strive to instil the foundations of a life-long love of exercise and sport. We strongly promote and endorse the English public school tradition of developing ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’. It is important that our pupils benefit not just physically, but that they have opportunities to develop team work, decision making and social skills; attributes that are not always developed in the classroom.
To that end, we run as many teams as possible across a wide variety of sports, so as to offer all pupils the opportunity to represent their school, whilst also promoting excellence for local, regional or even national honours. We offer a core of traditional British sports as well as sports popular in China, and a range of other minority sports.
Spirited internal House Competitions in all the major sports foster friendly rivalry, whilst offering a supportive arena for all pupils to contribute, whatever their level of ability. In the future, we will be participating in a number of tournaments and events in which both local and regional schools are invited to compete.
Sutton Valence School, our partner in the UK, has a strong sporting tradition and we will build on this and emulate it. Sutton Valence has developed athletes of international calibre, producing numerous Olympians and professional sportsmen. In 2016, Sutton Valence celebrated its first Olympic Gold medallist, Susannah Townsend, who was part of the winning women’s hockey team
Activities
We believe that membership of our many activities links to the happiness and success of our children both now, and in the future. So why do we place so much importance on enrichment activities?
Firstly, participating in these activities instils in children a sense of belonging and unity. Many activities promote teamwork, sportsmanship and communication skills and this in turn leads to increased self-confidence and self-esteem. Secondly, many activities promote a healthy lifestyle. We offer a wide range of activities that sport, dance, chess, care of the environment, and many, many more including gardening and cookery clubs. If children adopt a healthy lifestyle at a young age, this tends to follow them throughout their lives. Thirdly, being a part of an activity encourages children to express themselves in a creative way. And finally, our wide and varied activity programme encourages our children to enrich their lives, both now and in the future, by exploring interests outside the normal school curriculum. Discovering early on a passion and talent for cookery or golf, for example, may very well lead to a life-long interest, or even career, in a field that may very easily have been missed. It is through this programme that we can identify particular talents and abilities, and nurture them to excellence.
Art
We believe that Art is of fundamental importance, not only in developing self-expression, but also in increasing confidence and awareness of the world around us. Society needs and values more than just academic abilities and children and young people have much to offer. The arts exemplify some of these other capabilities, those of intuition, creativity, sensibility and combines them with important practical skills. We maintain that an education including these higher-order skills is crucial for all children in helping them to grow as intelligent, feeling and capable individuals.
One of our main aims at HIKSVS International is to offer our pupils a rich, broad-based developmental pattern of education taking fully into account the individual pupil’s ability. We have a deep respect for the child’s own thinking and contribution. The Art curriculum is designed so that progression can take place whilst past knowledge is enhanced, and includes enrichment activities.
Trips
Learning outside the classroom is just as important as learning within the classroom. Students get more from their education if their experiences are active ones. Educational visits are a vital component of the Total Curriculum at the School, and all students have the opportunity to enrich and embed their understanding and learning beyond the classroom.
Most of our trips are educational visits that link with the academic curriculum. However, many are enrichment trips linked with specific areas such as Sport, Music, Drama and Leadership. Exposure to extraordinary opportunities help to develop our pupils into balanced, interesting human beings displaying self-confidence without arrogance: individuals ready to take their places as leaders and contributors in society.
Drama
Drama at HIKSVS International is a highly-valued part of our curriculum. Through drama we can rehearse important life skills: speaking and listening; creative thinking; expressing emotions and developing interpersonal skills. We teach Drama skills and the theory, we look at theatre through history, practitioners, classical and modern plays.
Children develop confidence and combine many skills through putting on a performance to an audience, gaining a huge sense of achievement from working together to produce outstanding results on stage.
We also like to give the children opportunities to experience the theatre and we have regular trips, as well as having theatre companies perform for us at school.
* As the school continues to grow, all above listed activities will take place, though some of them might be currently unavailable due to numbers and time of the year.