Recipient of Chairman’s Award for Excellence 2020

Chi Zhau Han – Recipient of Chairman’s Award for Excellence 2020

I am Chi Zhau Han, a graduate of the Class of 2020, and I obtained nine (9) A* in my GCE O-Level and IGCSE exam. This achievement was definitely unattainable alone. Besides my own effort, it also belongs to many people who have supported me. Therefore I must sincerely thank my parents for the time they spent sending me to school every day, their financial support and emotional support when I faced troubles.

I also would like to thank my friends for accompanying me throughout my entire high school life giving me smiles, unimaginable new experiences and help in my personal growth. The experienced teachers undoubtedly played an important role in my results as they patiently and skillfully taught me and genuinely wanted me to improve. It was unbelievable that my add math result went from a C to an A*. I am glad that AISS gave me the opportunity to meet with these amazing people and provided me with a colorful high school life.

It was an unconventional and special experience studying at AISS. I have been through its transition from a learning center to an international school. I liked the classes. There was once, quite interestingly, in accounting class when we sold candies and pizzas and applied accounting in real life. I am glad to have classes with many patient teachers that can bear with many of my questions. Also when the coronavirus pandemic struck, we started online learning. I felt that the school was fast to adapt to the change and I enjoyed the online classes well especially the ‘Kahoot” sessions, where it was somewhat a combination of games and learning, creating a lot of fun to learn. One of the things that surprised me was the online sports day. Our students were able to continue doing sports despite being at home.

I wanted to reduce my parents’ burden when I got into college. An additional A would bring significant benefit to my scholarship. This gave me the drive to study hard to reduce my parents’ expenses on my tuition fees. Friends definitely helped with studying. We set up a study group to support each other every night. Group study was effective because if we lost concentration or were distracted, we can remind each other to focus on our work. Sometimes there is healthy competition. One of the ways is that the person with the lower score would need to treat the person with the higher score bubble tea. After we finished the quota of the day we would chit-chat and relax afterwards. Trial exams test my own limits. Achieving better grades than the last exams also gives me motivation. It gave me satisfaction and proved that my hard work paid off.

During Year 11 in AISS, we had to go through many trial exams organized by the school. This forced us, students, to be preparing for exams continually until IGCSE. I have been preparing by creating my own notes, completing many past year papers and referring to the marking scheme to improve my answering techniques. Besides that, watching Youtube to study also helped to gain extra knowledge outside the syllabus which was sometimes helpful with solving very tricky questions.

I think there are two main events that really developed me to become a better person: our Graduation & Performance Day 2019 drama and Sports Day 2020. For the Journey to the West drama, I was responsible as a narrator. Initially, I didn’t take it seriously. However, seeing everyone else giving it their all, influenced me to give it my all and this teaches me that I should treat every task seriously. I’ve learnt leadership skills during my last sports day in school. As vice-captain of the Blue House, I learnt how to organize morning practices, host meetings, and include everyone to work together and have fun. It was not an easy task but at last the Blue House got lifted from fourth place to second place. I am thankful that the school provided me with the opportunities to improve myself.

to my lovely juniors,...

All the best!

For lower secondary, just have fun and enjoy the moment you are having but do not neglect your studies. For year 10 and 11 students, good luck with your IGCSEs, stay focused, study hard and the day you shine is just around the corner.