Our 1st Year students have only been with us for four weeks, and yet one of the main focus areas of my time this week has been preparing for the next intake of students in September 2009.  Unlike most other schools, LPCUWC only accepts applications for entry during the year prior to entry; we do

not keep waiting lists.

For students in Hong Kong, applications for 2009 entry will close on 16th December this year.  In preparation for that deadline, we held our first Open Day this morning on the College campus.  To be frank, we were very worried about the weather for this event, as the Observatory had forecast yet another typhoon heading for Hong Kong.  Fortunately, although the weather was overcast and windy, the typhoon stayed far away enough for us to proceed.  As you can see on the image to the right though, we were nonetheless being buffeted by some quite significant wind and rain.

An estimated 500 people visited the College this morning in spite of the weather. During the morning,  I delivered two illustrated presentations on the UWC Movement and Li Po Chun United World College’s place within in it, supported on each occasion by three students who had volunteered to share their experiences as students in the College.  The capacity of our lecture hall was well and truly exceeded by the numbers present for each presentation, and I can’t wait for our new auditorium to be built!  ‘Mirror presentations’ in Cantonese were delivered in the Library, and as well as these, there were guided tours of the College, led by students who had volunteered to be tour guides for the morning, as well as display boards and video presentations.  Of course, in my opinion, our confident, eloquent and idealistic students were our best advertisement.  I was very proud of them - as always!

Coincidentally, I have also spent much of this week working out the offers to overseas countries for 2009 entry.  I had to send our preliminary offers to the UWC International Office in London by 1st October, and I just managed to meet the deadline.  This information from all the UWCs will be collated by the International Office in preparation for the next biannual (i.e. twice-yearly) meeting of the UWC Principals, which will be held in about three weeks from now, this time at Atlantic College in Wales.  At that meeting, we will discuss the balance of the offers in the light of input from the International Office, and once we have agreed that the balance of offers between countries and Colleges is fair and appropriate, we will send the preliminary letters of offer to the various Selection Committees around the world.

Although initiating the 2009 offers has taken quite a large chunk of my week, it was a busy time in many others ways as well.  One particular highlight occurred on Thursday morning when we received a delegation of 32 teachers, administrators and students from Prime One School in Indonesia.  This school has adopted the IB program, and as LPCUWC was set up to support and advise new IB schools as one of its fundamental purposes, it was a pleasure to receive them this

week.  The visitors also wanted to learn about the UWC ethos and its implementation, including the influence of Kurt Hahn.

The visit was originally scheduled to commence at 2:30 pm on Thursday afternoon, so you can perhaps imagine my surprise when I received a phone call at 7:45 am that morning, informing me that everyone was already on the bus and they would be arriving at 9:10 am instead.

Fortunately, like most Principals, I have experience in coping with these sorts of things (I could never pretend to have been trained to cope with them), and the visit was highly successful and most enjoyable despite the (almost literally) last minute change of plans.  I even managed to start teaching my Theory of Knowledge class right on time at 10:20 am.

Kurt Hahn’s quote, visible on the banner in the photo above, seemed highly appropriate to the occasion in many ways!