Month: April 2021

Accepted after the first round of entrance exams from 22 April, 2021 / Přijatí po 1. kole přijímacích zkoušek ze dne 22.4.2021:

Year 2 / do 2. ročníku:

221320
221198
221284
221279
221280
221308
221276
221222
221199

Congratulations to successful candidates./Blahopřejeme úspěšným kandidátům!

The English College in Prague learned with sadness of the recent death of Ivan Havel. Brother of our Founder Patron, Václav Havel, Ivan has been a long-standing supporter of the ECP. We were therefore honoured and delighted when he agreed to allow us to name a prize in his honour.

The Ivan M Havel Prize

The prize was awarded for the first time in May 2020 to Victor Slimák. The College awards 45 prizes each year to our students, across the whole range of school subjects. There are also seven prizes that recognise students’ special achievements.

Polymath

The Ivan M Havel prize is one of these, which we award to a student who displays the qualities of a polymath. Specialism is increasingly important in today’s society but a polymath excels in more than one discipline. The prize winner is primarily a scientist, like Ivan Havel himself. They should show exceptional talent across scientific disciplines. But they should also have an understanding of the humanities and creativity in the arts and be able to apply interdisciplinary competence across several subjects. The prize recognises hard work, enthusiasm and willingness to go beyond the curriculum. It is a fitting tribute to Ivan Havel.

Brothers

As the obituaries have recorded, Ivan was one of the founders of Občanské fórum. Two years younger than his brother, he was formerly the Director of the Centre for Theoretical Studies, a joint endeavour involving Charles University and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. An expert in cybernetics, artificial intelligence and robotics, he was editor-in-chief of Vesmír magazine from 1990 to 2019.

We will remember Ivan Havel with gratitude for his support in encouraging our students to become polymaths.

The first prize winners for the academic year 2020/21 were announced during this Friday’s Headmaster’s Assembly. Which students have been awarded  ECP community prizes?

The Lord Holme Prize for Service to the Community

The Lord Holme Prize is awarded in memory of the founding Chairman of Governors of the English College.

Any member of the school community can nominate a student who has been working hard for the school community or who has helped people in need, and teachers then vote for the overall winner.

Winner – Selma Kaymakci

Selma has worked extremely hard to organise the Václav Havel Scholarship Concert and help people in need. She has also been a very active Student Council member and a great Vice-Captain for  Aqua House. For example, she coordinated, performed in and edited the Aqua dance performance for the Cultural Olympiad. Selma was also part of the organisational team for the debate competition in the Student Council’s Winter Olympics, as well as the VHC debate. She is currently organising a student-led dance club. She puts her full effort into anything she does, often prioritising helping others and supporting the ECP community before everything else.  In addition, Selma is also involved in a new student organisation, which is trying to improve the education system in the Czech Republic.

Headmaster’s Prize for Services to the School

This prize is awarded to the student who has done the most for the school community over the year.

Winner – Priya Ghotane

Priya has volunteered for just about every event and created a number of her own . She has been a Student Council member since Year 1 and she is a Culture Captain and an Environment Captain of the Ignis house. Priya is one of the founder members, and now co-chair of the GSA club, an involved member of the Eco Committee as well as an active participant in debating competitions. She ran an online student debating club last year. Priya is a tremendous asset to the school community and an excellent role model for younger students.

Award for Community Service

Winner – Karolina Flook

Karolina  represents the school and its ethos somewhat behind the scenes. Just by luck we learned that she regularly supports the Charlotty Masarykové Orphanage . She prepares Christmas gifts for children there and last year she decided to help the orphanage financially. She also created special Christmas gifts which contained earrings made by her and her sister and a personal wish card. When she is in Moravia she visits Základní Škola Integra which takes care of children with different disabilities. She also teaches some English there. This year she took part in the Easter Caritas Challenge and prepared nice Easter decorations for the House for the Elderly in Vysočany and also baked many cookies for them. Some “small” help in a few “small” places is exactly what can make the world a better place.

Hygienic Rules

Please be aware that due to the current COVID-19 situation, these following hygienic rules will have to be observed. Please find the official regulation from the Czech Ministry of Health here.

Arrival

• Please arrive at the time stated in your invitation. The timings have been adjusted to allow for a staggered arrival of candidates.
• All persons in front of the school building must wear a respirator (adults) or a surgical mask (candidates) as determined by the valid regulations of the Ministry of Health. Kindly keep the distance of 2 m from other candidates/families.
  
  

Entry to school

• Entry to the school building is allowed only to students/candidates, not to parents or guardians accompanying them, and only if
  • they don’t show symptoms of COVID-19 (high body temperature, cough, sudden loss of sense of smell/taste, etc.) and
  • if they provide a confirmation of a negative test result for COVID-19 where the test has been carried out by current school, by themselves or by a lay person in the last 7 days. This confirmation can be replaced by its equivalents (listed below).
    
    

Registration and showing confirmation of negative test result

• During the registration and before entering the school building, each candidate will have to show the confirmation of a negative test result or its equivalent. We will not collect or copy the confirmation document but we will check its contents. The document needs to clearly state the candidate’s name, date and result of the test and it needs to clearly identify the institution that issued it (school, doctor, testing site or a lay person). The confirmation can also be a document in electronic form with an advanced electronic signature.
  
  

Testing for COVID-19

• ECP is not obliged to provide COVID-19 tests for prospective students. You can ask for the test in your current school or you can visit your doctor or a public testing site. If there are any issues with getting the test done in one of the places mentioned above, please contact me without delay at [email protected] or at +420 725 772 645.
• We recommend doing the test a couple days before the exam (not earlier than 7 days before the exam, though!). Each person tested positive needs to contact their doctor immediately and go for a confirmation RT-PCR test. If the confirmation test comes out negative, candidate can come for entrance exams as planned. If the confirmation test comes out positive, you will follow the general instructions from the Ministry of Health and we will arrange another date for your son’s or daughter’s exam as long as you give me a notification about the positive result without delay and by 25th April at the very latest.
  
  

The certificate of the test carried out at your current school may be replaced by:

1. proof that a person has had COVID-19, has finished isolation, and no more than 90 days passed since the first positive antigenic or PCR test,
2. proof of a negative antigenic test result or RT-PCR test that is no more than 7 days old and issued by a doctor or at a testing site
3. a certificate from the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic on vaccination against COVID-19, 
   1. at least 14 days have elapsed since administration of the second dose of the vaccine, or 
   2. at least 14 days have elapsed since administration of the first dose of the vaccine with a single-dose schedule.
      
      

In the school building

• Candidates will have to wear a surgical mask as determined by the valid regulations of the Ministry of Health at all times. Staff members will wear a respirator at all times.
• All candidates should have their own masks but we will be able to provide spare ones on site, too.
• There will be short (about 15 min) breaks between the tests. We ask that candidates spend the breaks inside the school building or in the school playground area, weather permitting.
• During breaks, the consumption of food and drinks will be possible only when 2m distance from others is observed.
• There will be hand sanitizers for candidates to use. There will be running water, soap in a dispenser, hand sanitizer and disposable paper towels available in the bathrooms. We encourage candidates to wash their hands thoroughly and regularly.
• The classrooms will be regularly ventilated during the breaks and all surfaces are going to be disinfected several times throughout the day.

The English College in Prague has just published a new issue of The ECP Newsletter.

You can read it via this link.

Summary:

• HM’s message
• Success stories
• News
• Student activities
• Literary Festival
• Literary Festival – outcomes
• Arts
• Student work
• ECPN

You can look at the archive of ECP newsletters here.

The ECP is featured in Expat.cz’s March 24 article, Going the distance: teacher tips for doing distance learning – better.

Distance learning brings many challenges, ranging from technological hiccups to back pain and eye strain, and as children settle into remote education for the unforeseeable future, parents need to help them build stamina for learning at home. 

We spoke with two experienced teachers from The English College in Prague, a six-year grammar school in the Vysočany district, to see how they are rising to the challenge of teaching from a distance and what advice they’d give parents and children on the other side of the screen.

Daniel Ibbitson, Head of Computing and E-Learning Co-ordinator, said that The English College Prague was already using Google Apps for Education prior to lockdown, so the transition was rather seamless.

On Google Apps, “We can view all work in progress, we can have smaller breakout groups within each class and we also use a chat function, which allows for quick one-to-one communication,” he says. “Also, Google Classroom allows us to publish all class assignments and take in submissions and we’re then able to give the students written, verbal, and video feedback.”

Emily Rankin, Deputy Head for Teaching and Learning, says that while the school prepared promptly for distance learning “Time spent adapting in-class activities for the online arena, such as collaborative presentations or Socratic discussion,” took some adjusting to.

Both teachers recognize that it can be a challenge to motivate all pupils every day, but they are also inspired by how well students have performed under such challenging circumstances – and they are committed to helping their community get the most out of online learning for the duration.

Read on expats.cz about ECP tips for doing distance learning better:

https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/great-tips-for-distance-learning

“Please be aware that in our eyes the ECP teachers are true heroes of our lives in the current Covid time learning situation. We cannot express enough our appreciation of their work. Their efforts directly form our children and they are indispensable to them.”

Irena Duffková

Parent