STUDENTS, staff, parents and friends came together at St Mary’s Church in Ely for the annual King’s Ely International Year 11 Prizegiving Ceremony.
The event, held on June 22nd, celebrated both the academic and pastoral achievements of this year’s cohort of 33 students who studied for their one-year international IGCSE at King’s Ely.
While the ceremony recognised academic achievement, contributions to sport, overall improvement and overall energy, courage and integrity, the highlight of the event was, as ever, the speeches given by the students themselves.
Five students from five different countries reflected personally on a wide range of experiences they gained during their twelve months at King’s Ely. Veronica Fung from Hong Kong considered her first experience of boarding and gave her personal advice for happy boarding as ‘be brave, be positive and be kind’. Anton Baur from Germany conveyed his hunger for sport during his year playing all three traditional British school sports. Natsuko Noguchi from Japan pondered the question ‘Who am I?’ as she reflected on how much she had gained from being part of the main school December musical, Les Miserables. Following this, Iskander Sobitov from Uzbekistan described his battle with his exams, the tactics he used to overcome them and left the audience with the hope that we would all become ‘wise warriors’ equipped for the battles that await us in the real world. Finally, Iana Kozymir from Ukraine gave a joint speech with her best friend Kate Ermakova from Russia on how ‘different yet similar’ two girls from ‘opposing’ sides could be.
The ceremony was attended by around 40 guests and was followed by a buffet reception in the Old Palace where many students gave tearful farewells to classmates bound for foreign shores come September 2017. From the cohort of 33, King’s Ely is proud to be welcoming back 17 of its international community for the start of their A level programme next term.