Dear Parents/Guardians,
As I mentioned in my previous Bulletin, I am delighted to welcome Mrs Karina Johnson and Ms Colette Jones to the Year 11 tutor team. I have asked them to write a brief paragraph as an introduction and these can be found below.
Kind regards,
Tom Lemon
Mrs Karina Johnson – [email protected]
I’d like to introduce myself as a History teacher and Year 11 tutor at DBIS. I am looking forward to meeting all of the students and starting the school year even though it is not in the traditional way.
I have been teaching in mainland China for the past 3 years at an international school, prior to this I was teaching for 4 years at a school in east London. I completed my teacher training at the institute of Education London and I have always had a desire for History and passing on the knowledge from the past in the hopes that the next generation will lean from it. My main aim as a teacher of history is to develop students’ critical thinking skills, so they understand different perspectives and can then make informed opinions/ arguments.
As well as having a passion for history I am a qualified swimming teacher and have taught from mother and babies right up to National levels in the UK. I also set up a disabled swimming group in the UK where one of our swimmers is now working with the UK Paralympics coaches. I can’t wait to get involved in the Swim program at DBIS.
I look forward to meeting you in due course and I hope that your child has an amazing year.
Ms Colette Jones – [email protected]
Originally from Ireland, I arrived in Hong Kong thinking my Hong Kong ‘stint’ would last two or three years. Twenty years later my husband and our daughter call Hong Kong home and love the novelty, adventure and challenge that it continues to deliver.
As a teacher, Hong Kong has been a dream location with a range of school systems and curriculum on offer. I initially worked in local schools teaching mostly English as a second language and later decided to return to literature teaching in international schools. I spent the next ten years teaching combinations of MYP English and IBDP English Literature & Language courses and Theory of Knowledge.
I am passionate about teaching literature and love how this subject explores a breadth of contexts with depth of emotional response enabling students to become confident critical thinkers, writers and speakers along the way. I like to build student confidence by using structured process based approaches to writing and encourage my students to actively engage with feedback to revise their work.
I love nothing more than lively class debate as this is where students hone their understanding of some of the very unusual worlds and characters they will meet in our texts. I am particularly looking forward to the experience of teaching in a school that is truly embedded within a community and look forward to getting to know you all as a Y11 form tutor and English teacher.