Opening remarks delivered by Mr. Peter M. Chan, ISA Executive Director, during the Iloilo Scholastic Academy Preschool Recognition Day on 17 March 2008 at ISA Campus.
新华董事，老师，家长，同学，女士先生们：
下午好！
今天我们欢聚一堂，给在这一年来在品德和学业上获得优异成绩的孩子们颁奖。
孩子是祖国的花朵，孩子是祖国的未来。家长、老师們，你们肩负着神圣的使命。为了孩子能健康成长，你们作了大量的工作，也作了很多牺牲。作为新华学院的领导，我代表新華董事会同仁在这里向你们表示衷心的感谢。
Members of the ISA Board of Trustees ISA facilitators, Parents, ISAers, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good afternoon.
We gather here this afternoon to recognize the excellent performance shown by our children in the school year 2007-2008, and award them medals and certificates they so well deserved.
School year 2007-2008 is another fruitful year for the ISA pre-school department. Nursery children who will be promoted to kinder 1 in the coming school year have developed their basic linguistic, logical, social, emotional and kinesthetic intelligences.
Kinder 1 learners learned more advance lessons in language, math, social etiquettes, and are emotionally prepared to face greater challenges not only in academics but in character building as well.
APSA* evaluation test results highly speak of the excellent academic proficiency our kinder 2 learners have achieved. I believe the parents of this year’s candidates for graduation are confident that their children are ready to enter the portal of elementary education.
I am glad to announce to our ISA parents, that ‘Pre-nursery level’ for children between 2 ½ and 3 years old will be added in our ISA Montessori curriculum starting next school year. However, due to the limited space ISA presently has, only ten learners will be admitted in the ‘pre-nursery’ class, and as of today, only one slot remains untaken.
Yesterday afternoon, we had our first high school graduation ceremony. We saw our first batch of high school graduates leaving their Alma Mater to pursue far greater dreams in their chosen fields of study. We all know, it was another significant milestone in our unending pursuit of academic and moral excellence.
ISA parents, Dear preschool learners, there is no royal road to success, only those who do not dread to climb the steep mountain will reach the summit.
Thank you and Congratulations!
*APSA – acronym for Asian Psychological Services Assessment, a Manila-based evaluation firm that administers Standard-Based Assessment (SBA) to ISA learners from Kinder-2 to High School
