South Island School is a private international school founded by the English Schools Foundation of Hong Kong, located at 50 Nam Fung Road, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, with about 1,400 students enrolled and 107 teachers. Students come from diverse backgrounds, with over 38 nationalities represented. The school offers the GCSE/IGCSE syllabus, IB Diploma Programme, IB Career-related Programme and the BTEC qualification. The school is one of three ESF secondary schools on Hong Kong Island, the others being West Island School and Island School. According to an inspection report from 2019 by the Council of International Schools (CoIS) and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), South Island School 'passionately promotes the development of global citizenship and intercultural learning, and the school climate is such that there is a very strong sense of mutual trust amongst all the school's stakeholders.' History In 1977, South Island School was founded as an annex of Island School, a fellow English Schools Foundation School. The school opened with 165 students and 6 teachers, with three classes in Form 1, and one class in Form 2 and Form 3 respectively. Mike Taylor was the first principal. The school moved to its current location at 50 Nam Fung Road in 1983. It consisted of the Ching Ling Soong Block and an outdoor swimming pool. As the school grew in size, more facilities were required. The next big change to the school came with the construction of the Stephen Hawking Building (named after physicist Stephen Hawking), and the swimming pool became an indoor one with the Sports Block being built on top of it, allowing for year-round swimming lessons. In 2004, another new block was completed called the Da Vinci Block. In the school year of 2007–2008, the school was accredited to teach the IB Diploma programme. The IB Centre was opened, a section of the school designated for International Baccalaureate students in Years 12 and 13. This was renamed the Diploma Centre in the school year of 2009–2010. In November 2010, the new John Wray Atrium, named after previous principal, John Wray, opened for all students. In the following years, many of the school facilities underwent renovations. The library in the C Block was renovated in the summer holidays of 2012 and re-opened in late September the same year, and was renamed as the "Learning Resource Center". In November 2012, the renovation of the library was completed