IT IS A relaxing mid-February afternoon at Australian International School Hong Kong (AISHK) in Kowloon Tong. Youngsters are competing on the football field, parents and teachers are cheering and a hungry few are lining up for the sizzling sausages at a barbecue nearby.
They display an energy seldom found in other schools at this time of the year, because for them the new academic year has just begun after a 'summer' holiday that started in mid-December. The school has a unique calendar as it runs an academic programme parallel to that in Australia.
AISHK students must proceed with their study programmes at the same pace as their Australian counterparts so that they can sit the public exams in the summer months of October and December in Australia. That is why they go on 'summer vacation' during winter and have classes while most other students head for the pool in summer.
The upside of this arrangement is that students from Australia, who make up 65 per cent of the school's more than 800 students, can spend Christmas with their relatives back home.
'It is a good time to be in Australia,' says Carolyn Bickerton, director of development and community relations at AISHK. 'It's summer there, with the sun and the beaches.'
Having classes in the local summer heat can be tiring, but there is always an opportunity for a short break: every year students get a few days off because of the typhoons.