Pham Ha
Khanh Chi

I grew into house leadership step by step: deputy house captain for Key Stage 3 in Year 9, house deputy in Year 10, and house captain in Year 12. Along the way I helped coordinate Hanoi House’s introductory performance at school assembly, and supported students in organising our Christmas market and team-building activities.

As captain, I built on what Hanoi House does best. We are not the house that wins at sport or music, but our members are enthusiastic learners and committed teammates, so I focused our year on house points, with a house quiz every Friday and regular house competitions. I led Hanoi House to House Point Champion in Primary and second place in Secondary.

Our school wants to put more focus on equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging across the community. As EDIB prefect, I helped design and deliver a PSHE lesson on the topic, built around engaging activities where every student took a turn to discuss, role-play and contribute.

After finishing Soul Garden, I planned and designed an ECA that will run in Term 2a. Building the app showed me how much my own habits of emotional regulation, journalling and talking things through, had improved my life, and I want to help other students recognise their emotions and manage their moods. To prepare it, I learnt grounding techniques and strategies for identifying emotions, in consultation with the school counsellor.

I am also working with an Academic Prefect on a website that pairs younger students with approved older mentors by subject, with a place to share notes and study resources and subject group chats for discussion.

Our club teaches younger students what it is like to be a scientist. We split into teams, recruit younger students into each one through our ECA, and every team writes a research paper on a topic it chooses. Working alongside us, the younger students learn the full research process: forming a hypothesis, setting up an experiment, weighing limitations and alternatives, interpreting results and writing the report.

Each team, founders and younger members together, is currently applying for the CREST Silver Award (see our echo-chamber project, where I was research mentor), but the award is not our main goal. What matters more is giving younger students hands-on experience of innovation and creativity.

As part of the Academic Department, my main contribution was bringing in a sponsor. I designed a professional sponsorship profile for the competition, pitched it to Code Dream in a meeting, and secured their offer to become the academic sponsor of NEXUS.

My first musical, and I was nervous: as the Storyteller, I opened the show and led the audience through the story. Teachers and older students coached me on posture, facial expression and voice projection until I could tell it with confidence. It is still my most memorable production, because the older actors made me feel so welcome, and watching them made me want to reach their level.

My first major role, as Hilda, the main antagonist. It was much harder than the year before: to play her in a properly theatrical way, I had to research the character and understand her thoroughly. Carrying that responsibility is where I improved the most.

Not a lead this time, yet the role felt more important than ever. I was now one of the older students, so I looked after younger cast members in their first musical, helping them with dance moves, lines and what to do on stage. I wanted to give them the same care I was given when I started.

Certificates of Achievement for consistent effort and focus in both drama and music.

Reached the Silver milestone of 100 house points in Year 12.

A* Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, History, Business, First Language English, First Language Vietnamese, English Literature, Co-ordinated Science (Double Award).

A Computer Science.

Silver

Consolation Prize

Consolation prize in the AI Challenge division of the Central Vietnam and Central Highlands regional olympiad.

Third Prize

Third prize at the Northern Vietnam round of the national youth informatics competition.

Gold

Completed the course, including all twelve projects.

High distinction

High distinction

Awarded in June 2026 in honour of outstanding performance, for the school’s 2026–2027 Academic Scholarship Programme.