Inter-School

The Inter-School Volleyball Competiton (Chinese: 校際排球比賽), sometimes known simply as the **Inter-School** in the World of Volleyball, is a volleyball competition organized by the Hong Kong School Sports Federation for secondary schools in Hong Kong to join. The competititon is divided into seven different competition districts and two or three age groups called "grades".

## Competition Schedule

Matches are usually held during weekends, but may sometimes be held on weekdays due to various reasons such as the lack of competiton venues in some districts and the rescheduling of some matches.

The season is divided into two halves, the first half starting usually in the second or third week of September, and ending on New Year's Eve. District-level matches will usually complete in the third week of December, followed by a one-week long break before the territory-wide Jing Ying Tournament.

The second half starts in late January and ends in the third week of May, with two-week Chinese New Year and Easter breaks in between. If the Chinese New Year holidays start in late January, the second half of the season will commence after the holidays.

The reason behind the gap between the two halves of the season is to allow students to prepare for their school examinations, as early January is a common period for schools to hold mid-year examinations.

## Age Grading System

The competition currently divides players into two or three grades according to age, depending on the district. Each age grade have separate competition categories, just as there are different competition categories for different genders.

The cutoff date for age is the New Year's Eve of that season, i.e. a player born on 1 January 2001 will be considered 18 years old on 31 December 2019 and hence in the 2019-2020 season.

### Three grades - A/B/C

In the Urban Region, Shatin and Yuen Long, players of ages 16-18, 14-15 and 12-13 are divided into A-, B- and C-grade respectively. It is acceptable for schools to send players aged under 14 to A- and B-grade matches given that the players are registered as an A- or B-grade member respectively at the start of the school year. The same also applies to players of ages 14-15 who intend to participate in A-grade. Students aged 11 or under are also allowed to participate in HKSSF competitions, but it is rare for secondary school students to be 11 or under.

This grading system was once in use across the whole territory, but in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, Tuen Mun, Tsuen Wan and Kwai Tsing used the AB- and C-grade system, which merged A- and B-grade into one grade, and in 2018-2019, the three districts and Tai Po switched to the U19/U15 grading system.

All A-grade matches will be held in the first half of the season, while B-grade matches will be held across two calendar years and all C-grade matches will be held in the second half of the season.

### Two grades - AB/C and U19/U15

Starting from 2018-2019, in Tai Po, Tuen Mun, Tsuen Wan and Kwai Tsing, players are divided into U19-grade and U15-grade respectively. As the names suggest, these two grades accept players of ages 15-18 and 12-14 respectively. It is acceptable for schools to send players aged 12-14 to U19 matches as long as the player is registered as a U19 student by the HKSSF.

This system is used to replace the AB- and C-grade system which is not very different from the U19/U15 system, but 15-year-olds used to play in the AB-grade matches.
There will only be U19 matches in the first half of the season and U15 matches in the second half.

## Tournaments

### Regular tournaments

Each gender-age category has its own tournament in its division, but the word "Tournament" is often omitted when referring to the respective tournaments, e.g. "the Yuen Long Girls' A-Grade" instead of "the Yuen Long Girls' A-Grade Tournament". In 2018-2019, there are 60 regular tournaments in one season.

### Jing Ying Tournament

The Jing Ying Tournament, a knockout tournament for top schools across the territory, is usually held from 27 to 31 December of each year and concludes the first half of an Inter-School season. The A- or U19-grade district tournaments serve as qualifiers to the Jing Ying Tournament.

## Scoring System

*Main article: Inter-School/Scoring System*

## Divisions

*Further Information: Inter-School/Promotion and Relegation*

The Inter-School is held in seven separate districts, namely the Urban Region, Shatin, Kwai Tsing, Tai Po, Yuen Long, Tuen Mun and Tsuen Wan. The former three districts have multiple divisions and adopt a promotion-relegation system, where the bottom two of higher divisions will be relegated and the top two or champion of lower divisions will be promoted.

### Monodivisional districts

The Inter-School has only one division in Tai Po, Yuen Long, Tuen Mun and Tsuen Wan. In Kwai Tsing, there is only one division for the boys while there are two for the girls.

For each age-gender category, a tournament will be held, consisting of a group stage with 3 to 4 schools in each group then followed by a knockout stage with 2 schools from each group, except in Tai Po, where the Top 4 will be decided by a round-robin final round after the quarterfinals.

### New Territories - Bidivisional districts

For Shatin and the girls of Kwai Tsing, there are two divisions. Division 2 uses the same competiton format as monodivisional districts but the scoring system is different.

Division 1 consists of the Top 8 schools in the district and each tournament will be held in full round-robin system with a preliminary round of 2 groups with 4 teams each, followed by a final stage where the Top 4 and Bottom 4 teams' rankings will be decided.

### Urban Region

Division 1 consists of the Top 12 schools in the whole region and each of its tournaments has a preliminary round of 2 groups with 6 teams each, followed by a series of Top 4 knockout matches.

There are separate second-tier divisions for Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, among which the Kowloon Boys Division 2 and the Hong Kong Island Division 2 are the bottom division, and the competition system of these divisions is similar to those of monodivisional districts, but instead of having 3 to 4 schools, each group has 4 to 5 schools instead, while the Kowloon Girls Division 2 has a similar system to Division 1, consisting of around 12 schools. If both relegating schools from Division 1 are based in Kowloon, the Kowloon Girls Division 2 will have one more team in the quota. Conversely, if none of the relegating schools from Division 1 are based in Kowloon, the Kowloon Girls Division 2 will have one less team in the quota. Therefore, there is a fluctuating quota in the Kowloon Girls Division 2, sometimes being 11, 12 or 13.

Under the Kowloon Girls Division 2, there is the Division 3 (Area 1) and the Division 3 (Area 2) whose competition system is similar to the Kowloon Boys Division 2 and the Hong Kong Island Division 2.

## Net heights

2.35m: Boys' A-, U19-Grade and Jing Ying Tournament

2.30m: Boys' B-Grade

2.25m: Boys' U15-Grade

2.20m: Boys' C-Grade, Girls' A-, U19-Grade and Jing Ying Tournament

2.15m: Girls' B-, C- and U15-Grade