The Week Ahead
Senior School Matters
Metacognition and our professional learning community
Metacognition is a fashionable term in education that means the awareness of one’s learning or learning how to learn best. In my case, it took decades and two university degrees before I truly mastered how I learn best, and even then, I am always on the look out for even more effective ways of being a better student. When I was at school, cognitive science was a fledgling subject and, as a result, had little impact upon my teachers or how they taught my classmates and me. Today though, armed and equipped with an accurate understanding of the science of learning and cognition, teachers at Wellington College International Hangzhou support our pupils with their metacognition to ensure that their learning becomes self-regulated at a much quicker pace. Our professional learning community has this week spent time further expanding our understanding of metacognition and evaluating tools that we could use in the classroom to further develop our learners and their journey to a better understanding of their learning selves. As seen in great international schools around the world, the impact of this work is to ensure the highest levels of academic success throughout a pupil’s entire education. An indirect impact is that when pupils feel empowered to control their learning, satisfaction levels with school and personal wellbeing increase dramatically. The combination of academic success and high levels of wellbeing lead to that sweet spot in life that enables a pupil to flourish. As the international school of first choice in Hangzhou, a key part of the world-class education that we provide is supported by modern, research-backed education knowledge such as metacognition, meaning we are well on the way to creating an environment here where every single one of our pupils can flourish.
Stewart Brown
Head of Senior School
Sixth Form Matters
Studying in Australia – Part 2
In last week’s edition of The Week Ahead, I had discussed the academic and practical benefits of an Australian university degree programme. This week, I would like to highlight the advantages beyond the lecture theatres and seminars and focus on quality of life.
Exciting environment
With a wonderful blend of urban cities, beautiful natural wonders and unique wildlife, it is no surprise that Australia continues to attract visitors worldwide. Just imagine, after a morning of lectures at the University of Sydney in Kensington, you could be at the world-famous Bondi beach learning to surf. Or you could spend a long weekend exploring marine life in the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Or you could take a drive through the outback past some kangaroos on the way to a koala sanctuary or meet blue penguins. There are endless opportunities to make lifetime memories on this wondrous island.
Diversity
More than half a million international students from 192 countries have been welcomed into Australian life. With Chinese students making up the biggest share of international students, it means that our homegrown pupils will be able to find peers and friends from different backgrounds as they settle into a new country. They will indeed embrace being in the melting pot of cultures and finding their place in the world as global citizens.
Time zone
Students often start their academic years with excitement and trepidation, but as the day to day realities of being away from everything familiar sets in, they begin to feel homesick. With the time difference between Hangzhou and Australia ranging from 0 to 3 hours, it is easier to stay in touch with loved ones back home.
When deciding where to go to university, non-academic factors must be given as much consideration as the degree programmes and institutions. Whether or not a student is happy in their new environment will significantly impact their ability to thrive at university. Australia regularly features in the top 10 countries globally for quality of living (for example, 5th on Numbeo, 6th on U.S. News). This admirable focus on population wellbeing and having prestigious universities offer rich academic programmes make Australia ideal to pursue higher education.
Upcoming Events
Tufts are offering live virtual tours conducted by campus tour guides. You will gain a better sense of the university campus while also asking questions directly to current students.
Here’s what other prospective students had to say about our virtual tour experience:
Their authenticity made Tufts come alive through the screen. It’s easy for zoom calls to blend together or be super repetitive, but this was neither. Instead, they gave a very comprehensive tour while actively and joyously engaging with participants.
Click here to register for a virtual tour to see what the hype is all about and learn even more about Tufts.
The University of Buckingham offers webinars, giving in-depth information on a range of subjects such as Biomedical Sciences, Podiatric Medicine, Business, Humanities, Social Sciences with many more webinars covering other subjects to come soon.
Their webinars are designed to offer plenty of opportunities for students to ask questions to both our academic staff and students.
Click here for further details.
Hatty Leung
Head of Sixth Form
Primary School Matters
In any good curriculum, there is a focus on building solid foundations, which is particularly key to reading. A child's reading skills are essential to their success in school as they will allow them to access the breadth of the curriculum and improve their communication and language skills. In addition, reading can be a fun and imaginative time for children, which opens doors to all kinds of new worlds for them. Research, such as The Bold Beginnings (2017) report, emphasised the importance of securing the essential skill of reading, starting quickly, from the first week of the academic year. It detailed how schools, in which outcomes were above the UK national average, emphasised the teaching of reading in a "...systematic and structured way, building up children's English phonic knowledge and skills explicitly and providing regular storytimes where children could be taught to understand what they heard."
At the earliest reading stage, WCIH follows the Read, Write Inc phonics programme, which then seamlessly progresses to the Oxford Reading Tree by Oxford University Press. Oxford Reading Levels guide teachers to ensure children are reading books with the right level of support or challenge to build confidence, develop skills and foster a lifelong love of reading. Bug Club enhances our ebook and audio provision and adds extra materials to support parents at home. We are delighted that almost all our pupils meet or exceed the expected reading levels early, despite English being a second language for most of them.
Irrespective of whether your child is only just beginning to learn to read or whether they are fluent, you can play an essential role in helping to keep them interested in books. Find out what interests them, allow them to find books that will be engaging and fun, and spend time reading the books they bring home from school together. For example, pupils at WCIH regularly change their school reading books and visit the library with their teachers at least once a week. We are looking forward to the library re-opening for parents and pupils for walk-in enjoyment very soon.
As Dr Seuss remarked, "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
Matthew Coleman
Head of Primary School
Performing Art Matters
Drama is an essential tool for preparing anyone to live and work in an increasingly team-orientated world rather than a hierarchical one. Drama also helps students develop tolerance and empathy.
Drama is a valuable resource that can be used to learn many subjects, specifically in learning literacy skills — to learn languages and develop reading and speaking skills. It also helps students understand different points of view and speak up.
Our Head of Dance and Drama, Mrs Dever, interviewed Ms Zhang, our performing arts Teaching Assistant, a skilful and talented actress, musician, and dancer. Ms Zhang has a passion for education, and we have had the honour of working with her since February 2021. Ms Zhang is a vivid example of the benefits of performing arts in a person’s life.
Please click here to listen to the bilingual podcast that our radio presenter, Mr Bailey, helped make for our Duke Box Radio.
Alejandro Montoya
Director of Performing Arts
Sport Matters
Volleyball is a new addition to Wellington's ever-growing range of sports and an excellent sport to develop hand-eye coordination, communication, agility and reflexes. The U16 volleyball team played at Guali school on Monday. Considering the girls had only practised for a short time, they played exceptionally well, losing by only 6 points. The girls demonstrated outstanding sportsmanship and a high talent for such a new team. They challenged the Guali girls in several long rallies, showing courage, determination and passion for the game. Tremendous effort, girls. Well done.
Timothy Schulze
Head of PE
Dukebox Matters
Please click here to tune into our Dukebox radio to enjoy various shows throughout the week.
Listen from 9:00-12:00 every weekday for "Marty James Morning Show", "The big yellow bus show" at 6:00, Baz's Motown Classics at 18:00, Dukebox Best Ever Song Show at 20:00 and the Rock Show at 22:00.
Don't worry if you missed any of the live shows, as you can access them all on our exclusive "Catch Up" service here. Just click on the date and time of the show you missed and "Listen Again".
Please click the link to see content being created by our pupils and staff available in our podcast section here.
Martin Bailey
Dukebox Presenter
Upcoming Events
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