The Week Ahead

For me, Speech Day is one of the best and most important days of the year at Wellington College International Hangzhou. Speech Days are a quintessential part of UK style independent school education. Celebrations characterise them, prize giving and community, as teachers, pupils and parents come together to mark another successful year passing. Our Speech Day is the day when we reflect upon the year's achievements and celebrate the most important people in our school – your children. We take time out of our busy curriculum to bring the school community together to recognise and celebrate the top academic performers. We also award certificates and trophies to the pupils who have displayed the best House Spirit, sporting prowess and talent in the performing arts.

Speech Day also provides us with a significant opportunity to unite the three schools – Hiba Junior High, Wellington College Hangzhou Sixth Form and ourselves, to share in each other's successes and collectively honour all of the pupils who make up part of the Wellington College Hangzhou family. For the younger pupils watching the ceremony, it is highly aspirational. We encourage them to work hard and to visualise themselves collecting awards and giving speeches in the future. For the pupil leadership teams who also give speeches, addressing the entire community can be daunting but is the pinnacle of the pupil leadership responsibility that their office demands. They will do a fantastic job. 

My role on speech day is simple but yields enormous personal satisfaction. I get the pleasure of shaking the hand and saying "congratulations" to every prize winner. I hope you can join us at this magnificent event.

Stewart Brown

Head of Senior School

As adults who have been through high school, we often wish we had been taught specific skills during secondary education that would have benefitted us through university and our careers. For example, I wish I had been taught about the importance of mental wellbeing. With this in mind, I came up with the idea of a 'Lifeskills' course for the Sixth Form pupils. I surveyed over 400 adults for lesson ideas and asked them, "what do you wish you had been taught in school?". The results were interesting and incredibly useful. The most common answers included budgeting and financial literacy, followed by self-care topics like mindfulness and practical skills like cooking and doing chores. With these topics and others in mind, the Lifeskills course has been designed to give the best possible preparation for our learners as they progress through to adulthood and complete independence. 

I look forward to sharing these skills with the Sixth Formers next year.

Hatty Leung

Head of Sixth Form

We are constantly striving to improve our library provision at Wellington, despite having an outstanding offer. Research shows a direct correlation between pupils’ library use and reading attainment. Not only that but using a library regular also improves younger pupils’ readiness for school and fosters a deeper love of reading for all learners.  

Therefore, as well as our regular, weekly library visits (to both the International and Hiba libraries), the library team recently encouraged pupils to participate in a sponsored reading event, donate to a school-wide book swap, and access our vast new range of Chinese titles.

And although Albert Einstein said that “The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library”, we know that once you are there, finding the books you want can be tricky. Therefore, in our library skills sessions, pupils are supported in identifying key sections of the library and searching the catalogue to find titles on the shelves.

As we near the summer holiday, the focus in school will turn to ensure pupils can navigate our eLibrary to access eBooks, digital magazines and other online resources to keep pupils reading over the break.

Meanwhile, outside of school, pupils can also log into EBSCO eBooks and Flipster with their school email and password and, finally, look out for details of our Summer Reading Challenge coming soon. 

Catherine Paradine
Assistant Head of Primary School
(Years 4 - 6)

Libraries are built upon a foundation of trust. Our pupils trust us to stock engaging reading material and up-to-date information resources and to be a source of support when making enquiries. In turn, we trust our pupils to be responsible with the books we lend. Responsibility and integrity are core values that we aim to instil in our pupils. They are also vital when using a shared resource, such as a library.

As we approach the end of the school year, the library team must review the collection for missing items, overdue books and items that need repairing. While this is an arduous task, it is vital if we are to manage the collection for our whole school community. The process is most successful when pupils have returned overdue books and ensure that they always check out items before taking them from the library.

Occasionally pupils do forget to check out books before leaving the library. Sometimes these are returned, but others may remain missing. Please support our library team by helping your child(ren) search for library books that may be overdue or not checked out. Familiar hiding places for books include car-seat pockets, behind furniture, under beds – they even hide in plain sight on bookshelves. Library books can be returned to any of our campus libraries.

Bronwen Duffield

Head Librarian

Four weeks left for our musical premier! We are excited and working extra hard after school with a passion for the performing arts. This week, the turn to interviews went to more principals of the cast of Seussical Jr. The Musical at Wellington College Hangzhou.

Isabelle, Year 5

Mayzie La Bird

 

 

Mayzie La Bird is a lively character; she loves engaging with other characters in the show. I enjoy singing with the choir and playing the piano at events at school. My favourite part of being in the musical is the singing whilst the most challenging part is the dancing. I keep going through the steps in my head while on the bus in the mornings and afternoons. Sometimes at home, I practise too. Thanks to being in the musical, I have become more confident in performing skills. 

Neva, Year 4

Baby Sour Kangaroo

 

 

My character and I are very young. I feel happy to know I am one of the youngest members of the musical. I love doing rehearsals. They are so much fun. They make me think about being an actor when I am older. The end of the number “Biggest Blame Fool” is challenging; it’s a complicated piece. But I always try my best to follow the music and improve with each rehearsal. Learning from the others in the musical, moving my body, and singing has helped me a lot. Moving my body allows me to stay fit, being in the musical gives me confidence, and singing has become a hobby.

Arwen, Year 6

Mrs Mayor

 

 

Mrs Mayor and I are caring, kind, thoughtful, and helpful; I care for my friends. I enjoy the chance to perform. I play the cello so having the opportunity to perform in other areas of arts, like musical theatre, is fun for me. I am also a big fan of Dr Seuss, and being in the show is an excellent opportunity to embrace the story. It was challenging to remember all the parts initially, but now I think I have mastered that. Playing Mrs Mayor’s emotions for her son Jojo is also a challenge. I improved by putting more emotion in the acting and thinking about my character and her feelings. Being in the musical has helped me be more responsible by learning the parts for the show in time. I have learnt more about teamwork. Only through collaboration can we cross the challenges of being in Seussical.

Rory, Year 4

Mr Mayor

 

 

Mr Mayor is the leader of the Whos. The Whos are tiny people that live in a dust speck. I think Mr Mayor and I are both scared of being crushed to death. Mr Mayor is bossy, and I am too. But we are also brilliant with excellent hearing. In the musical, I enjoy being able to project my voice and be loud and silly when I play my character. I like working with Mr Greer because he makes the rehearsals fun. Earlier, I struggled with getting the tone right for my lines, but the teachers helped me work on this, and now I am more confident. The musical has helped develop my general confidence and teamwork skills working with people of different ages. 

Alejandro Montoya

Director of Performing Arts

This week our senior school pupils have been learning about Australian Rules Football. In addition, our pupils learn various fundamental and advanced gross motor skills from kicking, handballing, catching, running, jumping and evading that will benefit them for future physical development and sports participation. Through regular training, our pupils also learn the basics of fitness conditioning and the basic principles and importance of health and nutrition:

We believe that pupils who play physically active team sports are:

more attentive

have an efficient memory

enhanced creativity

better learning adaptability

excellent problem-solving skills

positive attitude

Football players have to make rapid and complex decisions during the game while remembering specific structures of play and achieving pre-defined goals. This allows our pupils to adapt to various situations off the field more efficiently, with the brain’s neuroplasticity creating new neural pathways at an astonishing speed in young pupils’ brains. So yes, football gameplay learning makes pupils more adaptable.

Timothy Schulze

Head of PE

Martin Bailey

Dukebox Presenter