Inside a Year of Wellington Community Life: What Families Gain Together

2026-06-19

If the educational narrative of a school ultimately settles into a distinctive "character", then the community is where that character is most vividly lived and expressed.

It exists not only within classrooms or teaching practices, nor is it confined to academic results or accolades. Rather, it emerges through repeated shared participation, through moments of genuine companionship, and through interactions that may appear ordinary but gradually accumulate into something far more profound: a deeper human connection built on trust, understanding, and a shared willingness to act.

In the 2025–2026 academic year, the Wellington Hangzhou community anchored its work in the belief that "Education as Action, Charity as Daily Practice", guided by the values of kindness, responsibility, respect, courage and integrity. From this foundation, it continued to explore a more essential question:

When education extends beyond the school gates, how does it truly enter everyday life—and reshape the way people relate to one another?

Over the past year, we have witnessed charity evolving beyond a series of scheduled initiatives into something increasingly embedded in daily choices. We have seen the home–school relationship moves beyond the exchange of information towards a shared process of meaning-making. And we have seen the idea of "community" shift from an abstract concept into lived experience—becoming a space that can be felt, participated in, and collectively shaped.

Acting with Purpose:

Extending Kindness Further Afield

Across this year, charitable work has gradually shifted from "organised activities" into "natural choices made by the community".

For the first time, the Charity Run and Charity Fair stepped beyond the campus, connecting with the wider community through the Transfar Innocity. This was more than an expansion in scale; it represented an extension of boundaries. When pupils, parents and local residents stood together on the same running route, charity became something tangible, participatory, and sustainable. Acts of kindness ultimately came together in support of families affected by rare diseases. Beyond the figures raised, what mattered most was the moment children began to understand, perhaps for the first time, that "I can do something for others".

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The Charity Run & Charity Market brought together community care and raised nearly RMB 6,000 for families affected by rare diseases. It offered warmth and support to the children involved, while expanding the reach and impact of educational philanthropy.

The Flea Market offered another lens through which to understand sustainability—not as an abstract idea, but as lived practice. With 45 stalls and hundreds of participating families, pre-loved items were re-imbued with meaning, while funds raised were directed towards child protection, rural education and ecological restoration. What deserves attention is not simply the amount raised, but the value judgements formed by children through each exchange and decision: that resources can be reinterpreted, and the world treated with greater care.

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The Flea Market was reimagined under the theme of "charity and sustainability", raising RMB 13,260. All proceeds supported child protection, rural education, and ecological restoration projects. The event reflected the warmth and responsibility of the Wellington community while promoting kindness and sustainable living.

Meanwhile, through the "Dream House" charity programme, when children from rural school took to the stage at the Summer Carnival, the meaning of charity subtly shifted. It was no longer simply about "giving", but about "seeing". When the arts became a shared language bridging urban and rural communities, charity moved from one-directional support towards mutual illumination.

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Our school invited young Kunqu opera performers from Daciyan Central Primary School in Jiande to take to the stage at the Summer Carnival.

This year also saw continued efforts to embed environmental action into long-term practice. Building on the Million Tree Project (MTP), a second Wellington forest was successfully established. In this sense, charity began to acquire a temporal dimension: no longer only a response to the present, but a commitment to the future.

Alongside this were Charity Movie Nights, animal welfare initiatives, visits to care homes, and more. Though seemingly diverse in nature, these activities collectively point towards a clear shift: at Wellington, charity is moving from something people participate in occasionally to something that is becoming habitual.

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Charity movie nights, support for stray animals, and visits to care homes for the elderly formed an ongoing series of community initiatives, allowing responsibility and kindness to be woven into everyday moments of growth.

Everyday Connections:

the Quiet Strength of Companionship

If charity reflects a community's outward responsibility, then community life reveals its inward connections.

Education has never been solely about the transmission of knowledge; it is equally about the formation of relationships. Over the past year, there has been a conscious effort to return these relationships to something more natural—less driven by obligation, and more shaped by genuine presence and shared experience.

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In April, more than 60 staff members and parent representatives gathered at Hiba Academy Nantong to take part in the 3rd Wellington China Staff and Parent Sports Championship. The annual event showcased sporting spirit and continued to strengthen home–school connections, uniting and reinforcing the Wellington community.

Family Day and the Dragon Boat Festival celebrations were among the clearest expressions of this. Kayaking, dragon boat cultural experiences, picnics and outdoor exploration came together in a single shared landscape. Children came to understand tradition through movement and play, while parents rediscovered their role not as observers, but as active companions. In these moments, education was no longer explicitly articulated—it simply unfolded through shared experience.

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Last week, a Family Day celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival was warmly held. Blending traditional festivities with time spent in nature, the event brought families together to engage more deeply and share moments of joy under the sun.

Spring camping and the FOW badminton friendly tournament offered a different but equally vivid picture of community life. On the sports field, competition and collaboration coexisted; on the grass, conversation and rest flowed seamlessly into one another. Across these spaces, identities became fluid. Teachers, parents, pupils and peers shifted roles continuously, and the boundaries between them softened. What remained was a more authentic and grounded sense of connection.

Throughout the year, seasonal celebrations—Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Lunar New Year and Lantern Festival—alongside family hikes and parent–child tree planting activities, gradually transformed culture from something "taught" into something "experienced". Through embodied participation, children developed a deeper understanding of tradition, while also forming lived associations with concepts such as "family", "festival" and "community".

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Family hikes, parent–child tree planting, and cultural experiences for various festivals have continued to bring warmth to our community, integrating nature education, practical learning, cultural immersion and meaningful family time.

Enabling Growth:

Platforms that Bring People Together

If charity connects the school with society, and community life connects people with one another, then home–school collaboration connects all of this to the direction of growth itself.

This year, the Wellington Talk Series continued to evolve. It became more than a platform for sharing information; it functioned more like an ever-opening window. Olympic champions, aerospace experts, admissions officers, psychologists and innovation mentors from a wide range of fields entered a shared space, enabling families to reconsider the idea of "growth" from a far more multidimensional perspective.

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The Wellington Talk has continued throughout the year, covering diverse themes including study abroad planning, cutting-edge technology, career development, and the arts and humanities, offering families high-value support for growth and learning.

Alongside this, parent communities continued to develop organically. Through sport, reading groups and charitable engagement, relationships among parents gradually shifted—from being defined primarily as "parents of children attending the same school" to becoming something closer to "companions walking a shared journey of support and growth". In this sense, the community has become less of an institutional extension and more of a living, dynamic network of human connection.

Looking back across the academic year, one theme becomes increasingly clear: education is taking place through ever more interconnected forms.

Charity teaches us to look outward and recognise others, helping us understand the weight of responsibility through action. Community life enables us to rediscover the meaning of companionship in everyday interactions, grounding education in relationships. Home–school collaboration turns the idea of "shared growth" from principle into practice, ensuring education is no longer driven by a single force, but co-created by many.

As the boundaries between school, family and community continue to soften, a more vibrant and resilient collective begins to take shape. Within it, no act of participation exists in isolation, and no interaction is confined to the moment itself. Instead, each accumulates over time, shaping a culture built on trust, continuity and shared purpose.

May this collective strength, built by people and sustained over time, continue to grow—so that education is not merely defined, but continually and collaboratively created.