The Executive Master's End of Year Letter

Dear parents,

The last few days of the school's 10th anniversary are drawing to a close as I write this letter. A year that began with such high hopes of a yearlong celebration of our decade in Tianjin has not turned out quite as I or any of us anticipated. You all know the baleful impact of the global pandemic on our city, and thus the school. I will not go over those challenges again, except to note that, throughout it all, our community of learners, teachers and parents worked together to ensure that all our children continued to make encouraging progress. Parents, staff and most of all, our pupils have my enduring gratitude for their commitment and support throughout this year.

As with every year, I wanted to remind you of the numerous achievements of our pupils and staff this year. Instead of a very long letter, I have added an infographic to show some of the highlights. I hope you like the format.

With the good news of all these achievements, there is nevertheless a sense of sadness as we need to say goodbye to a number of our much-loved teaching staff, many of whom have been with Wellington for several years. The school's staff turnover rate remains well below international school levels at 12.9%, and indeed, we have the lowest turnover of any school in the WCC group. In these challenging times for overseas travel, many schools have seen staff turnover rates of 40-50%, so it is reassuring to see such healthy numbers for Tianjin. 

Our leavers include Ms Swanepoel and Ms Krichel, who move on to new and exciting opportunities in Beijing and Canada, respectively. 

Mr and Mrs Lane also move to Beijing, taking up positions with Keystone Academy. 

Mrs Johnson leaves the teaching staff, but not our Tianjin community, as she travels the globe to support her son's start at university and to reconnect with family members after several years away. Ms Feng leaves us to join Hiba school in Shanghai as their university counsellor. Ms Pelham has been promoted to head of maths in the British International School of Cairo. 

Mr and Mrs Banham have an exciting new adventure awaiting them in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Ms Zhang, one of our first bilingual specialists in the Senior School, leaves after six years. Her first experience in the school involved working directly for me in the office, so it was no surprise when she soon went down the academic route.

Moving into a well-earned retirement in the UK is Mr Iddison, whilst Mrs Iddison is not yet ready to give up the classroom and returns to her previous school. 

Ms Churchill arrived in August 2014 and has been head of art for seven years. She has fostered the excellence of the art provision at Wellington in those years, inspiring so many of our graduates to move on to the world's leading art colleges. She becomes artist-in-residence at her new school. Ms Qi, another formidable member of the art department, leaves us to move to the US with her husband, Mr Lewis. Her contribution to our pupils' lives - and art - cannot be underestimated. 

Finally, after a decade of committed service to the school, Mr Roundell moves to become Senior Deputy Head of Harrow International School Shanghai. His contributions, be they in the classroom, as housemaster of the Stanley, or latterly as the leader of the school's safeguarding and pastoral work, have been exceptional. As with all our departing staff, he leaves a rich legacy and a safer, better school. I am sure that you all join me in wishing them every success in their new ventures.

As one door closes, another opens, though, and I am delighted to welcome a hugely experienced group of teachers to the school from August. Given the extended travel difficulties, it has been a challenge to recruit the highest quality staff for the school, but we have now filled all our vacancies, and I am sure that we have appointed some real stars of the future. Among them is Mrs Yvette Peden, our new head of the Senior School. Mr Ali stays as Second Master but becomes our pastoral and safeguarding leader, a key role in keeping our community safe. Of course, the major move is Dr Yang, the school's new Master. She will be an inspirational leader for our community, tireless in working to improve the life chances of our pupils. As a leading school in WCC and China, Tianjin is in safe hands. There is a hugely experienced leadership team and very stable, high-performing middle leaders across all parts of the school. I see a tremendously exciting future for the school under Yang's leadership, and I look forward to my regular visits to Tianjin as part of my new role.

As the school continues to grow in pupil numbers, we have added several additional staff to the team, replacing those who have moved on. In brief, the list of new staff is as follows: Joshua Pearce, Guy Waterman, Samuel Snape, Jonathan Eloff and Dale Cauldwell-French (all Junior School). In the Senior School, we have Kimberley Edell (English), Paul Edell (science), Rita Zhao (science), Michelle Doherty (art), Sunet van Aswegen (science), Anton Lyubinin (maths), Andrew Almond (PE), Grace Toledo (maths), Ray Fu (Economics and Business Studies), Yaxian Huang (art) and Emma Lancaster (DT). We also have two new bilingual university counsellors, Ning Zhang and Karen Shi. 

Earlier this year, I reflected on the school's first ten years. 

These are hard-won successes for any school, and whilst the staff and pupils are two of the critical factors in this process, an undeniably central ingredient is the trust of the parent community. Trust is hard to win, particularly for new schools. A school must earn the trust and respect of its community – it cannot expect these as of right. Wellington's British-international programme was a new element in the education scene in the city in 2011 and, as such, something of a curiosity. The pedagogy, curriculum, assessment and emphasis on a child's holistic wellbeing were unsurprisingly unfamiliar to prospective parents.

As we reach the end of our first decade in the city, I hope that parents, pupils and staff still feel that these words have resonance for them.