Dear parents

Even a cursory glance at this week's edition of the Week Ahead will show you how busy your children will be over the last couple of weeks of this long term. I always feel that some of the annual highlights for our community come at this stage of the Michaelmas term. Christmas shows from the Nest, Junior School, culminating in the final show of the term in our full-school concert on 16th December, remind us of the power of performance and working together as parts of a child's learning. Few things are as powerful for a young person as overcoming nerves and triumphing in a performance in front of parents and peers. Pupils remain focused on their academic work, too, of course. The university application season, particularly for those with Oxbridge ambitions, is reaching its peak; there are full mock examinations for years 11-13 fast-approaching in January; and, as Mr Markovic and Mrs Xu point out in their sections (below), pupils across the school continue to be stretched and challenged in their schooling. 

Parents, too, have a significant role to play over the next few weeks. We have a parent briefing from Mr Ogando on Wednesday for all those of you who would like to know more about IGCSE examinations. These exams are taken at 16 years of age and, as university admissions' directors will tell you, are often the decisive factor in determining a successful application to an elite university. Success at this level is, statistically, a more reliable guide to an applicant's final university degree grade than either A Level or IBDP results, so their importance should not be underestimated. Parents are advised to log in to the online presentation to find out more about these examinations. We are delighted to offer a Winter Book Fair next week once again too. This is an excellent chance for families to stock up on reading material for the coming year. The school is placing a strong emphasis on poetry next year – writing it, reading it and performing it. This Fair gives pupils and parents a chance to discover new writing and classics, and it is simple to combine a visit to the Book Fair with time at our annual Christmas Bazaar. For details, please see the sections below.

Finally, parents will have the chance to give substantial feedback on all aspects of the school's performance in the next few weeks. The first is through our Annual Review survey, data from which goes to inform the quality assurance report we get from our independent assessors each March. This survey will be familiar to long-term parents. It is available in three languages (English, Chinese and Korean) and will open on Tuesday 7th December and remain accessible until the end of term (Friday 17th December). In January, we have a separate survey conducted on our behalf as part of the CIS re-accreditation cycle. This survey is used to help the school to draft the self-study report and provides invaluable comparative data to a similar survey done last in 2016, during our original accreditation period. In this way, we can begin to measure some of the progress made by the school in the intervening years. Whilst it may seem inconvenient for members of the community – pupils, staff and parents – to have to complete two large-scale surveys in quick succession, please be assured that they both provide essential data to help drive our common goal: improving the school and its education for your children. As a result, I am grateful in advance for your engagement with these surveys.

A 16-week term is a long stretch in any school. The sustained intensity of the school, the sheer busyness of its community means that there may be a temptation for a more relaxed approach to the end of term. As you can see from the information above, we are committed to keeping your children learning and making progress until the last possible date.

Best wishes

Julian Jeffrey
EXECUTIVE MASTER

Computer Science Education Week and annual Hour of Code in Wellington

Computer science education week is an annual event to inspire K-12 students to learn computer science and information technology. Within this year's Computer science education week, we will host the Hour of Code event in partnership with Microsoft Education. The Hour of Code originated as a brief introduction to computer science, intending to show that anybody can learn the basics of 'coding' and increase the number of children taking part in computer science activities. It has since become a worldwide effort to celebrate computer science.

Winter Book Fair
Black Box Foyer
9th and 10th December

It’s the time of the year! The Winter Book Fair will be hosted at Black Box foyer on the 9th and 10th December. All the pupils, their parents and staff are welcome to this event. Let’s stock for the holiday!

Reports

As we draw near towards the end of the Michaelmas term, teachers are extremely busy writing reports that provide an opportunity to recognise where pupils have made progress and have been working well and areas of improvement.

This academic year, we have taken a new approach to reports in the Junior School and Key Stage 3 based on a Wellington College China model. This will help parents and pupils better understand curriculum areas across different subjects and pupil performance against key learning objectives during each timeframe. Each subject in years 7, 8 and 9 will have its own page, together with a summary of all subjects at the end. This enables teachers, pupils, and parents to focus on areas where pupils need specific support and intervention, so that gaps in their knowledge, skills and understanding can be addressed.  

In the Senior School, with around ten subjects for each pupil, the reports are extensive documents, and therefore, we will be making them available only through the parent portal. Please make sure that you can access the system and view previous reports; this will enable you to access the end of Michaelmas reports when they are published. As a Microsoft Showcase school, we need to make better use of our technology and be more environmentally friendly and only print documents when necessary.  

Thank you so much for your support. If you have any issues with accessing the portal, please e-mail Mrs Zhao (cissy.zhao@wellingtoncollege.cn).

Senior School Parent Briefing: How to Prepare Your Child For IGCSE
Online
0900hrs-1015hrs, Wednesday
8th December

We will be hosting a meeting to discuss some of the strategies parents can apply to prepare their children more effectively for IGCSEs. Our discussion will examine the transition between Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 curriculums and how, as a school, we support our pupils to manage this transition more efficiently. We will also link our discussions to our pupils' academic journey beyond IGCSE, leading to university.

We have made a recording in advance for you to understand this topic in advance and a live Q&A will take place at 0900hrs via Microsoft TEAMS. The link to access the video and the TEAMS link will be e-mailed to parents before the live Q&A.

Junior School Winter Show
Theatre
1300hrs, Friday
10th December

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! Junior School children are so excited to perform for you our Winter Show entitled 'The Magic of Song… Walt's World'. We can't wait to entertain you with our magical musical on Friday 10th December at 13:30hrs in the Seldon Theatre. Classes have been working very hard to learn the lines from their favourite Disney musicals, and songs like 'In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle' and 'A Whole New World' have been heard ringing down the corridors. I'm sure you will be entertained by the acting, the excellent singing and dancing and the colourful costumes. We are looking forward to seeing you all there!

Choir performance: Riverside 66 Mall, Tianjin
1600hrs, Saturday
11th December

The Junior Choir and Wellatonics will light up the Christmas tree at the Riverside 66 Shopping Centre at 1600hrs on Saturday 11th December. This is also the first time the Junior Choir has been invited to perform at Christmas events outside the school. Please come and get into the festive mood with their beautiful singing. Please contact Ms Stella Sun at stella.sun@wellingtoncollege.cn if you would like more information.

The reader of the week

The English and ELA department is delighted to announce that the Readers of the Week are:

Iman and Wenxin in year 7, who are nominated by Mr Furse, for consistent, independent, extensive reading (Iman) and independently finishing Northern Lights (Wenxin).

Nina, Cassie, Tania, Jenny, Erika and Violet in year 10, nominated by Ms Jiao for their continuous effort in independent reading. All of them have read three books in English and completed detailed written reviews. Excellent effort and good work!

Huge congratulations to you all - what impressive achievements you have made. Well done!

Each week we will have workshops and lectures on various and colourful topics held by our school parents and friends. This is to enhance our bonds as a Wellington Community, and we would love to welcome all of you to join us!