The Week Ahead 27 October 2016

Dear Parents,

The Council of International Schools (CIS) Accreditation Team shared their draft evaluative feedback with all staff last Friday afternoon, at the end of their seven-day Visit.  CIS, at this stage, preface their feedback with the word ‘draft’ because the finally confirmed report, along with recommendations made and the CIS decision concerning Accreditation, must come from CIS Head Office.  The timescale for this is over the next 4 to 8 weeks.  So we bear this point carefully in mind in communicating the general trend of the draft feedback, understanding that the finalised wording and content of the draft report can still be modified. 

The Team’s provisional feedback is that Wellington College International Tianjin is a good school, which has now developed the capacity for excellence, and, as part of Wellington College China, has very high aspirations.  Draft Commendations were received in the areas of: College Mission and Vision; Teaching and Learning; Governance and Leadership; EAL provision; a warm and supportive School culture; our ASA programme; and School displays.  Draft Recommendations for improvement were received in the areas of: the College’s definition of internationalism and interculturalism; increased links between the different (age-range) phases of the College; processes for Special Needs referrals; and some non-academic operational systems. 

We greatly value all the objective, constructive draft feedback we have received from CIS, as an international community of well over a thousand schools and universities, from 112 countries across the globe, all committed to the highest standards of education.  We now much look forward to sharing with parents the confirmed conclusions of our finalised CIS Report, when we receive this in the coming weeks.  Suggestions for improvements not already in our School Development Plan (SDP) will be considered accordingly. (Our SDP also received a draft commendation).  

The last week has been a very special period for the School.  Whilst our CIS feedback is naturally the whole-school headline for this week, we have also seen several superb events in School, as anyone who attended these will testify.  Last Thursday evening an outstanding instrumental concert took place in the Seldon Theatre which included a tremendous debut performance by our School Orchestra. Junior School pupils played a significant role in this, on a day when Years 3 and 4 had also presented splendidly to parents on their Milepost Topic Exit Point.  Following these events, the last three nights have featured an outstanding student drama production of ‘Two’ in the Black Box Theatre.  There was great appreciation from the audience of the excellent quality of the performances from the highly committed and dedicated cast. Finally, we also hosted a terrific community football tournament here last week-end, which included a Wellington staff side amongst ten visiting squads from the Tianjin region, and we raised in excess of 3800RMB for local breast cancer charities, in our special ‘Pink Day’ last Friday.  As ever, there is more to come, as you can read further in this edition of ‘The Week Ahead’. 

Many thanks indeed to the whole school community for your continued commitment to the College, we should feel very proud of what we have achieved together thus far, and look forward to even more success ahead’

With best wishes to all our Wellington families. 

Michael Higgins,
Master