YWIES
November Newsletter 2nd issue
Upcoming Events Nov.4-8 Secondary Midterm Exam Nov.11-14 Parent Conference (Primary) Nov.15 Teacher inservice (Student off) Nov.18-21 Parent Conference (Secondary) Nov.28 Jeans day Nov.28-29 Photo taking
Inside this issue
Principal’s letter Dear Parents The leaves are turning brown and winter is nearly upon us. It is hard to believe but your children have already been at school for over two months. A school should be a centre for learning, but learning has many aspects, not just the academic. Students are developing children who need to learn and grow in several key areas to mature into fully rounded individuals, including: physical, social, emotional and academic. We encourage and support them to work hard and have fun while exploring new ideas and knowledge and to use the opportunity to make new friends and learn about new cultures. We also emphasize the physical and social benefits for all children to participate in after school activities and sports. In sports they can develop not only stamina and strength, but also invaluable skills in team work, leadership. Our wide range of activities offer something for all students to contribute and grow in different ways and welcome your continued support for these important dimension to your child‘s development. Awards It is with great pleasure that we can announce that students from Yew Wah International Educational School of Yantai have once again received several Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards. Only 2 awards are given every year by the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) for each subject, one for the highest mark in the subject in the country, and the other for the best mark in the world. To understand this achievement, it should be explained that there are over 20,000 CIE candidates in China and over 350,000 worldwide! Three Yew Wah students received one of these awards for the June 2013 Cambridge examinations. Jeon Sung Ho for the highest mark in the world for Cambridge IGCSE Foreign Language Mandarin Chinese.
Principal’s letter
1
New Teacher Introduction
3
Founder’s Day/Sport Day
4
Math week
4
English show
4
Open day
5
Science club
5
Student council
6
Photo taking notice
6
Dorm Wei Hai trip
7
New Year 2 and 3 Classes
Qu Fu trip
7
In response to parental feedback and to cater for the high demand for student places We
Memory of Somerset
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Gou Yiwen for the highest mark in China for Cambridge IGCSE Art and Design. Ru Kaidi for the highest mark in China for Cambridge International AS Level Applied ICT Founders Day On Founders Day all the students enjoyed a day of sports and activities All the students from all the Yew Wah and Yew Chung Schools across China (as well as Silicon Valley in California) gathered and linked up via live video to celebrate the founding of the first school, by Madam Tsang Chor-hang. Primary
have recently employed two new teachers to create two new classes in Primary, one each in Years 2 and 3. These new classes will commence on November 11th.
New Foreign Stream The Chinese Curriculum is compulsory for all Chinese students in Primary. In ef-
November
forts to listen to your feedback and continually improve the range of courses we offer, we recently surveyed all foreign parents in Primary about offering a non- Chinese Curriculum stream. This proposed stream would substitute Chinese Math and Chinese Science with additional classes in English Math, Science and English language. 25 out of 57 foreign parents have indicated that they would chose this option and we are now planning how we can offer a this course as soon as possible with the resources available. Secondary Year Somerset Trip The first group of Year 9 students has just returned from a month in Somerset in the UK, and where they stayed over three weeks at our residential complex Sibley Barn. They experienced 4 weeks immersion in an English language, education and culture and attended the local school High Grove on a daily basis, where they were matched with a ‗buddy.‘ The students also enjoyed numerous trips to places such as Cambridge, Oxford, Bath and London, where they visited Universities, Museums and Art Galleries, as well as taking the opportunity to take in the tourist sights. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the accompanying teachers, Dominic Rich and Wendy Wang, who left their families for a month to make this trip possible for our students, and the Secondary Coordinator Michael Shumate who travelled over with them. The second group will travel out in the second semester. Student surveys for Exam courses Year 9 and Year 11 students will be given preliminary surveys regarding their choices for IGCSE and AS/ A Level courses next year. Parent/Scool Communication Procedures There appears to be some misunderstanding about the new appointment system for parents. Firstly we should point out that we take this very seriously and this is evident in the fact that we have two staff dedicated to Liaising with Parents. There are three main reasons for creating a clear procedure. 1. Logistics In purely practical terms, we have over 400 students in all 4 sections of the school, Kindergarden, Primary, Lower Secondary and Upper Secondary and we simply do not have the personnel or the resources to accommodate parents who arrive unannounced. We also have continual appointment and visits by new prospective parents. As I am sure you understand, all teachers, Coordinators and Principals have busy schedules of teaching and meetings and we do not wish to disappoint parents by being unavailable to see them when they come. 2. Personalization All parental queries are focused on their own child‘s well-being for reasons of confidentiality. Initial queries can be dealt with by telephone and go through the school office to ensure that how we deal with every query is logged in detail in one central place. The school office will collect any information from necessary from the relevant persons to address your query. An appointment can also be arranged with the relevant information already collected and the necessary people have been made available. 3. Security The world is a very different place than when we were children. Unfortunately even China has experienced several school-related violent incidents over the last few years. With over 400 parents, our security personnel are under instructions to verify whom they admit for the protection of all our students and staff. We also seek to prevent incidents where family members attempt to enter the school to confront another student. This may be a surprise to you, but when it can happen. We thank you for your understanding and support over the last month and look forward to seeing you during the Parent Teacher conferences later in November. Kind regards,
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November
New teacher introduction My name is Michelle and I‘m excited to be Bilingual Teacher of Grade 2 this year. I have bachelor degree, majored in English. Before I started teaching in Primary Yew Wah, I was English teacher in YALC. I enjoy working with the young children and feel more than happy to encourage them to speak and practice their English ever day. I am really pleased and proud to be part of the great school, Yew Wah. - Michelle Grade 2 Bilingual Teacher My name is Jane yang，I graduated from SHAN DONG UNIVERSITY，and have got the master‘s degree. As the teacher in charge of primary 2 ,I am mainly responsible for Chinese level A classes and teach the science classes、character education etc. I have taught Chinese as a foreign language in a royal university of Thailand before. Now I join in YWIES，it is a big challenge and also new chance for me. I believe that here we cannot just provide the best learning environment for the students, our teachers also can get a good experience and then improve ourself.I always believe that teaching and learning are in a same process, teaching is learning, so I hope we can create an atmosphere of mutual learning between teachers and students progress. At the same time, happiness is the root of life, we teach, we learn, and we are happy. Here harvest is not only textbook knowledge, but also the formation of good character, accumulate the wealth for life. Life is not just for the sake of knowledge, but the knowledge can make life, I wish I can do my duty, don't let you down. At last, I must thank all the Senior teacher‘s sincerely help, thanks so much! - Jane Grade 2 teacher Hello, everyone in Yew Wah School of Yantai. I am Brian Shin from Korea. It is very nice to get to know you all and work for YWIES. I used to teach English to Korean students in school and academy both in Korea and China for several years. As a school liaison with teaching experience background, I basically would like to help school and parents communicate better with each other. And I am also very excited to meet such good students as YWIES students. It will be great if I can help students with anything in some ways even though I don't teach them. I will do my best to make our students and YWIES the best in Yantai, throughout the country and the world in the future. if you have any questions, you can contact me by mobile phone(158-65616053) or Email(brianshin@ywies.com) within working hours: 08:00 ~ 17:00). Thanks a lot. - Brian Parent Liaison My name is Kevin, Yew Wah‘s new third grade English teacher. I have been teaching elementary school for 4 years now and particularly enjoy enlightening young minds with new knowledge, perspectives and worldviews. My goal is to spark each of my students‘ individual intellectual curiosity and creativity. Living in big cities like New York, Toronto and Shanghai, I have come to crave the slower and more relaxed pace that Yantai offers. In my spare time, I really enjoy practicing martial arts, long distance running and writing. I sincerely hope that this next year will be a successful one for both my students and I.
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- Kevin Chen
Founder’s Day / Sports Day Today is a very special day. Today is October 11 th, one of the most fantastic day in the year: Founder‘s Day. The sun is shining friendly as the students of Yew Wah are walking excitedly toward the school. Around 9 o‘clock, we walk to Building B 5 th floor for our assembly. I am shocked when I step into the assembly room. The students of the whole school gather together, for this special day. Two students of Hong Kong Yew Chung are hosting the assembly on the video. But the most exciting part is that we wave our hands to other Yew Wah and Yew Chung schools. People are as small as ants, even though we can‘t see
ourselves clearly but all the students are full of enthusiasm. Some students from IGCSE and Primary demonstrate what sports we will do this afternoon. While, some of the girls are kind of shy and nervous, since they are doing to all our Yew Wah and Yew Chung peers. This after is a sports afternoon. Our team win all the games. The games are so fun and so well organized by the effort of teachers and students. Everyone gets a red face after the sports and we really have a good time.
We love the sport afternoon. We love our PoPo! We love the Founder‘s Day!
2nd issue
- Angelia 8A
Math Week Math week, from October 14th to 18 was definitely a fun week for most of the students, and also a busy week in deed. When I was in lower secondary, I didn‘t participate in any activities in those math weeks, because I didn‘t like Math, well, I still don‘t like it. However, this year, I‘ve got an opportunity to participate in the Math week without doing any calculations – being a volunteer. Before the week, the volunteers had a lot of meetings. th
On our first meeting, I was surprised to see how many people had volunteered – excited people made the room hot and crowded. During the actual week, people were extremely busy, some teachers had to help organize the activities right after their classes, as well as some students. I was a score keeper in one of the activities, and I was shocked by how fast the participants calculated. It was like, while I was still reading the question, most of the participants already had their answers correctly written. I‘ve helped in
several other activities, and I can say I was truly touched by the enthusiasm and excitement, I‘m glad that I volunteered. - Ameily Zhang, IGCSE 1B
English Show Grade 3 started their ―English Show‖ activity on 16th October, 2013. Sam was the first performer. He sang a British classical song ―You‘re beautiful‖ which was welcomed by all the students and parents. Grade 3 students will take turns to perform an ―English Show‖ between12:25-12:35 every Monday and Wednesday. The show could be in the way of an English story, poem, song, English
riddles or their own writing. The other students are the ―General Judges‖ to give the performer the score according to his/her eye contact, body language, confidence, clarity and pronunciation. This activity aims to provide a platform for the students to improve their spoken English and stimulate their enthusiasm to learn English. - Mrs. Jane Qi, Year 3 Bilingual teacher
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Open Day November
Every year at YEWWAH, there is an Open Day, which not only provides an opportunity for parents to know what is taught in the class, but also to give our feedback to the school. This semester, we went to Chinese Mathematics, English Mathematics and English on the Open Day. After that, we also attended Humanity, a curriculum which opened this semester. On the whole, the students actively participate in the classes and have good interactions with the teachers. For teachers, their teaching content and forms are very rich and various. Students can enjoy themselves from the active learning and remember it for a long time. Knowledge will be accumulated year after year .I take this opportunity to thank the teachers in
YEWWAH for their hard- tion to catch up. worK. Our school opened a HuThis semester, there are manity Curriculum this semessome innovations in the math- ter while English History and ematics: Chinese mathematics Geography are cut. I don‘t and English mathematics are think it is proper, because stucomplementary to each other. dents like to study History and If you learn Chinese mathemat- Geography systematically, not ics well, this will lay a good scattered in the Humanity Curfoundation for English mathe- riculum. Generally speaking, I matics. really don‘t have a clear idea of But it‘s limited to studying Humanity Curriculum. It wants just in the class, so it is recom- to cover many kinds of mended that teachers should knowledge, but in fact, it seems assign some homework to do a little scattered. There are no after class. I think it is neces- textbooks so we cannot presary for students to do more view and catch the important mathematics problems. For points. It‘s hard for students to some students interested in prepare for the exams. I look mathematics, we can let them forward to more improveparticipate in math competi- ment. tions with other schools. If our students lag behind, they will have the objective and motiva-
Science Club Hi Guys, I am Sally from Grade 6. This year I signedup for the Science Club. When I went to the Biology Lab, there were so many students in the lab for the activity. On the first day, we were put into groups and also we discussed various experiments that we are going to do in the Science Club.
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So far we did different activities like DNA Extraction, Hot Ice, Making Slime and Clay modeling. When we were making slime, we had a lot of fun. We all made
different colored slimes. When we were given clay to do models, I did so many things such as Christmas tree, Ice cream, Finger rings, Straw berry etc. The things that you make in the Science Club, you can take home. So I like this club very much. Do you want to do some Hands-On Activities? Come to the Science club and experience it. And we also can make new friends in the Science Club. - Sally 6A
- 7A Chris‘ father
Student Council John Min.
On Friday, October 11th, all of the Secondary students elected their Yew Wah Student Council officers having elected their class representatives earlier in the week. We are proud to introduce the following students who are now serving on the Yew Wah Student Council for 2013-2014: Our Student Council President is Ali Nouri, our Vice-President is Jimmy Jung, our Secretary is Jack Wang, our Community Service Officer is Richard Koo, and our Public Relations Officer is
Student Council Class Representatives for each grade level are: Year 6, Sally Kim and Anry Jo; Year 7, Ella Wang and Ryan Lu; Year 8, Tim Min and Jonathan Wan; Year 9, Brian Bang and AliceLee; Pre-IGCSE isGary Hu; IGCSE, Edwin Park and Eddie Jung; IGCSE II is Grace Lan; and A Level is Dasom Bae. Student Council has met twice since the election to discuss our goals and objectives for the year. Some of the ideas students shared were related to activities and projects for students here at school such as Friday night dance parties and spirit days as well as for others out in the community such as at orphanages or retirement homes
as has been done in the past. Student Council will be setting up a suggestion box for students to drop their questions, comments and concerns into, inquiring into changes to the school uniform as well as food choices on the lunch menu, assisting the PE department in checking out equipment during morning break and lunch recess as well as organizing sporting events and other fun competitions. We hope it will be an exciting and productive year for the Council.
2nd issue
Johnette Stevenson & Jeff Waldon Student Council Advisers
Photo taking Photographer Mr. Davy Lau will visit us and take portraits and class pictures of our students and teachers from Nov. 28 to Nov. 29. Every student is required to wear our blue striped shirt with long sleeves on the appointed date below. Nov. 28 Year1——Year8, Nov. 29 Year9——ALELVEL For Primary, a Class photo AND Individual Portrait set will be provided (RMB 190) only. And for Secondary, there are two options to choose: Students who choose not to order an individual portrait will receive ‖Class photo set‖ only (RMB 115): one(1) class photo with frame and one without frame (5‖ x 7‖) For students who have signed for an individual portrait in advance, they will receive a Class photo AND an Individual portrait set (RMB 190). Important Note: Re-ordering won‘t be available this time. So please make a decision, in advance, on which photo set you will need. (Please pay to Finance department by Nov. 21st , 2013.) If you don‘t want to buy, please return the photo package in its original condition. If the photo package is unpacked due to whatever reason, you must pay for it
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November
Dorm WeiHai Trip On October 19, the students who did not go home traveled to Weihai with dorm teachers because the school organizes an outing for those students once a month. That was a fantastic experience to me. On that day morning, I got up at 6:30 because I was so excited and I was looking forward to this traveling. At that day we set off at 8:00 and after three hours, we arrived at Shendiao Mountain Zoo. During those three hours, the guide gave us a brief introduction and the schedule of that day. We saw three elephant sculptures in front of the entrance that is very cute. We saw many kings of animals, such as tigers, lions, black bears, wolves, monkeys, pandas, elephants and so on. There includes
almost all the kinds of animals in the world. They were separated in a well structure. Their home was very clean and organized. Most of animals were sleeping at that time, so I think the most interesting part was in the monkey kingdom. When you entered this kingdom, you would see a monkey prison. There were six poor monkeys there. After that, you entered a totally monkey world. You would see different monkeys here. There was a fight there. Two monkeys sit on the tree and they made a big noisy competition. Lots of visitors stood here to make a video. That would be a treasure in our memory.
there, it still attracted many people to see it. One panda is called TianTian, and she was sitting on her bamboo house, while eating her lunch. Another one was her younger brother and I could not see her brother clearly, but I think both of them very cute. Before we got out there, we saw dolphin. It was a happy ending and I think this was a wonderful journey. - Nicky, YCCC
There was a panda park. Although only two pandas lived
QuFu Trip The Qufu Trip always brought up tones of memorable moments for me. In fact, this was my third time visit to the hope school in Qufu. Although it was my third time, I always had different feelings. I think it is because that the school itself and the facilities have improved which made me feel very proud as this proves to me that what we did there is worthwhile. The changes that I saw have shown me that I was not wasting 1000 RMB and more than 14 hours of time just for travelling back and forth every time I went there. It is not only
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the school‘s improvement, but also those adorable, ingenuous students who made me feel that I was smart enough to go there. While I was spending an enjoyable and entertaining time with the kids, I was a little bit sad as the hands of the children were so dry yet still warm; eyes were full of sorrow yet still dazzling. Nonetheless, I was also touched by those students since they recognized me and the older kids even remembered my name with unforgettable warm embraces. Some people asked me why am I attending every activity like this, my answer would be:
just visit there! When you visit there you will get the answer by yourself. I sincerely want more people to visit there in order to give them a warm hand for their needs and to have some memorable and fruitful recalls for their later lives. If there‘s another chance, I will certainly visit again without hesitating. Lastly, I bet those who didn‘t go there would regret it in the future! - Sophia Son, IGCSE 2B
YWIES 9 Tianshan Road, Kai Fa Qu Yantai, Shandong, P.R.C.
Phone: 86-535-638-0068 86-535-638-6698 Fax: 86-535-638-3485
Committed To Holistic Education
Visit www.ywies-yt.com for more information
Memory of Somerset After a long flight time, we landed at Heathrow airport in London. We queued up for a bus and finally arrived at Sibley‘s Barn where we were staying about three weeks late at night. I still cannot forget the first impression of Sibley‘s Barn. At night, the air was clean and cold, the night sky was beautiful and full of vivid stars while the sunshine was bright and the vast plain was green during the day time. The majority of parents and students who are expecting to go on this camp might be curious about the three weeks of school life. It really depends on who students meet as a buddy, but in my case my buddy and I became great chums and now we are going to stay in contact. Her name is Lydia Maers and she is active and bright. I followed three of her classes everyday and took the same classes with her, meeting other students also. I also became friendly with them easily through my buddy‘s introduction. Some might be convinced that it‘s just my case; however, I had seen a lot of cases who were a great match with
their buddies even though the start was a bit awkward. At the end of the school life our school students made power points in front of the buddies and some students, including me, performed dances and some other shows. We have great memories and they still linger in my mind. We also travelled somewhere near Somerset when we didn‘t go to school. We visited lots of different places like Bristol science museum, Somerset rural museum and Cheddar Cheese factory. Nevertheless the best place to me was Bath University. I was really impressed about the workshops in the university. All students could use the art facilities in the ‗Design and Art‘ workshop and make their own work of art, regardless of their major. I could see diverse kinds of facilities and machines and each of them has a particular function. I liked the workshop‘s enthusiastic atmosphere and students. I think there is a need to spotlight the disadvantages that we had to take in this
article, so that parents and students should be aware of both the bright and seamy side. We were quite running out of time to do both homework and follow the schedule. I knew this fact before, but it took a quite a long time to be used to it. Also, using Wi-Fi in the dorm was absolutely impossible since Somerset is a rural area where the network is not well developed. Of course we had time to use the Internet in Haygrove School every morning, so submitting homework on time was not impossible but it was still inconvenient. Except for that fact, it is certain that making a British friend and realizing the cultural differences in detail is a great opportunity to learn about other cultures and people without any doubt. Lastly, I want to say thank you to the teachers who instructed us and all the students who came to this camp, especially my roommates Julia, Katherine and Dana. - Isabella Kim, IGCSE1A