“The clouds gather the colours of summer, and the leaves rustle with the sounds of autumn.” In order to strengthen the connection between the school and families and to enhance parents’ understanding of our educational provision, parents from all primary school grades arrived at the campus on 19 and 20 September filled with love and expectations.
We came together in love and warmth
Our Primary School team arrived early on campus, looking forward to witnessing the start of their students’ journeys in the new semester. All the parents entered the school on time, and a variety of wonderful meetings were set to commence.
When Grade 1 parents gathered early in the Main Theatre, Assistant Principal Helen Liu warmly welcomed them and shared the development and progress of the children since the beginning of the school year. Principal Sunny Huang was also invited to attend, and she sincerely exchanged her parenting experience with parents from the perspective of a professional educator. She mainly emphasized three aspects:
1.Trust the school, respect the teachers, and engage in positive and effective communication.
2.Be education partners with the school, partners who mutually appreciate each other.
3.Believe in educational principles and be emotionally stable parents who attempt to sustain their energy.
Principal Huang’s speech was full of depth and reflection, and her commitment to our students’ success was reflected in every detail. She expected that parents and the school could work productively together throughout their future parenting journeys, jointly cultivating the growth of all students.
Love and education grow together
The Homeroom Teacher team
The homeroom teachers shared their children’s progression with parents, narrowing the sense of distance between each other. Teachers had in-depth discussions with parents on students’ development, diverse activities in the school, and home-school communication and support. At the same time, they also introduced and discussed in detail the concept of family education and the importance of home-school collaboration.
The teachers on our bilingual team are all excellent in their respective fields. The Grade 1 Art, PE, Music and STEAM teachers introduced themselves to parents through subject presentations, conveying their passion for teaching in the form of music and art. The bilingual teachers in Grades 2 to 5 created a video that captured the exciting activities of the class during the first two weeks as well as the student presentations and works, and also made a detailed presentation of the curriculum for the semester.
The ELA/Inquiry Team
Our English Language Arts (ELA) & Inquiry teams of foreign teachers actively explore and use a variety of skills-based teaching strategies to develop students to become effective learners. In Global Perspectives lessons, students are guided by the concept of ” Act Locally, Think Globally”, discussing various problems and seeking solutions. ELA integrates different English skills and challenges students to think in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. English Mathematics courses are based on students’ mathematical foundations and are language-oriented in problem-solving. The teachers are proud to be part of this excellent, enterprising and dynamic team and enjoy contributing to the advancement of student learning.
Chinese teachers provided an overview of the teaching foci for this semester, defined goals and explained how they expect to achieve them. They communicated with parents on learning habits, Chinese culture, reading and other topics, aiming to cultivate students’ solid foundations, their habits of reading and desires for expressing themselves, all in order to cultivate students’ literacy of learning their mother tongue. With their rigorous thinking and careful logic, the teachers in the mathematics group described all the mathematics learning materials being used throughout this semester, led parents to systematically understand the important and difficult points in learning, and discussed how students can form effective learning habits. Combined with the characteristics of each learning phase and common concerns of parents, the English teachers shared the students’ English learning results, clarified the goals and requirements of the new semester, and gave suggestions for learning needs. They are committed to working with parents to develop students’ reading habits, enrich vocabulary, improve language comprehension, and broaden students’ horizons. In general, an important goal of all the teachers is to help students learn and understand the three subjects of Chinese, Mathematics and English through home and school cooperation.
These meetings represented a beautiful beginning; growth is a wonderful vision achieved through the partnership between home and school. The support of our parents is an endless source of motivation for the school. It is believed that in the days to come, with the school and parents working together, hand in hand, students at SUIS Qingpu will surely grow and thrive!