This year YCIS Shanghai Pudong sent a group of seven students to participate in the World Scholar’s Cup tournament in Seoul, South Korea. Building on the their success from last year’s competitions in Beijing and Shanghai, the YCIS Shanghai teams studied materials relating to the theme of “A World Transformed”, including topics such as biotechnology, modern cities and the arts. Our teams returned to Shanghai winning top prizes in several categories, including best overall student and best writing team. The latter team came a very close second in the competition as the best overall team, narrowly missing out on the top prize to the host school, Korea International School.

In spite of this, the YCIS Shanghai teams had considerable success in their debating rounds, with two of the teams winning all of their debates and gaining medals for their efforts. Overall, it was a great success for YCIS Shanghai Pudong.

Outside of the competition, the students had an opportunity to visit the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) bordering North and South Korea on the same day they were due to return to Shanghai. This gave the students fantastic insight into the Korean War and how the DMZ came into existence. It was overall a very interesting learning experience for the students and they came back from the trip not only with academic accolades, but also with a better understanding and experience of the Korean culture as our pictures demonstrate.

Mike Herd, World Scholar’s Cup trip leader