The Primary education programme at Yew Chung International School of Shanghai provides students with all of the fundamentals of a well-rounded education, and that includes a focus on learning about positive character traits and the importance of helping others. Guided by the school’s motto, which states that Yew Chung will “align with love and charity, ”and by the school’s Character Education programme, students at YCIS participate in a number of activities to help support other members of society. The annual Charity Week event held at Century Park and Regency Park Campuses is a recent example of how Character Education takes place at YCIS.

This year’s event involved students from each Primary year level creating entertaining activities and games to help raise funds for charity. The week began with Year 1 students holding a Basket Raffle that featured a wide range of gifts kindly donated by parents. The Year 2 classes, in a demonstration of artistic ability, taught their classmates how to make friendship bracelets from yarn. For the Year 3 activity, students organised a treasure hunt on campus, and the Year 4 classes worked together with their teachers to organise a “Kids’ Night In” evening, providing students with the opportunity to “get moving” for charity, with games, crafts, and even a dance!

As a reflection of the added responsibility students have at the upper Primary level, the Year 5 and 6 students created their own, unique games, with prizes for the winners. Later, when the Year 6 students posted summaries about the experience on the class blog, one group wrote, “We enjoyed seeing how our hard work had paid off. When we saw the happy smiles of our ‘customers’, we knew our game was successful.” The online reflections also shared the student’s greater learning as a result of the fun games and activities: they shared their happiness about participating in something that would help others.

The Primary teachers also contributed to the success of Charity Week by ensuring that each activity ran smoothly, and by encouraging a true giving spirit among students. Parents also demonstrated their support by providing donations, both in the form of prizes, and of their time, as they helped cut yarn for bracelets, assist with games, and supervise the dance. Indeed, the entire YCIS community came together for Charity Week, and the result was impressive: over RMB 100,000 yuan was raised and donated to several charities, including the schools’ charity, Seeds of Hope, Shanghai Healing Home, Baoji Xinxing Aid for Street Kids, and the WILL Foundation.

Ms Lynn Xie, a YCIS EAL Teacher and an organiser of Charity Week, reflected on the results and the true purpose of the week, saying, “Students brought donations of various amounts each day, yet what they took away was priceless: they learnt that even though RMB 20 or 30 yuan doesn’t seem like a lot when it is an individual’s contribution, when we pool our resources as a community, the result is exponential. We have helped our students appreciate the importance of helping those in need, and the impact of working together to make our community a better place.”