Since mid-March, every one of us in Shanghai has been experiencing significant challenges. Based on the experience of 2020, YCIS quickly transferred to online learning, and the whole process was effective and smooth. During the e-Learning, we highly appreciate our students’ resilience. Whether in lower primary or upper secondary, the students are actively engaged in learning. We also would like to acknowledge our staff, both teaching and non-teaching. Although everyone is facing their difficulties at this stage, they remain professional and put our students as the priority.

—— Ms Mary Yu, YCIS Pudong Chinese Co-Principal

Summer is just around the corner, making it a great time to reflect on the learning that YCIS has shown. During the past two months in lockdown, the YCIS Shanghai community has shown resilience, composure, and courage. These qualities make us look forward to the future in our host city of Shanghai.

Resilience is the capability to grow and emerge from difficult situations and is necessary to evolve. When we first started e-Learning in March, YCIS Shanghai teachers remained committed to their positions and delivering quality education to their students. The lockdown regulations forced many to challenge themselves but stay true to their hearts.

In the future, when we look back, Spring 2022 was not only about group purchasing and nucleic acid testing but also about the journey we have had and lessons we learned together.

March

Online MUN

Over the weekend of March 18, our active YCIS Model United Nations community participated in several online MUN conferences. Representing countries such as Venezuela, Japan and Thailand, secondary students from YCIS Puxi demonstrated excellent diplomatic and presentation skills by presenting their attitudes on global energy issues and regional disputes in Afghanistan based on detailed research. Secondary students from YCIS Pudong also had a heated and successful discussion on the current conflict in Ukraine, demonstrating the students' deep thinking and debating skills.

Yew Chung Yew Wah 12 Values

As part of the seventh instalment of the Parent Webinar Series, YCIS Hong Kong Early Childhood Education Western Co-Principal Mr Clayton Mullins shared his insights on the Yew Chung Yew Wah (YCYW) 12 Values. These values are central to the culture, environment, and teaching practices of YCYW schools.

Project-Based Learning

As part of an English and Humanities project-based learning (PBL) unit, the YCIS Puxi Year 7 students at were posed with the task of creating their dream kids-only resort with imagination and endless resources. Students had to envision paradise and tackle relevant obstacles for their resort to be sustainable in three core areas: social, economic, and environmental. As they designed their resort, they needed to justify choices that they make to demonstrate their understanding of sustainability, biomes, data collection, and usage and persuasive language.

Character Education

YCIS Shanghai believes the core purpose of education is character formation. We have a comprehensive and structured curriculum to help students develop the strong values. Since the launch of e-Learning, we have added content that we hope will help students develop empathy and positively impact their communities. We also prioritise the wellness of our students and faculty, and organised activities such as the "50,000 Steps Challenge" and wellbeing webinars to help students and faculty maintain a healthy mental state during this time.

April

Celebrating Diversity Through Language

To embrace the joys of learning languages and to bring awareness to the importance of studying different languages, YCIS Pudong held Language Week from April 11 to 15. Through language we can promote closeness and understanding amongst different cultures in the world and continue to build strong relationships within our school community.

Bringing Climate Action to the Forefront

On April 29, YCIS celebrated Earth Day along with billions of people across the globe to raise awareness about environmental protection and engage with a variety of environmental issues through interactive activities.

Excelling from Home in the Performing Arts

During the past few months, the Performing Arts Department at YCIS Pudong has been working away on several home recording projects with students in CCA groups from both Primary and Secondary, including songs like "I Will Survive", "Somewhere In My Memory", and "Haru Ga Kita”, spreading positive messages to the community.

Top Scores in Maths Competitions... Again!

Students from YCIS Shanghai Puxi Primary participated in the Singapore International Olympiad in Mathematics (SASMO) in April. As the largest junior mathematics competition in Asia, more than 30,000 students worldwide participate each year. The results of the competition will be announced in June. Students from YCIS Shanghai Pudong participated in the fifth round of the Caribou Contest. A total of eight students from Years 3 to 10 received perfect scores and 27 students placed in the top 10% worldwide. Congratulations to all participants! The sixth round of the competition was held yesterday May 11.

We look forward to more Maths mastery from our students and the final scores from the Caribou Cup.

YCYW’s Bilingual Learning Communities

As the eighth instalment of the Parent Webinar Series, we invited Dr Lam Tung Fei and Ms Bridget Ip, Senior Curriculum Officers of the Curriculum and Professional Development Division of the YCYW Education Network, to share with us YCYW’s approach to its Bilingual Learning Community (BLC). Its principles and practices were discussed, detailing the overall academic and developmental benefit to students.

The framework of the BLC is founded upon YCIS's "Mission, Principles and Practices". We believe in equipping our graduates with a deep respect for and understanding of world cultures. This entails a mastery over Chinese and English as well as proficiency in other modern languages that help students meet generational challenges.

May

YCYW Scholarship Awards for 2022-23

With over 100 applicants, YCIS Shanghai awarded scholarships to more than 20 students for the 2022-2023 academic year. We will continue to open the scholarship applications in Autumn for the following academic year and look forward to more students showcasing their talents and skills in a variety of fields.

Former Tencent Speaks on YCIS Stage

On May 10, Mr Vic Lee, co-founder of Tencent, was invited to YCYW Planet Leadership Series. Under the theme "The Future is At Your Doorstep: Humans vs Technology" Mr Lee focused on three parts and shared his insights on how new technology will change our lives, the responsibilities of technology for developers, users and owners, and how education can reposition itself to help the next generation prepare for the future.

Although the pandemic has created many uncertainties, YCIS Shanghai has continued to move forward. We hope that a reunion on campus is not far away and will continue to provide diverse learning opportunities and a stage for our students to shine.

June

YCYW Got Talent

On June 20, the YCYW Talent Show will be back! We encourage every student to register and showcase their talents and ideas.

At YCIS we believe that each child is unique, with innate talents and gifts that should be nurtured to the fullest potential. Looking ahead to the next academic year, we will also continue to hold events such as TEDx, concerts, and inter-school sports tournaments so that students can have more opportunities to shine.

Looking Ahead

Student-Centred Innovation

At YCIS, we are committed to providing our students with unique experiences that positively impact their learning and develop conceptual learning skills through our innovative bilingual Learning Community model. Our Learning Communities provide flexible spaces that enable our learners to be independent problem-solvers and critical thinkers under the guidance of teachers acting as coaches and facilitators. We are excited to be introducing additional world-class learning spaces at YCIS.

We will also continue to focus on STEAM education. YCIS students will be better equipped to complete their studies in STEAM learning and to take on new challenges. Using processes like design thinking building on 3D printers and modelling in our fabrication labs, programming micro-computers and electronic sensors, students construct solutions to real-world projects based around the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

YCIS C.A.R.E.S. - Developing Globally Minded Leaders

We have seen the great success of student-led social enterprise Hope Beans and the impact had on the community. Next year we will be continuing to develop similar opportunities for our students. At YCIS Pudong, our newly appointed Service Learning and Climate Action Prefects enable the student voice to be fully articulated and heard, and we have also appointed a Sustainability Coordinator. In addition, due to the overwhelming success of the Inaugural Gala Night, the Institutional Advancement Office has set up an Annual Fund whereby students will be able to apply for contributions to support Service Learning or Sustainability initiatives. This is an extremely exciting prospect for our students to bring their ideas to reality and together, build a bright future for humanity.

I would like to thank our entire community for the support and understanding they have shown over the previous months. As a school we truly support this and when we get back to school we will be even stronger as a community.

—— Mr Ryan Peet, YCIS Puxi Western Co-Principal

Although the pandemic is an unprecedented challenge for most of us, we are confident in our systems and practices as well as the devotion to supporting our students shown by our YCIS teachers, Supporting Division, School Office staff, Admissions team, and community members.

We hope to see each other soon on a vibrant campus!