Photo taken in Anting New Town in April 2022
Evaluation and reflection
Provided with the knowledge and recommendations by the IB and the research, ECNUAS adopts the whole school approach to build a holistic education for all learners’ wellbeing. A well cited well-being model, coined as the PERMA model (Seliiman, 2011), provides us with a starting point to evaluate and reflect on all existing relevant measures and policies in our school and a guide for the further development in this area. The PERMA model contains five pillars, which are positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement. More specifically, positive emotions basically mean students are feeling good about the school and themselves, engagement means students are absorbed in rich activities at school, relationship means students are authentically connected with others, meaning means that students feel they have purposes in the school, and achievement means they sense accomplishment and being successful.
Sense of meaning and achievement
We have been creating student leadership opportunities within the school and these opportunities increased students’ sense of meaning for the campus life. The leadership opportunities include House Captains since 2019, House prefects since 2020, the high school student association (HSSA) since 2020, club leaders of over 30 student clubs, captains of sports teams, and monitors in Homerooms. Student leaders were involved in some decision-making processes. For instance, when Student Behavioral Norms were updated in 2019, student leaders were involved in reviewing the draft and hence translating parts of it into Chinese so their parents would be able to read it. When a new Homework Policy was created in 2021, the HSSA was involved into the decision-making process and they also helped to translate the document so the PTA can review it before its formal implementation. Student leaders were also encouraged to look after and improve the physical and intangible learning environment in the school. Several leaders have been working on the improvement projects of the high school library, the student lounge, as well as the evening study plans.
The high school also promote the sense of achievements by praising students at the High Assembly for their academic or extra-curricular achievements from inside or outside the school. By the end of each semester, the Principal’s office would issue a range of awards and publicly announce them at the Assembly with specific awarding reasons. The awarding reasons would be read by the curriculum or extra-curriculum leaders so that the all students learned the school’s expectations. The range of awards includes Subject Group Leader Awards, CAS Awards, Academic Excellence Awards, and Most Valued House Leader Awards. Besides these internal awards, we also praised students for their achievements from outside the school. We found praising students for their specific efforts and achievements really made them be proud of what they achieved and feel the meaning of what they participated.
We often invited students to tell their stories of learning at the High School Assembly in front of teachers and other students. The topics of these stories were often linked with the monthly education themes and sometimes with effective learning strategies. Award-receivers would be asked to share their efforts, academically high-achievers would be asked to share their strategies of learning, and some students would write stories specifically that specifically link with the twelve learner attributes. All these stories not only strengthened the sense of meaning and achievements for the students who wrote or told the stories but also lent the meaning and proud to other students in the community.
Student engagement and better relationships
The House System improved student engagement in the school, the events and activities created within and across Houses provided many opportunities to build better relationships among students from same or different grades. They also improved the relationships between students and teachers. By dividing all students and teachers in the high school into four Houses created a sense of togetherness between students and teachers. Very often activities in Houses required good collaborations among students or between teachers and students. The student clubs also helped student mingle together according to their diverse extra-curricular interests. The leadership positions in a variety of student organizations in the school engaged the student leaders in the work of management and improvement for the school. Often improvement suggestions were proposed by these student leaders. For instance, the high school principal’s office received proposals regarding the school magazine, library, student lounge, House night, and evening study plans.
The high school also created physical spaces in order to better engage students in the school life. The Student Lounge provides space for student to socialize and relax during their spare time; a display board is installed in front of the Student Lounge so the HSSA can update school news and other useful information to other students; the Student Gym was upgraded in 2021 and it began to attract many students to visit it and hang out with peers. The four Houses are given four bases so they can regularly meet. Provided with the bases, teachers and students in each House can decorate these rooms using cultural elements of the House. Each teacher in the high school is asked to provide an office hour during which all students are welcomed to speak with the teacher in addition to other consultation time.
We conducted one Homework Survey in 2020 when the high school administration saw some earlier signs of decreasing homework submission in some subjects. We believe that homework submission signifies students’ engagement in learning. The high school leadership team carefully analyzed the survey data and gave recommendations to each subject group so that improvements must be made. For example, we asked teachers to provide more specific instructions (expected time, quality, etc.) as to assigned homework. At the beginning of 2022, we created a new Homework Policy to further engage students in homework learning and submission. The Assistant Principal—Academic collects the information of disengaged students and takes remedial actions involving students themselves, the subject teachers, and in some cases the parents.
Positive Emotions
We take care of students’ emotional development not only because it is an important aspect of wellbeing but also because Caring is one characteristic of the ECNUAS education. We firmly believe in the four main characteristics of the ECNUAS education, which are Quality, Diversity, Integration, and Caring. To achieve high quality, we focus on students’ academic performances, achievements at arts and physical education, learning attainments from extra-curriculum, and outcomes in out-of-school competitions. To respect and cultivate diversity, we create a number of strategies including One Child One Timetable for interest-oriented electives, One Child One Sports Skill sports team program, One Child One Musical Instrument, and One Child One Evaluation assessment strategy. For integration, we try to bring different curricula, pedagogical approaches, community resources, and diverse cultures together so as to create a more enabling learning environment that is conducive the whole person development. Finally, we create a number of strategies to care for and to enlarge the potential of each child. The strategies include Student Career Development Plan, Homeroom system, House system, and All-in Advisor system. Obviously, all these strategies and practices are raising every child in the school to the fullest possible development.
In line these core values of ECNUAS education, the high school create a few special programs to take care of students’ emotional development. In the year of 2020, the Performance Enhancement Program was created, targeting those students who want to challenge themselves. The Program provide seminars and one-on-one consultation sessions to increase emotional and self-management skills. The Program is led by the DP Psychology teacher, it attracted over 20 students to join in the first group and another 15 students in the year after. Although the Program was reduced to a smaller number of students due to increase teaching responsibility for the Psychology teacher from 2021, the psychological concept of performance enhancement has been popularized by the program. Following the fashion, the University Counselling Office created a program called Performance Enhancement Program 2.0. This new Program gathers top students from all grades so that they can support each other academically and emotionally. The Counsellors provide the students with academic seminars and help them form study groups to take on challenging academic tasks such as international contests. This new Program attracts about 15 students each year since it was established.
We noticed more students in the high school have mental health issues to different degrees. In 2019, a special office was established for the on-site psychologist in the high school so private consultations can be arranged. The phone number, email address, and other contact information of the psychologist are made public to all students, parents, and teachers so they can reach out to her at any time. Homeroom teachers also refer problematic students to the psychologist give the consent of the students. We created a platform with which the information about concerning students could be shared between the psychologist, Homeroom teachers, and the high school Principal. To inform teachers, the high school created a Blue List that contains all the names of students who are of any types of mental risk. The teachers only see the names of the students so they can pay attention to abnormal emotions and behaviors whereas details of these students are not disclosed.
Homeroom teachers definitely play a key role in taking care of students’ emotional development. Students in each grade are assigned to several homerooms, in each there are at most 25 students supervised a Chinese Homeroom Teacher. The Homeroom Teacher (HT) meets the students every morning from Monday to Friday. The HT establishes close relationship with every student and his or her parents. We created a Handbook of Homeroom Teachers that outlines the tasks that a HT should do with each student and his or her parents. For example, the HT must conduct one-on-once conferences with students and parents to give guidance and learn their concerns. The Principal meets the HTs once a week to gather information related to students or parents’ concerns and give advice to HTs if needed. Both positive or negative special cases are discussed at these meetings and actions would be taken to help out the students in question. The actions include the student meeting with the Principal, the Principal meeting the parents, or referring to the psychologist if necessary. With these processes, we make sure students and parents always feel being seen, heard, and looked after.
Most students in the high school are boarding students. Their dormitory life affects their state of mind and body significantly. The school hires dedicated dormitory teachers to look after students’ boarding lives. Regulations and educational programs are created to improve all students’ dormitory living experiences. Also, the collaboration and communication between the high school teachers and dormitory teachers are formally established so that concerns about students in the dormitory can be shared with the high school timely. We also monitor students’ positive and negative behaviors in the dormitory by giving or taking House Points. Instructions are sent to the dormitory teachers so that they use more positive reinforcement to encourage good behaviors and promote positive emotions.
References
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OECD (2021), Beyond Academic Learning: First Results from the Survey of Social and Emotional Skills, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/92a11084-en.
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