This is a speech at HS Assembly on Sep 26 2022.
Dear students and teachers,
I have a piece of very good news to deliver today.
Last Friday saw a big achievement of this high school. I still remember the mixed feeling of joy, excitement, and relief our teachers, the DP Coordinator Ms. Maggie Wang, and I felt after the IB visiting team delivered their conclusion speech through a large screen in the 3rd floor meeting room. Our IBDP program passed the first 5-year evaluation successfully, it marked the first development milestone of this program’s long journey in the school.
No student in this room experienced the authorization of the IBDP program in 2017. (Otherwise, you could have stuck in this place far too long.) In every five years, the IB would evaluate an IB program to make sure all required standards and practices are in place. The IB would collect evidence, including curriculum documents, surveys, meeting minutes, photos and videos, as well as anything the school can show it follows the set standards and practices.
The school should justify the purpose of the program, describe the culture of the school, demonstrate the environment for teaching and learning, and show case teachers’ teaching and learners’ learning. The evaluation also looks into one particular area of program development that demonstrates the school’s commitment to the IB philosophy and pedagogy. This time, the evaluation team examines student wellbeing policies and programs in the school and their impact on students.
These rigorous and somewhat “terrifying” processes set IB schools apart from other international programs, such as A-Level or AP, which usually do not have this type of panoramic program evaluation in the purpose of quality assurance.
After the first 5-year implementation, after the 18-month long preparation, and after the 3-day nerve-wracking remote visit, we earned very positive comments from the evaluation team. The team remarked that “Everything that the IB requires is in place” in the school. They also observed that the school has a team of very dedicated, caring, and collaborative teachers. Our teachers’ attitude and performances impressed the team so much so that they emotionally commented that “Not many schools can truly put students at the center of its education, but this school is absolutely one of them.”
The visiting team praised our renewed educational goals, which include both the IB learner profile and two additional learner attributes, respectful and resilient. They acknowledged that the four domains of well-rounded development and this list of learner attributes not only reflect the philosophy of international education but also perfectly match the characteristics of the students in the school.
You probably realized that by adding the domain of “Learn to Live Together”, we try to push our learners’ learning out of the personal territory into the community, the society, the country, and the world. I think this expansion of educational goals of our school also resonates the 24-character core values of our nation, the People’s Republic of China.
There are exactly 12 words in the list of core values and these values can be categorized into three domains: individual, society, nation. In the individual domain, there are patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendship. In the societal domain, there are freedom, equality, justice, and rule of law. In the national domain, there are prosperity, democracy, civility, and harmony. I believe you would see some similarities between the two sets of values, especially in the personal development domain, although the exact words are not identical.
Like the values of our school, the core values of the nation are the beacons of our collective journey and the principles of our agreed behavior. We cannot say our nation has perfectly matched these values, so does our school. Yet, we know we should work towards them and we should live up to them so that our school and our country will be built to be better places. The first 5-year of our IBDP program has been completed successfully. However, we know we will have more to do in the next five years and the next, as the process of making better should have no end, be it for a person, a program, a school, a society, or a nation.
Let me share some moments from the 3-day IB remote visit so you can witness how hard we worked and how well we performed.
The two visitors sent by the IB, the sports science teacher Dr. Chris Erasmus of our school, and teachers gathering in the meeting room.
Our student and parent delegates for the remote interviews by the two visitors.
The DP Coordinator led a virtual school tour.
Our supporting staff working behind the scene.
Open classes began. During the three days, we opened 10 classes, and over 30 meetings were organized.
Meeting with school leaders, delegates of teachers.
Finally, meeting with all staff on Sep 23 afternoon, which marked the end of 3-day remote visit as well as the 18-month long program evaluation.
On behalf of the high school leadership team and the SABS leadership team, I express my wholeheartedly thanks to all students, parents, and staff, who so kindly supported the evaluation processes and worked so hard to make every step a success.
I want to say thanks to students, who participated in surveys and interviews, attended open
classes. You demonstrated Reflective, Inquirers, Knowledgeable in front of the visitors. Your good behaviors and manner impressed them. The uniforms were look great during the three days, so now I and teachers know you are actually able to better manage your uniforms.
Parents were also involved in the process. They took part in surveys, participated in an interview, and more importantly they showed their sincere support and gave very positive feedback to the visiting team.
Teachers spent hours after hours in preparing documents and curriculum plans. They read standards, policies, and the school report. During the three days, they also participated in many interviews and offered many wonderful open classes of high quality.
Supporting staff were behind the camera, however, without them some meetings could have been broken, some open classes could have been missed, some people could have forgotten sessions.
I think it is the time for us to celebrate, also it is time for each of you to be proud because you are one of this wonderful learning community.
If you think you missed anything in my speech, please visit my website xuefenghuang.org or go to my Wechat account 谈不谈 to read the script of it. It is always important to know what is happening in the school and what successes the school and your fellow students have achieved.
Wish you a nice week before the long National Day Holiday.
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