Photo taken in Chongming Island in September 2022
Good morning High School!
I am very excited to meet all of you, new and returning students, new and returning teachers, on the very first day of the 2022 academic year! In June, we graduated 33 Grade 12 IB and A-Level students, this September we received 76 new students in G9, G10, and G11 combined. The SABS high school welcome all the new students, we wish you all the best in the next a few years when you study and live in this community.
At the beginning of every year, each of you must have many new expectations. In this high school, teachers and students try our best to create a lot of interesting and challenging learning opportunities, including, as such, academic lessons, sports activities, student clubs, and House events. I believe you will be taking on these opportunities to see new possibilities, make new changes, meet many new friends, and make new progresses in your study career.
The high school has some changes too. The school adds a new study program in Grade 10, it is a Shanghai+ program, it accommodates the students who want to study either Shanghai high school curriculum or international A-Level program. We call this program as Class of Ginkgo. Graduates of this program will go either to international universities or the universities in China. For Grade 9, we only keep Class of Rose in this campus so we can provide more focused curriculum for the group of students who have already determined on their international study pathway. The high school will pay more attention to the Grade 9 Rose class, give more resources to this group of students, make their study pathway clearer and straight towards their destination, which is prestigious world universities. There are also some changes as to students’ evening study arrangement. Returning students should remember that we brought Grade 11 and 12 students to the main campus for their evening study, however, this arrangement can’t work this year because of COVID disease control policy.
Students and teachers, unfortunately, COVID problem still exists and it seems we will have to live with it for a while. For the safety of every member of this school, every one please follows instructions with regards to disease control, including taking PCR tests between 7:30-8:00am every morning, taking temperature, keeping social distance, washing your hands often, wearing masks in public places, covering coughs and sneezes, monitoring and reporting your health daily.
While most academic and pastoral care leaders remain unchanged, we have a few new faces in the team. Let me introduce two new SGLs, Ms. Catherine Yang, the new Group 3 SGL, and Dr. Bob Shen, the new Group 4 SGL. The former Group 3 and Group 4 SGLs, Ms. Ann Liu and Mr. Nikolaos Bitos will focus more on their pastoral care and academic responsibilities respectively at the high school level. I also want to introduce two new Heads of House, Mr. Nikolas Inglis as the Head of R House, and Ms. Avril Nandoo as the Head of E House. In addition, new teachers are added to every subject group, you will meet them soon in classrooms so I don’t spend time to introduce each of them.
Lastly, let me introduce the Education theme of September 2022. The theme is selected from the 12 learner attributes and the five learning skills that we always promote at this school. I have discussed this attribute with our new students. I also ask the returning students to continue to relate to this important quality when you expand your territory of knowledge and understanding.
Open-minded. You understand and appreciate your own cultures and personal histories, and are open to the perspectives, values and traditions of other individuals and communities. You are accustomed to seeking and evaluating a range of points of view, and are willing to grow from the experience.
Being open minded is a prerequisite of learning and growing, being open-minded means you allow for interactions and marriages between new and existing ideas, hence possibly new insights, new methods, and new solutions may appear to you.
Social skills
You work collaboratively and effectively with others.
You learn and demonstrate a variety of skills such as listening skills, negotiation skills, leadership skills, conflict resolution skills, when you work with others.
The school community is a small society. With so many new students and teachers, learning and applying good social skills is helpful in the first month of this semester in a hope of building a more connected, collaborative, and effective high school. Hence, this set of skills apply to new or returning students, they can be used and developed in and outside classrooms.
Thank you very much for your listening!
I wish you a happy and productive semester.
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