This is a speech at HS Assembly on May 9, 2022
Photo taken in Anting New Town in April 2022
I showed some photos that I have been taking since the beginning of COVID lockdown. You might see your faces or classes or peers in your Houses. These are precious memories about what we worked together. Our Grade 11 and Grade 12 students experienced two COVID lockdowns with the high school, one was in 2020, the other is the current one. In 2020, we also combat the disease together while we kept teaching and learning at home for almost one semester. We came through the battle successfully.
This time, we have been separated and worked in this online teaching and learning mode for almost two months already. I think we are seeing some light at the end of tunnel. Last Friday, the Shanghai Education Commission announced the postponed dates of Shanghai Zhongkao. The new dates are July 11th and 12th. The government also promised to secure a few weeks of face-to-face teaching for Grade 9 students before they will sit for the Zhongkao. This implies the schools will probably open in middle of June. Although there is uncertainty, let us hold on our best hope and expect to see each other sooner.
I want to mention that a library collection of learning stories written by our own students is in production. I feel grateful for the effort of the teacher librarian Miss Tiffany Zhan for she has been the champion of promoting the 12 learner attributes and collecting stories from students. I know, as of today, she has collected over 30 stories that all demonstrate our students’ admirable processes and achievements of learning and growth. These stories will be permanently kept in the library and published on the school media for larger readership. I encourage more students to link their learning and growth to the 12 learner attributes that I explain at the beginning of each month.
You already know the Theme of May 2022 is Risk-takers and Self-management Skills. I explained the two key words last time and provided a few examples of risk takers. You must see there are plenty of risk-taking opportunities in your high school life. You can explore many unfamiliar situations and test many new roles or ideas if you decide to do so. For example, you may choose a subject that you never took before. You may also create or participate in a CAS club in which you learn new skills such as playing a new musical instrument or practicing a new sports activity. In academic classes, you may take on tasks that you never dared to take. For example, if you haven’t dared to ask questions publicly in class, try it and you will find your learning be more efficient. If you haven’t led team work in class before, try it and you will find you become more confident, motivated, and in turn rewarded. Learning is the process of exploring new things and tapping into unknowns, therefore the spirit of risk-taking is a natural ingredient of it.
I am going to summarize the House Point competition for March and April this morning. Before I do the summary, I would like to share my recent learning about benefits of having Houses in our school. The High School has been running the House System for three years and it makes our campus life more interesting and engaging. It also grows many student leaders and creates a lot of opportunities for other students to development social and personal skills, such as communication skills, organization skills, and leadership skills. Besides these visible benefits of Houses, I wonder what other benefits the system brings to our students and the high school community. To answer this question, I did some research and look into the literature to find out. The slide shows a few studies that I read recently. Some were conducted almost 40 years ago, some are quite new.
Here are my findings from this literature research.
Because of the House System,
· Students recognize positive choices and behaviors more easily
· Students are motivated by the common goal of their house
· Students feel better identified with the school culture
· Students feel better sense of belongingness to the school
学生更容易识别积极的选择和行为
学生们被他们学院的共同目标所激励
学生对学校文化的认同感更好
学生对学校有更好的归属感
Houses as a student pastoral care system,
· Houses as smaller units in a school provide more attention and care to individual students
· Houses allow teachers to praise students easily
· House recognizes differences among students and provides safe places to express these differences
· Houses create better and closer relationships between students and between student and teachers
· Houses decreases anxiety and increase the feeling of being safe at school
· Houses improve students’ attitudes towards the school and the community
· Houses enhance the influence of school education on learners
· Houses enrich students’ positive learning experiences in school
· Houses may improve students’ academic performance
为较小的单元，为个别学生提供更多的关注和照顾
让老师轻松表扬学生
承认到学生之间的差异，并提供安全的场所来表达这些差异
在学生之间以及学生和老师之间建立了更好和更密切的关系
减少焦虑，增加在学校的安全感
改善学生对学校和社区的态度
增强学校教育对学习者的影响
丰富了学生在学校的积极学习经历
可以提高学生的学习成绩
Why I particularly talked about the benefits of Houses today? I do have a message to deliver today. Teachers and students, the House System itself now needs your support and care.
It is undeniable that our Houses are experiencing difficult time due to the COVID lockdown. The nature of House is social, communal and collaborative. Now students and teachers have to be separated at home with no chance to meet. We can’t organize fun activities together, we can’t show our care to each other at House Assemblies, we can’t even see each other face-to-face, for those who are in different grades or classes probably you haven’t heard from each other over the past two months. All the social, communal, and collaborative elements that we get used to at school now vanished because of the separation. How to sustain the spirit of Houses in our high school demands every student, every teacher, and every leader’s determination, creativity and action.
Speaking from the evidence in the literature and our own experience, the school needs the vibrant House System to sustain. It has created so much for us and it will continue to offer us more when we eventually return to school. So, even during the lockdown let us try our best to keep the steam of Houses on and up. As the principal of the high school, I have two calls to the community, to all students and teachers.
One, for teachers in the high school, please give more positive points to your students so they will better know your expectations in online learning. If teachers find too time consuming to enter House Points into the Smart Campus please simply send me or the Miss Olivia Li a quick message about the Points you give. We will take care of the input.
Two, for all members of the community, please participate in the Photo Wall House Competition, which began early this month. We see many interesting photos posted by students from all Houses and teachers. We need more and more, we need your postings and commenting so we will feel being connected to you and to the high school community. Currently you are physically isolated, but you don’t have to be mentally and emotionally isolated. The community is here with you and for you.
Next, I will summarize the results of House Point competition in March and April 2022. I will talk about the total merits (individual points) of each House, the Point of each House, and hence announce the winner of the month. Following the competition result, I will praise the students who earned more than 9 merits in each House and the best students who earned merits because of their contributions to school events and external contests.
References:
Brennan, M. C. (2012). Fostering community through the House System at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, 15 (2), 325-356.
Clenton-Martin, Carol-Ann, "The Effects of a House System on School Improvement in Elementary Schools: School Climate and Academic Achievement" (2021). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-. 666.
Cohen, E. G. (1992). Restructuring the classroom: Conditions for productive small groups. Issues in Restructuring Schools, 2, 4–7. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED363952.pdf
Dierenfield, R. B. (1975). Personalizing education: The house system in England. The Phi Delta Kappa, 56(9), 605-607.
Dierenfield, R. B. (1976). The house system in comprehensive schools: Its current status. British Journal of Educational Studies, 24(1), 5-11.
Glass, Bridget, "House System: Increasing Community, Motivation, and Student Ownership" (2019). Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning. 14.
Green, D. G. (2006). Welcome to the house system. Educational Leadership, 63(7), 64-67.
Comments