Speech at the High School Assembly on January 10, 2022
Photo taken in Anting in November 2021
This week will be a very busy week. Many exams are waiting for you. You should take these exams as opportunities to demonstrate what you have learned in the past semester. You should also regard any kinds of results as opportunities for reflection and growth. Do your best and the outcomes will rightly show the best of what you already had. Hence, do not be nervous, just be engaged in the process.
Quickly mention ECNUAS high school learner attributes and the call for learning and teaching stories. I am happy to see students and teachers often submit and tell their stories at this Assembly.
Quickly mention the theme of January 2022, which include being respectful and thinking skills. I have explained the Theme last time. I guess you will be engaged in a lot of thinking during the exam week.
Next, I am going to announce the December winner of House Competition.
O’Neal won with stunningly high 256 individual points! Congratulations to all O House students and teachers and thanks to all your efforts and contributions to the House.
O’Neal also did a great job this year by winning six months altogether.
It is not a question that O’Neal also won the competition of the year of 2021 with 1694 individual points, that were contributed by all students in the House.
Let us all stand up and give a big round of applause to the excellent achievement of O House students. Congratulations!
Welcome O House Head and Captains to receive the certificates.
Please allow me to delve a little bit deeper in the House pointes and highlight a few points.
As you can see, we have more students who earned more than 10 points in December.
O and S have 6 students, E has 5, whereas R only has 2.
I will quickly read the names of these excellent students.
It is obvious that teachers followed my advice to give me positive points in the hope of encouraging positive behaviours. Many thanks to teachers who followed my advice. Your action showed our students which good behaviours should be praised and encouraged in the high school. If we keep on doing this, we will definitely see more of this kind of good behaviours.
In Dormitory, the situation seemed a little bit disappointing this time. Only one House gathered a total positive score whereas other three were all negative. S House is the worst with a large negative score. I think it is partially because some students, e.g. several in S House did not follow rules and teacher instructions in the Dorm; it could also be partially caused by the fact that dorm teachers didn’t give more positive points to encourage good behaviours.
I have spoken with dorm teachers and asked them to encourage positive behaviors in the dormitory. Hopefully we will see more positive outcomes from the Dorm.
The second part of my speech will be an announcement of a new policy related to your academic study—The ECNUAS High School Homework Policy. More and more our teachers and many students realized that we need a clear guideline as to homework completion, submission, responsibilities of all stakeholders, and consequences of not doing homework.
We do not intent to use this policy to target any students, although some individuals did have some problems with their homework habits, for instance, ignoring homework assignments, rudely missing deadlines, refusing to take consequences of non-submission, etc. We know the majority of our students developed good learning habits even before they even came to the high school. For them, the Policy will just secure them a fairer learning environment where those who do not have good habits and hence neglect the Policy will be punished accordingly.
The Policy is a long coming. As you can see all stakeholders, including HSSA and PTA, were involved in the drafting and reviewing processes. Today, I am going to make it a go and formally announce and implement it in the community. Over the weekend, I have already sent the finalized Policy to all high school teachers and asked them to implement it from today. Today, all students will receive an email with the Policy attached. I also asked teachers to explain the Policy to students so that all students will understand the importance of it.
This slide shows how the 3-page Homework Policy looks like. So, no one should say “I am not aware this policy” in the future. The Winter holidays is coming. This Policy applies to the homework of the Holidays.
The Homework Policy consists of seven sections, describing its purpose, definition of homework, teacher and student responsibilities, consequences of non-completion, suggestions as to spare time, and parental support.
Please just allow me say a few words as to student responsibilities and consequences since all students are here today.
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Students are responsible for completing and submitting their homework according to the homework requirements set by the teacher in a timely manner.
1. Check emails and Managebac notifications, write down and remember assignments and due dates, ask for clarifications, and select necessary learning or reviewing materials before leaving the class.
2. Manage books and other learning materials properly and bring assignments and learning or reviewing materials to designated study areas.
3. Plan the time to complete homework assignments every night or every period of time depending on the nature of the homework.
4. Complete the homework so that it is neat and legible if it is written on paper or so that it meets the formatting requirement set by the teacher if it is digital.
5. Contact the teacher by email in advance if late submission or non-submission could occur due to legitimate excuses.
6. Study the instructional feedback provided by the teacher and ask for clarification if unknow remains.
7. Follow intervention instructions or accept penalizing measures (e.g. House Points deduction) if homework incompletion or malpractices are found.
CONSEQUENCES OF HOMEWORK NON-SUBMISSION
1. If no homework submission or homework incompletion, the student should not take the next class or must make up the homework during the next class.
2. If no homework submission or homework incompletion for three times in any subject, a written warning should be sent to the student, his/her homeroom teacher, and the parents.
3. If no homework submission or homework incompletion for five times in any subject, the parents of the student should be called or an in-person meeting should be arranged.
4. If no homework submission or homework incompletion for ten times in any subject, the student will be put on suspension for one week.
5. If no homework submission or homework incompletion for thirty times within a semester, counting incidents in all subjects, the student will be expelled from the school.
6. The high school student association (HSSA) may deprive the students who didn’t complete homework of participating in House or School events so the students in question can make up their homework.
7. Students may be sent by teachers to a detention room between 15:50pm-16:50pm on Friday afternoon to completed unfinished homework of the week. The homework detention will be collaboratively monitored by HSSA, PTA, and designated teachers of the school.
Last time, I talked about the quality of being respectful. As a student of this school, you must respect the rules, including this new Homework Policy. So do your parents, your teachers, and any other people that are mentioned in the Policy.
I hope this policy will begin to improve some students learning habits and in turn improve the learning culture of the school.
Have a successful final examination!
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