Huili School Nantong Newsletter for November 2021

It gives us great pleasure to update you on this month’s progress in building the amazing new Huili School in Nantong. The construction work is progressing as expected and the external rendering and internal fit-out is beginning in several of our 11 buildings. One of the highlights was trying out and selecting the new seats for our 600-seater theatre. Catering companies have also been interviewed and we will be entering the tending process shortly; they will obviously play the vital role in making sure your children are well fed and nourished, and able to perform at their best for longer.

The recruitment of the teaching staff has begun and I am delighted to announce that our first four have signed contracts and are already looking forward to starting in September. The recruitment will continue at pace over the next few months and, once everyone is on board, I will introduce you to the team.

Simon Kenworthy

Master of Huili School Nantong

Dear Parents,

As the youngest school in Wellington College China Group, Huili School Nantong will be supported in all aspects by our sister schools in the group, especially with regard to the curriculum and teaching pedagogy. We have taken into account the teaching practices of Huili School Shanghai and Huili School Hangzhou in the past few years and combined them with the local curriculum requirements of Nantong to provide a unique Huili bilingual curriculum. The curriculum at Huili Nantong adheres to the national curriculum and ensures that students meet the national academic quality standards. At the same time, a 'bilingual' feature is incorporated into some subjects to enable pupils to grow in a bilingual immersion environment, thereby enhancing their metacognitive skills.

Today we would like to briefly introduce some of our curriculum offerings.

Chinese

Chinese, as one of the core subjects in Huili Nantong’s bilingual curriculum, has the privilege of passing on Chinese language and culture to the children. Like other local schools, we use the unified version of the textbook to ensure that our pupils' Chinese language standards meet the developmental requirements and standards of their mother tongue. On top of this, we also integrate Chinese cultural components. Our Chinese teaching will adopt the "The overall Chinese education", which is at the forefront of Chinese teaching practice in China. This philosophy advocates that Chinese language education should be centred on the daily teaching and extended to all areas of pupils' lives. It will integrate with their school, family and social lives in a holistic manner, so that pupils can enhance their literary skills in the process of language learning, and that the ancient yet modern language of Chinese can be passed on.

Maths

The Huili Maths curriculum follows the Chinese National Maths Curriculum standards and incorporates “bilingual” features into the teaching of Maths. "Bilingual" mathematics is not simply about learning mathematics in two languages or solving mathematical problems in two languages, but is a fusion of two minds and two approaches of teaching and learning. We want pupils to appreciate the creativity of maths and to become increasingly aware that maths is a living discipline that is constantly evolving to meet the needs of society and technological development.

Therefore, Huili's model of teaching maths aims to encourage a deep understanding of maths that is different from rote learning based on memorisation, facts and rules, but that truly abstracts the mathematical nature of problems and uses them in real-life situations.

English

English at Huili Nantong will be taught to a standard well above the nationally set curriculum standards. We will provide differentiated instruction based on individual pupils’ needs in order to develop fluency in reading, writing, listening and speaking, as well as developing pupils' critical thinking skills and a sense of collaboration. We encourage pupils to use English inside and outside of the classroom to express their own opinions. They will learn how to listen to different viewpoints, analyse ideas and express their understanding using different perspectives.

Science

We follow the National Science Curriculum standards and create as many opportunities as possible for pupils to learn more about the subject matter based on inquiry through experiments, investigations and other approaches. We encourage students to work in teams while developing their independent problem-solving skills. Classroom communication is also a great way to help students use scientific terminology with confidence in both languages. We also encourage students to think deeply about the reasoning behind scientific concepts to help them understand more complex scientific concepts.

Suisui Yu

Principal of Huili School Nantong