The Week Ahead 20160912

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer’s best of weather And Autumn’s best of cheer

Helen Hunt Jackson

  September is here already and the pupils of Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai are enjoying exploring the indoor and outdoor learning spaces, making new friends, establishing new routines and discovering new ideas and concepts about the world around them. The learning journey for all has started and the first theme is underway. The learning spaces are evolving with the help of the children’s creative projects and all pupils are now singing daily with pupils from other classes of the same age. In short, life is good! We are busy, life in Early Years should never be anything but busy. An Early Years setting should be filled with productivity, noise, happiness and meaning – we have that here, in abundance! Yuki and I are visiting the classes every day during our ‘learning walks’ and we are constantly monitoring and evaluating practice throughout the setting. The setting evolves continuously in response to themes, learning and specific interests of the children and over the coming weeks, I’ll introduce the changes as they happen. We have guests Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai is delighted to host interns from The Wellington Academy in the UK. Marina and Nikita have joined us to undertake class-based practice with all age groups and will get creative in the sensory area and other learning spaces. In the classroom, the interns will be supporting pupils with language development opportunities and the sensory room, as project number one, will be developed over the coming weeks to provide the pupils with a very hands-on (and feet-on) sensory experience – watch this space for further details. The partnership between the Wellington College family is continually strengthening and we look forward to welcoming interns throughout the academic year to add strength to our team and offer the pupils greater opportunity for meeting new people and sharing learning experiences together. Marina and Nikita are pictured here with another intern, Connor Williams. Connor is the son of Jane Williams (Curriculum Co-ordinator) is supporting with projects in ICT and Marketing. Providing opportunity for exceptional internships is important to us here at Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai, as it offers an insight in to the many aspects of Early Years’ Education and has multiple benefits for all involved. Interns undergo careful interviewing and scrutiny to ensure that they meet our expectations and we are pleased to see older Wellingtonians supporting the learning and development of our youngest Wellingtonians. The family grows from strength to strength! We were absolutely overwhelmed by the response to the Wellington Academy Programme this week. I could hardly believe the level of interest and we are delighted to be able to offer daily programmes for the pupils of Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai. Programmes on offer are:

• Fun with English
• Phonics (EY3 only)
• Ballet
• Fun and Games

  Please be reminded that these programmes start the week beginning 19th September– for those parents who have already applied, you should be receiving a confirmation email very soon. If you have any issues or questions please do not hesitate to contact academy.shanghai@wellingtoncollege.cn Have you registered for our Parent Information sessions? Monday 12th September marks the start of our Parent Information sessions and our first session focuses on Child Health (Optical Health). For those interested parents, please ensure that you register with Susan Wang at susan.wang@wellingtoncollege.cn. Parents are requested to meet in Reception where Sophia will meet with you before moving to the designated location. The next session will be held on Tuesday 27th September and this will be on Wellbeing. A note about Social Media Parents and families are reminded that at Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai, we appreciate open and honest communication with our Wellington families. All members of the team (Academic and Non-Academic) are happy to discuss any concerns or feedback you may have directly with them. We encourage that the first point of contact should be the class teacher, where possible but you will find any team member happy to listen to you and direct you to the right person. You will notice that my office door is usually open (with the exception of meeting times) and I actively welcome parents to talk to me, as many of you have with lots of wonderful feedback on the setting. Please do come along and chat rather than take to social media. Social media cannot answer your questions, but a class teacher, Deputy Headmaster or Master can; we can do it almost as quickly too!