Pao Highlights

Recently, the Primary School took part in its annual Anti-Bullying Week, which surrounded the theme ‘Reach Out’ to encourage those who witness bullying or are being bullied to reach out and speak with an adult. As part of the week’s various activities, the children also celebrated Unity Day on Friday the 18th, which they marked by wearing white instead of their school uniform to show their unity as a community.

In addition, as parents know their children best, the school also introduced them to ways to help their children through the principal's letter. For example, they were advised to look out for any changes in their child's behaviour – such as becoming quieter or withdrawn or acting out and getting in trouble. In addition, parents were taught about key warning signs in children including reluctance to go to school or participate in their usual activities, becoming upset after using their phones or devices, complaining of frequent unexplained illnesses like tummy upsets or headaches, suffering disturbed sleep, and showing signs of sadness or anxiety.

In 2018, Pao School cooperated with Blue Sky to organise the first clothes donation on Wuding Campus. This year, the event was held on the day of the school’s PTSC meeting, as part of service-based learning at the Primary School. Blue Sky was established in February 2015, with the hope of encouraging environmental protection and taking action to preserve the environment for the next generation.

Prior to the event, the school sent invites to all families, hoping the entire community could get involved. To start with, the donors registered the size and quantity of clothing through a mini program. In order to control quality, the donors also had to guarantee that the clothes were well-kept, alongside free from stains and damage. On the day of the activity, the donors brought the donations they had registered online to the school. This ensured that every donation met the three basic standards of the initiative: needs-based donation, quality assurance, and transparent feedback.

Led by the school’s humanities department, Global Perspectives Week takes place annually at the Middle School to inspire students to broaden their thinking. This year, each year group explored different projects:

Year 6 – Continent Project

The Year 6 classes each picked a continent, the students then studied physical geography and human geography of the continent and used it as inspiration to decorate their classrooms. Then, on the Friday of Global Perspectives Week, the students visited each other’s classrooms and learned about the different continents.

Year 7 – Cultural Film Festival

The Year 7 students held a culture-themed film festival, for which they selected different cultures from all over the world and made their own short videos. On Global Perspectives Day, all students watched the top 3 films together in the auditorium and voted for the first, second and third prizes.

Y8 – Moral Education Debate

The Year 8 students held a debate to celebrate the week, during which they discussed topics related to moral education. On Global Perspective Day, 16 students took part in two final debates - one in Chinese, surrounding the topic of big data predicting criminality, and one in English regarding whether juvenile offenders be treated as adults in the criminal justice system.

The students wore cultural clothing from around the 

world and showed off the outfits in a fashion show

Professor Ni Wenjian, East China Normal University, Department of Chinese

Dr. Ryan Thorpe, Director of the Writing programme at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, gave a talk entitled “Finding Linguistic Beauty in Neverland, OZ, and Middle Earth” to Year 10s. After the literature talk, students were impressed by his humourous introduction to the importance of fantasy and plot development.

In addition, two Year 11’s students delivered literature talks to their fellow classmates on various topics regarding poetry and prose.

Recently, the Psychology Club at Songjiang campus organised a special week of activities related to mental health and psychology. For example, Professor Wang Yan, Fudan University, visited to give a lecture on the parent-child relationship, adolescent mental health, and developmental psychology; Mrs. Xiaoka, from the mental health non-profit ‘A Perch For The Thorn Bird’, visited to share her practice process and unique understanding of mental health issues; and teachers from an experimental drama group visited the school to provide healing drama exercises for students.

In addition, some changes took place on campus, including a cuddly inverted octopus plushy placed in the first-floor corridor, the octopus has two expressions - happy or bored, which provided everyone with light-hearted emotional expression, externalisation, and catharsis. Also, in order to create a warm atmosphere on campus, decorative lights were placed all around the school.

This November, the High School’s annual Swim for Love event returned as a Xueyuan Competition – with the winners being those whose house swam the most laps. The event saw an impressive turnout, with some students swimming up to 5 or even 10km. In the end, Autumn came out on top with a total of 816 laps of the pool. In addition, the Swim for Love charity sale raised CNY 1,285 to directly support children's autism.

This week, the High School District held a series of wonderful concerts, including performances from Songjiang’s choir, orchestra, chamber musicians, pianists, Chinese ensemble and Chinese percussion ensemble. In order to give the students as many chances as possible to perform, the concert was divided into three different performances. The first two performances were ensemble nights, featuring Chinese and Western orchestral music, including Chinese folk orchestra, Chinese drum ensemble and chorus. The third performance was an opportunity for students to jam and volunteer to perform, which included acts from Jazz Band, Ultra 7 Rock Band, GuQin Club, Wings of Song, and Electronic Music Club. In order to share the wonderful performances with the whole community, the concerts were broadcast live to the teachers, students and parents of the whole school online, warming everyone's cold winter day with music.

Ensemble Nights

Jam Night

Pao School Extension Programmes (EP) has delivered a wide range of extracurricular activities for students this semester. Adhering to Pao School’s whole-person education values, EP focus on programme diversification and personalisation for Pao School students’ learning needs, helping them to tap into their interests and potential. More EP programmes also extend greater continuity from primary to middle school, providing students with the option of pursuing mastering an area of interest.

Primary School - Mad Science

Primary School - Shaolin Archery

Middle School – Specific Physical Training

Middle School – TEDx Speaker

Middle School – Electronic Music Producer Group Ensemble

Primary School – Chinese Fan Painting

This semester, over 60 different courses were offered from primary to middle school across Get Active, Get Creative, Performing Arts and STEM categories. As the semester is drawing to a close, EP students are getting ready to present their learning achievements, including competitions, report performances, group project presentations, works display, classroom observation, online sharing and so on.

Middle School – Self-made Macro Lens Photography Works

Primary School – Scarf Design Works

EP students have also obtained many achievements in their respective fields: 

● All the students of the Fun Chess Advanced class in the primary school participated

in the 27th East China Cooperative Zone Chess Placement Match (Shanghai) and

advanced their grade, while 4 students achieved skipped grades. 

● The students from LAMDA class in middle school joined Grade 2 examinations of Solo 

Acting and Speaking Verse and Prose respectively. They were happy to receive the 

good news from London that 2 students received Distinctions and 5 received Merits. 

● The middle school FTC team members have successfully met with senior members

from the high school team and they will together prepare to fight for the upcoming 

2022-23 FTC competition. Let’s wish them great success.

This year, the school’s annual GEF (Global Education Forum) took place on Songjiang Campus on 28th October, themed ‘YK Pao School: One School, One Journey’.  As the school is celebrating its 15th anniversary, the forum focused on reflective topics, including the school’s mission, vision and values, teaching and learning, well-being and global citizenship.

Recently, Andrea Hu, High School Geography Teacher, was invited to present at the 2022 Annual Conference of the Geography Teaching Professionals held by the Chinese Society of Education. The conference is an annual academic event for geography educators across the country, giving the educators the chance to take part in activities such as special forum discussions, conference demonstrations, class observations, and conference paper exchanges.

This year's conference was held in November, during which Ms. Hu gave her report – themed around the topic ‘A Comparative Analysis of the Cambridge International Geography Curriculum and China’s High School Geography Curriculum’. Within this analysis, she discussed course selection, course objectives, teaching content, teaching methods and evaluation methods, alongside comparing international courses with Chinese high school geography courses.