Foundation Ceremony Launches the First BP International Education Park in Beijing

On May 9, A foundation ceremony in Yizhuang to kick start the construction of the first BP International Education Park (IEP) in China marked the beginning of a new era for Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone and the economic zones around Beijing. The education park will provide an exceptional new experience combining international education with creative modern living.

Attending the ceremony were government officials from Beijing Daxing District, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone Administrative Commission and Co-Founders of BP International Education Park Dr. Betty Chan Po-king (also Director of Yew Wah International Education Foundation and Yew Chung International School) and Professor Paul Yip Kwok-wah (also Chairman of the Board of Yew Wah International Education Foundation and Board Director of Yew Chung International School). The event was attended by more than 300 guests including students, parents, government officials and media. The foundation ceremony was opened by two children--one Chinese and one foreign--to represent the sharing of one dream to learn more about the world. Students from Yew Wah and Yew Chung gave musical and dance performances to illustrate the richness of both Eastern and Western cultures of IEP.

IEP is composed of three parts: the Yew Wah International Education School (YWIES) which provides education mainly for Chinese students; the Yew Chung International School (YCIS) which admits foreign students; and the Scholars International Conference Centre with public and social spaces for educational and cultural interchanges. YWIES will be set up in IEP in 2013 offering a full stream education from Early Childhood to Primary to Secondary Sections.

Dr. Chan, Co-Founder of IEP said, "The age of globalisation is a reality and technology has transformed our daily lives. The balance of economic power is moving to the East, especially after the financial tsunami. This confluence of forces represents a paradigm shift that is affecting people in all professions, industries and fields of endeavour, and education, of course, is no exception. Both Yew Wah and Yew Chung share the same international education philosophy, and are committed to nurturing and empowering the next generation of leaders in today's globalised world. Our unique education programmes represent the best of both Eastern and Western cultures and values, equipping our students with a truly global mindset. We also actively promote strong biliteracy skills in Chinese and English, and place great emphasis on students' character formation and personal growth."

On the decision to build the first IEP in Yizhuang, Co-Founder Professor Yip said, "We were the first organisation to build international schools in China during the early 1990s and now the achievements are obvious. This is the beginning of another historic stage. The main objective of IEP is to educate people further on the quality of life in a globalising society."

The first phase of IEP will be completed in 2013. It will serve the community by providing an all-round international education and leisure facilities and services covering music, culture, arts and sports plus entertainment. IEP aims to develop high-quality international citizens and Chinese nationals and to promote culture and material civilisation.

The closing of the ceremony included a performance highlighted by students leading the guests in singing We Are the World to underscore the spirit of an increasing connected and globalised society.

To read the full speeches from Dr. Betty Chan Po-king and Professor Paul Yip Kwok-wah, please click here.

To watch the video clip of the foundation ceremony, please click here.

More about IPE: www.bpiep-bj.com/en

The stone-laying ceremony of IEP

Dr. Betty Chan Po-king, Co-Founder of IEP

Professor Paul Yip Kwok-wah, Co-Founder of IEP

Students leading guests in singing We Are the World

Standing Ovation for Seeds of Hope

The second Seeds of Hope Fundraising Concert held at the China Conservatory of Music near the Olympic Village offered a performance of “Opening Ceremony” calibre. Over 350 performers of Yew Wah and Yew Chung students and teachers gathered on one stage to play a three-part concert series that entranced audience members and transported them around the world with music selections from the North America, Europe, Asia, and South America. The concert was a vibrant exhibition of Yew Wah’s student talent for a fantastic charitable cause of supporting education of children in rural China.

A ceremonial presentation started the concert with a video highlighting the milestones of the Seeds of Hope charity. Present at the concert were the Principal and two students from Qufu School to accept a symbolic check of RMB 500,250 yuan that helped establish the Qufu Yew Chung and Yew Wah Hope Primary School. A small tree was held by one student symbolising the growth of a seed sown one year ago at the Qingdao and Yantai Seeds of Hope Concert.

To continue the tradition, student and parent representatives along with Dr. Betty Chan, Director of Yew Wah International Education Foundation, Professor Paul Yip, Chairman of the Board of Yew Wah International Education Foundation, and honoured guests planted a new seed to represent the sowing of support for building the second Seeds of Hope School located in Wanan Town of Li County, Baoding City, Hebei Province.

With the new “seed” sown, a fanfare of music kicked off the concert. The first part of the concert featured the inaugural International Orchestra of Yew Wah and Yew Chung, followed by a cello performance and a great Korean medley. The second part featured choirs, a violin performance, a jazz band and dances. A dynamic conclusion to end the concert was an original music piece Seeds of Hope. All performers were on stage and the passion for Seeds of Hope could be felt by the entire audience as the final crescendo of instruments and singing resulted in a standing ovation.

Audience members filtered into the concert lobby were then toured around an art exhibition and viewed various Seeds of Hope gift items available for donation. March 18, 2012 was a remarkable day in Yew Wah’s history and finished with a sincere appreciation for everyone who donated their time, money, and energy to educating children in rural China.

The Qufu Trip to Seeds of Hope School

In November 2011, Mr. Steve Hackman and Mr. Davy Lau from Christian and Moral Education Division of Yew Chung paid a two-day visit, on behalf of Yew Chung and Yew Wah, to the new Seeds of Hope School under construction in Qufu, Shangdong Province which is the focus of our current Seeds of Hope fundraising initiative of Yew Chung and Yew Wah.

Parts of the campuses have been open for class when certain parts were still under construction. The school can currently accommodate children from four surrounding villages. Two more local villages can be served after the entire school is completed.

The local administrators, teachers and students gave Mr. Hackman and Mr. Lau a very warm welcome in appreciation of what Yew Chung and Yew Wah had done for the Seeds of Hope School.

Visiting Seeds of Hope School in Sichuan

On October 15, 2011, a group of 36 students and staff from Yew Wah and Yew Chung campuses across Hong Kong and Mainland China embarked on the second Seeds of Hope trip to Minzhu Primary School in Sichuan this year.

During their visit, our students and staff had a full day of service projects building a full-size basketball court complete with new rims and three table tennis tables for the school. In addition, a range of activities were planned for the students. English workshops based on the theme of “Birthday Party” were arranged. Students had the chance to experience what it is like to have a birthday party while they learned English. Sports activities containing a mix of exercise drills and fun games were conducted to foster friendly exchange between Yew Wah/Yew Chung and Minzhu students. Puppet shows allowed stories to be told highlighting character formation in a fun and lighthearted atmosphere. 

The farewell ceremony was filled with songs, hugs and exchange of well wishes. Gift bags of stationeries and candies were given to each child at Minzhu Primary School as a little reminder of our time together!

An Inspiring Chinese Teachers’ Workshop

The “Chinese Teachers’ Workshop 2011” has been successfully convened in Chongqing. Chinese teachers from Yew Wah and Yew Chung, leaders of the organisations and guests, totalling nearly 200 people, met in enthusiasm and excitement. This has truly been a grand event for the Chinese teachers to learn from each other and to exchange teaching experience.

Held for the sixth time, this year’s workshop took place from August 17 to 19, 2011 and was themed “The Future Development of Education”. We invited Professor Sang Xinmin from the Nanjing University’s Institute of Education to be our keynote speaker. Professor Sang’s discourse was incisive and profound, and members of the audience were deeply inspired. Thanks to the thorough preparation of the speakers, the 22 sessions of talks by teachers and workshops by master teachers were rich in content, including reflections on teaching, handling of various cases and experience sharing. Covering both theory and application, the talks and workshops were undoubtedly of huge benefit to our teachers.

The colleagues from the “iLearn Chinese” platform working group also made great use of the occasion. They set up booths to assist teachers in activating their accounts and solve their problems. The online learning platform was effectively promoted.

In order to facilitate communication among different campuses and to promote the integration of Chinese culture into language teaching, we also arranged visits to the campus of Yew Chung International School of Chongqing and the Three Gorges Museum of China, as well as a boat trip along the Two Rivers. All of these activities further enriched the three days of our workshop!

Seeds of Hope Carry Love

A remarkable event took place on April 1 at Yantai Grand Theatre with over 200 international students of the highest musical talent united for a full orchestra performance. These children, within Primary and Secondary years, came from Yew Wah International Education School of Yantai (Yew Wah Yantai) and our sister Yew Chung International Schools of Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao. This fundraising event was the first of its kind in which we celebrated the tenth year of Yew Wah Yantai and the launch of the “Seeds of Hope” project.

The concert was unveiled by a seed planting ceremony. Professor Yip Kwok-wah, Chairman of the Board of Yew Wah International Education Foundation, Dr. Betty Chan Po-king, Director of Yew Wah International Education Foundation, government officers, leaders of Shandong Youth Development Foundation, as well as parent and student representatives together planted the symbolic “Seed of Hope”.

The best student musical talents from Yew Chung and Yew Wah Schools throughout China were selected to perform together, and the orchestra captivated the audience with both classical and modern music. The choir gave the sounds of nature, and our student piano and violin soloists also impressed the audience deeply. The dance Harmony was a special gift for Yew Wah Yantai’s tenth anniversary and the gu zheng performers led us back to ancient private schools with the elegant sounds of the remote past.

More than 70 teacher and student performers from Yew Wah Yantai took part in the concert and about 40 student volunteers assisted with the concert and art exhibition. Many thanks to them for their professionalism and dedication! We would also like to thank all the parents for their kind donations and support to our Seeds of Hope project.

Practising the motto of “Align with Science and Technology, Align with Culture and Arts, Align with Love and Charity”, Yew Wah Yantai has focused on high quality international education as well as community service for the past ten years. Seeds of Hope, in partnership with China Youth Development Foundation, aims at raising funds to build “Seeds of Hope Schools” in various rural areas in Mainland China and bring education to rural children.

Seeds of Hope is a system-wide Yew Wah and Yew Chung charitable endeavour. Sharing the same benevolent attitude, Yew Wah and Yew Chung schools across different cities are making a commitment to help build schools in areas of need in Mainland China, one school annually in every province/city where there is a Yew Wah school and/or Yew Chung school. All schools and students will focus on this singular charitable drive--this year to build a school in Qufu City in Shandong Province and in the coming years other schools in other provinces/cities.

By creating the Seeds of Hope project, Yew Wah schools are able to bring love and charity, in the form of educational opportunity and support, to many of the poor and disadvantaged children of Mainland China.　Developing students’ compassion and love for the disadvantaged means seeking out opportunities to transform lives. Providing educational opportunities to some of China’s disadvantaged children is important to all involved in Yew Wah. Through helping others, our Yew Wah students learn to appreciate the role they play in the world. These lessons learned can be used to help the community at large. Furthermore, by creating “sister” school relationships with the Seeds of Hope Schools, there is long-term opportunity for ongoing cultural exchanges, educational trips and charity projects that will benefit our Yew Wah students for many years to come.

Renowned ECE Specialist Visits Yew Wah Kindergarten

Yew Wah always recognises the importance of quality early childhood education and is committed to providing an effective platform for educators from all around the world to share the most updated theories, advanced research findings and methodologies related to early childhood education. On March 7, 2011, Prof. Kathy Sylva from the University of Oxford, a renowned specialist in early childhood education who participates in the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) Project in the UK, visited and attended a seminar held at Yew Wah International Education Kindergarten of Shenzhen.

Prof. Sylva had a fruitful exchange with over 50 participants, including representatives from the Shenzhen Education Department, local educators, researchers and early childhood education practitioners in Shenzhen. Invited and accompanied by Dr. Betty Chan Po-king, Director of Yew Wah International Education Foundation, Prof. Sylva shared with the audience her findings on how quality pre-school experience affects young children’s intellectual attainment, sociability and concentration when they start primary school. She elaborated on the impact of pre-school experience, saying that it would extend to children’s spontaneous learning and development in primary years.

This seminar acted as a base for teachers' collaborated learning and promoted exchanges among teachers, which had a positive influence on the overall quality of early childhood education in Mainland China.

Seeds of Hope Kicks Off

Yew Wah International Education Foundation is thrilled to introduce the “Seeds of Hope” charity project, the first system-wide Yew Wah charitable endeavour! Yew Wah has made a commitment to help build schools in various parts of rural China, one school annually in every place where there is a Yew Wah school. The town of Qufu in Shandong Province has been selected as the first location for our Seeds of Hope project.

On April 1, a gala concert was held by students at Yew Wah International Education School of Yantai, serving as the official beginning for our Seeds of Hope project. By creating the Seeds of Hope, Yew Wah schools are able to bring love and charity, in the form of educational opportunity and support, to many of the poor and disadvantaged children of Mainland China. Furthermore, by creating “sister” school relationships with these rural schools, there is a long-term opportunity for ongoing cultural exchanges, educational trips and charity projects that will be of great benefit to our student body for many years to come.

Yew Wah believes in enhancing human qualities in an all-round way, instead of mere transmission of knowledge and skills. To show the love for others, Yew Wah International Education School of Yantai (Yew Wah Yantai) contributed to a community charity project which aims for the betterment and growth of children.

From October 23 to 25, the China Chapter of the Alliance for International Education (AIE) Asia Branch held a gathering at the Yew Wah International Education School of Shanghai.

Yew Wah serves on the working committee of the China Chapter of the AIE Asia Branch. The gathering held in the gap year of the biennial AIE conference was initiated by Yew Wah which invited representatives from well-known schools and educational organisations in the nearby regions to come together and discuss international education development. The topics included: direction of curriculum development, self identity, creative thinking, multicultural education, and how internationalisation affects higher education. A youth forum also took place during the gathering to discuss and understand what students of today perceive international education. 

Yew Wah Education Management Co. Ltd (YWEM) is planning to construct an International Education Park (IEP) at Huadu in Guangzhou—the first such international cultural and educational base in Southern China.

In a seminar held in Guangzhou on April 22, Yew Wah announced the blueprint of the project which is to integrate schools with the Huadu community. Speaking at the event, Mr. Cheng Chung-ming, a director of YWEM said, “When completed, the IEP with a total area of 150 mus and the construction area of 30,000 to 40,000 square metres will offer an international education ‘through-train’ programme from early childhood to secondary level. The IEP will further implement Yew Wah’s goal of ‘bringing international education to your home’.”

Also addressing the seminar, Mr. Jeff Snyder, Principal of Yew Wah International Education School of Shanghai, spoke about Yew Wah’s development and mission. The fluency of his Putonghua earned him much praise and demonstrated the feature of the merging of the Eastern and Western cultures at Yew Wah.

The newsletter is a publication of the Yew Wah Early Childhood Education Research and Development Centre. The newsletter aims to demonstrate the outcome of pedagogical research and early childhood education practices of Yew Wah. It is also an effective platform for parent-school communication on education experience and methods. It regularly shares information about domestic and international childhood education with parents and other practitioners of the industry.

Yew Wah Early Childhood Education is to be published three times a school year. For electronic version, please click here to download.

The direction of Yew Chung and Yew Wah in developing international education of the Chinese language is always reflected in the themes of this annual workshop. This year, guided by the idea of “heritage and innovation”, the workshop advocated the Foundations’commitment to promoting Chinese as an international language, and exploring and practising advanced Chinese language pedagogy.

In his opening speech, Professor Paul Yip Kwok-wah, Chairman of Yew Wah Education Management Co. Ltd., reinforced his belief of “teaching Chinese in new tunes”and emphasized that it should be done with “a bigger vision”as we found ourselves coping with the new circumstances and new lifestyles of the 21st century. He invited teachers to enrich their lifelong education beyond the mere area of language to a broader world of learning. “We have to inspire and teach the future generation with the knowledge of the future,”he said.

Yew Wah teachers actively participated in the workshop, delivering teacher seminars and hosting forums. In the seminars, teachers reported and exchanged thoughts about different aspects of language education; during the forums, teachers discussed in groups an array of topics, such as co-teaching, classroom management, cultural teaching and how to deal with the diversities of student abilities. Yew Wah teachers also led class demonstrations, newly introduced sessions serving as teacher master classes where exemplary teachers demonstrated the teaching of a particular class topic or a special teaching method for both Chinese as the first and second language.

The Yew Wah communities in different parts of China have joined hands to help people affected in the earthquake. In the two Yew Wah International Education Schools in Yantai and Shanghai, more than 100,000 yuan have been collected, and they were donated to Yantai Economic Development Zone Charity Federation and Red Cross China respectively to buy urgently needed supplies for the earthquake victims. Students of Shanghai continue to make donations of items, such as blankets and clothing. In Shanghai Biyun Kindergarten, young children donated money and read poems for the victims.

In Yew Wah MI Chongqing, apart from financial donation, the schoolchildren wrote messages of support to the victims on a notice board. It is also part of the moral education to nurture the children to become responsible global citizens.

In Shenzhen Mangrove Bay Kindergarten, all proceeds went directly to the Education Bureau of the Nanshan District for immediate allocation. A charity sale of hand-made gifts by the students added on the total amount to nearly 10,000 yuan. The kindergarten also introduced an energy saving campaign as a continual initiative to encourage students to care for the nature and the Earth.