A Virtual Coffee Morning for New Parents
Dulwich International High School Suzhou held the first coffee morning of the term for new families on Thursday.
Parent Coffee mornings are a regular part of campus life at Dulwich International High School Suzhou. They provide an opportunity for parents to interact with teaching staff and university counsellors, ask questions and discuss their child’s education.
The only difference was that this term, due to ongoing pandemic control restrictions, it was a virtual coffee morning, with the whole meeting being live streamed from our school library, via state-of-the-art 4k Camera equipment and a live video mixing desk.
The virtual coffee morning started with all the staff on the panel introducing themselves. The whole meeting was bilingual, with academic staff speaking in English, which was immediately translated into Chinese for the benefit of the hundreds of parents watching the live stream and interacting with the live chat. The meeting started with a discussion about responsible mobile phone usage and covered a variety of different topics in response to incoming questions from parents.
In many respects, it was appropriate that the meeting took place in the library, as the library and reading were in focus during a discussion about homework. Peter Garnhum (one of our Deputy Directors and Head of Student Life) made an insightful comment about homework. He explained that there is never a time that any of our students can claim not to have any homework. This is because the best type of homework is reading and engaging with an English book that you enjoy reading. Peter elaborated on this point explaining that, without exception, students whose English improves the most are the students who read the most. Reading is all about level and habit and it is vitally important to all our students. Library staff are available to recommend books of a suitable reading level, but students themselves must choose to make reading a habit if they want to succeed.
One of the parents followed up on this point and asked about Library opening hours during evenings and weekends. Richard Nunns (Our Deputy Director) explained that there are two sides to the library. Firstly, there is the physical library with its thousands of paper books, which is open during school hours. However, the (often overlooked) digital online side of the library is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The library online digital offering includes eBooks, audiobooks as well as a wide selection of English Digital Magazines and a collection of internationally recognized academic databases. There is always something for our students to read!
Richard also explained that one of the goals of education at Dulwich International High School Suzhou is to prepare all our students to thrive in life, at university and beyond. One of the methods via which we achieve this is by teaching our students the skills of self-management and self-regulation. Together with English skills developed by extensive reading, these are the skills that enable our graduates to succeed at university. As Richard explained, Universities don’t continually check and report on student progress. At University, the responsibility is firmly placed on the shoulders of the students to manage their own learning. He also added that students learn best with a high level of challenge and a high level of support. He advised parents to trust the process and trust the school: “If you don’t hear from us, then your child is doing well and thriving!”
There was then a discussion about Co-Curricular Activities (CCA’s). Steve Hodgkin (our new Head of Counselling) explained that the most important thing is that students are engaged and passionate about learning. He added that our CCA program allows our students to experiment and find their passion in life. The richness of our world-class CCA program is one of the unique things about our school. Steve announced that the next CCA Fair was on the 7th of September and that counselors would be on hand to advise on choosing a good balance of CCA’s.
Overall, the virtual coffee morning was a great success that was well attended and full of insightful questions that provoked a lively discussion. It was a good demonstration of how our school makes the effort to engage with parents while access to the campus is still under epidemic control restrictions. However, we are all looking forward to having a real parents coffee morning in the not-too-distant future!