Ahead 10-year Mark, DHSZ Tells Past Glories and New Horizons

In 2019, an impressive 400th Anniversary celebration was held in London by Dulwich College, founded by Edward Alleyn on 21 June 1619 with letters patent from King James I.

In 2022, Dulwich International High School Suzhou (DHSZ), the sixth school to join the Dulwich College International family of schools, will celebrate its 10th anniversary in Suzhou, some 9,337 kilometres away from London. It is not just about past glories, its sights set on new horizons.

From its humble beginnings with a few dozen students in Suzhou High School's A-level Programme to its current independent school campus with 754 students enrolled from China and around the globe, DHSZ has had a glorious decade of "building bridges to the world" for all its students. Graduates apply successfully to top international universities, including Oxford University, Cambridge University, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Cornell University, Brown University, amongst many others.

The school was ranked 43rd in the 2021 National Top 100 High Schools Index by Overseas University Counselling, and 72nd in the 2021 Top 100 China International Schools Index, jointly published by Xinhua News Agency and INSIGHT.

A Decade

Located in Suzhou’s ancient old town, Suzhou High School (SHS) has a thousand-year historical heritage and a century of operation. The leading school in Jiangsu initiated its a-level programme in 2007 with an external partner. After five years’ cooperation, the partnership understandably reached a bottleneck, SHS has therefore looked for a new partner, and Dulwich College International (DCI), burgeoning in Colleges and High Schools across Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Zhuhai and elsewhere in Asia with students achieving academic results that place them alongside the world’s best, came into sight.

"Zhang Xin, the then SHS Deputy Principal, reached out to DCI and was impressed by the Dulwich College International schools’ academic excellence, innovation and respect for tradition, so he proposed to partner with DCI in the SHS A-level programme. DCI also recognised this as a win-win opportunity to work with a school as prestigious as SHS. So, the official cooperation started from 2012," said Zhuang Xiaoyan, Principal of DHSZ.

In fact, Zhuang’s connection with Dulwich also stemmed from this partnership. She served as the Deputy Principal of Suzhou High School-SIP from 2005 to 2009 and, was the Director of the A-level Programme at SHS from 2009 to 2012. After retiring in 2012, Zhuang joined DHSZ to serve as the principal.

"The current school building was put into use in 2015. Prior to that, DHSZ operated within SHS for three years, receiving enormous support from the SHS leadership as well as the school community. Classrooms and facilities were shared with SHS students. At that time, about 50 students were enrolled each year, the total student number was probably less than 200. After moving into the new school building covering 16,959 square metres of space, we turned into a fully-fledged independent school."

Apart from the increase in student numbers after the move, Zhuang noticed another notable change is diversity.

"Before, we only had Chinese students, but now we have students from other nations, although not in a large proportion. Likewise, DHSZ is an option for returnee students who were studying outside of China. Also, the teachers are more diverse, coming from 22 countries in total. Expat teacher staff make up 80% of the whole academic team.

"Of course, the branding construction made huge progress. To begin with, SHS contributed to student admissions a lot, but now DHSZ has become well-known in Suzhou, Jiangsu and even the whole country, accumulating fame and reputation among parents and students. In addition, international universities are getting more and more familiar with us after ten years of development. The quality of our teaching, the calibre of our graduates, and the authenticity of our transcripts have all been recognised."

Holistic Education

"Childhood elsewhere" is a 6-part series on education around the world. In this documentary, the holistic education of Dulwich College London was demonstrated in a drama class. Today, DCI creates an extended global community, where academic ability is fostered, creativity is valued, and diversity is celebrated.

Last month, DHSZ’s lavish production of Shrek the Musical was staged three times across two consecutive days. The production was elevated by an incredible animated backdrop screen, that the cast interacted with, which along with the lights, music, and song, created a fantastically immersive, big-budget experience beyond typical high school musicals. Ms Stephanie Park (Head of Drama) and Mr Sam Mulliner (Director of Performing Arts), who have worked professionally in musical theatre on Broadway and in the West End, raised the bar for the performance.

“Both students and staff have come together to create such a ‘beast’ of a performance. Participating in activities beyond the curriculum help students create an understanding of teamwork, individual commitment, and the ability to create something extraordinary. Dulwich International High School Suzhou supports this through its CCA programme, sports, arts and in a multitude of additional ways and we encourage students to try something new – they may just discover something they love!” Sam commented.

Continuing the education philosophy of Dulwich College London, DHSZ is able to provide students with an extremely challenging, valuable, and academically rigorous international curriculum.

"There is an old Chinese saying: ‘give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime', so in fact, the essence of education should be to 'teach a man to fish', so that students can learn proactively and independently, which is beneficial to their lifelong learning. British education places emphasis on experience and experimentation, allowing students to discover difficulties and gain experience and conclusions in the process of solving them," said Principal Zhuang.

Year 10 STEAM Presentations provide a good example of this. Steam is an acronym that refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths. STEAM is designed to integrate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths subjects) with arts subjects across various educational disciplines. Traditionally, STEAM presentations are delivered by Teams of Y10 students a few weeks into their first semester at DHSZ. As such, the school can provide proud parents with the opportunity to watch their children’s carefully prepared presentations in person!

“Our newest Year 10 students showed the rapid progress they have made in their introductory STEAM projects. We are very pleased and proud to demonstrate how quickly they have adapted to their new school and new way of learning,” said DHSZ Director, Sarah Tielman after the latest Y10 STEAM Presentations.

Nicole Ren is an architect. She graduated from Dulwich international high school Suzhou in 2016, and studied for a BSc in Architecture at University College London (UCL). The alumna said independent learning skills are what she developed at Dulwich. " The skills developed from independent studies boosted my chance of success in job interviews and beyond".

DHSZ graduate Kevin L has kept up a habit of taking notes while reading, since Year 12. Equivalent to the word count of “Gone with the Wind”, his 430,000-word notes contributed to his admission at Tufts University last year. Selena W, a DHSZ alumna and undergraduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, said boarding at DHSZ has taught her the value of self-discipline, "an often-underestimated transferable skill that has an impact on every area of our lives."

Building Bridges to the World

Detur Pons Mundo – Building Bridges to the World – reflects the vision DCI shares with Dulwich College to bring a Dulwich education to students around the world. DCI schools are supported by academic leaders from the DCI Education Team, in all aspects of their operation.

Solomon Z, a Year 13 student from DHSZ, has recently received offers from the University of St Andrews and the University of Glasgow to study mathematics. He has also taken the admissions interview for the University of Oxford. He and six other students took part in the school’s Oxbridge workshop, which was provided online by counsellors and tutors from Dulwich College London.

Mr. Steve Hodgkin, the Dulwich Scholars Programme coordinator, Head of Counselling and a Cambridge University alumnus, said ”Dulwich College London made a very, very strong commitment, offering an online ten-week course of academic and interview preparation for Oxford and Cambridge, which many of our students participated in. The support they had from the College was amazing.”

The Dulwich Shakespeare Festival (DSF) is run in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Learning – the education arm of the world-renowned British theatre company specialising in Shakespeare. As one of only six exclusive global RSC Learning partners, Dulwich students benefit from world-class performing arts experiences and professional drama workshops. Prior to the pandemic, annual trips to the UK for our students were organised to visit Dulwich College London as well as top UK Universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge.

The Dulwich Olympiad 2019 was a truly prestigious event, during the 400th anniversary year of Dulwich College. A celebration of Sport, Drama, Music and Art, the Olympiad brought together a representative body of students from the Commonwealth of Dulwich Schools, to participate in workshops and events, and showcase their talents in competitions and performances. Principal Zhuang was among the 600 delegates from the DCI family. "We stayed by the riverside of the Thames, not far from Tower Bridge. The 400th anniversary was phenomenal. We were so proud. I can still see students wearing Dulwich Olympiad 2019 hoodies on campus nowadays".

In retrospect, the veteran educator said that after ten years’ development, while DHSZ accumulates fame and enlarges student numbers, the school never stops moving forward. In the pandemic era, DHSZ delivers the Dulwich Difference in any learning environment: on-campus, in hybrid environments as well as on digital platforms. 

"There is another Chinese old saying 'It takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to shape a person'. I hope that DHSZ will continue to put into practice the ultimate goal of 'shaping people' and become the top international high school in China", said Principal Zhuang.