Scholars Programme Parent Event
On Friday 12th of November, we held a Scholars Programme parent event in the school Library at Dulwich International High School Suzhou.
The objective of this event was to explain the Scholars Programme to the parents of students on the programme so that they could understand the benefits of participating in it and make an informed choice about which pathways were right for their children.
The event was presented primarily by Steve Hodgkin (Head of Geography and Counselling at Dulwich International High School Suzhou), with support from Richard Nunns (Deputy Director) as well as the mentors on the Scholars program.
What is the Scholars Programme?
Gaining acceptance to the Oxford, Cambridge or Ivy League Universities is a long-term endeavour. Universities are not only looking for students with the highest exam grades but also individuals, who excel in admissions tests, submit written work of a high standard and tackle multiple interviews with leading university professors.
They are looking for original, curious, and logical thinkers, who can use their current knowledge to look for new solutions. The aim of the Y10 Scholars Programme is to enable students to master their subjects, gain clarity about their future, and prepare them for a changing world.
Students will work with their learning mentors and a small group of students in their chosen stream; to learn about their subject through discussion, research, group work, seminars, and debates. Working individually and in small groups, students will also practice their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in English, expanding their vocabulary as they grow in confidence.
They will take part in group debates about current issues, learn important conversational topics, be immersed in British culture and history, and enhance their academic English skills so that they are fully prepared to live and study abroad.
How will the Scholars Programme Achieve this?
Answering this question was really what the afternoon was all about. Mr. Hodgkin explained that reading was crucial to the success of scholars on the program and that the plan was for mentors to encourage reading, providing a curated selection of university-level texts for scholars to read.
However, the long term objective is to encourage students on the scholar's program to become self-motivated learners, that seek out reading material by themselves and hungrily devour it with pleasure and relish.
Steve Hodgkin explained that, in his role as mentor for the liberal arts pathway of the scholarship program: “I won’t be teaching them lessons, I will be teaching them skills. Very important skills. The passion for critical thinking, a passion for wider reading in English. You can’t really teach these skills, but you can prepare students to develop them and train them to think independently. These are the skills that every university is looking for. The students that exhibit these skills to the highest standards are the ones that are admitted to the elite Universities.”
Mr. Hodgkin explained how the mentoring aspect of the Scholarship program would work. He was keen to emphasize that mentoring is not simply teaching extra classes. Mentoring takes the form of weekly, open forum meetings of students with key staff, but much less formal and more focused than lessons. Mentor meetings will sometimes take the form of academic book clubs or debate clubs, with the mentor on hand to guide, encourage and facilitate debate, as they give suggestions and create opportunities, all led by student interests. The scholarship programme is all about helping students to discover their passion and gain the skills to develop it, to its full extent.
Richard Nunns (our Deputy Director) provided an interesting example of what genuine student passion can achieve, when he spoke at length about a group of our students, with a passion for synthetic biology, who had recently made it all the way to the final of the iGem competition. “You’ll find them in the Biology Lab, before and after school. The result now, is that in the final of the iGem competition, they are one of the top two teams in the world. This is a direct result of them following their passions!”
At the end of the presentation, parents were able to meet with scholar’s programme mentors in small groups, to discuss their pathways through the programme.
We wish all of the Dulwich International High School Suzhou scholars every success on the programme and look forward to seeing how these remarkable young students develop as they progress through our school.
