Director's MessageWelcome to Western International School of Shanghai.If you are reading this website you are considering becoming part of our educational community, which has grown from 40 students in grades Nursery through 2 in our 2006 inaugural year to 170 students in grades N-8 in our second year, to 220 students at the start of our third year. It is evidence of the remarkable changes in our world that you may be visiting from your living room in Taipei or Toronto, Seattle or Sydney, Heidelberg or Hong Kong and that you and your family may be about to embark upon a move across the world. On this website you will find much that is useful and practical, including information on daily life and academics and how to contact people for help. But perhaps the most important documents you will read below are our mission and objectives, which will clearly suggest our aim to prepare young people for a world that may be even more remarkably transformed in the coming years. You will also gather that in aiming to offer all three programs of the International Baccalaureate and to maintain four small schools within one community, we eschew the 19th century factory model of education that still prevails throughout much of the world. According to that model, large groups of children sit day after day, trying to absorb and then repeat, on test after test, information "delivered" to them by their teachers. Our goal is that no matter how long students stay with us, this school will have a deep and lasting effect in the shaping of their lives. In their time with us, they will be intrigued, inspired, challenged, and truly cared for. Students who join us will come to school excited each day and will be motivated to question, to grow each day and to leave their mark upon this school and upon its emerging history. We want our students to learn how to learn; how to solve problems; how to collaborate and communicate; and how to take charge of their own learning by becoming self-reflective. At WISS, we are a welcoming international community with a fantastic mix of nationalities. This means that teachers, students, and parents, with all of the myriad cultural and religious perspectives that they bring, will all have a significant voice in how we work and live. In this way, together, we will create the present and future of the school, as well as a great model for what the wider world can be. Sincerely, Todd Flanagan Director, Western International School of Shanghai |
