Memories of the Grand Canal - Project Week 2014

As we are about to start contemplating ideas for next year's Project Week activities (for discussion at our upcoming Parents' Weekend'), this seems a good time to look back on some of the things our pioneering intake got up to during the very first CIS Hangzhou Project Week - from the 24th to the 30th March this year. 

Since China's celebrated 'Grand Canal' has its origin point in Hangzhou (branching off from the Qiantang River, just to the south of the Yangtze Delta) and is a central element of the city's identity, we thought it would be appropriate to consider the history and the continuing importance of this mighty thoroughfare. A group of six students and four adults flew to its terminus in the northern capital of Beijing and then returned to Hangzhou tracing the route of the canal - with stops along the way in the canalside cities of Dezhou (the 'capital' of China's solar power industry), Xuzhou (home to a bigger lake than Hangzhou's, and a collection of terracotta warriors smaller than Xi'an's but equally impressive), Wuxi, and Suzhou. We made a point of trying to use as many different modes of transport as possible:高铁, local train, bus, taxi, long-distance coach (on all of which M. Biret and I managed to sleep!) - and even a waterbus (for the very last leg of the journey in Hangzhou, from Wulin Square Wharf back to our local Walmart on nearby Gudun Lu).

Filmed and edited by Jasmine Topp and Sierra Chiao

Remembrance Day

Ms Lam organised a special assembly for Remembrance Day this morning. In addition to recalling the suffering and sacrifice of soldiers in the Great War, she called attention to the contribution of the workers in the Chinese Labour Corps, who, although non-combatants, shared many of the hazards of the forward lines on the Western Front (their story has been largely forgotten, even in China and certainly in the West; but a campaign has recently been launched by British-born Chinese in the UK to try to ensure that these men too receive their due share of honour in these ceremonies of remembrance).
Will Baxter-Bray played the trumpet, and excerpts of WWI poetry were read by Vivian Gu, Jasmine Savage, and Celeste Yau.

Tongzhou IDE - 'Coastlines'

This short promotional film showcasing the Coastlines leisure company (our partner organisation on Tongzhou island, which offers kayaking and other water sports there) was shot by several of our Film students and edited together by Tristan Wong as part of a multi-media presentation on improving the company's branding and communication - one of our IDE projects (along with 'Orchestrash' and 'Culinary Capers') on our trip there just before half-term.

This is a particularly impressive piece of work, given that it was thrown together under extreme time pressure - the editing completed in barely an hour, and much of the filming (notably the kayaking clip) only being done at the very last minute. Tristan has promised to produce a more polished 'extended cut' for us shortly.

Orchestrash!

One of the optional projects for our students to engage in during our excursion to the river island of Tongzhou right before half-term was creating 'Orchestrash', a musical ensemble playing instruments assembled from discarded junk found in the neighbourhood... and then performing for the rest of the school at our farewell bonfire party (a "Bonfire Bonanza of Beats").

Filmed by Mr Murphy

(Apologies for the lousy picture quality: it was pitch dark, and I didn't manage to get a good viewing position! The sound, at least, is quite... authentic.)

Hangzhou News - Presentation to Year 9

CIS Hangzhou Director Richard Pratt visited the parent school in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago to give a presentation to the current Year 9s, our prospective third year intake. He was ably supported by a selection of Year 11 students: Axel Leven, Gloria Schiavo, Jasmine Topp, Catherine Wang, and Justin Choo - graduates of our pioneering Hangzhou cohort from last year.

More scenes from Tongzhou

As a follow-up to Ms Lee's portrait of the 'Culinary Capers' cooking activity from last week's Tongzhou IDE, here is a slideshow of some of the photos I took during an idyllic two days away from campus. As well as exploring the charming little river island of Tongzhou and performing with a band of local musicians there, we spent our Wednesday afternoon at the Chinese Football Academy in nearby Tonglu city, staging a mass coaching session for local primary schoolchildren with our partner NGO, China Grassroots Football.

Slideshow created by Mr Murphy

Culinary Capers!

During last week's IDE excursion to the river island of Tongzhou, just south of Hangzhou, one group of students opted to spend some time working with their homestay hosts in the kitchen to learn how to prepare some local dishes.

Slideshow created by Ms Lee

Hangzhou News - Geography Field Day

This Tuesday was devoted entirely to Geography, with students spending the day using mapping software to plot the positions of buildings on the GYS host campus, and then creating hand-drawn map/games. Cheeling Wu, Ariana Beaver, and Enrique Chuidian introduce their products.

More glimpses of the GYS Primary Teaching Experience

To follow up on Stephen Chan's brief video report a week or so back, here are some of the photographs I took of our Primary Teaching Experience - where our students worked in teams of two or three to deliver a series of 40-minute English lessons to small groups of young children from Grades 4 to 6 in the Primary division of our host school, Greentown Yuhua.

The music is DJ Dain's mashup of I'm Yours (Jason Mraz), Don't Worry, Be Happy (Bobby McFerrin), and What A Wonderful World (Israel Kamakawiwo’ole) [and there's a little bit of Over The Rainbow in there too!]

Slideshow created by Mr Murphy

Hangzhou News - settling in, one month in

This week's 'Hangzhou News' features a couple of short interviews - with student Tristan Wong and Coach Mentor Thebes Law - on their experiences during their first month living here on the Hangzhou campus.

Keep on plugging away!

Mr Karena shared with us at morning assembly today this entertaining little song by British rock band Transition, as an encouragement to us all to persist in our efforts to master Chinese. (Apparently, the boys are regular visitors to Taiwan rather than the mainland, so their 普通话 probably sounds a little bit sibilant.)

Hangzhou Weekly News - GYS Primary Teaching Experience

Stephen Chan of the 'Hangzhou News' team here gives us a glimpse of last week's 'Inter-Disciplinary Experience', in which our students, working together in teams of three, attempted to teach a morning of classes to small groups of visiting students from the Primary division of our partner school, Greentown Yuhua School (GYS).

Most of our IDEs are reprising successful events we ran in our pioneering year, but this was a completely new initiative. It was a fairly massive logistical challenge - with nearly 800 students (aged 8 to 10) and around 50 of their teachers coming to our campus during the course of the morning. It was also a demanding - but, we hope, enlightening - activity for our students.

Hangzhou Weekly News - Homestay

 

The third of this year's weekly bulletins - giving a glimpse of one experience of our first homestay of the year, in which pairs of students spent a weekend with the family of a buddy from our partner school, Greentown Yuhua Middle School.

Stepping out in style

During our "I am a country" inter-disciplinary experience last week, students each drew a country by lot and were then asked to spend the whole week imagining the viewpoint of that country and its people in a variety of situations and activities. Both subject teachers and coach mentors initiated a number of learning inquiries inspired by this premise.

In Film class, students were challenged to find the most interesting short film clip that was representative of their allotted country. Sherson Ng had initially been disappointed to draw the small and unregarded Republic of Congo... but then his researches turned up this delightful mini-documentary on the 'Sapeurs' of Brazzaville.

Hangzhou Weekly News - Interview with Mr Pratt

CIS Hangzhou Director, Richard Pratt, reflects on the beginning of our second year.

Closing Ceremony - June 2014

We rounded off our momentous first year here in Hangzhou with a formal closing ceremony at the end of our final parents' weekend on Sunday 15th June.
Kenny Jeong and Catherine Wang were our very capable MCs. Dan Kinzer and Jianping Pratt spoke on behalf of CIS Hangzhou teaching staff, Andi Lee, Charlie Salnikow, Madeleine Witt, and John Yap on behalf of the students, Natalie Lau and Yohei Tse on behalf of the Coach Mentors, and Guy Chambers on behalf of the parents.
Distinguished guests were Xu Yichao, Deputy General Secretary of the Hangzhou Communist Party, Xiao Feng of the Hangzhou Education Bureau, Chen Feng and Zheng Ping of the Hangzhou Entry & Exit Administration, Jin Heng of the Hangzhou Foreign Affairs Office, Chen Haike, Yu Zhengping, and Wang Yinchu of the Greentown Education Group, Chen Jianguo, Principal of Greentown Yuhua High School, Sun Zhuoren, Deputy Principal of Greentown Yuhua Middle School, and Chen Xiaojen, Deputy Principal of Greentown Yuhua Primary School.
The event closed with a musical performance by our whole-school choir.

[My apologies for the poor sound: the shotgun microphone I was trying to use had a faulty jack-plug, and the onboard microphone in the camera wasn't really adequate at this distance.]

Hangzhou Weekly News - arrival

A few first impressions - our high-spirited new crop of students' arrival in CIS Hangzhou last week.

Filmed by Adam Guo and Ingrid Tsang; edited by Stephen Chan

China Grassroots Football

One of the most popular and successful of our 'Community & Service' projects has been our involvement with China Grassroots Football (CGF), an NGO that provides football coaching to young Chinese children. During Project Week last March, several students helped run a coaching camp (where they were themselves able to train for a Chinese FA coaching certificate). To promote that event, Joe Littler - outstanding Film student and enthusiastic CGF participant - prepared this montage of the experiences of his classmates during the twice-weekly sessions coaching for CGF that they had been taking part in throughout the year. 

Where we came from...

CIS Hangzhou Director Richard Pratt created this montage of his favourite photographs from 2012 to 2014, celebrating the process of building and establishing our school. This was first shared at the farewell assembly for our opening year's students, before they returned to Hong Kong this June.

The music is If I Were A Bell, performed by Miles Davis. 

Photographed and edited by Mr Pratt

They loved it!

Towards the end of our first year of operation, we asked our students to sum up what they'd most enjoyed about their time here in Hangzhou. 

This year's new batch of students will surely soon be building up their own store of happy memories of the place.

Filmed and edited by Coach Mentor Aydee Tie

End-of-year concert

Last night, as part of our Arts Festival to welcome parents for our farewell weekend, a group of music students performed a classical concert in the Music Hall.

Here are some of the highlights:

Sophia Chan playing Henryk Wieniawski's Scherzo for Violin...

Kelly Kwok playing Frédéric Chopin's Scherzo in B Minor on piano...

And Yudo Wong playing J.S. Bach's 2nd Flute Sonata...

Sophia and Yudo are, of course, accompanied on the piano by our Director of Music, Tama Karena.

Meeting Cindy Pon

CIS Hangzhou's first ever writer-in-residence, American Chinese YA author Cindy Pon, spent the first week of June on campus with us. Although she had arrived over the weekend and had already attended some classes on Monday morning, her formal introduction to the student body came when everyone assembled in the Library meeting area on Monday afternoon to hear her being interviewed about her life and work by English teacher Paul Murphy, who had arranged her visit.

Filmed by Hayson Chu

Thanks to the CIS Annual Fund for its generous support of this initiative

Three views of our first year in Hangzhou

Back in November, Film students Yudo Wong, Abigail Yee, and Ciara Jacob were practising shooting interviews as part of their study unit on the documentary genre.

Here we have some reflections on the early months of CIS Hangzhou from Abi herself, from English and Film teacher Paul Murphy [Gosh, I was porky at the start of the year! They say the camera adds a few kilos - but the rest is all my own fault!], and from Coach Mentor Liu Jing.

Hengdian

Semester 2 Film students took a class trip in March to visit the Hengdian World Studios, a major Zhejiang tourist attraction in the town of Dongyang, about 120 miles south of Hangzhou. Hengdian is a vast site, boasting several of the world's largest outdoor movie sets, including a full-size replica of the Forbidden City and a Han Dynasty palace that was built in the mid-90s for the filming of Chen Kaige's The Emperor and The Assassin and was made even more famous when it featured in Zhang Yimou's Hero in 2002.

Filmed and edited by Nick Berry, Cheryl Lee and Jeffrey Lam

A Coach Mentor speaks

One of our Coach Mentors, Wang Lu, was interviewed in Chinese by Nick Hildebrandt, Madeleine Witt, and Noam Braude for one of their Semester 1 assessment projects in Film. He has some interesting things to say about how this new role is evolving. [Subtitles in English]