In case you missed it: January 2024
Year of the Dragon celebrations at Wellington!
ACAMIS Basketball Tournament
Wellington hosted the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS) Basketball Tournament last month. With 160 athletes representing five international schools from around China, this was the largest such event to take place at Wellington. For four days, we saw some fierce competition on the court.
House happenings: Benchball and chess
In the ongoing quest for the House Cup, Wellingtonians in Lower Prep took to the court for this month’s benchball tournament. Pupils demonstrated outstanding teamwork, sportsmanship and competitive spirit in their attempts to rack up more points for their houses. The children also had the opportunity to put their spatial reasoning, logic and strategy skills to the test with this month’s chess tournament. Still, with no definitive leader in sight, the Cup remains much in play.
The 2024 APAC VRC Robotics Competition
Pupils in years 9 through 12 represented Wellington at the APAC VRC Robotics Competition. This international event brought together 42 teams from 14 schools across the Asia Pacific region. This was our pupils’ first time participating in this competition and they performed admirably against several well-established clubs. Two of our teams made it past the elimination round, and one of our teams even made it to the quarter-finals! Regardless of the outcome, it was a valuable experience for our pupils. For six months, they learned to design and build a robot. This requires strong problem-solving skills and teamwork. They are now back in the laboratory redesigning and coding their robots for the final world qualifiers taking place later this month in Tianjin.
Storytime with our Early Years parents
Parent volunteers joined us at the Early Years Centre for our all-new Parent Readers Programme. As part of our mission to instil in our youngest pupils a lifelong love of reading, parents are invited to read aloud to the children. Reading with a variety of adults enables our little learners to practice and refine their emerging skills, whether they are reading wordless picture books or more complex texts. Parents undergo several training sessions to learn how to effectively work with children as they develop their knowledge of Read Write Inc. phonics, decode texts, expand their vocabulary and share their thoughts on what they have read.
Positive Parenting workshop
The Early Years Centre recently held a very constructive Positive Parenting workshop for our Early Years parents. Together with our teachers, they explored scenarios that promote the development of positive behaviour in young children. The strategies discussed included the importance of using encouragement for effort instead of empty praise and engaging a child's problem-solving and critical thinking skills through prompts and questioning, rather than using imperative commands. These strategies align with the positive parenting philosophy, which emphasises autonomy, self-motivation and the holistic development of a child's social, emotional and cognitive capacities. Attendees were also provided with practical examples of language to use and had the opportunity to practice them during the workshop.
An Evening of Song and Dance
Finally, we closed out the month with an Evening of Song and Dance. This performance was conceived as a chance for some of our Arts Fellows and Aspirants to share their talents in a casual concert setting. It was an open forum for them to create work that would not normally be seen here and, more importantly, to inspire other Wellingtonians to get involved in the arts and perform. Our performers put on a spectacular show featuring a variety of dance styles — everything from classical ballet to fusion. It was the perfect way to welcome the coming holiday.
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