Recently, our girls and boys teams headed to Yew Chung International School (YCIS) in Beijing to participate in the ACAMIS volleyball tournament. While Wellington has been involved in ACAMIS invitationals before, this was the very first time that the College had sent a team for a ‘core sports tournament’ since becoming a full member of the group. Both teams acquitted themselves extremely well over the course of the weekend, coming off the high of a very successful volleyball season which saw the girls placing second in their division – a massive improvement from their position the previous year – while the boys have been settling into Division 1. After a string of high-scoring, closely contested games, the girls finished 4th of six teams and the boys finished in 5th place. Considering that volleyball is a very recent addition to the Senior School sports rota, with both teams having only experienced two seasons of training and playing together, this performance at ACAMIS against extremely competitive opposing teams is indicative of their dedication, discipline and determination to play their best at a higher level of competition.   It’s been extremely gratifying to see how Senior School sports has enjoyed a real coming of age in recent months. When Wellington College International Shanghai was founded five years ago, we traditionally lacked the numbers to enjoy a sufficiently deep sporting talent pool to compete effectively against many of the more established international schools. However, as both the Senior School and the whole College continue to grow, we are fielding more teams, in a greater number of city, national and international tournaments and events, across a wider range of sports.       Just as importantly, I can see an increasing drive among the Senior School pupils to put Wellington firmly on the map with consistently excellent performances that yield results at tournaments like ACAMIS. It’s great to see them coming back each term buoyed up, eager to get involved in the new sporting season and put together the strongest team possible. As the volleyball teams have already shown, our pupils can achieve a great deal of progress even in a relatively short space of time. Already, the seniors are looking ahead to their next ACAMIS outings in early 2019, with the basketball and football tournaments occurring in January and April respectively. We wish them the very best of luck and hope that they keep this momentum going.