I am Dr. John D’Arcy, Head of School for our Shunyi campus. I joined the Beanstalk International Education Group this February. Most recently I was a senior leader at the Western Academy of Beijing, leading the development of WAB’s educational programs. I joined Beanstalk to lead the development of our educational programs across the whole Group. Due to complications arising from Covid-19, Shunyi needed a new Head of School. In early April, Beanstalk Founder Kathy Shi invited me to accept the campus role and responsibility. I have quickly learned how fortunate I am to have been given the privilege of leading the Shunyi community. Our school has incredible potential and I am ready to lead our collaborative efforts to achieve that potential. 

Though these past few months have been intense, volatile, and uncertain for all of us, I have also found them to be rewarding, heart-warming, and inspirational. Our organizational level team completed a campus evaluation model, which we will implement once our campuses resume normal routines.   We have also begun building a teacher appraisal and professional growth model, built upon research-based and internationally tested models. We have also been begun working on a Beanstalk Unified Curriculum model. Our model has three guiding principles; honing Beanstalk’s bilingual education; strengthening our PYP, MYP, and DP programmes; and integrating the Chinese National Curriculum - aligned with iCGSE (UK) and Common Core (USA).  This organization-wide work further demonstrates Beanstalk’s commitment to being the top bilingual international schools in China.  

At our Shunyi campus, I have begun working with the leadership team. I have found all of our leaders to be genuinely and deeply devoted to Shunyi’s students, teachers, and parents. They are a highly knowledgeable and talented leadership team, and I am honoured to be leading with them. I have been at the Shunyi campus long enough to see the many fabulous qualities of our school and I have begun to see areas for focus improvement. I know for my professional experience and research that schools achieve the highest standards when all stakeholders work harmoniously and collaboratively to improve shortcomings and accelerate areas of excellence. 

I have worked with our incredibly dedicated administrative staff, as they worked tirelessly, side-by-side through long hours preparing our campus for a series of rigorous government inspection leading to the re-opening of our campus. Parallel to their inspection preparation work, our administrative teams we also doing their regular work of keeping all of our campus systems working. Having seen them in action, I know I can rely on our administrative staff to move mountains for our community.   

I have been encouraged by my conversations with teachers about their distance learning work and know they what to improve our educational programs. Our ES teachers’ love of their students was obvious during my recent conversations with them and is evident in their distance learning work. I am impressed by their commitment to collaboratively and continually evolving their distance learning programs to better serve the diverse needs of our Elementary School students. Our MS/HS DP teachers have guided us through the difficult and frustrating cancellation of DP exams. They rallied and worked tirelessly to meet the shifting demands of the International Baccalaureate, as that organization   struggled with the global pandemic. These were incredibly stressful days for students, teachers, and parents. Nonetheless, and like our ES teachers, I was touched by the effort of DP teachers to support our students. Our MS/HS teachers are working hard to manage challenges amplified by distance learning. The middle years are a unique stage of human development, and our middle years students are representative of wonderful diversity of adolescence. This psychological stage benefits from strong relationships and our MS/HS teaches are committed to maintaining connections with our students. We will continue to enhance our distance learning programs prioritizing both connecting with students and delivering essential curriculum.  

Given the quality of our professional teams, I am certain our Shunyi campus is well-position to develop and deliver high-quality educational programs and be city-wide leaders. 

I know how difficult it is for parents to support children at home with distance learning, my daughter is a Beanstalk Grade 1 student. I also know we parents are getting better at supporting our children’s distance learning. I know parents are learning a lot and developing new understandings about how their children learn. Though none of us wanted this experience, parents’ new knowledge is going to be instrumental as we collaborate to design the kind of educational programs we want at our campus. Though I have learned a lot about our staff, I am still learning about our parent community. What I have experienced so far suggests to me that Shunyi parents are as passionate as I am about the quality of our children’s educations. You are willing to go beyond sharing great ideas and provide critical feedback to collaborating with us to improve our educational programs. To our parent community, thank you.          

I love learning and continue to be a learner. As a husband, father, and educator I know I have a lot to learn. I learn a lot from academic books (I am an avid reader), but I know the deepest learning comes from authentic experience in social contexts. I hold advanced academic degrees from University of Toronto and Argosy University. I have been an educator for 33 years, 15 years of which have been senior leadership roles in IB World Schools. I love being a father and husband and love my work as an educator. I am truly grateful for my life and journey in front of me, both personal and professional. 

I was born in Toronto, Canada. My wife was born in Hong Kong, Chinese, and our daughter in Istanbul, Turkey. My wife and I decided to move to Beijing from Istanbul, so our daughter could develop her Chinese character. We chose to join Beanstalk after WAB because of Beanstalk’s expertise with and commitment to bilingual education. Having lived in different parts of the world, I know when people truly understand their own cultural identity they are able to appreciate and value others’. But of course, this is not just about valuing and appreciation. To become a responsible citizen within our local communities, we must learn to be relevant within our globalized planet and understand how to collaborate with and lead people all over the world.

Bilingual education provides our children with such an environment and a powerful way to prepare them for their futures. Being a leading pioneer of international bilingual education in China, BIBS has the values and educational concepts I have learned to highly value over my 33 year career. Specifically, international cultureand global mindset built on strong cultural roots. I’m excited to join BIBS and share my experience and knowledge with you. 

Informed by neuroscience, developmental psychology, and educational research, teachers today know more about how people learned than any previous generation of educator. We now know that each child’s brain is wired differently. Each of our children learns differently, achieves understanding at different speeds, and attaches new knowledge to previous developed understands (whether correct or incorrect). New knowledge about how people learn is creating a educational revolution around the world. Beanstalk is committed to understanding this revolution and using it to the advantage of our children. 

New education technologies, artificial intelligence, robotic, and big data are forcing educational organizations around the world to re-imaging school. Leading schools have already begun shifting towards personalized education, in order to meet the learning and developmental needs of every child. Beanstalk’s bilingual model and IB programmes have prepared it to be a leader in contemporary education. 

If one of our goals is to prepare our children to be lifelong learners, so they have the skills and knowledge to remain successful in our rapidly world. They must learn to go beyond inventing themselves while at school, learning who they are as individuals, community members, and learners; our children must learn a new skill – they must learn how to continually re-invent themselves. Knowing how to re-invent ourselves is something today’s successful adult are able to do. It is a skill we are committed to teaching our children. Most educators, and an increasing number of parents, know that conventional educational models are not fully preparing our children for tomorrow. Our work as adults is to develop educational systems and structures that actually support our children’s holistic development. 

Whether a parent or educator, we must self-examine:

• Are our children being educated to become global-minded, self-learners?

• Are our children learning to solve real-world problem?

• Are our children becoming world citizens who cherish their own cultures?

• Are our children able to understand and cooperate with people from the world?

• Are our children learning the skills and knowledge they need to excel?  

And this is why I choose BIBS for my daughter. I believe in the culture and values of BIBS, and I believe my daughter will develop the skills and attributes at Beanstalk she needs to gain confidence for her future life.

Beanstalk teachers, leaders, parents, and students expect all learners to receive the finest education possible. Achieving this ambitious and realistic goal is something we will have to do together. It cannot be achieved by students alone, teachers alone, or leaders and parents alone. Students learn best when we understand learning to be a community responsibility. School improvement works best when it involved the whole community. Drawing on the expertise of teachers, school leader, parents, and students is how we will ensure that Beanstalk students are receiving the finest education possible.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank every parent for their efforts in making the Shunyi campus a better learning community. Have worked in top interantional schools in Toronto, Hong Kong, Istanbul and Beijing, I know the best schools come with best PTAs. The Shunyi PTA is a superb team, and am honored to be able to work with you all in the coming days!  

Our campus opens Apr 27, let’s meet soon and make a fresh start. It’s springtime, and I look forward to working with you to make our Shunyi campus the best interantional bilingual school of the world!