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June 2021

Dear SAIS Community,

This is my last message as SAIS’s principal. It is sad for me to write these words as I have loved being a part of SAIS, building the SAIS community, raising the level of teaching and learning at SAIS, improving SAIS’s PBL instruction, providing new educational programming, and most of all, working with SAIS’s wonderful students. I am super proud of our collective work towards making SAIS a model of PBL in Shenzhen and China, and I am excited to see SAIS continue to thrive under the capable leadership of Nate Abbott and his team.

What a year it has been! Although we were all super disappointed to have to change our end-of-year events to virtual ones for parents and guests, in many ways it is a fitting way to close out a year that has had so many twists and turns. I continue to be grateful that we have had in-person school for the whole year when schools in most parts of the world were either online the whole time or had a hybrid combination of in-person and online.

I’d like to share some highlights of the great learning and achievement that we have seen and accomplished together over the past two years.

PBL and Deeper Learning

I leave SAIS with a strong instructional foundation in rigorous PBL based on high-level standards. We began this year using the Understanding by Design framework in order to clarify our focus on grade-level standards and aligning projects with standards and learning goals. This year, students at all grade levels participated in engaging, challenging, meaningful, and deeper learning experiences.

A few weeks ago, I hosted a Shenzhen international school principals' meeting. As my fellow principals visited SAIS classrooms, I asked them to identify the deeper learning competencies they saw. The examples that our guests observed at SAIS included:

·      Creative writing using the perspective of a character from The Odyssey done in Mr. Mark’s 6th and 7th grade Humanities class

·      Mr. Parker, Ms. Adena, and Ms. Amelia’s reading groups in 3rd grade

·      Ms. Ellie’s 4th and 5th-grade students working with the camera obscura and demonstrating understanding and mastery in multiple ways

·      Students understanding their purpose in the Maker Space

·      Students throughout the school directing their own learning, being on task, and focused on whatever they were doing

We have grown our SAIS library of books written by our students. 2nd graders produced a book of stories last semester and a poetry book this semester. Kindergarten students have written books this year and last year connected to different projects. 4th and 5th graders produced a field guide to the OCT Wetlands last semester. Students in middle and high school Chinese class wrote a book for their “Me” project this semester. Writing, revising, and then reading original books is a fabulous way of building literacy skills while also engaging students in the fun and exciting process of creating an authentic and public product.

While there is still more to do, in my tenure at SAIS we have increased the focus on literacy and reading, including reading for pleasure. This year, we held several events for literacy months, such as Books and Breakfast and the Book Fair. We also instituted reading groups in several grades that we plan to expand next year. Several classes, starting as young as Mr. Michael’s ELE 1 students, started doing independent reading time or reading stations. Schoolwide, we instituted a monthly DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) period where everyone in the school reads a book of their choice at the same time.

Our new one-to-one laptop program beginning in 4th grade has allowed our students to develop technical literacy, learn research skills, do online educational programs like Delta Math, and easily do multiple drafts of projects and papers.

Assessment

In a PBL school, assessment is an integral part of the projects. High-quality PBL includes students demonstrating what they have learned through the projects themselves. Having an authentic audience is also a big part of the PBL approach, which is why we value our various presentations of learning, including our Exhibitions of Learning, which we have done each semester over the past two years, our two Student-Led Conferences each year, and our Passage Presentations, which were new this year.  These events are opportunities for students to learn and be assessed at the same time, as they develop presentation and communication skills in the process of sharing their learning.

SAIS has been doing MAP testing for a number of years, and now and we are able to see patterns and trends for our students and school overall. The test has multiple purposes: it shows the trajectory of growth for individual students and also helps teachers to adjust their teaching based on the results, which is why we administer the fall and winter tests. We are just wrapping up our third administration of the MAP test for the school year, and so far, the results are continuing to trend in a positive direction and continuing to demonstrate that the longer students stay at SAIS, the better they do.

This year, we held a ceremony to recognize our English Language Learners for the first time. It is a true accomplishment for students to become bilingual and to learn an additional language. Building systems to assess and celebrate English language learning—as well as systems to better support English language learning—are priorities that SAIS will continue to build on.

Secondary Program

Our middle and high school now have a robust and rigorous foundation, with students reading complex classic texts such as Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Homer’s Odyssey in 9th grade, learning to write essays across multiple subjects in grade 6 through 9, and doing accelerated math ahead of their peers in other schools. Our middle and high school students are now on a clear pathway to Calculus and advanced math, thanks to Mr. Omar’s excellent teaching. As our 9th-grade parents will see, we also have a new grading system for grades 9 through 12 that is more traditional and easily understandable for colleges. SAIS students will receive a high school transcript for the first time.

We are wrapping up our second year of having an advisory program at SAIS, which has brought students together from different grades to build relationships and leadership through such activities as leading community meetings for the school and running different house events.

Another first for SAIS was hosting our first college admissions officer “visit”/presentation this past winter, as part of our parent class. Our college guidance program will continue to grow next year.

New Learning Opportunities

In the past two years, we have seen several new opportunities built into SAIS’s program, including:

·      An exchange program with a high school in the U.S. (virtual this year, hopefully, in-person in the future)

·      The Invention Convention where students create and present an invention that solves a problem (students in grades K and up participated and a first grader and a 9th grader are proceeding to the fourth round, which is an international competition.) Ms. Dawn

·      Grade-level trips last year and this year (to Xichong, Xi’an, and Thailand)

·      New student leadership opportunities, including having students present, perform, speak, facilitate, and lead activities at weekly community meetings, and run clubs and classes (see bullets below)

·      Two ninth-grade students ran SAIS’s Drama Club with Mr. Mark as an advisor, adapting and directing Into the Woods

·      One fifth and one-ninth grader taught a weekly Spanish class to ELE 2 students

·      SAIS’s first-ever upper elementary/middle school band program was created by Mr. Andrew

·      An ESL team supporting English language learners in grades 2 and above with additional support, including after school classes

·      J-Term

It has been my privilege to serve SAIS as your principal over the past two years. I regularly hear from former students who I have worked with over the course of the last three decades, and these messages mean so much to me. I hope to hear from many of you and your children in the future and learn about the exciting accomplishments to come. I have visited former students on their college campuses and hosted them for Thanksgiving and other school breaks, and I hope to be able to do the same in the future for SAIS students who attend college in the U.S.

SAIS has the greatest students! They are creative and friendly, dedicated and motivated, and excited to share their learning and thinking with others. I have loved having all of them—and you—in my life. Thank you for your tremendous support. I will miss you.

With love,

Dr. Laura Flaxman