Every morning between 8am and 8.20am, if you happen to be in the vicinity of the Executive Principal Dr. Wall's office, you can hear some wonderful music.
Sometimes it's an energetic morning exercise song, other times it's a children's song, and more recently you can hear "Burn My Calories"（Lyrics of a popular Chinese song）.
But don't get wrong, this music is not from Dr. Wall's office, it's a morning wake-up music for the children in the Pre school.
As the Pre school and Prep school campuses are in close proximity to each other, the BMH Pre school is just across the road from Dr Wall's office.
Since the school was founded in 2015, we have had the pleasure of seeing many children cross that door and move from BMH Kindergarten to BMH Primary School, growing from 3 year old 'cutie' to 9 year old 'small adults'.
But there is more to this growth than just pushing open a metal door.
30th September,fifty K2 and 3 parents visited Prep School to learn about the BMH Journey from Kindergarten to University.
By way of introduction, Executive Headmaster, Dr. Charles Wall explained that our commitment as a school of educators and parents is to help the young people in our care build good strength of character as they explore and develop their physical, intellectual, social, aesthetic and emotional abilities and discover how they might make the most of life.
At BMH we do this with a work hard play hard mindset with 50% of our day spent immersed in English and 50% in Chinese. Our Curriculum is a blend of the Chinese Local Compulsory Curriculum (which we must cover) and the Cambridge Pathway Curriculum (which prepares us for English medium Universities) and is taught in such a way that BMH students will successfully graduate from Chinese Compulsory Education at the end of grade 9 before going on to complete 10 Cambridge International General Certificates of Secondary Education (IGCSES) at the end of grade 10.
These IGCSEs examinations are all written in English (except for the Chinese IGCSE exam, of course!) and so it is vital that we teach our Cambridge Global English really well so that students are sufficiently fluent in English by the end of grade 10 to sit their IGCSEs.
After the IGCSEs, students progress to BMH Sixth Form (grades 11 and 12) during which they sit 3 or 4 Cambridge Advanced Level General Certificates of Education (also known as A’ levels) which are recognized as a gold standard worldwide and can provide a pathway into Universities all over the world.
Having given a brief description of the BMH Journey to University, Dr. Wall introduced his leadership team of-
Mr Daniel Rhodes –Deputy Head Pastoral and Holistic Development,
Professor Kelly Zhang –Deputy Head Quality Assurance Research and Development,
Ms Penny Liu -Deputy Head Safety and Services
Mr Rajan Chana -Assistant Head Academic
Ms Diana Choy -Assistant Head Professional Development
who are committed to excellence and school improvement and between them have considerable expertise in Chinese, English, Mathematics, Computer Science, Science, Sport, the Arts, Inquiry Based Learning, Pastoral Care, Oxbridge and Ivy League and University Preparation and how to grow outstanding schools.
Four groups of parents were then taken on a tour of Prep 1, 2, 3 and 4 lessons and were able experience the purposeful and productive learning in Chinese, English and Mathematics taking place during period 2.
During our question and answer session parents were pleased to learn that the school does teach all the content of the Chinese local Curriculum and thereby does provide a route to successful graduation from Chinese Compulsory Education at the end of grade 9 before focusing on Cambridge IGCSEs, A levels, SATS and University Preparation in Senior High School (grades 10, 11 and 12).
Professor Zhang and Dr. Wall emphasized that children would be able to progress after grade 9 to Senior High School at BMH for Cambridge IGCSEs and A levels or elsewhere for Gaokao. If a parent wishes to have their child move to a Senior High School specializing in the preparation for the Gaokao then they should let us know as soon as possible and certainly by the end of grade 8 so we can give them extra help to secure a place in the Senior High School of their choice.
Parents also asked about holistic education and how we build resilience and strength of character. Dr. Wall shared that BMH Boarding School (which has opened and is going very well) really helps with this since it gives the students the opportunity to learn greater independence and provides them with leadership and service opportunities aplenty. The introduction of the International Young People’s Award (IYA) at BMH, for which BMH is already licensed, will provide the Creativity Action and Service Framework to help our students invest in themselves through the pursuit of worthwhile creative, sporting, outward bound and community service orientated activity.
The IYA can be obtained at bronze, silver and gold levels and requires students to complete the required number of hours of Creativity, Action and Service as well as carefully planned and executed hiking (or canoeing or cycling) expeditions. All of this is excellent for character development which is why good schools usually have an IYA programme.
By way of conclusion, Dr Wall invited all parents to contact him by emailing him should they have any questions they wished to ask about their child’s education or to suggest workshop topics they would welcome for the next BMH Coffee Morning/Open Morning.
All our lives we have to keep opening new doors, iron, wooden, stainless steel ...... but it doesn't matter what kind of door it is, it's always which door we choose to open that matters.
Some doors have long awaited surprises behind them, some doors open to find no one waiting and some doors lead us to new worlds .....
We hope that when children choose to open the iron door that connects Pre school and Prep school at BMH, they are rewarded with a shiny, new journey worth having!
