This year, on top of the authentic British A-Level curriculum system which brought out fruitful results, Merchiston International School Shenzhen (hereinafter referred to as ‘MIS Shenzhen’) launched an “Ivy Academy” which provides the American AP curriculum, offering more options for Shenzhen’s parents and students.

     Why a school that excels in British education wants to offer American curriculum? MIS Shenzhen brings in Mr. Shi Guopeng, the former headmaster of Beijing No. 4 High School International Campus, the founding headmaster of Future Leadership Academy at Blue Bay Hainan Province and several outstanding teachers to join in the MIS Shenzhen. This gives the parents more confidence in MIS Shenzhen's IVY Academy.

Q: As the only overseas branch of Manchester Castle School in Edinburgh, UK, MIS Shenzhen is famous for its authentic British education, why do you want to start the American options?

  Shi Guopeng: Both the British A-Level programme and the American AP programme are important channels for overseas studies. In terms of curriculum, A-Level is more suitable for children who are willing to work hard through practicing tons of exercises or questions to get good results, as you need to study three to five subjects for applying British universities. Except Oxford and Cambridge need to have an interview, others are basically like the domestic college entrance examination.

    And the American AP itself has no courses only exams, we need to prepare the courses, therefore with huge flexibility, everyone may be different. So generally, if you want to take a stable and certain path, you should go for the British curriculum, and if you want to challenge your potential and do not want to follow the routine path, you should go for the American courses.

    At present, MIS School Shenzhen has launched the Royal Mile Academy, which offers British education, and the American Ivy Academy, which focuses on American education. The ‘One school, Two Academy’ model provides more possibilities for students.

    When you get to know MIS Shenzhen, you will find that it has truly achieved the perfect combination of whole-person education and academic excellence. Not just focusing on academic results, the school values each student’s hobbies and strength. It can be said that MIS Shenzhen has inherited nearly 200 years of culture from Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, UK, which is a great help to the development of the Green Ivy Academy.

Q: If you were to introduce Avy Academy, what key words would you use to characterise the students who study this curriculum?

   Shi Guopeng: I think the first word is 'innovation'. We are creating a new American curriculum on top of the British system, and although the general curriculum of the UK and the US is similar in some way, but also very different. That's why it's important to be innovative, from me to my teaching team to the parents and the students themselves. We all need to do a lot of work to understand what higher education in the developed world is all about.

    The second word is 'global vision'. The top universities in the United States select talents not only fucus on the academic excellence, but also require students to demonstrate academic potential, a level of thinking, and a concern for the world. Students are expected to be adults who are not confined to their egos. Therefore, a global perspective and world awareness are necessary.

    The third word is 'lifelong learning'. I have not set any time limit for learning here, because I want every child at IVY Academy to be a lifelong learner. One of the most fundamental ways to learn is through reading. At IVY Academy, we provide Chinese reading, English reading, social science reading and natural science reading, which are basically compulsory, and we hope that every child can read at least 50 million words by the time he or she graduates from high school.

Q: You have been advocating the Chinese&Western education, what will be the different experience of studying at IVY Academy?

   Shi Guopeng: IVY Academy will be a very abundant academy in the future, as we will not only bring in good resources from around the world through online education, but also share to the whole world the IVY Academy programmes online. Our students not only can take the MIS courses here, they can also communicate and discuss online with students from the Americas, Africa, and Europe, whose professors may be in France or in the United States. For this reason, we have created a special online full-featured audio classroom in which children can go and reach out to the wider world.

    For example, as I believe that all children must have an basic understanding of the foundations of Chinese and Western civilizations, we have an Chinese and Western Culture course. There are four teachers teaching this course, including me. I teach history offline, a PhD in philosophy from the University of Heidelberg in Germany teaches philosophy online, a PhD from the University of Missouri will teach science online, and a teacher from Boston will teach art.

Q: Specifically in the classroom, what are the characteristics of the classroom style at Green Ivy Academy? Is it completely different from the British teaching system?

    Shi Guopeng: In most cases, we are relatively independent from the Royal Mile Academy, but there are some courses where there is exchange. For example, in the AP course system, as AP maths only has two branches, calculus and statistics, and A-Level has a wider coverage, so we will let students learn the A-Level maths, because maths is very important for children's future growth.

    In the classroom, I don't have any objection if a teacher delivers knowledge efficiently in a short period of time, but we are still advocating that the classroom should present an atmosphere of interactive communication between teacher and students.

    For example, in my history class, the classroom is entirely devoted to discussion, and the length of the discussion time is not entirely up to me alone; the students are the center of the classroom. They would sometimes argue about different opinions, and I would be happy, and when they didn't, I would find a way to make them argue and deliver different opinions. This is because the role of a teacher is not a simple transmitter of knowledge, but someone who leads the students to raise questions and to find out solutions through discussion.

    I've been teaching for over 30 years, but when I'm preparing for a history class, it usually takes me about 10 hours. So, I don't have too many restrictions on the way a teacher delivers a lesson, but I do demand extremely high quality from the teachers, same for the two senior teachers who followed me from Beijing No. 4 High School International Campus to MIS Shenzhen.

New AP Teachers in IVY Academy

Q: With years of working experience in international education, what do you think are the current highlight of IVY Academy in MIS?

    Shi Guopeng: First of all, parents should be more involved in education. Some parents are fully involved, but they are used to telling the teachers what to do, and our teachers here actually have more freedom. I really value the role of parents in education, and education without parental involvement won’t be successful, so in fact we are very happy to talk to parents about their children's development.

    Secondly, one of the attractions of international schools is that they teach in English, and also speak English outside of class as well, but the problem is that some of the students may not be as good at English as the native speakers in senior secondary school, and at the same time, their Chinese may not be up to a really high standard either. This is a common case, that is, over-emphasis on using English, but without enough reading, thinking and discussion, students may be able to speak English fluently, but in a very simple way lack of insights. Therefore, I have come up with the concept of bi-linguicism, so that our children must learn the subjects in English to a native standard in senior secondary school, and to think and debate at a high level, instead of just learning the language just for daily use.

Q: In IVY Academy, in addition to the entrance examination for students, parents will also be interviewed. What aspects do you value more when interviewing parents?

   Shi Guopeng: The first year, IVY Academy only admitted 12 children. We use the American MAP test, which tests all four subjects including reading, language application, mathematics and science. This is called a "Growth Test." At present, the children recruited have basically reached or exceeded my academic expectations for the IVY Academy.

  For parents, first of all, we value their understanding of education. Parents are actually the payers of education. As customers, they need to understand the good of the things they pay for, so I need their support and understanding of my opinion on education.

    Secondly, we require parents to become lifelong readers themselves. One of the things I say to them the most is that it is neither realistic nor moral to let your children study hard while watching short videos. As parents, you must be readers and lifelong learners to set an example for them. At the same time, you must take time to accompany your children to discuss what they read in order to motivate them.

   In the future, we plan to build MIS into a learning center for teachers, students and parents to learn together. Parents also need to come to school to attend some classes, and they can even get credits. On the other hand, we also expect the parents whose kids are studying in IVY Academy to come to the school to support teaching, because some IVY Academy parents are well-educated and are at the top of the pyramid in their fields. If they come to share their insights and will definitely inject vitality. In the future, IVY Academy will definitely be a wonderful community.