Truly International

By Antony Peyton

International School of Tianjin (IST)

Weishan Rd, Shuangang

Jinnan Economic Development Area

Tianjin 300350, P.R. China

During the tenth anniversary celebrations of the International School of Tianjin (IST) – formerly known as TEDA International School Tianjin, JIN paid a visit and met with the Director Mr Nicholas Bowley. It quickly became apparent in the interview, that he was a man with an incredible amount of enthusiasm for his profession. With a career spanning 34 years in teaching, including 25 years with international schools across the Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Jordan, Syria and now China; not only did he have a wealth of experience and a history of writing articles for education magazines and journals, he was still very passionate about the whole ethos of international schools.

I was keen to identify what aspect made IST special from its competitors, and essentially it boiled down to the fact that IST has an international curriculum known as the International Baccalaureate (IB). This is the fastest growing curriculum and currently has 1600 schools around the world. IB was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in the late 60’s and was designed to allow an internationally mobile population to have a university qualification valid across the globe, and as Mr Bowley pointed out, it made IST ‘truly international.’

Mr Bowley expanded on the subject of the intellectually rigorous IB and what made it so interesting. Firstly, it is ‘constructivist’, meaning that students build their own meaning and understanding; the onus is on the student to learn through enquiry and research, and graduating students must write a research paper.

Secondly, it is ‘holistic’; the curriculum requires students to focus on areas beyond the classroom in two or three different ways, for instance in the secondary/middle year there is a ‘Community & Service’ programme in which all students must take part within or outside the school, it could be helping in an old peoples’ home or a school for the disabled and working on fundraising. Duty is a very strong word as Mr Bowley mentioned, and the students are taught about ‘service to the community’ to emphasise its nature. The school also helps the children with their study skills, to enable them to plan for their homework and even onto ‘meta-cognition’, as the pupils are encouraged to reflect on the nature of their own learning.

IST also aims to create a family based school for its 320 students, which is achieved by constantly inviting parents to the school and having regular monthly meetings with the Parent Faculty Organisation. The parents take a lot of initiative, especially on the social & fundraising side, and by bringing people into the school and having fun this supports learning, ‘students who are enjoying what they are doing will learn more’.

Like any other school it plans to develop and expand, but it is crucial that this family atmosphere is retained. Therefore the plan is to increase to a maximum of 500 students, but not beyond, and these plans are concrete in that land is acquired next door with a view to build new facilities of science labs, music, art & drama rooms, a library, and the last phase being an auditorium.

In case you’re thinking that only Mr Bowley has an impressive array of experience; then the statistics will tell a different story, as the 47 teachers have an average of 15 years teaching involvement and have taught in a total of 42 other international schools.

In order to prevent complacency, then a key aspect of Mr Bowley’s job is to always develop new ideas, professional development of teachers is a very strong facet at IST, and a lot of money is spent on every teacher in every year, examples being trainers from Beijing sent to explain the IB programme or elementary teachers going to Shanghai for training. This motivates the staff to reach high standards, ‘if the teachers learn and are encouraged to learn, they in turn become better teachers of young learners’.

At the end of any interview I always like to go on a tour to get a feel for the place, joining us and acting as guide was Mr Tom Newman, Development Director, a fluent Mandarin speaker with seven years in Tianjin under his belt, and who works as Public Relations and does liaison with the government.

It will be no surprise to reveal that as an international school, it has everything and the facilities, rooms, décor are all of the highest standards, and as I wandered the 10,500 square metre building, which incidentally was purpose built four years ago, allow me to briefly focus on the highlights; namely a wonderfully designed library, which fans out into a semi-circle, with the 15,000 books aligned like the rays of the sun, thus bringing them to life and making literature look exciting. Also, the gymnasium was marvellously spacious, and sport is never neglected, as IST believes in teaching ‘healthy living’ and competition. It’s a member of different organisations & divisions, playing other schools across China and hosting tournaments within its extensive sports programme. Surrounding the school is 5.3 square hectares of land with football fields, basketball courts and space for planned construction of a swimming pool.

It’s all a long way from ten years ago and its inception in a house in the city centre, starting with 20 students, but ‘there is a real passion for education and the English language in China’, and with the local government very supportive, IST has expanded relatively quickly and shows no sign of abatement with the current level of demand.

Today there are three programmes starting at Primary (from Nursery to Grade 5), Middle Year (Grade 6-10), and Diploma (Grade 11-12), with classes at a maximum size of 18 children at the younger level and at 20 for the older level. Any parents considering their options are naturally welcome at any time to look around and meet the staff.

Clearly, there are tremendous levels of expertise at IST, but there is also originality and novel ideas. During the dialogue, some younger students sat in to observe, in order to prepare for their own interviews of Mr Bowley, and I can’t help feeling with the school’s professional application of knowledge and the children’s own understanding, then they will go on to write something special.