As a preface, I will say that I am writing this review now because there are none yet posted and it is a time in the calendar year when new hires may be searching for information about the school online. As my last paragraph indicates, there is much to be said about this school, but I can’t do it all. It’s honestly too exhausting to recall everything that would either be useful to prospective hires or amusing as documentary. I hope others will offer their experiences as well.
The school is less than two years old; it is both still being built anew and yet also falling apart in some places, often due to the wet conditions here in Guangzhou. It sits on government-donated land and is being built by government-provided construction teams. There are things that have been poorly designed or executed, but overall a quite nice campus of significant stature. Of note, a large HVAC unit fell off the back wall last year, stairwells and corridors flood and are slippery without grip in the wet seasons, and the unfinished levels or broken elements have posed risks at times. As the school (expectedly) grows, a number of other academic and dormitory buildings are planned as well as a purported Olympic-sized pool and track/field. The initial design plans that were presented to us have been modified at times and are developing in response to the actual growth (in numbers) of the school, which is to be expected. Being located in a quite remote area of northern Huadu (itself a rather remote area of Guangzhou), the school is built upon a large parcel of land surrounded on one side by mountains and the other by a newly created village housing much of the Chinese support staff as well as a few foreigners on the dormitory staff. The school is moving toward on-campus staff housing in the future, which I will write about below. Overall, things are pretty decent in terms of the physical facilities.
The lack of teaching resources and adequate (or even clearly stated) budgets is a very low point of the school. For a school taking in an estimated 25K-35K USD per student yearly, sitting on government donated-land and reportedly not paying water or electricity bills for the first five years, while connected to a large and established foundation of numerous other (Yew Wah and Yew Chung) schools, it is strange that this is an issue. As examples, teachers lack stable internet connection for certain tasks, stable laptops, sufficient software and hardware for subject needs (particularly IGCSE courses), and even textbooks. Requests for even basic and necessary resources (such as art sketchbooks or English dictionaries) have been met with skepticism and hesitation; other reasonable needs are downright denied. The requisition/purchasing procedures are often a nightmare or a terrific joke (depending on one’s mood) with confusing and time-wasting bureaucracy injected into the process. Without any heads of department (current enrolment is around 260 students in K-11), all purchase orders must be reviewed by the co-principals, who are understandably not qualified or expected to comprehend the detailed needs of every subject area and year level as a HoD would be. Budgets have never been stated beforehand; typically teachers are asked to produce a budget on their own for their IGCSE class, production, or other project and submit it suddenly within a handful of days, rather than having a department budget for the whole year. This makes planning ahead difficult. Curiously, when a marketing event occurs, or the school needs dressing up for another event open to current or prospective parents, a significant amount of money is spent on catering, plants, flowers, colourful banners, and (most recently) a vast amount of wall murals. The money is there, but not easily accessed. Marketing appears a priority over actual product.
The school uses a hybrid curriculum. Apart from the few foreign students (all children of staff this year; the other few left after last year), the rest are Chinese mainlanders with a handful of Hong Kong residents mixed in. The Chinese curriculum is taught through year 9 alongside an internally generated (see below regarding the CRD) western curriculum. Some subjects have Chinese and foreign co-teachers. The Specialist classes (The Arts and Physical Education) do not. In year 10, students switch to the IGCSE curriculum. Some students were happily admitted in the first year of the school well over halfway through their year 10. The majority of current year 10 & 11 students do not possess the English ability or the discipline to succeed in their IGCSE courses. Most cannot be communicated to on the level truly required; a handful of current year 10 and 11 students have so little English their classmates still have to translate for them. The current year 9 class is in the very same situation. Couple this with a lack of resources (and support or acknowledgement of the real problems) and the school has a perfect storm arriving at the end of this year when marks will come externally from Cambridge and the first wave of remaining foreign teachers will complete their contracts with the overwhelming majority not likely to return; this includes three IGCSE teachers. These real concerns are reaching the administration in some sense, but the response is not yet sufficient. An IGCSE budget is soon to be freed up near the end of the first semester, but there is no way to solve the student issue without instituting some integrity in denying certain students late entry into the school and/or providing real and intensive EAL support, which is currently non-existent.
There has been little involvement or true support from the administration thus far in the school’s curriculum. Instead, there has been insistence on producing standard (generic) curriculum documents online (Atlas) or locally, whether or not it is relevant to the actual situation of student ability and lack of resources. These appear to be most likely means of appeasing higher-ranking school executives from Hong Kong who do look through such documents more than actually involving themselves directly with the situations occurring in classrooms. The lack of knowledge even about the curriculum by the administration has been apparent at times. Teacher “appraisals” involve late arrivals by the co-principals, cursory and somewhat unrelated banter, and hasty exits with no later feedback. In the first year, teachers did copy and paste materials online or from sister schools to meet deadlines and appease the administration, while on the other hand drafting realistic documents week-to-week that actually addressed the irregular and developing nature of their classes and resources. Unfortunately, these documents never look as “professional” on the surface, so teachers may spend time producing facades to please. None of these copy-paste jobs were criticized or likely even detected as far as I know. The Curriculum Research Development (CRD) team is a sort of curriculum consulting group of HK and mainland individuals that spends large amounts of time producing not enough realistic material for our situations. That’s enough said about them.
Professional Development began to be provided at the end of the school’s first year and has continued into this year. Thus far, it has been only for IGCSE teachers and for a handful of marketable/networking opportunities. Most of the IGCSE teachers were hired without prior training, and though good educators, are in need of resources and support to do their job adequately and build the school’s curriculum for the future. Although a bit hesitant at first, the school has allowed these professional development opportunities, which have occurred in Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai.
Esther Chan (the heir apparent to the Foundation when Betty Chan passes the torch) has stated that the school is moving in the direction of housing all staff on-campus in the future staff dormitory. In the first year, staff were housed a 40-minute bus drive away in the newer part of Huadu, which includes a Starbucks, two cinemas, a limited assortment of international restaurants, shopping centers, foreign markets, many bars, a number of clubs, gyms, soccer/football pitches with local clubs to play with, other foreigners, parks, and a quite nice (and large) lake. At the end of the first year, staff members were given the option (and encouraged) to relocate to Sky Villa, a somewhat massive yet fairly empty community of apartments only 5 minutes down the road from school. In the second year, new hires were given no option, but all placed in Sky Villa, where very little of the aforementioned list of social outlets is available due to its remote location. The school has provided shuttle buses to downtown Guangzhou and a nearby town where food markets, etc. are located for the staff at Sky Villa, and many seem happy with this arrangement. It is in the school’s financial interests to house staff at Sky Villa, as rent is cheaper and it attempts to allay some of the exhaustions of a long school day plus travel time to and from Huadu. The staff is split over the current situation, as many younger and single staff members prefer Huadu, while couples, families, or older singles enjoy the benefits of Sky Villa. This is certainly an important consideration for the former group. Huadu is in the process of building a stop on Line 3 of the Metro, and it may be completed sometime in 2016-17. Currently, from Huadu (not Sky Villa), you can take a 15-20 minute bus to Ren He station and then ride another 40-45 minutes to downtown Guangzhou. Apart from the general frustrations of trying to get things in one’s apartment fixed by communicating through the Chinese support staff, filling out paperwork, and waiting half a day for workers to arrive (if at all), the arrangements are quite good. By Chinese standards, the apartments are large in Huadu, and even larger at Sky Villa. Singles enjoy two bedroom apartments; couples and families enjoy larger facilities. However, I would not look forward to the future dorm life of staff at this school; it brings to mind a particular film by Stanley Kubrick set in a Colorado ski lodge.
The financial compensation of the school is (sadly) the best thing about the school. It’s really quite good, with a few bonuses from time to time in addition to free housing and a good health insurance package. The United Family Health clinic downtown is excellent, though a bit of a trip.
Most of the academic support staff members are very good at their job and really decent people. Issues involving visas, bank accounts, etc. are handled well with expected though manageable challenges from time to time. The maintenance support team (FMSS) exhibits a high degree of ineptitude and inefficiency, and has been a frequent source of frustration and challenge over the first year and a half. The teaching staff members are quite qualified (many Master’s Degree holders, at least one doctoral candidate), fairly experienced, and also quite decent people. There are, however, the beginnings of division in the staff related to the original and later hires, as well as the Huadu and Sky Villas dwellers. There was not much gossip in the first year when everyone was struggling together, but in the second year certain individuals unfortunately have named the original hires as “negative” if vocal in their criticisms and voiced problems and needs and have even encouraged the new hires not to socialize with the original hires. Some of the new hires are not fully aware of how deep the problems go at the school, though many are rapidly becoming aware. Some staff are not terribly involved (with low teaching loads) or have been placed in coordinating or other administrative roles and show the early signs of becoming minor puppets of inept executives rather than true supporters of those under them and champions for the real needs of the school visible on the ground. Hopefully, some real leadership will come in 2016 (see below), and these problems might be solved. They really can be, and it’s a shame that the school has continued even deeper this year into the morass it began last year. Only time will tell how things turn out.
Stella Zhou was an excellent Chinese co-principal in the first year and has moved on to help start up another Yew Wah school in Shanghai (Lingang) as co-principal there. I have only good things to say of her as a leader and administrator.
Chris Connellan was a difficult western co-principal to judge in the one year I worked under him. He was removed from his position quite suddenly at the very end of the first year, with Jeff Snyder citing “visa issues”. In the same abrupt announcement at a staff meeting, we were introduced to the new western co-principal for the second year, Neil Hodgson, who was formerly vice principal in charge of curriculum with ESF in Hong Kong. Based on a variety of substantial sources, as well as my own experience, I think Chris was passively removed due to staff reports of his (at times) brusque nature, judgments of ineffectual/remote leadership, conflicts with upper executives over school matters, and perhaps the fallout of staff members in the first year. I have been told that this is how the Foundation deals with such staffing “problems”. Though this is not a review of Chris, I would say that he was a decent man who did (all criticisms aside) a solid job overall under the circumstances and many teachers are wishing he were here this year instead of the individual currently in his place.
Neil Hodgson departed rather abruptly at the end of staff development week, just days before students arrived for their second year. School Superintendent Tin Ip cited “stress… or something” under his breath when asked at a staff meeting about Neil’s departure. The school executives still hold that the middle-aged, healthy rock climber of a co-principal was suddenly hospitalized for a month or so and then… who knows. Disappeared. We never really bothered to pursue the answer of why he left. I don’t know of any staff member who truly believes the school’s story, however, and many of us predicted this might happen after observing him and his wife’s reactions and attitudes during the time leading up to their departure. We could be wrong, though!
Shannon Shang is the current Chinese co-principal. I think she has a good and optimistic heart and perhaps might grow under good superintending, alongside a capable western co-principal, and under less stress than the current environment generates. As it is, she exudes short-sightedness and a knee-jerk reactionary attitude, both quite unhelpful when directed toward capable staff on the ground who can actually help solve problems when listened to and collaborated with. Other than that, she gets things done, although honestly I don't know anyone who really understands or knows what the co-principals are doing in their endless meetings, Skype sessions, and email exchanges.
Tin Ip is an educator of old now with the Hong Kong Foundation. He was an incredibly remote, uninvolved, and unaware superintendent of the school last year, but it fell to him this year to become the “western” co-principal in the absence of Chris or Neil. He is a good definition of ineffectual leadership, and the best example I have ever worked under. He exhibits petty rudeness, narrow-mindedness, and general foolishness when under stress, and though he is perhaps improving in this while immersed in the great learning curve of serving as co-principal, I think that fundamentally as an individual he may never have the chops to lead anything with such scope as a school. He is an academic full of interesting trivia but devoid of real and consistent common sense, which is ironically a trait he often calls staff to when unable himself to answer their real questions about resources, policies, and general organization. He is not a “bad” person, or intentionally destructive to our school by design, but rather by what appears that kind of immaturity a person may never get over early in adulthood when choosing not to face weaknesses, shortcomings, and reality, but instead ignoring them and then protecting and insulating themselves from criticism with things like academic degrees and advancement under the eyes of similarly immature individuals above them. In a less important role, he might appear an entertaining fop or loveable clown (there are always many such characters in any work environment). But in this environment he frustrates the needs of staff and sadly earns their contempt for things like denying access to personal needs, berating staff wrongly while praising trifles, and calling teachers to produce significant work and them summarily discarding it through ineptitude or mismanagement.
In general, I would tread very carefully when considering this school and an investment of at least two years of your professional and personal life. Fair enough... Different strokes for different folks, and the school may take a better turn and establish itself internally as others within the Foundation have. However, I will no longer bank on such a possibility due to its track record primarily in terms of leadership and (mis)management. This year the anticipated departure of teaching staff who will not renew their contracts is significant.
As a parting story, here is one that occurred today and well sums up the direction of the school at present:
Every Monday morning we assemble at 8am for our flag-raising ceremony. Chinese flag first to the national anthem, then the Hong Kong flag, finally the Foundation flag to the school’s song. The electric motor to raise the flags lasted a week or more in the beginning of our first year and then promptly broke. Since then, some poor member of the security team must crank all three up by hand. It’s almost always hilarious in various ways, eliciting stifled laughter in staff and full-blown laughter in students in its Charlie Chaplin-esque nature. Tin spoke very sternly this morning, telling the students that the flag-raising was a very solemn occasion and that we should all stand at attention and with seriousness for the duration.
Well, that poor chap in the white gloves is trying to crank two flags up those very tall poles in time to the national anthem, and the crank is obviously stripped, just spinning out with every few rotations. But he’s desperately cranking. The Yew Wah song begins playing and he hasn’t even gotten to the school flag yet. It finishes and he’s still cranking away. Tin runs over to the sound booth and tells them to play the song again, which they do. He runs back to take his solemn place and that joker is at it still, cranking away and wiping the sweat off his brow as he goes, the song on solemn repeat. We are all aware of the fact that this is never going to be a solemn moment, but always a comical one whether Tin realizes it or not.
At present, our school is mostly concerned with a marketable facade, and the appearance of something grand in what we are doing. In reality, it’s really just a bunch of us poor saps desperately trying to crank away with a stripped handle to get our flags up before the music stops. If the leadership simply said we were going to stop and take the time to get that motor fixed, and that in the meantime we would raise the flags earlier than the assembly and simply pay respect to them without having to raise them in the moment, the problem would be solved.
But if we can’t think this way about raising flags, how will we raise a new school?
Only time will tell.
NOTE: This school fails in regard to points 4 and 6 of the International Teachers' Bill of Rights.
