NEWS

Par for the course

Nov 1, 2016

Overseas Education | Kelis Wong Nov 1, 2016

BROMSGROVE SCHOOL, a top independent day and boarding school in Britain, has partnered with Mission Hills Group to set up a new campus in Shenzhen, offering primary and secondary education to Chinese nationals and foreign passport holders.

BROMSGROVE SCHOOL, a top independent day and boarding school in Britain, has partnered with Mission Hills Group to set up a new campus in Shenzhen, offering primary and secondary education to Chinese nationals and foreign passport holders.

Catherine Chu Ka-ying, executive director of Mission Hills Group and Mission Hills International Education, said the partnership with Bromsgrove School was a meeting of minds. "Both parties want to provide education in the West and the East, without the students having to leave home so early. The Shenzhen school will run on a not-for- profit model. All proceeds will be reinvested into the school."

The partnership will extend beyond brand level to include collaboration on school management, teacher recruitment and professional development, curriculum design and enrichment, teacher and student exchange programs, and university placement.

Founded in 1553, Bromsgrove School has a reputation for academic and sporting excellence. The school has a national award-winning rugby team. Its students also perform well traditionally in International Baccalaureate and A-level examinations. In 2015, 29 percent of the school's graduates went on to the world's top 50 universities.

The UK school has been admitting international students, including those from Hong Kong, since the 1970s, said headmaster Peter Clague, who will also head the new Shenzhen school. He said: "We set up a school in Thailand 12 years ago. That was really it for us. What's different about the Mission Hills project is that we will be a full partner on the ground, building the curriculum and the actual building."

The Shenzhen school will offer bilingual education, emphasizing equally Chinese cultural teaching and English learning. "Every class in the preschool level will have an English-speaking and a Chinese-speaking teacher, and the lessons just move seamlessly between the use of Chinese and English, whatever the topic might be," Clague said.

"We will continue that model in the prep school until we get to a point where fluency in English is strong enough that we don't have to have both teachers there. As pupils move into the senior years, they move from more generalized to specialized teaching, but it will remain bilingual all the way through."

Pupils in junior years will follow the mainland national curriculum. On entry to Grade 10, the school will teach the International Baccalaureate program. Clague did not rule out a possibility to simultaneously offer A-level and BTEC programs in the senior years, like the school does in Britain.

The school will provide boarding options only to seniors. The rest will be day students. Currently, the preschool has 200 day pupils. It charges 95,000 yuan (HK$108,735) per year for its preschool, and 148,000 yuan for its prep school. The fees for its senior school are yet to be set.

Clague said that the school has a capacity to enroll at most 40 more preschool pupils in the coming academic year and there is a waiting list. For the prep school, there are still vacancies, although some are expected to be filled by the preschool leavers.

It is anticipated that at full capacity the prep school and senior school will have 1,600 pupils.

Admissions to the preschool and prep school are now open. The application process for senior school will be announced next year. There is no formal entrance assessment exams for preschool, but pupils will attend an in- class, play-based assessment

Clague stressed that the school believes in developing potential. "We have a reputation for taking children from a reasonably average background and giving them high examination results," he said. "We want to do the same thing here."

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