Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends of Hurston Kindergarten,

                                                                                                    Once again it gives me great pleasure to write to you as the Principal of Hurston Kindergarten. As I’ve told many of you before I regard my present position as the pinnacle of my 30 years career in teaching and to serve you and your children is a great honour.

Well! 2020 has been a very eventful year for all of us; especially those of us in education. The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic has touched every school in the world and Hurston is no exception. Here in the UK all schools and universities have been closed to students and only recently have started to open up again. In China the experience has been very similar.

This has been a very testing time for all of us. Unfortunately there have been many examples of members of the teaching profession who have used the crisis as an excuse to relax. At Hurston, as well as the good schools in the UK, it has been a time of extra work and innovation! To keep students “on track” and  to provide them with some sort of education our teachers have had to become online educators. This is not an easy task as many of us haven’t taught in this way before. I must tell you how proud I’ve been with how our teaching staff have risen to the challenge.

Of course education is much more than just academic study, especially during the Early Years. It has been my experience that young children learn almost as much from other children as from their teachers. Through play, singing, drama and sports young children develop the essential social skills that they will need in later life. These lessons cannot be taught online. The children need to be in school interacting with their classmates. It is for this reason that I am so grateful to the Beijing Education Commission for allowing us to accept students back on campus.

Whilst the children have been away the teachers and management at Hurston have been quite busy! I’m happy to inform you that the school has been working even more closely with the IBO officials in the headquarters in Cardiff and Singapore. We are an IB school delivering an international education. For me this means everything. It means that when we joined the IBO we joined a family of school from around the world with millions of students and thousands of teachers. We are not alone! The support that we have received from the IBO has been great and we shall always be grateful to them. I, personally, have worked with the IBO since 2004. However, in the past few months I have seen just what a wonderful organisation they are!

Speaking of support I’m delighted to inform you that although I’ve been stuck in the UK since January (all visas to foreign nationals were suspended) I’ve been able to work with one of the most prestigious schools in the UK, Hereford Cathedral School. The Principal of their Early Years section and myself are very keen for our two schools to cooperate and we have been working on a variety of exciting new projects where both English and Chinese students and their families can come together. I shall announce details of these projects soon when I return. In the meantime you might like to look at some pictures of Hereford Cathedral School by following this link:-

https://www.herefordcs.com

Speaking of my return it will not have escaped your notice that both Mr. Finn and myself are absent at the moment. As I mentioned before all visas were suddenly cancelled for foreigners at the start of the year and those of us who had returned to the UK for Christmas found ourselves unable to return. I fully support the Chinese authorities in this matter. Although it was inconvenient to Mr. Finn and myself I’m sure that it was one of the reasons why China has been so successful in the fight against Covid-19. Indeed, the Chinese model for dealing with this crisis has been an example to the rest of the world who have followed China’s example! One more reason why I am proud to tell my friends in the UK I work in China.

The good news is that both Mr. Finn and I have both been able to obtain new visas and will be returning to China in the very near future. Of course we shall have to quarantine on our arrival in Beijing so it’ll a little bit longer before we can be on Campus. However, be assured that we shall be back with you all soon.

I’m going to close this message now. The year of the Rat has been one that many of us would rather have been different I think. However, in all adversity there comes opportunity and I’m especially looking forward to the future, the Year of the Ox… noble and hardworking animal!

Zaijian!

David Anderson. M.Ed.; B.A.; A.K.C.; J.P.

Principal. Hurston Kindergarten