Yew Chung International School of Beijing recognises that a cooperative partnership between school, parent and student lies at the heart of academic success. For this reason we developed our Charter for Success – a series of promises signed at the beginning of every year by teachers, parents and students. Co-Principal Ms Christine Xu explains the significance of the Charter.

The Charter for Success is a longstanding school tradition and serves an important purpose in our school. In signing the document, students, parents and teachers to commit to a series of pledges. We believe these pledges to be the foundations of effective learning.

Education is Collaborative

One of the most important roles of the Charter is to remind families that education is a joint responsibility. For a child to learn and succeed, there must be support and guidance from both teachers and parents, combined with willingness and effort from the student. This is truer now than ever before, as education becomes more holistic and focuses not just on academics but also character traits and social skills.

Success is Gradual 

Another important message of the Charter is that achievement is a gradual process. It does not happen overnight, but is the sum of many small parts. The Charter for Success is deliberately specific with some of its requirements. For example, we ask our students to promise that they will be punctual to lessons, or sign up to at least one co-curricular activity per term. These are not huge or unreachable requirements, but students will find that these small things embedded in day-to-day life will lead to much broader success.

Learning to Self-Regulate

One of the themes of our Character Education this term is “self-regulation”. This is all about acting in your best interests, taking steps to improve yourself and making decisions that will have a positive impact. Signing the Charter for Success is a part of this – making an informed and conscious decision to act in a positive way in order to improve and succeed.

A Pledge at the Heart of School Life

This year, we have printed our Charter for Success in student diaries. We wanted our students to be able to access and review this important pledge at any time, not have it filed away out of sight. In addition, the Charter for Success was the topic of our very first assembly of the year. We want our students to start as they wish to continue, allowing this Charter to guide them through a successful and happy year.

The Charter for Success (or the “Home and School Partnership” in ECE) has been circulated to all students and parents. Please be reminded that the document must be returned to homeroom teachers or tutors no later than Monday 3^rd September.