Written by: Roseline Yang, Parent Relations Officer
In some cultures, volunteering and caring for others is a quality to practice daily. In other cultures, cultivating hard work and striving for excellence is part of their DNA.
The uniqueness of YCIS has created a space for a multi-cultural community to flourish, always seeking to plant the seeds of hope in our children, who will be key leaders in the world of tomorrow.
YCIS Pudong started 20 years ago with ECE classes located in Seasons Villa. At that time, parents actively supported class teachers by reading stories or helping to enhance the learning inside and outside the classroom. These parents were what today we call parent class helpers. With the growing numbers of parent volunteers, the role of a parent class representative emerged to channel support and provide help to the class teachers.
Some years later, a small group of parents came together to offer support to the school as a whole, creating the first core committee of the Parent Organization Pudong in 2005. Their dream and intention was to support the school leaders in their endeavors and extend the learning opportunities for the students to make the best of this international environment and holistic education. YCIS was a school whose values and philosophy aligned closely with their own: a community spirit that cares about developing in every student a strong and kind character to embrace the world of tomorrow and become a change maker.
Tess Robinson and her family have been an example of living the YCIS spirit. A mother of three YCIS Pudong graduates, Tess was one of the founders of the Parent Organization Pudong (POP). The Annual Picnic & Bazaar and the annual Global Child Day are a living vestige of the significant bricks she and some parent volunteers added to YCIS school life.
Her husband Bruce alsocontributed to the growth of our school by getting involved in one of his passions: basketball. He coached his sons and other YCIS students for several year which helped further build our athletic department and spread the spirit of YCIS. They both still living in Shanghai and still act as YCIS Ambassadors.
As role models, they not only impacted other parents, they inspired their 3 sons to get involved and leave a strong legacy at YCIS Pudong.
For the last three years I have spent here, I witnessed various parents volunteering their time and energy at different levels of the school. The ones that I have been admiring are the previous POP Liaison Officer and the core committee members who relentlessly put on events and activities to support the school. They did so because they cared about the people and the place in which their children were spending most of their time. They just wanted to be part of their learning journey. Thesesame faces have been leading these community events and learning activities over many years for the whole community.
This year, we are going through a building process and we hope that you can be part of it.
Fortunately, we already have leaders for the main community events. One recent example is the Back to School Picnic & Bazaar that was run by one parent volunteer Kathy Hall, mother of 2 who was the POP Co-Chair for the last two years. We hope that you will make our school events a priority in your calendar as this is your unique opportunity tohavefantastic encounters with members of our school community: our students, teachers, staff, families and even our community partners.
In my new role as Parent Relations officer and with the help of the newly formed POP core committee who I see as community builders, we have this same wish for 2019-2020:
To engage everyone and to build a community where everyone finds its place of comfort, regardless of our origins, gender, age, experience, life-style and language.
No matter how you contribute … from acknowledging the reason why you decided to join the YCIS community and reflecting on how you can share in it, to respecting our philosophy and abiding by our school regulations, from getting your child ready to come to school to actively cooperate with the class teachers, from giving a hand to the classroom and specialist teachers when asked, from labeling your child’s belongings and keeping the second-hand uniform cupboards tidy after use, to offering your expertise or helping lead an event … every single action will make a difference for this school year 2019-2020.
We are all the sum of our different parts, and if alone we can do little, together we can achieve so much more. That is why if your child is at YCIS, we need you, because you are a part of the big picture too.
If you want to learn and grow together with your child in this YCIS adventure, there will bean open door at YCIS Pudong, Regency Park Campus … Room B113 next to the parent room with the glass doors. If you cannot find anyone, please leave a message on the desk or email: rpcp.parentrelations@sh.ycef.com.