Ningbo Huamao International School

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Ningbo Huamao International School
Location
Zhejiang Ningbo China
Information
Type	Independent, International, Day and Boarding
Established	2006
Principal	Cheryl Keegan
Employees	~150 [1]
Enrolment	450 (K–12)[1]
Colour(s)	Maroon, Navy, Light-Sky Blue and Gold

Ningbo Huamao International School (NBHIS, Chinese: 华茂国际学校), previously known as Multicultural Education Academy (MEA), is a school for international, expatriate students and Chinese nationals in Yinzhou district, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China. The school opened its doors in 2006 on the grounds of Huamao Foreign Language School. It is in the fast developing Yinzhou District next to Wanda Plaza and close to the University of Nottingham Ningbo Campus. NBHIS has 450 students and more than 150 teaching staff from over 35 countries. NBHIS is linked the larger HuaMao Foreign Language School which is a primary, middle and senior school of 5,000 students. The school is co-educational and open to both boarding and day students. NBHIS offers three IB programmes PYP, MYP and DP leading to tertiary options around the world. In October 2015 the school became a member of the Round Square Conference of Schools following Board approval at the global conference held at United World College of South East Asia (UWSEA).

Hua Mao Administration Building

History

Huamao Group purchased an ‘international school’ from Denise Bradford in 2006. The school was originally called the Australian International School Ningbo, then Huamao Multicultural Education Academy (MEA) and now, due to a government license change, allowing NBHIS to accept Chinese nationals alongside foreign nationals, it is Ningbo Huamao International School. It initially held as many as 40 students but dwindled to eight paying students in early 2008. During that year Hua Mao searched for a ‘western partner’ to help manage MEA. In 2008 the school signed a joint venture agreement with Mowbray International to jointly manage it. In early 2008, Paul Stephens arrived as interim principal with his wife and two children. Stephens stayed at Hua Mao until the agreement was signed in September 2008. Ivan Moore arrived in December 2008 and was considered the founding principal.

The school has undergone consistent renovations vastly changing the facilities. The school has built two new reception areas, dance drama studio, music suite and Music auditorium, staff room, a library and a reading room, home economics room, soft play areas, and indoor and outdoor play areas, and, in 2015, a new kitchen and dining room for primary students and an adventure playground. Classrooms are well equipped with access to internet, data projectors and computers. 2017 saw the opening of the extensive MYP/DP library in the adjacent administrative building, along with an arts suite of art, music, design, drama and music specialist classrooms. Further renovations are planned for 2018-19 as the school grows.

The Hua Mao campus has two stadiums, indoor swimming pool, three large auditorium that seat between 300 and 500, a $10 million art gallery designed by Wang Shu, and a five-storey science museum with a cinema that can seat 260.

The three objectives in the school's early development were: “make it safe, make it fun, and make it academically rigorous”. The vision of the school notes the importance of mixing Eastern and Western curriculum, ideas and trends, to enable all students to learn from each other.

Principals

Logo and school colours

The NBHIS logo has key elements that are common across the Huamao Group. The design was to represent the H and M for Hua Mao. The logo was also designed to stress:

• the shape of a young sapling referring to the young children and adults in Huamao's care and with reference to the strong roots (or foundation) that education would bring to the students at the school
• the H to be shaped as a set of lungs representing breathing new life into a reformist approach to education and for students to seize every opportunity available to them.

NBHIS has four school colours: maroon, navy blue, light blue and gold. The navy represents Ningbo as a seaside port and as such has links to the rest of the world. The light blue represents the sky, encouraging students to reach for lofty heights. Maroon represents the blood of the people and the long history tracing back to 4,800BC. A strip of gold was introduced to signify a wealth of knowledge.

Governance

NBHIS (as MEA) was governed as a joint venture by Huamao Education Group and Mowbray International until May 2012. Hua Mao Education Group took over full operational control of MEA in June of that year. The principal is appointed as CEO and is answerable to the chairman of Huamao Group, Xu Wanmao.

Boarding

Primary age students board at NBHIS facilities. They have lessons in the afternoons with Chinese teachers and in the evening by two boarding mistresses. Students in the Middle School and Senior School board within the International Department Boarding house with Huamao Foreign Language School. Senior students study within the MYP/DP library facility in the evening.

The majority of the students are day students.

Curriculum

Bilingual education is a cornerstone of the education at NBHIS. Kindergarten classes are taught by three staff: a foreign teacher, a Chinese teacher, and an assistant. Classes maximise opportunities for students to learn English and Chinese. In the senior school classes are taught by expatriates and Chinese IB experienced and trained teachers. Much of the bilingual education model by follows the advice of Professor Ofelia Garcia, of the Ph.D. programs of Urban Education and of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.^[2] In NBHIS, students start in a bilingual pre-school environment, migrate to the primary school where English is the predominant language of instruction, but which includes strong stand alone Chinese instruction, and then onto the Middle School where students continue to develop English as their primary language of instruction, while protecting and extending their mother tongue. Diploma Program students study English.

In 2011 NBHIS introduced an iPad program as part of its efforts to help students enter a 21st-century economy and learn 21st-century skills. All students in the middle and high school bring their own laptop devices, necessary as they enter into research and technology honest education practices. IT is explicitly taught within an inquiry-based education. An English Language Centre was opened in 2013 and a Learning Support program in 2014.

NBHIS is an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (PYP), Middle Years Programme (MYP) and Diploma Program (DP) World School. Authorisation for PYP and DP programs was awarded in May 2012, and the school is a candidate for the MYP.

[3]

In June 2014 the first cohort of IB DP graduates completed their studies. They achieved an average IB DP score of 33 and 50% entered the world's top 50 universities. In May 2015 it was reported that the 16 graduating students in the IB DP had been offered nearly $1 million in scholarships from universities in the USA, Canada and UK.

Extra-curricular activities

NBHIS has a vast array of Co curricular activities of all kinds, taught by local Chinese professionals, and in English, by foreign staff. Students benefit from developing sporting and cultural skills as they progress through the school.

Sister schools

Huamao Foreign Language School has sister school relationships with Columbia International College in Hamilton, Canada enabling students to do a 2+1 or 3+0 Canadian program for Chinese students. In addition, Sidcot School in Somerset, England and Tirana

References

External links

• Ningbo Huamao International School (in simplified Chinese)
• www.nbhis.com