We are Wellington: We fight, We love, We get organised.
We have all encountered some challenging times this past month. It is never easy to be away from your friends, classmates, colleagues and mentors. But, while it may be quiet on campus, the Wellington Community has come together in some truly remarkable ways. Everyone — our parents, our pupils, our teachers, our staff, our ayis, our guards — all have risen to the occasion to make sure their Wellington Family members and wider community are fed, loved and looked after. It is nothing short of inspiring. Here is a look at the many unsung Wellington heroes in our midst.
When the local authorities mandated a switch to distance learning on 11 March, our teachers sprang immediately into action. They spent the entire weekend adapting their lesson plans for online platforms. By Monday morning, they were ready to provide pupils in every year group — from Nursery to year 13 — with engaging content and activities. Nearly six weeks later, they are still going strong. This is a testament to our teachers’ adaptability, ingenuity and, most importantly, the passion they put into their work. This abrupt but seamless transition to distance learning would not have been possible without the firm foundations laid by our Educational Technology Team. And we would, of course, be remiss if we did not acknowledge our pupils for their resilience as well as our parents for their steadfast support as our partners in education.
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By late March, many stores, restaurants and delivery services began shutting down to reduce the risk of virus transmission. This made it a challenge for many of us to obtain food and other daily essentials. But this did not deter Criss Gu, our operations manager, and Rachel Chadwick, our director of admissions and deputy bursar. With the help of our incredibly generous parent community, they were able to arrange ‘care package’ deliveries to all our staff, providing them and their families with many of the daily essentials they were lacking, as well as a few tasty treats. Ultimately, with the support of our parent community, we were able to arrange delivery to over 130 different homes across the city.
Additionally, Deputy Head of Whole College Kay Yang established a support team of 10 Chinese-speaking staff to oversee WeChat groups for staff members living in each Shanghai district. The team have been on hand to assist our non-Chinese speaking staff, sharing pandemic information, answering questions, providing language assistance and tending to any specialist needs, including supporting new mothers, those with dietary requirements and sourcing much needed medicine to be delivered on both sides of the Huangpu.
Bedtime Stories for our littlest ones by Elsa & FOW
Our inability to meet in person did not keep us from providing each other with some much-needed levity and emotional support either. Throughout the month, our pupils, staff and parents have organised regular online activities open to the whole College. Every Monday through Thursday, our Early Years Centre has hosted ‘Wake Up Shake Up!’ an invigorating morning session to get our pupils in Nursery and Reception up and active. They have been so much fun that even parents are participating. In the evenings, parent volunteers from FOW have helped our younger pupils wind down with online bedtime stories with special feature reader, Elsa the Snow Queen herself. For our Senior School pupils, we hosted an online session with author Ben Aldridge. He shared some practical wisdom on cultivating resilience and overcoming adversity in these trying times. In another session, award-winning children’s author Guy Bass entertained us with some stand-up, stories and general silliness. Even our Drama Scholars got involved, treating us all to a Friday night at the theatre with their uproariously funny online production of A Series of Public Apologies (In Response to an Unfortunate Incident in the School Lavatories), a very apropos commentary on our times.
Many in the Wellington Community have even decided to make a meaningful impact in their local communities as well. When NAT testing began in her compound, Sarah Tang, our head nurse, immediately got to work helping the volunteer team map out a testing queue. She also still helps by tracking positive cases. Employees Camille Shi, Eddy Huang, Sara Chen and Chuanbing Wu have been working in their compounds helping to scan QR codes, oversee test queues, deliver food packages and purchase medicine for residents too.
Finally, our campus may be quiet these days, but it is by no means empty. Our property management company (PMC) team are making immense personal sacrifices to keep our College safe and clean when we eventually return. They have remained on site since the beginning of lockdown, residing in our Sports Hall and spending the night in sleeping bags. Our guards have kept a vigilant watch over our school. Meanwhile, our Ayis have been doing everything from cleaning and disinfecting surfaces to packing care packages for all our staff, supporting the community effort without hesitation wherever they can.
If these several weeks have shown us anything it is this: A community’s strength lies in its people. And we salute all of you for everything you have done and continue to do to make the Wellington Community the close-knit family it is.
We are Wellington.
We fight. We love.
We get organised.
And we thank you!
To see the many ways our community has come together these past several weeks, be sure to watch our video.
A Wellington Welcome
Wellington is taking rolling applications for the 2021-22 academic year and inviting future Wellingtonians to join us for tailored campus tours for 2022 entry.
Children and young adults applying for our Senior School (years 9 through 13) and Academic Scholarship programmes are encouraged to visit and experience Wellington first-hand.
For those interested, please complete a registration form by scanning below QR code.
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