BASIS Bilingual School Shenzhen’s founding year opened to five hundred students from Pre-Kindergarten three year old little tigers to Grade 5 students on August 31, 2020. The Quad building housed our classrooms and gym. Fantastic breakfasts and lunches could be found in our outstanding cafeteria located on the second floor of the Tower building. The Tower’s fifteen floors of apartments housed many teachers and staff who resided on campus. This beautiful location in the heart of Shenzhen’s Futian District nurtured learning and fun.
Our school focused on our children and our teachers and how they partnered to explore, learn, and socialize. Deans, counselors, Student Services, and Heads of Early Childhood Education, Primary and Middle Schools loved, cared for, and fostered the growth of our children. We treated our parents’ children like they were our own. Over the course of our first year each child became smarter, spoke better English, made friends, and grew confident. All of us in the BASIS Bilingual School Shenzhen community are better than we were in the beginning of the year. We raised kind, polite, and respectful young ladies and gentlemen. The credit for our improvements goes to the students and teachers, and to all the people who supported them including our wonderful logistics team and our fantastic chef and his crew.
Our Tiger Values fall into three categories.
- Tigers Care: Take Care of Yourself, Take Care of Others, Take Care of the School.
- Tiger Success: Be Kind, Work Hard, Ask Questions, Help Others.
- Tiger Path: Get better each day.
These values guided us to be better students and teachers.
We want our students to be performers. Our kids sing, dance, act, and play sports. They are confident to stand in front of their peers and make presentations. They regularly work in groups. Conversations with adults come easy to our kids. Each day their enthusiasm is brought to each class and activity. They get smarter and better with smiles on their faces and happiness in their hearts.
Next year (the 2021-2022 academic year) we will add nine hundred new students, six new buildings, four new grade levels, and there will be over two hundred adults working on the academic side of the school. Our goal is to make everything a little better. You will notice new Early Childhood Education playgrounds and playrooms as well as rooms that are better stocked with books, toys, and learning manipulatives. Art and music rooms and additional staff will enrich the fine arts. Our Grand Theater and Black Box Theater will host many productions, including our first musical.
After School Activities will expand. We will join a sports league. More clubs and competition activities will be included. We have two dance studios and two new dance teachers. From Grade 1 – Grade 9, each student will have two dance classes every twelve school days. They will have a double swim period, once every twelve school days. Our English, STEAM, and science programs will see some changes that will make substantial improvements.
Our founding year saw students learn. The students exhibited high energy. They loved daily physical education classes and recesses with their teachers. Each day they entered the school with a smile and a bounce in their steps hugging and high-fiving teachers and staff. They learned throughout the day working with their friends and guided by their teachers. They left with a bounce in their steps, excitedly telling moms, dads, and grandparents about their day. On the last day of school many students cried–they wanted to come back to school the next day.
Thanks goes out to our bus drivers, monitors, security guards, cleaning staff, Human Resources Department, IT Department, Logistics Department, and Student Services. They worked hard each day so our teachers could teach and our learners could learn.
We had a good first year.
Cheers,
Thomas Davison
“Mr. Tom”
Head of School, BASIS Bilingual School Shenzhen
