School life has taken a further step towards normality at Yew Chung International School of Beijing as another year level returned to campus this week. On Monday, our Year 11 students joined their senior counterparts as already announced by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission earlier last month, allowing schools in the Capital to open their doors for more students. Similar to the return of Y13s, the school community was overjoyed to have the cohort back on campus after months of preparations.

A Welcome Sense of Normality“It’s great to be back here. With the students on campus, we have something resembling normal after so many months of teaching from abroad and from our homes. To see their resilience has been great - they have been through a lot too, like many of us”Michael Warner, High School Learning Community Coordinator

“I’ve had to make a couple trips to school over the last few months, and every time I walked down the empty halls I felt a sense of sadness, wishing that the pandemic would end and we all could return to campus.”Gwen Sandifer-Stech,Secondary Mathematics

“The essence of a school is having students, so as soon as students arrived, we started feeling some real hope. Things were going back to normal and even as the Year 11s arrived, we felt the warmth. Our job is to interact with students, so I felt that I am now able to even better carry my duties as a teacher” Joseph Muraga, Science Teacher

“It feels great to be back, compared to being at home and not moving at all. But, it’s really fun because I get to see people again”Stella Snider-Hickey, Year 11 student.

Reconnecting with Friends and Teachers“It feels good to be back in school because we can meet your friends and teachers. I just generally like school because you can talk with your teachers face to face”Ray Ding, Y11 Student

“It’s awesome to be back at school. Everyone’s happy that we are seeing each other, because it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other due to the virus, so we are just having a great time here!”Tiger Qian, Y11 Student

“I get to see my favourite teacher, Mr Warner, so it feels pretty good!”Chen An Lee, Y11 Student

We are delighted to have the Year 11’s back, and congratulations on completing your first week back on campus. To read more about how the school made preparations for this return and to know about academic schedules for the rest of the semester, click here.