On Wednesday, May 6th, 2020, the long-awaited moment finally arrived as we welcomed back our students to the SCIS Hongqiao Main and SCIS Pudong campuses. As our grades 10 & 12 walked off the bus and through the campus gates, they were warmly greeted (with proper physical distancing) by our leadership team and an excited faculty!
Our campuses are coming back to life again, as students reunite with their classmates, and reconnect with teachers. This experience has given us a sense of anticipation as we move safely toward our goal of having our full community returning to campus once again.
Now heading toward a new normal, our priority remains on ensuring the safety and health of our entire community. Returning students were exceptional in following all the newly introduced physical distancing, safety guidelines, and regulations across different areas of our campuses.
With students returning to classrooms once again, we recognize it may also be a bittersweet moment for members of our community who are not able to be with us on campus. To that end, we have had an incredible start to our ‘blended learning’ experience of providing meaningful educational experiences to students on- and off-campus. On our first day alone, we had teachers connecting in from Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Canada providing live lessons along with our teachers on-site in Shanghai. These blended lessons included students tuning in from as far away as Brazil! The re-opening of our school doors is a testament to the shared effort and dedication of our community. From operations staff, support staff, administration, our Return to Campus Committee, and of course our faculty, everyone has played an important part in achieving this milestone.
Thanks to the continued support of our whole community, this first back-to-campus milestone has been a successful first step towards a gradual re-opening of our classes. We look forward to May 11th, when we will welcome back our grades 9 & 11, and to the following week, May 18th, for the return of our grades 4-8.